Technology news

Disney’s D23 Expo covers all aspects of its entertainment empire, and today the studio revealed that virtual reality is coming to the Marvel universe. Powers United VR is being made by Oculus and Sanzaru Games, and will let players step into the shoes of characters like The Hulk, Captain Marvel, or Rocket Raccoon. The announcement came during the “Level Up” gaming panel, which also included updates about Star Wars: Battlefront II and Insomniac Games’ upcoming Spider-Man g

Earlier this year at WWDC, Apple showed off an augmented reality demo that used an iPad to recreate the famous Dejarik holochess game from Star Wars. It turns out that was more than just a tech demo: today Disney announced that it is creating an actual augmented reality platform that it will use to bring that game and other projects to life.
The product uses two pieces to work its magic. The first is a new augmented reality headset, made in conjunction with Lenovo. The device then pairs with a u

The hype for Star Wars: Battlefront II has been slowly building, and today EA released a new behind-the-scenes clip detailing the making of the game’s eagerly-anticipated single-player campaign. The video was first shown during the “Level Up” gaming panel at Disney’s D23 Expo, which also featured Janina Gavankar - the actor that plays the lead role in Battlefront II.
Most Star Wars stories have focused on the “good guys”: the Rebel Alliance, or the Resistance

Disney’s D23 Expo this year is full of Star Wars, and today director Rian Johnson debuted a new behind the scenes reel about the making of The Last Jedi. Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, and Oscar Isaacs all make appearances in the clip, which details the creative process behind the eagerly-awaited sequels. The mood is excited but somber, with the director saying at one point that the film may seem “shocking” when audiences finally see it.
The behind-the-scenes reel is part of an exp

Sprint is hoping that updates to its phone leasing program and the option to upgrade any smartphone annually will help improve its standing in the wireless market. The company has been taking some drastic steps lately in pursuit of that goal — including offering new customers an entire year of free, unlimited data service with relatively few strings attached. Now, Sprint will let subscribers lease any smartphone it sells and upgrade in 12 months. Previously that deal was only good for iPho

Disney has released the first trailer for Selma director Ava DuVernay’s upcoming science fiction film, A Wrinkle in Time at its D23 expo, showing off fantastic worlds and a diverse cast.The trailer begins with Chris Pine’s character talking about travelling through space instantaneously, before ending up on another world. “Your father has accomplished extraordinary,” intones Oprah Winfrey’sMrs. Witch. We then jump to his daughter, Meg Murry, who learns that her fath

When the Congress voted in March to overturn landmark FCC privacy rules, consumers and advocacy groups were incensed by the decision. The FCC rules that were set to go into effect would have forced internet service providers to get permission from customers before selling their data to third parties. The vote seemed to be a bow to the telecom industry, with few redeeming qualities for internet users.
New state bills would reinstate the rules
In the outrage that followed, local legislators around

Following a tumultuous week at Berlin-based music streaming service SoundCloud, which last week laid off 40 percent of its staff without warning, the company’s chief exec has responded by saying “SoundCloud is here to say.” In a blog post posted to the company’s website, CEO Alex Ljung tried to reassure users and musicians alike that the “music you love on SoundCloud isn’t going away, the music you shared or uploaded isn’t going away, because SoundCloud

Music discovery and ticketing company Songkick has grown in in the last decade, providing local concert recommendations to users and ticket sales for live events around the world. The company is now dividing up some of its assets, according to Billboard, and is selling its concert discovery features to the Warner Music Group.Founded in 2007, Songkick developed an app that allows users to track and set up notifications of live events in their area, based on integrations with their music library a

By now, all your Prime Day goodies should have arrived at your doorstep, finding their rightful places in your life. But what to do with all those boxes they arrived in? A quick PSA: if you don’t want to break the boxes down and recycle them, you can instead reuse them to ship away clothes, household items, and other goods you no longer need in order to make room for the new things you just bought.
The recycling program is in partnership with Give Back Box, a collaboration that Amazon anno

