Technology news

Nintendo is showing off more Switch and 3DS games that are coming this summer (and beyond), and here’s how you can follow along.
The publisher is promising to focus on previously announced Switch games Arms and Splatoon 2. Arms is a fighting game about characters with wacky limbs, and Splatoon 2 is the sequel to the ink-shooting multiplayer game.
You can watch the livestream right here by clicking play on the Twitch window below.
Please check out our GamesBeat Summit 2017 ev

After you finish the Cheech and Chong anthology this 4/20, you can hop into virtual reality and spend some time talking about Funyuns and Led Zeppelin with the stars of Adult Swim’s animated hit Rick and Morty.
Publisher Adult Swim Games is launching Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on April 20 for $30. That’s the same day that potheads around the world celebrate vape tricks and the Grateful Dead. Adult Swim may find some synergy in launc

Last week, Apple confirmed it was working on refreshing the Mac Pro — a device the company has largely neglected since its launch in 2013. Apple also said that the new Mac Pro won’t be ready this year, but that hasn’t stopped designers from imagining what the new professional computer from Cupertino would look like.
Germany-based CURVED/labs has envisioned one such iteration of the Mac Pro, with a modular design and a pro display that comes alongside. The concept ditches the tr

Lenovo might be joining in on the dual-lens camera trend with its upcoming sequel to the Moto Z. A purported image from @Slashleaks showing the phone reveals a slightly different external design than the original; there’s now a larger fingerprint sensor (like the Moto G5) and Lenovo’s logo has been added the side.The MotoMod connectors are in the exact same place as last year, confirming the company’s plan to make the snap-on modular accessories compatible between current and f

News today about a Burger King ad that takes over your Google Home speaker is a sign of things to come. In the ad, an employee triggers the speaker to read a description of the Whopper burger on Wikipedia (which may have been altered by an employee of the company). It worked, although you have to have the volume turned up in the ad and Google moved quickly to attempt to shut down the trigger phrase.
It made me wonder — in what other ways could voicebots become more annoying over time

Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs are sometimes scolded for being driven by money rather than purpose. SRS Acquiom, which handles M&A deals, is trying to change that by exerting a positive kind of peer pressure on the venture world. The firm partnered with Pledge 1% to give a portion of the M&A escrow money it handles to nonprofits.
Launched in late 2016, the EscrowUp service has two transactions under its belt: the Salesforce/Krux acquisition and the Envision Healthca

There's a whole niche of childhood development pontification relating to monkey bars. It's good for muscles, it's good for motor skills, and it's a great way to break an arm and therefore develop character! (I didn't read the literature too closely.) Since robots are our machine babies, the development of a robot Tarzan marks an important milestone.
As spotted by Engadget, the Tarzan bot was developed by researchers at Georgia Tech. The motion was actually modeled after the efficient movement of

Microsoft is testing ways to make it easier for you to get your money back for digital games.
Above: Refunds are coming.Image Credit: GamesBeat/Jeffrey Grubb
The Xbox One Insider App has revealed in an official announcement that “self-service refunds” are coming to the Xbox One and Windows 10 Microsoft Stores. The publisher says this is for any game or app you buy on its digital shops, and you can use it without having to talk to a human customer-service representative.
A Microsoft s

Just under three hours after Burger King unveiled a new advertisement designed to hijack your Google Home to read a long-winded description of its Whopper burger, Google has disabled the functionality. It was fun / horrifying while it lasted!
As of 2:45PM ET, Google Home will no longer respond when prompted by the specific Burger King commercial that asks “What is the Whopper burger?” It does, however, still respond with the top result from Wikipedia when someone else (i.e., a real u

Let’s have some fun by eliminating a sentient race of robots!
Blizzard has updated its Overwatch team shooter with a new limited-time event called Uprising. This fresh content features new skins, emotes, and other cosmetic items to unlock, but the big draw is a cooperative multiplayer mode. In Overwatch’s Arcade mode, you can select Uprising to team up with three other players to take on waves of enemies all over the King’s Row map. GamesBeat writer Mike Minotti and I

