Technology news

Zynga reported one of its strongest revenue quarters in years today as it hit $207 million in bookings, up 14 percent form a year ago. The drivers were growth in mobile games, improved live operations for existing games, and better operating expense efficiency. Earnings weren’t quite as good, but they beat Zynga’s own expectations, and the stock price is up in after-hours trading.
I talked with Frank Gibeau, CEO of Zynga, in an interview today about how things are going. The com

The tablet market continues to shrink worldwide, with the beginning of 2017 marking the 10th straight quarter where shipments declined year over year.
The research firm IDC says that first quarter 2017 shipments were at 36.2 million, down 8.5 percent from the same time last year. First quarter shipments peaked back in 2014, when 50.4 million tablets were sent out globally.
IDC includes both traditional tablets and more powerful devices, like the Surface Pro, in its count of tablet sales —

NASA has just released a video that strings together an hour of images the spacecraft Cassini captured during its first plunge through the space between Saturn and its rings.The footage of the dive, which took place last week, starts over the vortex on the planet’s north pole. The spacecraft then travels south from there, getting a close-up view of Saturn’s clouds as it plummets from 45,000 miles above the atmosphere to just 4,200 miles.You can see the camera’s framing change n

A Malaysian graduate student has come up with a building frame that dispenses new apartments much like a vending machine does candy bars. Instead of buying a pre-existing apartment in a skyscraper, imagine designing one yourself and the building producing it out of thin air. The Pod Vending Machine is a essentially a skyscraper frame with a giant 3D printer at the top. You’d design an apartment, or pod, based on a series of sub-pod designs — essentially cobbling together your place

Activision Blizzard beat analysts expectations for both revenues and earnings on Thursday. But the big video game company also reported some figures that should be interesting for those following the game industry.
The company said it was raising its guidance for the full year outlook. Digital revenues were $1.4 billion of the total $1.7 billion in total revenue for the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company.
The PC accounted for $566 million of Activision Blizzard’s revenue. Consoles were $61

It appears bots will soon be integrated into Bing search results, and this news will likely be announced next week at Build, an annual Microsoft developer conference taking place this year May 10-12 in Seattle.
Multiple news outlets are reporting from anonymous sources that bots are coming to Bing, but verification can be found in the Build schedule, which includes a session titled “Chatbots on Bing.com.” The session invites developers to “learn how chatbots

Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo are all massive names in the world of gaming, but Blizzard’s latest release is potentially its biggest one yet.
Overwatch is the eighth Activision Blizzard game to generate $1 billion in revenue, according to the publisher’s fiscal Q1 2017 financial statement. And the company says it is the fastest-growing franchise ever from developer Blizzard. It now has 30 million registered players, and a significant number of those play on an active monthly b

In less than a year, Blizzard’s multiplayer shooter Overwatch has already earned $1 billion. Activision Blizzard revealed the news during the company’s recent earnings report, calling the game “the 8th billion-dollar franchise in Activision Blizzard's portfolio,” joining the likes of Skylanders and Call of Duty.
Overwatch debuted last May and since then has gone on to become Activision Blizzard’s fastest-growing new franchise; last month the game hit 30 million regi

For years, Zendesk has provided tools and services that helped companies engage customers, but largely from after something has gone wrong or when a problem has been identified. It was only in October when Zendesk expanded its offering to help brands be more predictive with potential trouble spots. On Thursday, the company is elevating its customer service platform with the acquisition of Outbound.io, which will help brands be more proactive in their outreach.
Founded in 2013 by former Nest seni

Activision Blizzard reported quarterly earnings today, and the company said that the trailer for Call of Duty: WWII has more than 10 million views. It also said that last week’s revelation of the game was the most-watched livestream in Call of Duty history.
Activision’s Sledgehammer Games is making this year’s Call of Duty game, and they’re taking it back to its roots in the Second World War. Activision will publish the game on the consoles and PC on November 3, 2017

