Technology news

Auction site eBay today unveiled two upcoming search options featuring images. Find It On eBay and Image Search are both coming this fall to the eBay app and mobile platform. The new features take advantage of machine-learning to allow shoppers the use of images when searching for matching items.The first feature, Find It On eBay, designed to leverage social media advertising and the covetous nature of fashion aficionados takes advantage of the share feature in apps. This lets users share an im

HyperX, Kingston’s gaming-focused sub-brand, released its first mechanical gaming keyboards last year with the space-conscious Alloy FPS. HyperX built that keyboard for gamers who want as small a keyboard as possible, and the company’s following this up with the more substantial Alloy Elite. This is a mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches, media controls, and USB 2.0 passthrough. It costs $110.
HyperX puts a lot of energy into providing value with audio headsets and mouse.

Apple supplier Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, revealed plans today to build a new facility for producing LCD panels in Wisconsin. The news was announced at an event this evening with Foxconn chief Terry Gou and US President Donald Trump, who has aggressively pressured both domestic and foreign corporations to invest in the US. (He has also often taken credit for such investments even when they predated his administration.) Trump was joined at the event by W

Microsoft is launching a new Windows Bounty Program today, designed to expand its existing security bug bounty programs. While the software giant has previously paid out $100,000 for Windows 8.1 bugs, this new program will see the software giant pay out far more for serious Hyper-V flaws in Windows 10 or Windows Server operating systems.
Microsoft will now pay up to $250,000 for severe Hyper-V vulnerabilities, and security bugs in Microsoft Edge or Windows 10 preview builds will fetch up to $15,

GUEST: Accenture suggests that the core of retail strategy is a 720-degree view of customers — reaching digital natives with rapid focus shift, high expectations, and growing demand for personalization and perks. Successful examples such as Amazon, Macy’s, and Walmart prove that the way to reflect and interpret this view goes through experiment and innovation. In particular, the use of AI and its integrals includes data mining, machine learning, natural language processing

Advanced Micro Devices is releasing its biggest consumer graphics driver update of the year as it aims to boost graphics performance for games, virtual reality, and content creation.
AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group is launching its Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2 driver update for its graphics processing units (GPUs) with the ultimate goal of creating better experiences for gamers. It should result in better user interface features, improvements in first-person shooter games, quicker lo

A few weeks ago, when SoundCloud let go 173 employees, the internet banded together and created a “Hire a SoundClouder” Google doc to connect companies hiring with those affected by the layoffs. Now, WeTransfer has stepped in to also help the ex-SoundCloud workers by offering each of them $10,000.
In an open letter on Medium, Damian Bradfield, the CEO of WeTransfer, outlines how the idea came to him while chatting with a journalist at the Tech Open Air Conference in Berlin. Though he

Facebook reported its second quarter earnings today, and the results were predictably positive. The social network passed 2 billion monthly users earlier this summer, with over 1.3 billion using its software every day. The company parlayed that audience into $9.3 billion in revenue and $3.89 billion in net income. That’s a 71 percent higher profit than it reported for this same period last year.
The one criticism you could make of Facebook’s results is that the rate of growth for bot

On August 21st, a total solar eclipse will pass through the continental United States — traveling from the coasts of Oregon to South Carolina. It’s going to be an incredible sight, but the only way to watch it safely is to view the partially eclipsed Sun with special solar filter glasses that block out the majority of the Sun’s light. Only certain solar filter glasses sold online have been properly certified.
A quick search of solar filter glasses on Amazon will pull up hundred

After previewing the devices earlier in July, Meizu has officially announced its next flagship Android devices, the Pro 7 and the Pro 7 Plus. But before we dive into the nitty-gritty of the specs, we need to talk about the most unique feature from the Pro 7 line — a second AMOLED display on the back of the device.There’s a second AMOLED display on the back of the device
Meizu has shown off the second screen being used to display things like notifications, weather, time, music, and mo

Walmart confirmed today that it will in fact be canceling all of those SNES Classic preorders it accidentally accepted last week when the product page was mistakenly put live. The company is notifying preorder holders via email — some of whom are game journalists who’ve posted the note to Twitter — saying, “We know that this is incredibly disappointing to you, and we’re truly sorry for this mistake.” Well, there you have it, folks: the SNES Classic preorder pa

