Technology news

A staple of coastal California’s towns, the Volkswagen Microbus will be reincarnated as an electric vehicle. VW announced that it will build a version of its I.D. Buzz concept bus, which it hopes to begin selling by 2022.Unveiled earlier this year the Detroit Auto Show, the vehicle is a clear homage to the iconic vehicle that the company sold in North America between 1950 and 1980. The production version of the concept is expected to deviate little from the blunt-faced original, because al

The solar eclipse set to take place on August 21st is going to be a sight to behold — provided you have the proper protection for your eyes and camera. Looking at the sun can cause permanent damage, but if you’re not careful, you can also destroy your camera.The employees from Dubuque, Iowa’s Every Photo Store decided to demonstrate what would happen if you try and and shoot the eclipse without a filter for your camera. They hooked up a DSLR body to a Canon 400mm f/2.8 IS II le

The solar eclipse set to take place on August 21st is going to be a sight to behold — provided you have the proper protection for your eyes and camera. Looking at the sun can cause permanent damage, but if you’re not careful, you can also destroy your camera.The employees from Dubuque, Iowa’s Every Photo Store decided to demonstrate what would happen if you try and and shoot the eclipse without a filter for your camera. They hooked up a DSLR body to a Canon 400mm f/2.8 IS II le

GUEST: The blockchain technology market is projected to see a 61.5 percent compound annual growth rate through 2021 according to MarketWatch. And we’re seeing companies from across the spectrum — from finance, logistics, and manufacturing to research, computing, and insurance — looking to roll out blockchain projects. But what, exactly, is the appeal of this technology?
In general, there seem to be three driving factors:
1. Gartner’s prophesied digital mesh — the in

John Smedley has had a storied career in games, including the creation of EverQuest, the growth of Sony Online Entertainment, and the spinout of Daybreak Games as an operator of games like the zombie apocalypse online game H1Z1. He even tried a stint as an indie game developer, reliant on Kickstarter funding.
But earlier this year, he joined Amazon Game Studios, starting a new studio in San Diego, California. He is one of many famous game developers to join Amazon, partly because it has so many

The documentary Icarus recently premiered on Netflix, and if you're looking for something to watch this weekend, it's a really good choice.
The film is a strange trip through the world of doping. It starts out simple enough, with a cyclist trying out performance-enhancing injections on himself — almost like a freakier version of Super Size Me. But then the filmmaker kind of miraculously stumbles onto a key figure — and an entertaining one, at that — in the Russian doping scanda

GUEST: The U.S. government acknowledges that the Internet of things (IoT) has advanced past the research and development stage. However, even with this acknowledgement, there is still a gap in how the public sector is connecting to the IoT and how it should be connecting.
Imagine if agencies could arm flood zones with sensors able to detect rising water levels and provide early warning to citizens. Or deploy sensors on highways that alert the necessary authorities when they are iced over. Or con

Google has enabled Bluetooth audio streaming for Google Home, according to Android Police. The feature that was touted when the smart assistant was announced at Google I/O back in May. Google enabled the feature by accident back in June, but it seems this time everything is official.The update means Google Home owners can stream local music, podcasts, and streaming services that may not be supported by Home to their speakers at will. However, it may not be that great for people wanting pristine

Space suits are cool — and complicated. Earlier this week, my colleague Loren Grush launched her new series Space Craft by seeing what wearing one is like. The answer? Exhausting. Unsurprisingly, science fiction writers, movie directors, and prop-makers also love space suits — you’ll find them everywhere from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Have Space Suit — Will Travel, to the latest Alien movie. But not everybody does their homework: for every fictional space suit that

The Nest Learning Thermostat is now in its third generation, and aside from software updates, the device has largely retained its appearance since it was first introduced in 2011. That could be changing. According to gadget leak specialist Evan Blass, the device could be in for a whole new look.Blass tweeted an image of the device, which shows off a whole new look. It retains its circular shape, but comes with a white ring and screen. While you can purchase a Nest thermostat with a white, copper

Last month was huge for Baidu. On the same day it opened its conversational AI platform DuerOS to businesses and third parties at its first-ever artificial intelligence developer conference, the Chinese search giant announced it had acquired Kitt.ai, a creator of bots for chat apps like Facebook Messenger, intelligent assistants like Alexa, and smart home appliances.
DuerOS is only available in Chinese today, but as part of the deal, Kitt will incorporate portions of DuerOS into drag-and-drop to

