• What I learned about building serverless apps

    What I learned about building serverless apps
    GUEST: The term “serverless architecture” is a recent addition to the technology lexicon, coming into common use following the launch of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda in 2014. The term is both paradoxical and provocative: In fact, there really are servers backing “serverless” technology, but the term illustrates one of IT’s biggest headaches, server administration. Serverless architecture offers the promise of writing code without the worries of ongoing server ad
  • Game Thinking wants to help product designers unlock their creativity

    Game Thinking wants to help product designers unlock their creativity
    Amy Jo Kim is a famous game designer who helped fashion some wondrously creative titles such as The Sims, Rock Band, and Covet Fashion. And now she is extracting what she calls “Game Thinking” from the process of making games and she’s applying it to other kinds of product design.
    In years past, a superficial version of this was called “gamification.” But it turned out to be a bust, largely because it’s hard to bolt on game-like features onto products that are
  • Corporate CEOs have failed to engage with startups

    Corporate CEOs have failed to engage with startups
    GUEST: It’s time for corporate boards to add “startup engagement” to their CEOs’ job descriptions.
    CEOs know it’s important to engage with startups, but startlingly few seem to do it themselves. Too often this critical responsibility is shrugged off to other company departments, including innovation, business development, marketing, and PR. This is just not enough.
    Startup engagement needs to be taken seriously at the very highest levels of every corporate organizat
  • Sorry, Zuck: AR & VR won’t replace TVs or phones

    Sorry, Zuck: AR & VR won’t replace TVs or phones
    GUEST: Last week’s F8 conference is still generating a boatload of excitement, especially over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of an era without smartphones or televisions. While Zuck is right to believe AR and VR will have an important place in tomorrow’s ecosystem, he may be missing where their replacement value will be. Even worse (and this is uniquely ironic, coming from the world’s largest social network), Facebook is completely missing the intrinsic social need that dr
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  • Watch how The Force Awakens and Rogue One use their characters differently

    Watch how The Force Awakens and Rogue One use their characters differently
    We liked Rogue One when it hit theaters, but had some problems with it: We felt that the film’s central character, Jyn Erso, was thinly defined, as was much of the rest of the cast. Lessons from the Screenplay agrees, and in a new video essay, highlights how the two latest Star Wars films differ in how their characters interact move the story along.In Rogue One, Jyn’s family is torn apart when she was a child, and when we meet up with her as an adult, we learn that she’s been t
  • This is the time to bet on enterprise tech

    This is the time to bet on enterprise tech
    GUEST: Recent history alone should be enough to prove that enterprise tech is a far more stable, profitable category than consumer tech. Take for instance the dozens of successful exits (either through acquisition or IPO) in the U.S. enterprise tech space in just 2016 and 2017. By contrast, the U.S. consumer tech space has seen only a handful of successful outcomes over the same time period.
    Above: 2016 and 2017 acquisitions and IPOs of U.S. based companies without previously successful exits. A
  • The Endless review: a creepy indie horror film that ups the stakes for its creators

    The Endless review: a creepy indie horror film that ups the stakes for its creators
    Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special-event releases. We’re currently reporting from the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
    Back in 2012, the Tribeca Film Festival hosted the world premiere of a tiny indie horror film called Resolution, directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead and written by Benson. The film’s desaturated, grubby poster made it look exactly like the torture-porn movies that were already ou
  • Surge in startups and capital could be bad news

    Surge in startups and capital could be bad news
    GUEST: Startup numbers have surged, and so have VC investments, according to data released earlier this month by Dow Jones VentureSource. But that’s not necessarily good news.
    I’ll get to the downside in a minute. First, let’s take a look at the data and the causes for the surge. According to the VentureSource data, in January 2004, there were just 5,350 venture-backed companies in the U.S. By March 31, 2017 that number had ballooned to 16,064. While I expected an increase, the
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  • Moonfrog taps FarmVille creator to build epic Baahubali mobile game