I’m not in any way convinced of the argument that Netflix’s straight-to-streaming approach is bad for movies. I am, however, pretty convinced that it’s bad for my self-restraint, because it means that I just end up watching even more movies right after they come out since I don’t have to leave my house.
Point being, I watched Okja the other week, and then went to see Baby Driver a night later. I wrote a little about Baby Driver last week, so here are some thoughts on Okja

Take a moment to look at the home screen of your smartphone. How many of the apps there have been on your phone for more than three months? What about six months? A year? For whatever reason, it’s usually only a handful of apps that find a long-term home on the phones of most users. Working with Quettra in 2015, Andrew Chen found that the average app loses 77 percent of its users within three days. Localytics latest benchmarks show that this figure hasn’t improved much, sitting at 6

Amazon Prime Day has already come and gone, but there’s still several great deals you can get this weekend if you weren’t one of the millions of people to shop its “Black Friday in July” event. And even if you were, there’s never a bad time to take advantage of a good deal!
Our favorites include the Oculus Rift and Touch Bundle for $399 and a $150 discount on the 2016 iPad Pro. There’s also a new Samsung S8 BOGO deal that was announced yesterday, allowing you

In the relatively near future, artificial intelligences have completely transcended human understanding, so much so that they can barely comprehend our existence. That’s the background of Zachary Mason’s new literary cyberpunk thriller Void Star, which examines the line between a hyper-connected society and the vast intelligences that lurk just out of sight.
Mason sketches out a fantastic, yet plausible future world. AIs are commonplace, the super-wealthy have the ability to prolong

We already know tardigrades — those tiny eight-legged water creatures — are as tough as they are ugly. They can survive for 30 years in a freezer and live in space and other extreme temperatures. But a new study paints things in bleaker terms: these creatures will outlive all of us. They will be around for 10 billion years. They will survive until the Sun dies.For the study, published in Scientific Reports, astrophysicists at Oxford and Harvard University calculated the probability o

You can’t deny the popularity of emoji. If the fact that July 17th is World Emoji Day isn’t enough to convince you, then consider that the Emoji Movie will be released in early August, and that Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 was the emoji: “face with tears of joy” 😂. But where do emoji come from? While the term has been widened to refer to any digital pictograph, true emoji are those that are included in the Unicode Standard, the interna

Ask any retailer and they’ll tell you that the bane of their existence is a consumer turning to their cellphone and using Amazon to read reviews and price compare products while in-store. They hate it; I mean, wouldn’t you? Imagine you were on a date and your potential suitor decided to open Tinder and start swiping during dinner! With this already a significant challenge facing brick-and-mortar retailers, Amazon has recently upped the ante by securing a defensive patent that is goi

I dare say, I won’t stand for all of you besmirching my client, Mr. Trump.
To get to him, you’ll have to get through me and my magnificent mustache. My name is Ty Cobb and winning runs in my veins. I'm a high-powered lawyer who represented people in the Clinton administration, and I'm a distant relative of The Georgia Peach himself, Ty Cobb, the baseball player. 
SEE ALSO: Trump is getting crushed at his own handshake game
It's unconscionable that you would accuse my client, Don

Uber’s shareholders and its board, led by venture capital firm Benchmark, have discussed selling some of their shares to Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group and other potential investors, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The deal could include investment of new money into the startup, Bloomberg reported, adding that details about the valuation of shares or how much SoftBank or other investors would buy were unclear.
The news follows a Wall St

The robotic racing series Roborace is still somewhat of a pipe dream that aims to become the "world's first self-driving racing series." On Friday, we got our first in-person look at the 200-mph vehicle that will eventually race itself around the track: the Robocar.
The sleek, brightly colored racer was plopped down in New York City's Times Square, attracting the attention of NYC locals and tourists who just didn't know what to make of the thing. Its creators believe those questions will soon be

Most parents have concerns about their kid’s social media usage, but they shouldn’t worry about their brain cells frying. Under the hoodー kids are using social to better themselves. Kids are running their own profitable slime businesses on Instagram, honing their dancing skills on musical.ly, showcasing their artistic talents on YouTube, and so much more. Social media is this generation’s social currency Parents always complain about their kid’s way of social

