Technology news

Activision Blizzard could benefit from a strong response to its franchise reboots, including Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and the upcoming StarCraft Remastered.
The two games — as well as last year’s reboot Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered — show the demand for retro titles that make gamers feel nostalgic for bygone years.
The Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy is a remake of the first three games in the series, which has generated more than 50 million copies sold since 1

This week, Travis and Stewart discuss the implications of the largest AI funding round in history, let alone one of the biggest Canada has ever seen. They also dig into eBay’s foray into computer vision, how image search will be bigger than conversational UI, and what is going on in the world of rewarded video ads.
We then launch our CTAConf series of interviews with the amazing and outgoing Oli Gardner of Unbounce, in a session that was recorded live on stage in front of 1,000+ people in

Video game giant Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that its Blizzard Entertainment division would announce more teams soon and formally launch its Overwatch League later this year.
The league is the company’s big dive into esports, as Overwatch local team franchises are reportedly selling for $20 million each. The drive to create a professional esports league for the popular game (which has more than 40 million users) represents one of the biggest efforts in the game industry to cr

Two years after buying Eat24, Yelp has agreed to sell the food ordering service to GrubHub for $287.5 million — a little more than double what it bought the company for. In the process, Yelp and GrubHub have entered into a new partnership that will allow Yelp users to order through GrubHub, and vice versa.
The sale, which still faces regulatory approval, means that Yelp is getting out of the operational end of the food delivery market, opting instead to let GrubHub handle that side of the

Yelp is giving up on food delivery. Two years after buying Eat24, Yelp has agreed to sell the food ordering service to GrubHub for $287.5 million — a little more than double what it bought the company for.
The sale, which still faces regulatory approval, means that Yelp is out of the food ordering business, and likely for good. Yelp also agreed to integrate GrubHub into its site and apps for at least five years, so that its users have a way to place orders without jumping over to another a

Fewer people are into Candy Crush Saga these days, but those that are still playing have shown they have a strong sweet tooth. In an earnings report, Activision Blizzard said today that though its mobile gaming King division is experiencing a downtick in monthly active users (MAUs), the ones that are sticking around are laying down more cash than ever on in-game goods.
Even though King’s MAUs are down year-over-year, its numbers are still pretty huge. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2

GUEST: If you’ve used the internet or interacted with Alexa lately, you’ve come in contact with some form of artificial intelligence (AI). And if you’ve chatted with Pizza Hut via Facebook Messenger, you’re interacting with a bot. While it may seem strange, chatbots and AI assistants are integrating into our personal lives faster than we might believe.
So what does this mean for you as a marketer? Not only will AI affect several industries, including health care and marke

GoPro announced its second quarter earnings today, and while it’s still losing money, things are finally trending in a slightly better direction for the camera company. GoPro brought in $297 million in revenue this past quarter, a 34 percent increase over the second quarter of 2016 — which was one of the company’s worst ever. It’s still not back to the highs it reached in 2014 and early 2015, but GoPro trimmed its losses to about $30 million, a third of what the company l

Blizzard continues to be one of Activision’s biggest assets, as the publisher proved when it revealed its second quarter results for year 2017 today. It noted that Blizzard has an all-time high number of monthly active users, specifically 46 million of them, across its games.
That is up 38 percent year-over-year. Blizzard has major hits, including the team-based shooter Overwatch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC; and the digital card game Hearthstone for PC and mobile. Overwatch ha

Two years after its famous flyby of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is zooming toward another space rock at the edge of the Solar System, and scientists now think they may know its shape. The object could resemble a rubber duck or it could be two space rocks very close together, according to new observations. The information is key to better prepare for New Horizons’ flyby of the object, which is currently scheduled for January 1st, 2019.
The small icy body is called 2014 MU69

Uber is often described as “a dumpster fire,” thanks to its tendency to stumble from one self-inflicted crisis to the next. Now the embattled ride-hail company is having to deal with an actual fire after one of the recalled vehicles it rented to drivers in Singapore recently burst into flames, according to The Wall Street Journal.Uber bought over 1,000 Honda Vezels with the intention of renting them to drivers last year, the Journal reported. The vehicles were purchased after Honda i

The FCC is back to operating at full strength, with the Senate filling in two commissioner spots today that had sat open since January. The spots went to Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendon Carr.
Rosenworcel, a Democrat, already served one term on the commission and was expected to be reconfirmed last year, before getting held up by Republicans in Congress. Carr, a Republican, was confirmed for his first term, though he isn’t new to the commission. Previously, he was the commission’s gen