    Moonfrog taps FarmVille creator to build epic Baahubali mobile game
    Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, a major film from Indian director S.S. Rajamouli, debuted this week. And it is accompanied by a new mobile game from Moonfrog Labs, dubbed S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Game.
    The mobile game is a major release on Google Play and the Apple App Store. To create it, the Bangalore, India-based mobile game publisher Moonfrog Labs turned to Mark Skaggs, co-creator of FarmVille, who moved to India in 2016 to work on games for the Indian market at Moon
  • Crayfish get drunk faster when they’ve been hanging out with friends

    Crayfish get drunk faster when they’ve been hanging out with friends
    Young crayfish can get drunk — and they get drunk a lot faster when they’ve been hanging out with their friends, new research says. So, extroverted crayfish may want to consider pacing themselves this weekend.Crayfish are basically miniature, freshwater lobsters, which makes them an unusual model organism for trying to understand a behavior — drinking alcohol — that we really only care about in humans. They’re not mammals. They don’t even have backbones. But,
  • European tech is heading into its best days

    European tech is heading into its best days
    GUEST: The biggest economic story in Europe right now has nothing to do with populism, Brexit or Trump. It’s not something that’s happening in the boardrooms of our multinationals, and it’s not something happening in the political corridors of power.
    The most interesting story in Europe right now is happening in the coworking spaces and coffee shops of our leading tech hubs. It’s the untold story of the pan-European technology boom, and it’s going to be one of the k
  • A gamer found a way to use his Nintendo Switch for VR

    A gamer found a way to use his Nintendo Switch for VR
    Nintendo has been noncommittal when it comes to virtual reality, even though it filed a patent late last year that could turn its Switch console into a VR device. A YouTube blogger decided to take matters into his own hands, and found a way to demonstrate the potential the Switch holds for VR.In his video, Nintendrew explained that he wanted to see how VR would look on the device. He took his Switch and slotted it into a Durovis Dive 7 headset, but he noted that any tablet-sized headset would pr
  • Mac DeMarco fan fiction, for Mac DeMarco

    Mac DeMarco fan fiction, for Mac DeMarco
    This week, Mac DeMarco asked his fans to send him some fan fiction about himself. You’re supposed to send it in via DeMarco’s website, but I’ve decided to publish my submission publicly, because I already work for a website.
    Mac DeMarco is standing near the edge of an in-ground pool, trying to pinch a polyethylene foam noodle with his big toe and the one next to it. As he opens and closes his toe-claws, the noodle floats away.
    “Dammit,” Mac mutters.
    His pool is litt
  • Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal special turned to pop culture to roast the Trump Administration

    Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal special turned to pop culture to roast the Trump Administration
    While the White House Correspondents’ Association held its annual dinner last night, Full Frontal host Samantha Bee threw her own event, Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and used sketches based on The Man in the High Castle, The West Wing, and SNL to lambast the Trump Administration.The most elaborate of the sketches came from Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history show set in a timeline in which Japan and Germany won the Second World War. In it, B
  • Nintendo Switch meets VR: Yep, somebody made it happen

    Nintendo Switch meets VR: Yep, somebody made it happen
    The Nintendo Switch has been out for over a month now, and it’s still going strong. I play mine almost daily, even after finishing the full main story in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. New games are coming out every week, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe this Friday, and the portability and versatility make it easy to pick up and play in tons of situations. But the one big thing Nintendo doesn’t have their toes in yet that the rest of the gaming world appears to have embraced
  • As nationalism rises, Silicon Valley’s black leaders strengthen their resolve

    As nationalism rises, Silicon Valley’s black leaders strengthen their resolve
    The Third Annual Culture Shifting WeekendContinue reading…
  • While You Were Offline: Hey Please Don’t Call Trump’s New Hotline to Report UFOs

    The hotline was set up to help people report crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. The post While You Were Offline: Hey Please Don’t Call Trump's New Hotline to Report UFOs appeared first on WIRED.
  • Hope and puppet shows: here's what happened at the People's Climate March