Last year, Rogue One marked a small, but significant departure within the larger Star Wars universe: Michael Giacchino, rather than legendary composer John Williams, was in charge of scoring the film. Now, Lucasfilm has announced that another new composer will take the reins for the next standalone film: John Powell, best known for his work on the Bourne and How to Train Your Dragon franchises.Powell has produced some excellent soundtracks over the years. His work on the Bourne films is pretty m

The marriage of technology and cannabis entrepreneurship has gone from a passion-project for growers, to a full-fledged venture capitalist (VC) bonanza in just the past year and a half. Marijuana startups are no longer simply the domain of experts on cultivation and plant-strain for medical dispensaries. The profits are now measured in billions and developers are being offered increasingly high-paying positions at cannabis startups . It’s difficult to determine exactly how much money ther

As smartphone makers race to use up every millimeter of space on the front of our devices, the backs have gone woefully unappreciated. Meizu’s new Pro 7 series wants to change that. The Pro 7 (and Pro 7 Plus) add a small AMOLED panel to the rear of the device, in a rather bold bit of asymetry. It’s an attractive device. Meizu says you can use it as a display to take high quality selfies using the rear camera, as well as basic time and weather information. You can also just set a wal

The most thrilling scene in Luc Besson’s stupefyingly ambitious new science fiction opus Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets takes place inside a giant metaphor. Protagonists Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) have been tasked with retrieving a McGuffin from an alien junk dealer whose storefront happens to be located in an alternate dimension. Through the use of virtual reality-style gear and miniportals resembling old-school boomboxes, they’re able to rea

Well, damn. If you were one of the people who preordered a Super NES Classic from Walmart last week, you should check your email. You probably have a message from Walmart explaining that it has canceled your order. The Super NES Classic Edition is the followup to last year’s NES Classic Edition, which was a huge sales hit for Nintendo. This time around, the publisher is mining its 16-bit era for an $80 microconsole that looks exactly like a Super NES and comes with 21 games.
But

Airbnb and the NAACP announced a partnership today to promote the rental service’s platform in communities of color. The move is a way to both boost the sharing economy as an income stream for black Americans and help increase the diversity of hosts to curb discrimination. Airbnb has grappled for years now with racism on its platform, with hosts discriminating against people of color and other minorities both in the US and abroad when deciding who they permit to rent their homes or apartme

When Walmart set up shop in a small West Virginia town, Foodland, a grocery chain of around 30 stores spanning areas of the south and southeast, buckled under the pressure. “It was just overnight. Even the employees didn’t see it coming,” said Pat McKenzie, director of the Richwood Chamber of Commerce. The neighborhood mainstay closed its doors just weeks after Walmart’s arrival. Piggly Wiggly, a larger chain with over 500 stores, followed suit shortly after. Walmart isn

Frontier Developments has found success thanks to its modern hits, Planet Coaster and Elite: Dangerous. Now, the studio is going to hold its own expo celebrating those two games. It’ll also announce a new project at this event.
Frontier Expo 2017 will take place on October 7 at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. The event will have news on Planet Coaster and Elite: Dangerous on top of the new game reveal. It’ll also have exclusive merchandise on sale and guest

HBO’s Making Game of Thrones blog is a good homepage bookmark for the summer months. For one, it regularly posts solid behind-the-scenes tidbits from Game of Thrones, and for another, everything on it is purely fantasy and totally unrelated to the world around you. Last year, Making Game of Thrones shared an image of the prop letter Ramsay Bolton mailed Jon Snow just before the Battle of the Bastards.This week’s post is a continuation of that “photos of letters” series, a

GUEST: The rapid development of AI is like the birth of the universe right after the Big Bang: incredibly hot and expanding rapidly. AI is so dynamic that no one can predict what the field will be like in five years. Based on its current development, we believe that we will witness the standardization of models and frameworks and potentially the creation of a marketplace for AI models.
Here’s why: Machine learning (ML) models have become the core of most modern software because of their ab

A US judge ruled that Apple must pay the University of Wisconsin-Madison $506 million for infringing on its patent. This amount is more than double the amount originally decided on by a jury, according to Reuters. The ruling continues a two-year-old patent-infringement battle, which may not be over.
In October 2015, a jury ruled that Apple committed patent infringement when creating mobile chips used in its iPhone, iPad Mini, and iPad Air. The A7, A8, and A8X processors used in the iPhone 5S, 6,