The fact that Samsung is working on a rugged, Active-branded variant of its flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone isn’t exactly a surprise. The device was rumored as early as April, and pictures and specifications for the upcoming smartphone have already throughly been leaked.Still, if you’ve been waiting for some kind of official confirmation that the S8 Active is real, then this accidentally posted marketing copy from a recent AT&T promotion should help convince you (via XDA Developers

Earlier this summer, director Neill Blomkamp announced a new creative workshop called Oats Studios, and the filmmaker has just released its latest project. Kapture is a documentary-style CG short about a pair of weapons designers who test out their their latest creations, serving as a callback to a critical scene in Blomkamp’s debut District 9, while also highlighting the oddball sensibilities that have been a focal point of most of Oats Studios’ projects.
Thus far, the studio has re

Paramount has set a release date for Ex Machina writer-director Alex Garland’s next film, Annihilation: February 23rd, 2018.Based on a 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation stars Natalie Portman as a biologist who joins an expedition into a mysterious zone called Area X after her husband (Oscar Isaac, who starred in Ex Machina and The Force Awakens) returned home from a year-long absence in the same region. The film also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Gina Rodriguez

In its never-ending quest to connect you with other working professionals whom you will never again make contact with, LinkedIn’s product team has released some real head-scratchers in its storied, 14-year history. From the Microsoft-owned company’s recent Facebook-style news feed implementation to the long-standing encouragement that complete and total strangers “connect” as a way to inflate one’s networking skills, LinkedIn has become this kind of bizarro social n

In 1993, writer-artist Mike Mignola introduced comic book readers to Hellboy, a demon discovered and raised by American soldiers after World War II that ended up fighting against forces attempting to take over the Earth. It was an almost immediate hit, and Mignola went on to expand the world with an array of new characters and a related comic series.One big part of that universe has been a series called B.P.R.D., which follows the titular government agency dedicated to protecting the country aga

A noted security researcher has been arrested by the FBI, as first reported by Motherboard. Marcus Hutchins (better known as MalwareTech) appears to have been stopped by the FBI yesterday afternoon as he prepared to board a flight from Las Vegas back to his home in London. Hutchins was in the US for the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences, although he did not present any research.
Hutchins was arrested for his role in “creating and distributing the Kronos banking trojan,” accor

Netflix’s latest original series, American Vandal, is about a high school senior named Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro), who’s in a bit of a pickle. “This is just not the way I thought things were going to go. I was going to graduate high school, get my degree in engineering,” he says in the trailer’s eerie voiceover. “I know I didn’t do it.”He’s been accused of vandalism, or more specifically of spray-painting a bunch of dicks on the cars in the

Facebook’s latest diversity report, out today, comes with a genuine surprise: improvement in nearly every category. While most tech companies struggle to make their workplaces more diverse and less dominated by white and male employees, Facebook has managed to hire more women and minorities in the last year in almost every category it tracks.Of course, the improvements are still very incremental, but the improvements show that Facebook’s efforts, led by executive diversity chief Maxi

Originally noticed by Artnet, photographer Cindy Sherman suddenly has a public Instagram account with hundreds of posts. For fans of the photographer, it’s kind of like a surprise show of new material.The account has been active, but private, since October of last year. In the 590 images posted to the account, Sherman dabbles with some standard, banal Instagram behaviors like food photography, short videos of wild animals, and throwback Mother’s Day pics. Those photos, and the ones o

Japan has a mascot for just about everything, and the newest addition is Kan-chan, an adorable pink penguin from Tokyo-based Ichijiku Pharmaceutical Co. If you’re having trouble trying to figure out what Kan-chan is, we’ll help you out: this perky, kawaii little creature is... an enema.
Kan-chan gets her name from the Japanese word for enema, kancho, and her character is the result of an online competition Ichijiku Pharmaceutical held to create a new mascot for the company. Though Ka

There’s a new app out from iTranslate that teases the idea of real-time, universal translation better than almost anything before it. It’s called iTranslate Converse, and it’s available on iOS today (and coming to Android this fall).I’ve had a few days to try a test version of iTranslate Converse. It definitely suffers the same problems as most other translation apps or features do. It doesn’t always accurately recognize what you’re saying, and when it does, t

Amazon announced today that it’s updating its Alexa voice assistant with the ability to play back music from the Amazon Music library based on specific activities, like meditation or running.“Alexa, play classical music for running.”
Amazon says that over 500 activities are included in the update, ranging from the more mundane — like meditation, working out, or falling asleep — to a bit more... creative scenarios like “getting pumped,” “hooking up,

