Technology news

Many Detroit Red Wings fans were confused to see their favorite team's logo waving among swastikas, confederate flags, and other symbols of hate at a massive white supremacist gathering in Virginia on Saturday.
One widely shared video shows a group of racists carrying homemade shields marked with the team's insignia and chanting the Nazi slogan "blood and soil" as they poured into Charlottesville.
SEE ALSO: Trump blames 'many sides' for violence in CharlottesvilleLest you think that the Detroit

Fair warning: This post contains spoilers for all of Game of Thrones books and episodes.
It's excellent advice for lawyers and omniscient stoners in fantasy series: Don't ask a question you don't already know the answer to. 
Arya Stark was handed a shiny, deadly new toy in episode 4 of Game of Thrones last weekend: A Valyrian steel dagger. She was given it by her brother Bran, who not long before had been handed it by resident slimeball Littlefinger. 
SEE ALSO: All the times Littlefing

Tonight, GamesBeat will stream the first Games Industry Family Chicken Dinner Invitational Tournament for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. This is an informal competition where developers and other people who work in the games business compete for dominance in the last-player-standing shooter. The stream starts at 8 p.m. Pacific time, and you can watch it on our Twitch page.
If you’re wondering how all this madness will work, we are planning on doing solo-only matches this evening wher

An amateur submarine builder is facing charges in connection with the disappearance of a Swedish journalist who was aboard his homemade ship for a story.
The vessel sank early Friday morning off the Danish coast as the inventor, Peter Madsen, escaped to a nearby rescue ship. But he told police that he had dropped off the reporter, Kim Wall, at a remote Copenhagen island around three hours into the trip.
SEE ALSO: Protesters, journalists capture sobering images of racists marching in Charlottesvi

In May, Facebook quietly launched a photo-sharing app called Colorful Balloons in China, where the social networking site is banned, according to a report in The New York Times.Colorful Balloons appears to mimic the look and feel of Facebook’s Moments app, which allows users to share photos with friends and family members. Rather than interfacing with Facebook, the app works with the country’s biggest social network, WeChat. Facebook released the app through a local company called Yo

Kendi the black rhino was born on July 17 at the Cincinnati Zoo. Since then, he's been venturing outside with his mom, Seyia, for short stints, using the time to get used to being outside and greet his adoring public.
Friends, he is very cute and small. He also lives at the same zoo as Fiona the Hippo, who is the de facto queen of America. So he's got that going for him, which is nice. Read more...
More about Baby Animals, Cincinnati Zoo, Rhinoceros, Culture, and Animals

Earlier this week, a BBC employee watching something on his computer somehow failed to realize his monitor was in full view on air, for millions of viewers at home. 
SEE ALSO: 'True Blood' star Stephen Moyer reveals how Nelsan Ellis touched the cast with acting excellence
He was watching a sex scene, and no one was quite sure what it was. Except for Anna Paquin, who recognized herself immediately. The actress confirmed on Twitter that it was a scene from her HBO show True Blood. Specif

Oculus Connect 4 is just a few months away; the developer conference returns to the San Jose convention center on October 11 and October 12. We’re expecting to see what’s new with the company during a busy keynote speech, but, until then, an initial list of sessions and workshops has been revealed for the two-day event.
There’s not much here that points us toward what Oculus might reveal at the show, but there are definitely more than a few sessions you shouldn’t mis

We’re big fans of the Google Pixel’s camera, which uses some complex software to take its fantastic images. A Ukrainian app developer has found a way to port that software to any device that uses a Snapdragon 820/821 or 835 processor, so users can take their own HDR+ pictures without the Google Pixel.
The developer, who goes by the name B-S-G, posted up a modified version of Google Camera, which brings the HDR+ image processing to any device with a Snapdragon 820/81 or 835 processor.

It's been a tough week for diversity in tech. 
Former Google engineer James Damore's memo has ignited a pointless debate about whether or not women are inherently less capable of careers as software engineers. With the memo treated among many as a legitimate piece of scientific analysis, it can be discouraging for those who see it as manipulating scientific studies to support a flawed and problematic premise. 
The whole situation was reflective of larger problems with gender and racial

New York’s ARChive of Contemporary Music (ARC) has been preserving audiovisual materials since 1985, and a little over a year ago, it partnered with the Internet Archive to bring its Great 78 Project to the public. Along with audiovisual digitization vendor George Blood L.P. and additional volunteers, the Great 78 Project to date has put over 50,000 digitized 78rpm discs and cylinder recordings on the Internet Archive, which can be listened to in all their crackling glory.
An ongoing proje