VB LIVE: The first VR-exclusive game hit #1 on Steam’s Global Top Sellers list because the devs know how to turn data into actionable insights. Register now for this interactive VB Live event for their insights into integrating analytics into your VR game development.
Register here for free.
VR is a little bit like the wild, wild west right now, our director of technology, Stewart Rogers, says. No studio or company in any industry has found the silver bullet — the answer to roping in

Musician GLASYS recently caught the attention of the one and only T-Pain with a voice manipulator video. Clearly, he's got serious talent.
Since Game of Thrones Season 7 is premiering Sunday, GLASYS has put his talent to good use with a synthesized cover of the show's theme.
In an alternate universe Game of Thrones is a sci-fi show and this is the opening theme song. Read more...
More about Music, Game Of Thrones, Theme Song, Synthesizer, and Culture

AlphaBay, a Dark Web marketplace for illegal drugs and other underground goods, has been down since early last week. Now, it appears the cause of the shutdown was an international effort from law enforcement that nabbed one of the site’s operators, a Canadian citizen named Alexandre Cazes, while he was in Thailand, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal published yesterday. Thailand authorities cooperated with both the US and Canada to make the arrest, with the US leading the cha

Toy Story 4 is making a big change behind the scenes.
John Lasseter — head of Disney animation and Pixar who helmed the first two Toy Story films — will not be steering the fourth. Instead, Toy Story 4 will be directed by Josh Cooley. (Not to be confused with Josh Dickey, who is an entertainment editor at Mashable. Hi, boss!)
SEE ALSO: Oh, boy! Disney's bringing all the goodies from Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar to D23
Previously, it had been announced that Lasseter and Cooley would di

You might've heard of a little game called Minecraft, and the popular craze grandparents like refer to as "your Pokemans." Back in 2012, the mod Pixelmon combined the two, cultivating a substantial community of dedicated users, modders, Youtubers, and servers over the years.
That all came to an end when The Pokémon Company sent the development team behind the mod an official cease and desist yesterday. Shortly thereafter, lead developer MrMasochism broke the news to his team, then blogged

Pixar's next new project is taking us all the way to the weird, wild world of ... suburbia?
But wait: these aren't just any suburbs. They're suburbs in a magical fantasy universe where dragons fly overhead, unicorns dig through trash cans ("they're like possums," explains director Dan Scanlon), and mushroom houses line the streets.
SEE ALSO: All the Disney princesses are coming back for the 'Wreck-It Ralph' sequel
No humans exist here — it's all elves and trolls and sprites and the like. B

Technically, Vanellope von Schweetz has always been a Disney princess – it's actually a huge plot point in Wreck-It Ralph. (Um, sorry, spoiler alert.)
Now, in the sequel, she'll get to meet all the other Disney princesses out there. Every single one.
SEE ALSO: Lin Manuel-Miranda shows off his Cockney accent for 'Mary Poppins' at D23
In a clip shown at Disney's D23 expo, Vanellope and Ralph are tooling around the intenet when they head over to OhMyDisney.com — which, in the world of t

Elastigirl, this is your moment.
The Incredibles 2 will put Helen Parr (Holly Hunter) "at the center of the action" while dad, Bob Parr, (Craig T. Nelson) stays at home with baby Jack-Jack — "an all new challenge" for Mr. Incredible, the film's director, Brad Bird, said Thursday at Disney's D23 Expo animation panel.
SEE ALSO: Oh, boy! Disney's bringing all the goodies from Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar to D23
This story is developing ...WATCH: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ cast tell us

Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 is going online with Yess — not an exclamation, but a new character to be voiced by Taraji P. Henson.
SEE ALSO: Oh, boy! Disney's bringing all the goodies from Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar to D23
Yess is a "algorithm" — a very hip and stylish one at that — who guides Ralph and the princess Vanellope Von Schweets as their next adventure takes them onto the internet. Disney showed a clip featuring the new character at the D23 Expo in Ana