Technology news

Apple Inc offered a $1 billion bond dedicated to financing clean energy and environmental projects on Tuesday, the first corporate green bond offered since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
The offering comes over a year after Apple issued its first green bond of $1.5 billion – the largest issued by a U.S. corporation – as a response to the 2015 Paris agreement.
Apple said its second green bond is meant to show that businesses are sti

E3 2017 has officially kicked off, and thousands of journalists, gaming industry people, and, for the first time ever, members of the public have flooded the Los Angeles Convention Center for the largest gaming show in the world. And virtually everyone seemed to be packing Nintendo’s massive E3 booth for a chance to get their hands on Super Mario Odyssey, the upcoming Mario adventure for the Nintendo Switch.
So it’s fitting that the booth is decked out as New Donk City — one of

E3 2017 has officially kicked off, and thousands of journalists, gaming industry people, and, for the first time ever, members of the public have flooded the Los Angeles Convention Center for the largest gaming show in the world. And virtually everyone seemed to be packing Nintendo’s massive E3 booth for a chance to get their hands on Super Mario Odyssey, the upcoming Mario adventure for the Nintendo Switch.
So it’s fitting that the booth is decked out as New Donk City — one of

GUEST: Silicon Valley often has a hard time reading political tea leaves. The logic that drives tech and venture capital tends to be the diametric opposite of what drives decisions in Washington, and neither side seems capable of understanding how the other thinks. That’s why there’s a real risk late stage startups could fail to spot a potential life preserver – one resulting solely from the desire of Congressional Republicans to maintain their majorities.
The first rule when i

There is something inherently insect-like about the New York City commute: swarms of people crammed together into subway cars, piling into elevators, buzzing around the streets. To make the metaphor literal, 20,000 European honeybees joined the commute this morning, blocking the entrance to Vox Media's headquarters in downtown Manhattan.
Passersby stopped to marvel at the scene, phones in hand, snapping pictures. “Oh my gosh!” a woman shrieked. “New York City!” someone el

Oh, Uber. You’d think you’d be able to get through your very important meeting today about fixing your problems with pervasive sexism and harassment without someone making a really dumb, misogynistic joke. But alas, it was not to be.Based on leaked audio from today’s all-hands meeting obtained by Yahoo Finance, Uber board member David Bonderman, founder of TPG Capital, made the crack after a remark by his fellow board member Arianna Huffington regarding the need for more female

Nintendo revealed Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions during its Nintendo Electronic Entertainment Expo Treehouse Live livestream today.
The turn-based role-playing game is coming out for the 3DS handheld on October 6. It’s a remake of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which came out for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. While much of Nintendo’s news at E3 focused on games for its Switch, it’s still supporting the aging 3DS portable with games

Today, Google announced an expansion to its Play Store with its new Android Excellence program. Curated by Google’s editorial team, Android Excellence features rotating collections of apps that deliver a superb Android user experience, utilize many of Google’s “best practices,” and “have great design, technical performance, localization, and device optimization.” Broken down into two categories of apps and games, Android Excellence appears in Google’s ne

More than 150 million Spanish speakers in Mexico and the United States can now receive suggestions from intelligent assistant M on Facebook Messenger. Mexico and the United States are the largest and second largest Spanish-speaking populations in the world.
The news was announced today, appropriately enough, in a Facebook post. To receive M Suggestions in Spanish, go into your Messenger settings and change your preferred language to Spanish.
M Suggestions were first made available to English spe

If all the small enhancements to the iPad Pro 10.5 aren't speaking to you, good deals on the original 9.7-inch Pro have arrived. As spotted by 9to5Toys, Best Buy is offering a one-day-only deal on the 32GB 9.7-inch Pro right now: $449.99, which is $150 off the typical $599.99 asking price.
The main reason to grab a Pro model over the recently released $329 iPad model is Pencil support, but, of course, the Pencil isn't included with the Pro models, it's an extra $99. Also, Apple's Smart Keyboard

Facebook announced that over the past 30 days, 43 million people made 115 million posts, likes, and comments related to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big game trade show whose expo finally opens today.
For the past seven days, the top games mentioned, ranked in order, are FIFA 18 (EA’s flagship soccer game), Star Wars: Battlefront II (a shooter set after Return of the Jedi and before The Force Awakens movies), State of Decay 2 (a zombie-survival shoot

For years, experts have warned of vulnerabilities in the network that routes phone calls and cellular service — but those attacks may be more widespread than anyone realized. For more than a year, a Tor Hidden Service has been offering ongoing access to telecom’s private SS7 network for as little as $500 a month. Combined with known vulnerabilities, that access could be used to intercept texts, track the location of an individual phone, or cut off cellular service entirely.
Accessibl