After hours of silence, President Donald Trump finally commented on the white nationalist rally and related violence happening in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday. We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017"We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for," the president tweeted. "There is no place for this kind of

Nvidia turned out another stellar financial result for the second quarter ended July 31. Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of the world’s biggest stand-alone maker of graphics chips, credited some big trends like the growth of PC gaming, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and the Nintendo Switch.
But the Santa Clara, California-based company also got some attention because some of its revenues came from an unusual source: Cryptocurrency. The demand for graphics hardware to mine the algorithms t

Tesla Model 3 buyers deserve a heads-up display. Picture this: you're driving around an unfamiliar town, perhaps while on summer vacation. You're trying to navigate to your hotel while also being mindful of local speed limits. Your Model 3 tells you both your directions and speed on its massive, center-mounted touchscreen, but dang, you have to keep looking to your right to find that information, thereby taking your eyes off the road. Not only do these quick glances endanger you, the driver, but

Producer Max Martin is no doubt responsible for some of your favorite pop songs, including Britney Spears' "Oops! ...I Did It Again" and most of Taylor Swift's 1989. Apparently, he's also responsible for turning a Backstreet Boy's fart into a nice bass sound.
Per a new interview from Billboard, Howie Dorough was putting so much heart and soul into recording Black and Blue single "The Call" that he let out a fart. Conveniently, the fart was "not only on the beat, but in key," according to A.J. Mc

Nazis, white nationalists, and other hate groups are marching in Charlottesville, Virginia ahead of a rally to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. 
Hours before the rally was scheduled to start, racists streaming into Charlottesville have been marching through the city, where they've been met by counter-protesters. Shortly before 12 p.m. on Saturday, Virginia's governor declared a state of emergency and the city designated the rally an "unlawful assembly."&nbs

Amazon is refunding customer purchases for protective solar eclipse glasses that it hasn’t been able to confirm come from a reputable manufacturer, according to a safety notification from the company.Excitement has been building for the upcoming solar eclipse across the United States on August 21st, and would-be eclipse viewers have purchased protective glasses from retailers such as Amazon.com. However, not all of the glasses found on the site are safe to use, with some vendors selling co

It’s peak corn season, friends. And what better to celebrate your favorite cobbed vegetable than by eating getting down and dirty with it?
Yes, it’s all fine and dandy to gnaw on the real thing, but why confine yourself when there is such a lovely array of corn-inspired sex toys? Now, thanks to these ripe and ready gadgets, you can give a whole new meaning to shucking. 
LeLe Sex Corn-Shaped Silicone DildoImage:amazonThis is basically a corn on the cob with a nice little penis ha

American Honey may have been the movie I was most interested in but didn't get a chance to see last year. It's been streaming on Amazon for a few months now (it's pretty long, at almost three hours, so I sort of put it off), and I finally got around to watching it last week.
There's a whole lot to like about the film, but what impressed me the most is just how well director Andrea Arnold is able to build and maintain so many different characters. There are frequent shots of maybe a dozen people

Twitch has removed a video featuring a Twitch user broadcasting himself harassing other streamers in real-time, following allegations published on Kotaku UK. The stream in question, titled “If I gotta slap a streamer imma make it look sexy,” targeted London-based streamer Charleyy Hodson and several others. The broadcast aired 11 days ago and remained active on user DiscordBen’s account until yesterday. The video was removed shortly after The Verge reached out to Twitch for com

For years, I relied on Nick Lachey's infamous 98 Degrees sun tattoo to tell me what temperature it is outside. The answer, of course, was always 98 Degrees, even when it was January. This was my rock, my bible, my truth.
Unfortunately, tragedy struckSeveral years ago, Nick Lachey covered up his 98 Degrees tattoo, replacing it with a solid black sun. And since that day, I have not known what temperature it is.
SEE ALSO: Here are the top 10 Beatles song according to me, somebody who just wants to

On Christmas Eve of 2015, Kim Perkins was helping to unpack a moving truck that had just brought her family from California to Omaha. Perkins and her husband, Lorenzo Staunovo Polacco, moved to the Midwest in the heart of winter to pursue their tech careers in the Silicon Prairie.
“We decided to move to Omaha as Lorenzo switched back to managing Global Finance for Yahoo, and I opened the C1X office here in the Exchange building on the 8th floor,” said Perkins. “I made