Disney’s first standalone Star Wars film, Rogue One, has some issues. We noted in our review that some of the characters are flat, and the film’s first two acts feel disjointed. Filmmaker Dustin Lee had some of the same concerns, and decided to put together his own edit of the film: Rogue One: The Battle of Scarif.Lee told The Verge that while he enjoyed Rogue One, he felt it was a fun movie with a great ending, but had some issues with the film: “It just didn’t feel righ

Zynga reported one of its strongest revenue quarters in years as it hit $207 million in bookings, up 14 percent form a year ago. The drivers were growth in mobile games, improved live operations for existing games, and better operating expense efficiency.
GAAP revenue for the quarter was $194.3 million, above guidance and about 4 percent up from a year ago. GAAP net loss was $9.5 million, or 1 cent a share, compared to a loss of $35.4 million, or 4 cents a share, a year ago. But analysts me

NASA just announced several bounties to improve its FUN3D software, which is used to simulate fluid dynamics. The system is used internally at NASA, as well as by companies like Boeing and Lockheed, to develop and optimize new vehicles and engines.
The FUN3D project was started back in the 1980s, and it has been in active development for decades, but NASA's looking for help to optimize the code. It's offering $15,000 and $10,000 prizes to the top two contributors of code optimizations, and is al

The Star Wars universe is more than just a handful of blockbuster films and animated television shows. The sheer volume of material is a double-edged sword: it provides dedicated fans plenty of new material to immerse themselves in, but it can also deter newcomers who just want to dip their toes in the water.
With the new series of films from Disney, Lucasfilm decided give filmmakers a clean slate. The tie-in novels are still being published, but they’re not part of the official canon. Tha

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the Harry Potter sequel / play, has finally set an opening month on Broadway. Variety reports that the show, which debuted in London’s West End last year and was a box office and critical hit, will open in New York in late April 2018.It was announced last December that Cursed Child would be coming to the newly renovated Lyric Theatre with a “distinctive new aesthetic” to set it apart from the London production. No casting decisions had been ma

HBO has put an end to months of speculation about a possible Game of Thrones spinoff, announcing that four different writers have signed development deals with the network.Variety reports that there’s no set timeline for any of these making it to the screen, quoting an HBO spokesperson who says, “We’ll take as much or as little time as the writers need and, as with all our development, we will evaluate what we have when the scripts are in.”
Scripts will be presented by Ma

It’s already been well documented that Ja Rule’s luxury music festival, Fyre Fest, was a complete disaster. The festival was canceled before it really began, for reasons like there weren’t enough toilets or tents on the festival grounds. One thing it did have enough of were Instagram models and celebrities, whose paid social media endorsements turned out to be an easy way to get paid and trick rich kids into spending a lot of money for a terrible experience.
Nice for Kendall, b

Twitter is trying to build a credible living room video platform, and it’s hard to get there without checking Roku off on your list of supported devices. Today the company is doing that with a new app available from Roku’s store, and you don’t need a Twitter account to stream live video. Twitter’s TV-based video app is already available on Apple TV, Xbox One, and Amazon’s Fire TV devices.The Roku app serves up Twitter’s mix of live video partners — a ran

Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs with both new features and improvements. The main additions include new PDF Reader features, Windows Defender Application Guard for enterprise users, and various improvements to settings.
Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a very different way from its predecessors so it can be regularly updated with not just fixes but new features, too. Microsoft has released many such updates, including three major ones: November Update, A

In junior high, my AIM screen name was a White Stripes reference, and that’s not even that embarrassing, but it’s embarrassing enough that I thought twice about admitting it to you right now. YouTuber Daniel Howell probably understands my reluctance, because, as Tubefilter reports, he just announced his decision to drop his own embarrassing username of eight years.Howell started his YouTube channel in 2009 under the name danisnotonfire, and it stuck with him as he picked up more than

The Department of State has proposed asking a small number of visa applicants to supply five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses, and phone numbers, Reuters reports. The change would affect applicants “who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities,” which would supposedly apply to 65,000 applicants a year. They would not need to provide passwords to the listed accoun