Manfrotto is most well-known for its tripods and other camera accessories, but today it’s further expanding beyond that market with the launch of four new camera-oriented backpacks and messenger bags. All the Bumblebee-line bags are fabricated out of a rain-proof material that reflects sunlight. They also include a stretchable band specifically designed to hold a gimbal, but it can be used to hold a lens, too. The backpacks cost more than the messenger bags and start at $229.99. The cheape

The latest cinematic iteration of The Mummy takes off when antiquities thief Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) unearths an ancient Egyptian tomb — in Iraq. Ignoring the portents of impending doom (and the fact that stealing antiquities is illegal and also wrong), Morton and his Army buddies unearth a sarcophagus. Inside lies the mummy Ahmanet, an undead pharaoh’s daughter who was mummified alive and is royally pissed off about it. She comes back to life, psychically imprints on Morton, and wr

Expectations were high for Sony’s E3 showcase this week. Last year, Sony arguably stole the show with games like Detroit: Become Human, Days Gone, God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, a new Call of Duty, The Last Guardian, and a VR thing for Final Fantasy XV, to name a few.So what did Sony show as the future of PlayStation this year? Detroit: Become Human, Days Gone, God of War, Spider-Man, a new Call of Duty (this time in World War II), a remaster of The Last Guardian predecessor Sh

Amazon Web Services is spinning up its second set of data centers for government customers in the United States, this time in the Eastern U.S. The US-East region will provide cloud services that conform to government security and compliance regulations in data centers that are closer to Washington, D.C.
It’s a move by the cloud provider to offer government-oriented services closer to federal customers. AWS already serves agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, General Servic

There’s been a lot of hype around the solar eclipse on August 21st. Thousands are traveling to the locations, like Tennessee or Wyoming, to see the Sun go completely dark for the first time since 1918. For those of us staying put, there’s the Eclipse Megamovie Simulator, which will let you see how the eclipse will appear in your area.Enter your zip code and see an animation of what you can expect, as well as the best time to take a loop. It’s part of the larger Eclipse Megamovi

Funomena showed off its soothing virtual reality game Luna at a recent preview event. I played it in a hands-on demo, narrated by Funomena CEO Robin Hunicke. Luna is an open-ended puzzle and creativity game, driven by a story about a cute bird.
Hunicke was a co-creator of Journey, one of the most mesmerizing game experiences of 2012. Since that time, she co-founded her independent game studio and is building a series of titles that feel Journey-like in that they are very creative

Far Cry 5’s announcement rode in on a wave of controversy. Where past games took players to far-off lands where the player murdered the locals, Far Cry 5 is set in a small Montana county. The enemy is a group of largely white Americans. Its heroes are a ragtag group of resistance fighters, fighting against a cult — a group whose imagery is drenched in patriotic Americana and Christian symbols.
But its first demo, for all of the conversations around the change to the game, felt largel

The GamesBeat crew is in Los Angeles for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, one of the biggest events on the video game calendar. Between getting stuck in traffic on the 101 and doing a wheat-grass cleanse with the other celebrities, we’ve put our hands on a few video games. One of the first we tried was Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Far Cry series, and now we want to share our thoughts with you.
Far Cry 5 is an open-world adventure that has you fighting a violent religious cult in t

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick will take a leave of absence from the ride-hail company to grieve for his mother who just died in a boating accident, according to a company-wide email that just went out. Kalanick’s decision comes as the investigation in a pervasive culture of sexism and harassment at Uber has reached its conclusion.“For the last eight years my life has always been about Uber,” Kalanick wrote. “Recent events have brought home for me that people are more important

Freelance writer and academic Anthony Oliveira, known by the Twitter handle @meakoopa, has been suspended from Twitter, prompting a backlash from followers who contrast the decision with what they see as Twitter’s continued failure to combat the rise of the violent alt-right and the prevalence of anti-LGTBQ hate speech on its platform.The suspension appears to have occurred no more than a few hours ago, and was brought to wider attention by the popular account @skullmandible. His first twe

Facebook has signed a deal to revive reality competition show Last State Standing, according to The Hollywood Reporter. American Ninja Warrior producer A. Smith and Co.’s Arthur Smith is behind the series, which will feature one contestant from each of the 50 states competing in games for a chance to win $50,000. A premiere date, episode count, and rollout plan are still undetermined, but production on the show has reportedly begun in Los Angeles.
Back in February, Facebook announced it hi

This holiday season will be a critical one for Microsoft as it launches its newly announced Xbox One X. And to show off that new console, Microsoft will launch Forza Motorsport 7 on October 3 as one of the flagship games.
Forza will run at a native resolution of 4K at 60 frames per second, and it will consume a lot of the new console’s 6 teraflops of computing power. With that extra power, Microsoft’s Turn 10 Studios will be able to render drivers in full detail for th