    Hope and puppet shows: here's what happened at the People's Climate March
    As if to underscore the point of the climate march, Washington DC was muggy-sticky and unseasonably hot. It was a perfect backdrop to the signs reading “Make the Earth cool again,” “It’s getting hot in here,” or “the Earth is melting.” The People’s Climate March was rather cheery, as attempts to save the world go. When I arrived early, I was treated to a larger-than-life puppet show. Cardboard and papier-mâché pipelines — taller
  • Growing panes: The rise of smart glass and how it could kill off your curtains

    Growing panes: The rise of smart glass and how it could kill off your curtains
    FEATURE: Smart ovens are now a thing, as are intelligent beds, connected doorbells, and internet-enabled fridges. Everything, it seems, is now “smart” and “connected” — and soon the windows in your home or office could be hit with the smart stick too.
    There has been a flurry of activity in the smart glass realm over the past few months, and two Californian companies in particular are knuckling down to bring self-tinting windows to companies and residencies
  • A Cosmic-Ray Hunter Closes in on Super-Energetic Particles

    Angela Olinto's new balloon experiment takes her one step closer to the unknown source of the most energetic particles in the universe. The post A Cosmic-Ray Hunter Closes in on Super-Energetic Particles appeared first on WIRED.
  • SpaceX delays today’s Falcon 9 launch due to sensor issue, will try again tomorrow

    SpaceX delays today’s Falcon 9 launch due to sensor issue, will try again tomorrow
    Update 7:20AM ET, April 30th: Sunday morning, SpaceX stopped the launch of its Falcon 9 less than a minute before take off, citing an issue with one of the sensors on the first stage. The company will try to launch vehicle again tomorrow at 7AM ET.
    On Monday, SpaceX is slated to do its very first national security mission for the US military — sending a spy satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office. Dubbed NROL-76, the secretive payload is scheduled to go up on the compan
  • What if You Could Grow a Baby in a Bottle?

    What if You Could Grow a Baby in a Bottle?
    An artificial womb to help premies makes you wonder where the technology could go next. The post What if You Could Grow a Baby in a Bottle? appeared first on WIRED.
  • The Unsettling Performance That Showed the World Through AI’s Eyes

    Artist Trevor Paglen is best known for images of the security state. Now he's collaborating with Kronos Quartet and Obscura Digital to explore AI. The post The Unsettling Performance That Showed the World Through AI’s Eyes appeared first on WIRED.
  • Inside the Conspiracy Theory That Turned Syria’s First Responders Into Terrorists

    Inside the Conspiracy Theory That Turned Syria’s First Responders Into Terrorists
    Social media brought the White Helmets and their work to the world's attention—then it made them a bogeyman for the alt-right. The post Inside the Conspiracy Theory That Turned Syria's First Responders Into Terrorists appeared first on WIRED.
  • HTC Vive will get a $220 plug-and-play eye-tracking aGlass device in May

    HTC Vive will get a $220 plug-and-play eye-tracking aGlass device in May
    Eye tracking is one feature that could could benefit the performance and affordability of high-end virtual reality headsets. The HTC Vive should become the first mainstream headset to put that theory to the test.
    A Chinese startup known as 7invensun (pronounced seven-in-ven-sun) is announcing it will be releasing  a new eye tracking module for the Vive next month. The module is called the aGlass and it will be available for “limited pre-order sales” next month, according to
  • Tech and politics clash in Cameroon as government restores internet

    Tech and politics clash in Cameroon as government restores internet
     The government of Cameroon ended its internet blackout of parts of the country last week, according to news reports and confirmation from the country’s Ambassador to the U.S.
    The three month outage forced the hand of Africa’s largest telecom, halted operations of its leading e-commerce startup, and created digital refugees. Read More
  • Environmental protesters swarm outside White House

    Environmental protesters swarm outside White House
    (Reuters) – A sea of protesters swarmed in front of the White House on Saturday to voice displeasure with President Donald Trump’s stance on the environment and demand that he rethink plans to reverse the climate change policies backed by his predecessor.
    The Peoples Climate March, the culmination of a string of Earth Week protests that began with last Saturday’s March for Science, coincides with Trump’s 100th day in office, the end of the traditional “honeymoon&rdq
  • Russian flags rained down in a confetti-style protest during Trump's rally