 Android Pay, Google’s answer to Apple Pay and other mobile payment technologies, today unveiled new partnerships with a handful of banks from around the world, who will integrate the service into their own apps. The feature will be available within the mobile banking apps provided by Bank of America, USAA, Bank of New Zealand, Discover, and mBank, says Google. This is the first time… Read More

Microsoft is letting anyone try Google Calendar and Contacts support for the Mac version of Outlook 2016 today. A preview of the upcoming feature is now available for download, and macOS users can simply install the app to gain access to Google Calendar and Contacts support. You’ll be able to add, delete, and edit events in a Google Calendar through Outlook for Mac. Gmail users will also be able to make use of the Focused Inbox feature in Outlook, and travel booking / package delivery trac

Microsoft is continuing to make huge moves with its Minecraft brand, and that could lead to some even bigger changes in the future.
On this week’s GamesBeat Decides podcast, host Jeffrey Grubb and co-host Mike Minotti go over the news from the last week. Then in the second half of the show, they speculate on what it means that Minecraft is going free-to-play in China while it gets a marketplace where players can sell content to one another.
Is this a precursor to one of gaming’s bigg

It’s been a few years since Garmin first launched its Vivo-branded line of activity trackers, which are more lightweight, less expensive alternatives to Garmin’s serious sport watches, and they’ve generally received positive reviews. Today Garmin announced another Vivo wristband, the Vivosmart 3, and it not only adds advanced heart rate tracking features, it records some strength training exercises.It’s also $140. In other words: this should be making Fitbit’s heart

Get ready for more magic on the Syfy Channel next year: the network announced today that it has renewed its fantasy show The Magicians for a third, 13-episode season.
Based on Lev Grossman’s fantasy trilogy, The Magicians follows Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) and his friends at Brakebills, a magical university in upstate New York. In the show’s first season, they discovered that Fillory, a fantasy land that they read about in a series of children’s novels, is real, and that t

Let’s say you’re out hunting with some friends, and all of the sudden you are all gruesomely attacked. One of your buddies loses a leg or an arm. As you’re running for dear life, would you pick up your injured friend and carry him to safety? Or would you leave him behind to die? If you picked the former, congratulations! You’re as evolved as a termite-hunting ant called Megaponera analis.M. analis live in sub-Saharan Africa, and they love eating termites. When they’

Google Assistant on Google Home can now easily track a plane ticket price, Google announced today.
Simply by saying “How much are flights to (insert name of city here)?,” Google Assistant will tell you the starting price for flights leaving in two weeks. After asking if you have dates in mind for when you want to leave and return, Google Assistant now offers to send email alerts when the price changes.
The new Google Assistant functionality works with the flight search engine Go

After adding support for WebVR to Chrome in February, Google is now extending it to work with Google Cardboard headsets. The WebVR standard lets people launch virtual reality experiences without downloading a special app. When Google added it to Chrome, though, it worked only on Daydream-compatible phones, via the more expensive Daydream viewer. As of today, anyone with an Android phone can hit a link to launch WebVR apps for Cardboard as well.
Cardboard is a pretty limited VR platform, although

Some people use the Google Flights Explore Map tool to figure out a vacation destination that works in their budget and schedule. Some people stalk The Flight Deal until something amazing appears that you can’t pass up. (I’m guilty of this. Twice.) For those who already have a destination in mind, today Google Home can now track flight prices and send you periodic updates when significant price changes occur.
You can start with a query like “How much is a roundtrip flight to Sa

Last summer, Dave Filoni announced that he would be bringing a long-standing fan-favorite character to Star Wars Rebels: Grand Admiral Thrawn. In a classic, “wait, there’s more!” moment, he followed up by saying that the character would also get a novel, written by none other than Timothy Zahn, who created the character in 1991’s Heir to the Empire.
It’s hard to overstate how exciting this is to long-time Star Wars fans. In the previous Star Wars expanded universe,