A new Indiegogo campaign is trying to sell a Bluetooth phone accessory that’ll let you take calls on a plastic banana-looking thing. Novelty, yes. The device has a built-in microphone and speaker, and it charges over a Micro USB. It can apparently last 10 hours on a single charge, or 70 hours if you leave it to idle. Obviously it has a button for hanging up a call, too. Although it’s officially called the Banana Phone, it isn’t actually a phone. To reiterate: it’s a Bluet

One of the biggest gaming publishers in the business is getting a leadership shakeup.
Christoph Hartmann has stepped down as president of Take-Two Interactive’s 2K Games label. The company has not announced who will take over that role, but it did confirm that this move will not affect its upcoming slate of games.
“We can confirm that there has been a management change at the leadership level of 2K,” Take-Two communications boss Alan Lewis said in a sta

A Gears of War movie is currently in development, and Universal Pictures has finally signed a writer. Deadline reports that Shane Salerno, the screenwriter handling all four of the upcoming Avatar sequels, is now writing the Gears screenplay.
Universal and Microsoft announced that a Gears movie was in the works last fall. Rod Fergusson, head of the developer studio and Microsoft subsidiary The Coalition, said at the time that the film was the “next logical step” for the billion-dolla

Martin Shkreli, who was temporarily suspended from Twitter in January for targeted harassment of journalist Lauren Duca, has now been permanently suspended from the service.As reported by The New York Post, he announced the ban on his Facebook page writing, “Breaking News: Twitter has confirmed I am PERMANENTLY suspended from Twitter. This account will not be restored.” The instigating event for the ban is unclear this time, though you can see that the handle @MartinShkreli is indeed

First, there are small cracks in the pavement. Next thing you know, the pothole-filled street is closed off for repairs and traffic is congested for a week. America’s infrastructure is falling apart. It’s a political issue, but some policy solutions — just like building more roads — are unlikely to help. So while we wait on that, scientists are working on materials that repair themselves and are focusing on two of the most important materials in infrastructure: asphalt an

When Congress voted in March to block FCC privacy rules and let internet service providers sell users’ personal data, it was a coup for the telecom industry. Now, the nonprofit, pro-privacy group Fight for the Future is publicizing just how much the industry paid in an attempt to sway those votes.
The group unveiled four billboards, targeting Reps. Marsha Blackburn and John Rutherford, as well as Sens. Jeff Flake and Dean Heller. All four billboards, which were paid for through donations,

For those in the United States, you have a little over a week to prep something nice for your mom for Mother’s Day (May 14th). If you’re running a little behind, or are afraid something won’t ship in time, though, Google Photos will make you a sappy little movieusing images in your camera roll — that is, if you have pictures of your mom stored in the service.
The tool is pretty simple: Google Photos will give you a visual list of faces it recognizes in your photos and let

Kitschy camera company Lomography (or Lomo) has returned to Kickstarter for its seventh crowdfunding campaign: a trio of lenses that can fit most name-brand digital or film cameras. The Neptune Convertible Art Lens System, as Lomo calls it, is being sold as a package of three fixed lenses — a 35mm f3.5, a 50mm f2.8, and an 80mm f4.0.The system starts at $599, comes in silver or black, and is paired with an adapter that can fit the lenses to everything from a Canon 5D Mark IV to an Olympus

When PlayStation VR debuted last year, it started strong. By virtual reality standards, the hardware launched alongside a solid lineup of games. There were trippy musical shooters, intense concert simulators, and thumping rhythm games. They helped push the headset to nearly a million units sold. But in terms of worthwhile game releases, things have slowed down considerably since launch. Two recent releases make a good case for dusting off the headset.
One is a collection of colorful toys set in