Microsoft today announced the Windows Bounty Program. Rewards start at a minimum of $500 and can go up to as high as $250,000.
To be clear, Microsoft already offers many bug bounty programs. This is also not the first to target Windows features — the company has launched many Windows-specific bounties starting in 2012. The Windows Bounty Program, however, encompasses Windows 10 and even the Windows Insider Preview, the company’s program for testing Windows 10 preview builds. Furtherm

Techland is joining Valve, Epic Games, CD Projekt Red, and the rest of the gaming companies that have their own digital-distribution platforms on PC. Gemly is a store where you can buy PC games, like Techland’s Dying Light, or products like the sci-fi survival horror adventure Alien: Isolation from other developers and publishers. This online portal also features exclusive content for Techland’s games.
The digital PC gaming market was worth $36 billion in 2016, and Valve’s Stea

I’m sure there are plenty of serious, business-y applications for iOS 11’s ARKit framework, but bless humans, because it’s also being used for very important and practical things like space cats and little BB-8 sidekicks.
Now, Chicago-based TRIXI studios has seemingly done the impossible and created an application for ARKit that is more monumental than space cats (and cats are one of the pillars of the internet) — an augmented reality version of A-Ha’s iconic sketch

Apple has gotten itself into a bit of a pickle. 
U.S. District Court Judge William Conley pounded the gavel on Monday ordering Apple to pay $506 million to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).
This court order adds $272 million to the $234 million amount Apple already owed WARF from a separate verdict in late 2015.
SEE ALSO: Here's how to take photos even when your phone is out of storage
And so the questions roll in. What is WARF and what on earth did Apple do to owe it so much

Do you have fond memories of your Sega Genesis? Are you a fan of scratch DJs? This is a video to please both of those groups.
For his entry into the 2017 #GoldieAwards DJ Battle, DJ Vekked leaned heavily on vinyl bearing Genesis-era music and sound effects. This is a guy who, in 2015, was crowned the winner at that year's DMC World DJ Championship (which is a big deal in scratch culture).
All of which is to say: he knows what he's doing. This is hot shit. Give it a listen. Read more...
More abo

People were pretty annoyed when Michael Phelps didn't risk his life by jumping in open water to race a shark that was expected to swim in a straight line on television.
Discovery Channel's "Phelps vs Shark" might not have gone the way some folks expected it to, but if you're one of the haters out there, Phelps is blaming you for your unrealistic expectations of the family man. The Olympian went on Facebook to discuss the race with fans in a live video, answer questions, and address those who did

Apple does pretty well when it comes to accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The tech giant offers more than 50 models of hearing devices that, when linked to an iPhone, introduce a host of useful settings not available to the basic iPhone user. 
But not everyone in the Deaf community uses a hearing aid. Many people rely on cochlear, or inner ear implants, which directly stimulate the hearing nerve and use an external sound processor to help people hear. 
Cochlear implants a

Sometimes, you just have to dance. And sometimes, when you're a celebrity at San Diego Comic-Con, you just have to dress up like the Pink Ranger (and still dance).
That's what Lupita Nyong'o did at San Diego Comic-Con. She hid from her adoring fans in plain sight, and — evidently — had an absolute blast doing it.
SEE ALSO: The 'Black Panther' cast watching new footage is all of us
Even in a freewheeling place like Comic-Con, Nyong'o looks like she's having more fun than anyone. She p

It's the middle of the week, which means it's time to pore over the latest batch of Game of Thrones photos and figure out what Sunday has in store. Without further ado, let's take our first look at "The Queen's Justice."
SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' Comic-Con trailer teases Daenerys and Jon's meeting
First we have Varys and Melisandre facing off on a cliffside — all that's missing are the lightsabers.'It's time for the Lannisters...to end.'Image:helen sloan/hboAt what we can safely assume i

Facebook announced today it would fund a project called Defending Digital Democracy. The project, co-founded by the campaign managers for both Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, aims to thwart outside interference in elections. The Belfer Center at The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University announced the project earlier this month. Eric Rosenbach, Co-Director of the Belfer Center and former Assistant Secretary of Defense will be heading it up. In a Harvard press release he sai

It's been about 10 years since the debut of the Roku streaming media player, and in that short time, the company has gone from a total unknown to now beating all the tech giants competing to be your TV streaming device of choice, a new report claims.
SEE ALSO: Reelgood lets you search and track your favorite Netflix, Hulu shows in one place
The analysis comes from market research company eMarketer and was published on Wednesday, putting Roku ahead of Google (Chromecast), Amazon (Fire TV), and ev