    Russian flags rained down in a confetti-style protest during Trump's rally
    Trolling is mostly dumb, but sometimes it's an art. 
    President Donald Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday and, as he was speaking, someone tossed a bunch of tiny Russian flags, confetti-style, in front of the cameras streaming his speech to news networks. 
    SEE ALSO: Russian refugees read powerful testimonials of gay men who escaped Chechnya
    As far as protests go, it certainly earns points for creativity. The Trump campaign and administration officials have had a lot of
  • Climate marches draw hundreds of thousands on Donald Trump’s 100th day in office

    Climate marches draw hundreds of thousands on Donald Trump’s 100th day in office
     Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched in cities around the country marking President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office with protests against his environmental policies. In Washington, organizers of the climate march estimated some 200,000 people showed up to march, clogging  the streets and snarling traffic on a sweltering day where temperatures threatened to break records.… Read More
  • Oculus will skip E3 2017: It’s not you, it’s me

    Oculus will skip E3 2017: It’s not you, it’s me
    Attendees at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles will notice that a familiar structure has faded from the show’s sweeping skyline of corporate booths. The familiar black monolith bearing the Oculus logo will not be making an appearance at E3 2017.
    Oculus has confirmed that it will not have a booth at E3 this year. This marks the first time since 2014 that Oculus will not be hosting a booth at one of the year’s biggest international trade show
  • Leonardo DiCaprio used a standard, office file folder for his climate march sign, lol

    Leonardo DiCaprio used a standard, office file folder for his climate march sign, lol
    Look, let me start by saying Leonardo DiCaprio has done a lot to combat climate change. 
    He produced a climate change documentary titled Before the Flood that dropped in 2016. He has a foundation "dedicated to the long-term health and wellbeing of all Earth’s inhabitants." The foundation has given $61 million to causes that align with that mission statement. He talks about climate change all the time. And, also, he was among the ~200,000 people in Washington, D.C. on Saturday to prote
  • Conan O'Brien's theory on VR: Even if it's not about sex, it needs to be about sex, sex, sex

    Conan O'Brien's theory on VR: Even if it's not about sex, it needs to be about sex, sex, sex
    "I assume I'll be having sex today."
    Those are the first words out of Conan O'Brien's mouth upon being presented with an opportunity to try the new virtual reality game Wilson's Heart on Oculus Rift. 
    Of course, the game has nothing to do with sex, but O'Brien's theory is that VR is headed in one direction: sex. Therefore, the entire video demonstration features O'Brien taking every opportunity to figure out how his VR experience can somehow turn into sex, from fiddling with the privates o
  • Turkey blocks Wikipedia

    Turkey blocks Wikipedia
    Turkey has blocked access to Wikipedia.org for at least 12 hours in a crackdown on free speech, the BBC reports.
    Closely following Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest power grab — the controversial referendum victory Trump more or less endorsed — the country cut off access to Wikipedia over accusations that the site was “running a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena” and “supporting terro
  • Sound BlasterX’s mouse-and-keyboard are a fine complement to its audio equipment

    Sound BlasterX’s mouse-and-keyboard are a fine complement to its audio equipment
    REVIEW: You know the PC gaming-peripheral market is booming when everyone is making a mechanical keyboard and a mouse with a bunch of extra features.
    Like Razer, Kingston, and others, Creative Labs wants to capture the attention (and the cash) of people who play a lot of games on PC. To do that, the company already has a handful of excellent speaker systems and external USB sound cards, but now it also has a keyboard-and-mouse set to go along with its other products. The Vanguard K08 keyboa
  • Merriam-Webster thinks Apple lovers are sheeple

    Merriam-Webster thinks Apple lovers are sheeple
    Merriam-Webster defines its new word, "sheeple," as those who are "easily influenced." 
    I'm sure plenty of groups of people qualify as said "sheeple." I, for example, am easily influenced by any shop selling doughnuts, and I'm sure many people are like me. But the dictionary chose Apple fans as its mental image.  
    SEE ALSO: Wake up, sheeple: Your favorite political insult is now officially a word
    Here's their example:Are you an iPhone owner with a battery case worth about $100? Then yo