You no longer have to be good at actual basketball to join the Cleveland Cavaliers or Golden State Warriors.
Take-Two announced today that 16 NBA teams have signed up to be part of its NBA 2K eLeague, an esports group launching in 2018 for the publisher’s hit basketball video game series. This is the first time one of the four major U.S. pro sports organizations is starting its own professional gaming league.
The 16 teams include:
Boston Celtics
Cleveland Cavaliers
Dallas Mavericks
De

I took my first ride in a self-driving car yesterday. It was during the grand opening of Intel’s Advanced Vehicle Lab in San Jose, Calif. Automotive supplier Delphi used some Intel electronics and other tech to retrofit an Audi SUV into an autonomous vehicle. I piled into the back with a couple of other journalists and we took a two-mile drive through real Silicon Valley traffic.
We had a safety driver who could take over the car in case of emergency. But once we were out on the road, the

Zapier has set its sights on the enterprise, launching a service that extends accounts beyond individuals to include entire teams. Not only can Zapier’s workflow automation recipes, called “zaps,” be managed by multiple users, the service grants additional administrative controls for IT departments.
The new service is called Zapier for Teams and costs $250 per month, with unlimited users and up to 50,000 zaps per month. Some teams may have had access previously through a beta p

Vector Space Systems, a micro-satellite company started by a founding member of SpaceX, has successfully launched its vehicle, which has a 3D-printed part, in California.This is the first of several launches for the company, which is focused on small satellites that weigh only a few dozen pounds, unlike SpaceX’s large probes. It has received over $1 million to work on the vehicle launched today, called the Vector-R. "We always wanted to build micro-rockets, but Elon [Musk] had other ideas,

r/HighQualityGifs is a subreddit honoring really good GIFs, and in particular the days when GIFs were made, as a mod writes “one frame at a time in MS Paint.” It has, unfortunately, been forced to realize its irrelevance in the age of Giphy. But it has also been forced to celebrate Star Wars, because today is May 4th.
So, the whole subreddit has been redesigned into a Star Wars opening credits scroll, with text flying over the real (clickable) front page of Reddit. It moves too fast

So I was doing my usual patronizing of the Uniqlo store at London's Oxford Street today when something unusual happened. My Android Pay notification was dancing at me. The familiar green Android mascot was dressed up in an R2-D2 outfit and it was shimmying and jiggling its metal bits to my surprise and delight.I can't explain why this cross-dressing droid made me grin. I'm usually far too jaded to be taken in by cutesy gimmicks like this, and I'm not even much of a Star Wars fan. But fair play t

Imagination Technologies, the company that’s long supplied graphics chip designs for the iPhone, has announced plans to sell off two of its businesses amid a major patent dispute with Apple.
Last month, Imagination’s business was crushed after Apple announced it would begin making its own graphics solutions and end its reliance on the company within two years. Its stock price dipped by more than half within a single day and has only lowered since.
Imagination is starting a formal dis

Google has pushed another update to its Allo chat service today. The app has gained incognito mode for group chats, allowing those conversations to be fully encrypted. Google also added link previews and chat backups, according to a tweet from Amit Fulay, head of product for Allo and Duo.
Allo is still lagging when it comes to adoption; according to the Google Play Store, Google’s new flagship chat app has less than 50 million downloads, while its video chat counterpart Duo has passed that

I remember the first moment I wanted to make a stormtrooper outfit: I was riding home after seeing A New Hope for the first time in theaters. The idea consumed me for several years, until shortly after high school, when I bought my first one with a bit of money I saved from a summer job.I’ve since joined the 501st Legion (a worldwide costuming group) and constructed several other trooper costumes: another (film-accurate) stormtrooper from The Empire Strikes Back, one from The Clone Wars an

I regret to inform you that Smash Mouth’s song “All Star” has died — again. This time, the pop single was murdered in cold, corporate blood by Jimmy Fallon, NBC, and Disney (by way of Star Wars). Above, you can see officially released footage of the brutal act.WARNING: it is graphic.
“All Star” lived a blessed and full second life as an internet meme thanks to reincarnations like Windows XP “All Star,” "All Star" by Smash Mouth but every word is so