Kim Pallister, director of Intel’s virtual reality center of excellence, will moderate a fireside chat with science fiction writer and Magic Leap game maker Austin Grossman our upcoming GamesBeat Summit 2017: How games, sci-fi, and tech create real-world magic. They’re yet another pair of speakers who show how our theme captures the crossover between realms of science, science fiction, and games.
GamesBeat Summit 2017 will take place on May 1 and May 2 at the historic Clare

PRESS RELEASE:Annual Award from Greentech Media Highlights Electric Grid InnovatorsKENNETT SQUARE, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 12, 2017– Tangent Energy Solutions, Inc. today announced that it has been named as a 2017 Grid Edge Award winner by Greentech Media. Each year, Greentech Media seeks to highlight the industry leaders paving the way toward tomorrow’s distributed energy system. The Grid Edge Award represents the top twenty companies or projects that showcase innovativ

PlayStation Vue is about to get 24/7 esports content.
The Electronic Sports League (ESL) announced today that its EsportsTV is coming to Sony’s TV streaming service later this month. Esports is on pace to reach $696 million in revenues this year without including spending from fantasy esports or gambling, according to industry intelligence group Newzoo. This channel could help the market grow and reach a larger audience.
EsportsTV launched in Europe last year, reaching 5 million households

Before there were dinosaurs, there was this creature: the 10-foot, long-necked Telocrater.For a study published today in the journal Nature, a team of researchers analyzed the remains of Teleocrater rhadinus, a common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs. It walks on four legs, has a very long neck and tail, and can be seven to 10 feet long. This new analysis fills in some gaps in the fossil record and can provide more clues about the origins of dinosaur evolution. Image: Museo Argentino de Ciencias

TheWaveVR has released the beta version of its social VR music platform on the Steam Early Access on the PC. The company has also raised $4 million in a new round of funding led by Upfront Ventures.
The Austin, Texas-based startup has created a social VR music platform where performers can create music while wearing a HTC Vive or Oculus Rift headset and spectators can watch the whole experience. The whole point is to help the music industry — usually a laggard in exploiting digital te

PRESS RELEASE:Company Funded $70 Million to 10 Portfolio Companies in Q1 2017CHANDLER, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 12, 2017– Leading venture debt provider Trinity Capital Investment (Trinity) today announced results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017. The Company funded an all-time quarterly record of $70 million to 10 portfolio companies across multiple sectors. “We’re thrilled to report our first quarter performance generated Trinity’s highest quarte

 The enterprise voice space grows hotter today as VoiceOps announces its seed round with participation from Accel, Founders Fund and Lowercase Capital. The YC-backed startup aims to support sales teams by offering managers clear insights into what tactics are being used on the front lines. Founders, Daria Evdokimova, Ethan Barhydt and Nate Becker designed a machine learning-powered system… Read More

MindMaze wants to build the next-generation mind-machine interface. And today, it’s taking a step in that direction with the launch of Mask, a technology that can capture your facial expression and translate that to the face of a character in virtual reality.
It’s a surprisingly simple creation, as it consists of eight small sensors attached to a piece of foam that you insert into a virtual reality headset. It detects the electrical signals from your face muscles and then uses softwa

Less than a week before Facebook holds its 2017 F8 developer conference, the company has revealed that more than 1.2 billion people use Messenger every month. This is a 20 percent increase from July 2016, when the app first passed the 1 billion mark. It’s also 64 percent of Facebook’s 1.68 billion monthly users, a 4 percent increase from nearly nine months ago. But unlike before, the company has declined to provide additional details about app usage.
The addition of 200 million month

EXCLUSIVE: An iMessage app that lets you watch live videos from sites like YouTube or Twitch with friends called Let’s Watch It! launched today in the iOS App Store.
Version 1.0 of the Let’s Watch It! iOS app and iMessage app extension was first made available in the App Store March 1. But an update released today adds front-facing camera and microphone access so you can watch and hear another person watching a video.
Let’s Watch It launches with YouTub