You’ve probably already heard that a total solar eclipse will travel across the United States from coast to coast on August 21st, and that it’s going to be perhaps the biggest celestial event of the decade. (For more information, we’re sharing everything you need to know about the celestial phenomenon.)
There are some great deals this week — including discounts on computers, tablets, headphones, and more — but perhaps one of our favorites is the Lunt Solar System pr

On Friday night, a band of cowardly racists marched through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. And while people on Twitter are rightfully condemning the hate rally (and making fun of its obviously mass-purchased tiki torches) they're also applauding the brave student counter-protesters who stood their ground.
Per a local NBC affiliate, counter-protesters clashed with the white supremacists when the march approached a statue of Thomas Jefferson. Some marchers even used their ti

I had just sat down to work one Saturday afternoon, when the familiar sound of the clothes washer, starting its spin cycle like an airplane taking off, started humming in the background. It was that sort of familiar noise that was both comforting and quickly drowns out the background, allowing me to sink quickly into a nice flow with some engineering work. Suddenly, with a loud thump, the sound of a rattle, and something too awful to describe, the spinning machine came to a dramatic halt. I kne

PREVIEW: Don’t be fooled by Exposure’s sleek geometric look and minimalist soundtrack. It’s a tense game about hiding from predators, scurrying from one safe space to another, and changing colors for camouflage. It’s the first commercial work from the two-person team The Sheep’s Meow, an indie game studio based in New York. In early 2018, it will be available on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as on the Xbox One.
When I played an early build of Exposure,

Every week, a slew of new music videos hits the web. Watching them at your desk is not time theft because you deserve it; think of it as a nice reward for surviving another work week. But what if you don’t have time to watch every video? Maybe you have a deadline, a hungry pet, or other grown-up concerns. In consideration of your schedule, Lizzie and Kaitlyn bring you a series called One Video. Each week we’ll tell you “one video” you need to watch, why, and for how long.

Earlier this year, Sony announced that it is moving forward with Silver and Black, a film featuring comic book heroes Black Cat and Silver Sable as part of a planned Spider-man cinematic universe. Now, the studio has set a release date for the film: February 8th, 2019.The timing here is interesting, because Sony has already set a date for another film set in this new cinematic universe. Venom will hit theaters on October 5th, 2018, which means Silver and Black will follow it up fairly quickly.Bl

Your Instagram photos might say much more about you than what you had for lunch or where you’re vacationing this summer. They might also hold clues about whether you are depressed.New research shows that people with a history of depression share more photos, use fewer filters, and post more images that are darker and grayer in color. The findings, published this week in the journal EPJ Data Science, suggest that Instagram and other social media sites are more tools that can be used to scre

You might not have heard of Here Be Dragons before, but you’ve probably heard of some of the projects the it’s worked on. Today, this VR and AR production studio is announcing the closure of a $10 million series A round of funding. Discovery Communications led this investment.
Here Be Dragons has been creating both original and promotional VR experiences for clients and content creators for the past few years now. You might have seen their work in the Mr. Robot VR experience that lau

The International Dota 2 Championships is like the Super Bowl of esports, and it wraps up today with three finalists fighting for the lion’s share of a record $24 million prize pool.
The Dota 2 event takes place starting at 10 am Saturday at the KeyArena in Seattle, Washington. The play begins in a semifinal between LFY and TeamLiquid. Following that match, the winner will face Newbee in the best of five Grand Finals.
So far this week, 16 teams battled each other in Valve’s multiplay

“The business models for journalism are a real challenge,” Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia told us. “In particular, the advertising-only business model has been devastating for journalism, as it pushes in the direction of a race to the bottom for clicks with tempting headlines and vapid content.” As it becomes easier to disseminate information, so the pressure to generate more of it at a faster rate grows. One result of that conundrum has been the rise of ‘fak

Our white Land Rover comes to a stop a few metres in front of the checkpoint, and a man approaches the window. He asks us what we are doing in the area, and we inform him that we’ve just had a meeting with the mayor of the town. To this he responds: “The mayor is a war criminal. You have to talk to Tony.” As we drive slowly away, we can hear him mutter: “There is no need for the UN here, we provide security.” The lights come on in the training room, and the action

Tonight during Valve’s yearly Dota 2 tournament, a surprise segment introduced what could be the best new player in the world -- a bot from Elon Musk-backed startup OpenAI. Engineers from the nonprofit say the bot learned enough to beat Dota 2 pros in just two weeks of real-time learning, though in that training period they say it amassed “lifetimes” of experience, likely using a neural network judging by the company’s prior efforts. Musk is hailing the achievement as the