The fight against President Trump’s border wall gained urgency this week when the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to fast-track construction. Photos are a particularly effective reminder of just what is at stake, and yesterday the American Society of Mammalogists tweeted pictures of species that the wall threatens.Scientific and environmental groups have been pushing back against President Trump’s border wall since his campaign, arguing that it could devastate the wil

Vector — a private spaceflight startup based out of Tucson, Arizona — just successfully pulled off another test flight of one of its micro-rockets, launching the 40-foot-tall vehicle this morning from a spaceport in Georgia. It’s the second flight of the vehicle: a full-scale prototype of one of the company’s rockets, the Vector-R. And though the vehicle didn’t reach orbit, it puts Vector one step closer to its goal of rapidly launching tiny satellites to space star

Google has been getting more aggressive at promoting good Android apps in the Play Store lately, mainly by demoting bad apps in its search rankings. The latest way that’s happening, as Google puts it, is that the company is “incorporating app quality signals in our ranking algorithms.”What that means is that if you look at the top app rankings or search for an app, it’s less likely that an app that has a history of crashing or a bunch of low user ratings will rise to the

Facebook Stories, one of several Facebook-made Snapchat clones, is coming to the desktop. TechCrunch says it’s confirmed with Facebook that a desktop version of Stories is currently in testing. But while it’s supposedly only a test for now, Facebook also said that it’s planning a wider rollout in the near future. So don’t be surprised if they pop up on the site soon.
A screenshot obtained by TechCrunch shows Stories being placed in the top right corner of the News Feed, a

The Chevy Bolt beat the Tesla Model S 75D by 15 miles in a new range test performed by Consumer Reports. GM’s all-electric crossover made it 250 miles before its battery was completely zapped, while the Tesla died out at 235 miles. It’s a shocking turn of events when you consider that the Model S 75D should have easily charged past the Chevy Bolt according to their EPA range estimates, which are 259 and 238 miles, respectively.Consumer Reports put the two cars to the test on the same

On August 2nd, Netflix announced a new list of anime and Japanese-influenced series that the service is picking up for streaming. On the list are typical strong performers in the science fiction, fantasy, and action genres. Even if the names are unfamiliar, the tropes and plot twists should sound familiar. There’s Devilman Crybaby, a Devilman revival about a race of demons trampling the earth, and the one man who has to harness the powers of the dark side in order to defeat them. There&rsq

Research into gene editing to cure human diseases should continue and be supported with public funds, says an international group of organizations with genetics expertise. But embryos with DNA edits shouldn’t be developed into human beings just yet — there are too many unanswered questions — and countries around the world should determine ethically how to proceed, the group says.
The statement comes just one day after groundbreaking research showed that scientists in the US suc

Apple is the largest company on Earth by market cap, and its success is derived from selling brand-new high-end smartphones consistently month after month. At the peak of its iPhone business, back in 2015, Apple sold a staggering 231.5 million smartphones. Though sales have begun to slow, that one device alone still accounts for more than 50 percent of Apple’s entire business. The company’s second quarter earnings results for 2017, reported on Tuesday, showed a quarterly profit of $8

When we wrote our guide to choosing and using a password manager, we made LastPass our top pick. The free version of the software is easy to use, and offers features that rivals make you pay for. But for premium users who need more functionality, LastPass made itself a little less attractive today by doubling its prices.LastPass Premium used to cost $1 a month, and has now been upped to $2, with somesmall changes to functionality. Premium users used to be able to share unlimited items through a

In 2013, Peter Hollens was an aspiring a cappella singer surviving, in his words, by living on ramen in someone else’s house. Hollens was hardly new to the music business; he’d been a record producer and cruise singer before striking out on his own, and his wife Evynne co-founded the college a cappella group that inspired Pitch Perfect. His elaborate, multi-layered covers of pop songs had won him a dedicated following, but none of that translated to financial success. He was unsigned

Uber is expanding Uber Freight, the app that matches independent truckers with shipping companies. The app, which Uber launched back in May, will now start featuring short, medium, and long-haul routes in major markets like California, the Carolinas, Arizona, and the Chicago-Midwest region, according to Uber.In addition to the expansion, Uber says it’s also adding new features to the Uber Freight app that will cater to drivers. Uber Freight will be able to “automatically learn driver

Earlier this week, Asus’ ZenFone AR became available for preorder through Verizon for $648, but if you don’t want to be tied down to a carrier, you can now purchase the smartphone unlocked starting at $599.The ZenFone is the second phone to support Google’s Tango augmented reality technology, and the first high-end device to do so, after the midrange Lenovo Phab 2 Pro launched the platform. Asus has made two configurations of the unlocked smartphone: a 6GB of RAM option with 64