Microsoft is planning to hold a special hardware and software event in New York City on May 2nd. After weeks of rumors over Microsoft’s plans, the software maker started emailing out press invites today. The event will begin at 9AM ET, and sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge not to expect a Surface Phone or a new Surface Pro device.
We’re still expecting Microsoft to unveil at least one piece of new hardware, but it’s not likely to have a successor to the Sur

Microsoft today sent out invitations for a event in New York on May 2 that will focus on creativity and learning. The official hashtag: #MICROSOFTEDU. The event will be livestreamed.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella will be on hand for the event, where the company will unveil new software and hardware. But the company will not be revealing a rumored Surface Pro 5 or Surface Phone, a source familiar with the matter told VentureBeat.
Microsoft has begun rolling out the Windows 10 Creators U

PRESS RELEASE: CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 12, 2017– Seven Bridges, the biomedical data analysis company, today announced that it has made the Simons Genome Diversity Project (SGDP) dataset available for analysis by researchers via the Seven Bridges Platform.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170412005354/en/Seven Bridges Brings The Simons Foundation’s Genome Diversity Project Datase

Boomerang, a streaming service that offers a catalog of more than 5,000 cartoons, is officially live. Subscribers can pay $5 a month to stream classic and current cartoons, including your childhood favorites like Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, and more.Boomerang was originally offered as a cable channel on Time Warner Cable, but has now been spun off as a standalone streaming service dedicated to cartoons. Customers can also subscribe on an annual basis for $39.99, which dr

If you haven’t tried the Yakuza series yet, this might be the best way to get into it.
Sega announced today that Yakuza Kiwami will come out for the PlayStation 4 in the Americas and Europe on August 29. This is a remake of the first game in the series, which tells the story of Kazuma Kiryu, a member of the Japanese mafia who is both kind and brutal, and his adventures. Yakuza originally came out for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 and managed to sell over 1 million copies. It spa

A group representing today’s biggest web companies met with FCC leader Ajit Pai on Tuesday and offered a defense of net neutrality, which increasingly appears to be under threat.
The Internet Association, which represents more than three dozen companies including Google, Facebook, and Netflix, told Pai that it maintains “vigorous support” for the 2015 net neutrality order and said that the “existing net neutrality rules should be enforced and kept intact,” according

Dearest Cartoon Dorks, Time Warner’s Boomerang TV channel now offers a $5 per month streaming service for shows like Bugs Bunny, the Smurfs, and Yogi Bear.
Boomerang’s service launched yesterday in the U.S. on iOS, Android, and the web, starting with just a fraction of the channel’s massive catalog of shows. For now, Boomerang says it is hosting more than 1,000 episodes on the service, with more shows added weekly.
The streaming service w

SPONSORED: Presented by Rubicon Project
Brands and agencies spend millions entertaining consumers with slick content, celebrity endorsements, and creativity that stand apart from the typical TV ad. Now who doesn’t love a good online ad? Regardless of the season, the same creativity and thoughtful approach that is invested in TV ads is almost nowhere to be found online, and as a result, consumers have started to tune out, and even worse, turn off ads.
The marginalizing of the online consume

HBO’s Game of Thrones and the source material, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, are almost more fun to speculate about than they are to experience. (Almost!) The theorizing culture around both has spawned entire communities and businesses.The speculation game has gone on for so long, and with such intensity, that even respected contributors on forums like the A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit are now scraping the bottom of the barrel for new “tinfoil&rdqu

Netflix is betting that filming closer to home will produce better content. In 2015, the streaming giant has announced that it would be doubling its output of original content, and it is aiming to have original productions make up half of its of its streaming catalog in the coming years. The goal is to entice users to come to the service by providing content that can’t be found elsewhere, but that goal is proving to be a strain on the existing film studio infrastructure. To cope, Netflix c