Looks like professional Overwatch players in Blizzard's ambitious, upcoming Overwatch League won't have to worry about securing outside income.
Blizzard revealed a handful of details around its premiere Overwatch esports league today, including player compensation and contracts, team roster limits, and when we can expect team rosters to be finalized before the start of the first season later this year.
SEE ALSO: 'Overwatch' will have in-game items so you can support your favorite League teams
Th

A California man could face jail time for smuggling dangerous snakes into the U.S. via some dinky little potato chip canisters.
Per a statement from the Department of Justice, Rodrigo Franco of Monterey Park was taken into custody Tuesday morning for attempting to illegally bring three king cobras into the United States from Hong Kong.
SEE ALSO: Uninvited rattlesnake tries to hitch ride on a passing boat, causes panicThe United States Customs and Border Protection officials intercepted the packa

Being a professional gamer isn’t easy. Your earnings often depend on how much you win, which is sometimes out of your control (especially in a team-based game). But Overwatch’s ambitious esports project is guaranteeing players a salary with benefits. Blizzard released new details about the Overwatch League, its upcoming esports organization for its hit team-based shooter. Notably, Blizzard announced that professional players on Overwatch League teams will earn a minimum of $50,000 a

Greek police have arrested one of the central figures in the Bitcoin exchange BTC-e on suspicion of money laundering. Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece at the request of US law enforcement, according to a Reuters report.The BTC-e exchange has long been a favorite of criminals, as its headquarters in Russia places it outside the reach of US and European law enforcement. Recent Google research found that 95 percent of ransomware cash-outs occurred through the BTC-e exchange,

The battle for the crown has been raging for years on Game of Thrones, but never with Euron Greyjoy. The current king of the Iron Islands (it's so hard to keep track!) has recently aligned himself with the Lannisters and turned on his own family — and he's just getting started.
SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' cast asks a Magic 8 Ball about their Season 7 fates
Let's recap for a moment who Euron even is. He's the younger brother of Balon Greyjoy, and the uncle of Yara and Theon. He killed his b

Less than a year after Mark Zuckerberg derided the idea that his social network might have any serious impact on the U.S. election, Facebook announced that it will donate money to cybersecurity education efforts as well as a new project to ensure election security. 
Facebook's chief security officer, Alex Stamos, announced the new funding on Wednesday at  Black Hat USA, the largest conference dedicated to cybersecurity. 
Facebook will put $1 million toward funding "to encourage or

Selena Gomez uses an eyelash curler on her tongue in the music video for her new single "Fetish," but it's okay‚ it looks really cool despite it looking pretty painful.  
The gorgeous video, directed by the impeccable Petra Collins, features a grainy Gucci Mane and finds Gomez staring in the sun, picking fruit, writhing around on a kitchen floor. Oh and she eats soap. And lipstick. But somehow, by the grace of pop music, she still makes it look flawless. 
She has yet to announce

Apple and hearing assistance company Cochlear have teamed up to launch the first iPhone-compatible cochlear implant sound processor. The processor will accompany an implant. (The processor isn't what’s implanted inside the body; it's what you see outside and what gathers audio to then send to the implant.)Lots of Apple-compatible hearing products already exist. Apple lists them all on its "Made for iPhone hearing aids" page. These devices directly pair with an iOS device (running iOS 7 or

Hours after Donald Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military in just three tweets, Caitlyn Jenner has responded to the announcement. 
The former Olympian and self-proclaimed transgender rights activist tweeted:There are 15,000 patriotic transgender Americans in the US military fighting for all of us. What happened to your promise to fight for them? https://t.co/WzjypVC8Sr
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) July 26, 2017Jenner has consistently defended her support of

Nintendo just announced the latest sales figures for the Switch in its Q1 earnings, and the 2 million units sold are both impressive for the company and a measure of how successful the Switch has become. It’s even more significant given that the company is still rebounding from the commercial and critical failure of the Wii U, which only sold about 13.5 million units over its entire lifespan.If only Nintendo could manage to keep the Switch in stock
The biggest takeaway from the Switch&rsqu

Microsoft first revealed its plans to bring Android and iPhone phones closer to Windows 10 earlier this year, and now the company is letting public testers play with the new features. In a new Windows 10 preview (build 16251) released today, Android users will be able to test a new “Microsoft Apps” application that links a phone to a PC. Microsoft hasn’t revealed when iPhone users will be able to test similar functionality, so it’s Android only for now.
The link will enab