Microsoft first revealed its concerns over Chromebooks in an attack on Google’s laptops more than three years ago. While Chromebooks haven’t become best-sellers for consumers just yet, they have started to become popular with students in the US and slowly with some businesses. Microsoft is now revealing it's worried about this threat with two new videos on its Windows YouTube channel today.
The first promises that Windows 10 “outshines” Chrome OS for businesses, with fea

There’s an official version of Mario Kart in virtual reality, but it’s only heading to a Tokyo arcade for now. Mario Kart Arcade GP VR is a newly announced entry in the Namco-developed series of Mario Kart arcade games. As the name may suggest, the new title makes the jump to VR, allowing players to race and throw shells at each other in virtual reality. Mario Kart Arcade GP VR will run off an HTC Vive headset, with players controlling the action in Mario Kart-styled arcade chairs wi

The popular YouTube show Movies with Mikey has been nominated for an Emmy for the first time. The show’s writer, producer, and editor, Mikey Neumann, made the announcement on Twitter this afternoon.
Movies with Mikey has drawn a wide audience by exploring the best parts of cinema from a film buff’s perspective with a friendly, smart, and always joyful tone. The show has been nominated for Outstanding Informational Series or Special, alongside Adam Ruins Everything, Bill Nye Saves the

Nintendo’s E3 press conference this morning dedicated a healthy chunk of time to Super Mario Odyssey, the wonderfully weird and wildly ambitious new Mario coming to the Switch on October 27th. We got a new trailer, but we also got more than 20 minutes of new gameplay shown off live.Not only did we get a in-depth look at the New York-like New Donk City, but we met Mario’s new anthropomorphic hat, Cappy, and got a look at how the game’s new possession system will let you transfor

Amazon will give Prime members a bit more spending power if they’re willing to ditch their credit cards. The company introduced a new program today called Prime Reload, which offers Prime members a small bonus of Amazon credit if they’re willing to pay using their debit card instead.
There are some small complications, but for the most part the program seems straightforward enough. First you have to give Amazon your debit card number as well as your bank account and routing info. You

 I recently sat down with Logitech to talk about the wired and wireless versions of the Circle 2: a modular home surveillance camera with four different mounts that change where and how you’d use the camera. The modular approach stems from four different mounts: the first is a glass window mount, so you can see outdoors without glare. Second is the plug mount, ensuring you’ll… Read More

Nintendo finally gave Metroid fans what they wanted with the announcement of a major new entry in the series for the Switch, but the developer most closely associated with the best 3D Metroid games is not working on this new project.
Retro Studios is not making Metroid Prime 4 for Switch, according to Nintendo of America marketing boss Bill Trinen. Instead, Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe is overseeing the project with a new team. Tanabe acted as producer on Metroid Prime as well as recent rele

Microsoft unveiled its Xbox One X video game console on Sunday ahead of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console debuts worldwide on November 7 for $499.
You can use the same peripherals for the game console as those for the Xbox One and Xbox One S. And it will be able to play original Xbox console games. Microsoft showed off games such as Electronic Arts’ Anthem, 4A’s Metro Exodus, and State of Decay 2. But it didn’t show any Gears of War or Halo titles.
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Lynn Fischer has made Facebook Messenger bots for the Women’s March on Washington and Pope Francis, as well as HillYeah, a voter engagement bot deployed during the 2016 election.
Now her company Sorted.ai plans to apply the lessons learned from those projects to deploy bots to help progressive political candidates win local, state, or congressional elections in 2018.
In the weeks to come, HillYeah will relaunch as WeCause, and will be revamped to turn its attention toward connect

 Most people don’t have to think very hard about going to see the latest movie in the theater, but for millions, things aren’t that simple. If you’re hearing or vision impaired, getting the apparatus to provide you with amplified sound or scene descriptions can be a pain, if they’re even available. Actiview is a startup aiming to make accessibility in movie-going as… Read More

ANALYSIS: Uber, the unorthodox ride-hailing company that shook up the taxi industry, is itself undergoing a shakeup on a seismic scale unprecedented in Silicon Valley, most significantly with the leave of absence for its founder and CEO Travis Kalanick and the departure of a top executive Kalanick had stood by steadfastly through a series of scandals.
Kalanick sent an email to Uber’s staff today saying he will take a leave of absence, according to Bloomberg and Recode. He left open how lon

Nintendo didn’t just show off more details of Super Mario Odyssey, which is due out in October for the Switch. The publisher also showed off new Amiibo related to the game.
The new Amiibo are Mario, Peach, and Bowser all wearing wedding white outfits. Mario and Bowser are in tuxedos while Peach is in a wedding dress, and I’m choosing to believe that they’ve all put aside their differences and admitted that they need each other.
Check this loving poly trio:Three new #amiibo figu