Whether you’re in the market for gadgets or gaming deals, there are a couple big sales happening that are worth checking out this weekend. Just in time for the return of the school year, B&H is running a great promotion on several Apple products including $250 off the 13-Inch MacBook Pro. Amazon is offering 20 percent off PC gaming hardware and accessories in honor of Gamescom next week, and Best Buy is celebrating its birthday with a 50-hour sale on everything from computers to headph

Samsung is expected to officially unveil its Galaxy Note 8 smartphone on August 23rd at an event in New York City. Noted leak specialist Evan Blass is reporting that the phone will be available for preorders the next day, and that the phone will hit stores on September 15th.Blass notes that preorders will come with a 256GB microSD card with a wireless charger, or a 360 degree camera, but that European preorders will come with a DeX Dock.CORRECTION: the options are as follows1. 256GB card + wirel

This week The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Disney and Lucasfilm are zeroing in on Obi-Wan Kenobi as the subject for the next standalone Star Wars film. If the studio holds to the release pattern it’s established thus far, the film could come as soon as 2020, right after Colin Trevorrow’s Episode IX caps off the final film in the Skywalker saga.
With Disney CEO Bob Iger recently promising at least 15 years of Star Wars movies after that point, the future of the standalone fi

As devices, technologies and new UI paradigms emerge and converge, consumers’ reliance on screens as the primary interface will shift, and websites and screen-based interactions will move to a more peripheral function. This will be a challenge to digital-experience providers, who for the past 20 years have been designing around screens. There are still many digital properties to build: websites, mobile apps, VR experiences. But building next-generation digital experiences will be more abo

I know Twitter these days can feel like an endless litany of commentary on the actions (and omissions) of the US president and the whirlwind of social discord that swirls in his wake as chaotically as his signature hairstyle. And I’m fully aware that the internet already has a surplus of methods and applications for sending messages between people. But still, I keep faith with Twitter, and I do believe there’s room for it to expand its usefulness beyond the purposes it currently serv

In the BBC America series Orphan Black, audiences got a little spoiled. Week after week, Tatiana Maslany would play lead character Sarah Manning and an assortment of clones. It was impressive on a technical level, working only because multiple versions of Maslany could be blended together to create the illusion of several people interacting with one other in a single shot. But it was even more impressive as pure performance, with the actor able to create differentiated characters with their own

When the Moon blotted out the Sun over Zimbabwe during a 2001 eclipse, a pod of sleeping hippos woke up from their nap. Astronomer Paul Murdin was part of a team of 250 people documenting the eclipse’s effects, and he had been put on hippo duty. He watched the massive mammals stand and start their evening trek from an island in the middle of the Zambezi river to the water’s edge.The hippos were still walking through the water when the Sun returned, and they spent the rest of the afte

For the past year and a half the world has known two primary PC VR ecosystems: the Oculus Home-powered Oculus Rift (and Touch controllers) and the SteamVR-powered HTC Vive (although the Rift works on SteamVR too, but that’s beside the point sort of). There have been a handful of others that popped up, like OSVR, but for the most part the PC VR world has been a two headset (or two platform) race.
Microsoft is looking to change that with their “Windows Mixed Reality” initiative.

If you're anything like me, your soul thrives in the summer and shrivels up the rest of the year. 
May and June are beacons of hope for you as your claw your way out of your cold, rainy cave and emerge a new human being in the sweet summer sun. Everything is wonderful and bright and the world is your oyster. Ugh, WTF.But then August comes and your spirit starts to decay once again. You don't know what this heavy feeling is, but you know it means something horrible is coming. August is,

Last week, when I asked a female leader in tech to comment about the growing number of sex scandals that are popping up every month, she declined, full stop, sharing these stark words instead: “Every time I speak up about this I feel very unsafe. And I’ve been warned my life could be threatened. So, I’m sorry, but I just can’t keep sticking my neck out for everybody else.” That’s a loud reminder to how charged the topic is at the moment. In fact, sexism at th

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram could be a rich source of free information for scientists tasked with monitoring the health of coral reefs and other environmental assets, our new research suggests. Ecosystems are under pressure all over the world, and monitoring their health is crucial. But scientific monitoring is very expensive, requiring a great deal of expertise, sophisticated instruments, and detailed analysis, often in specialised laboratories. This expense – an

Warning: Contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7, episode 5, but has NO INFORMATION RELATED TO THE EPISODE 6 LEAK (these are honest predictions from someone who has no idea what's going to happen, I promise).
I'm talking, of course, about Jon Snow's White Walker-hunters/The Magnificent Seven/loose-end characters who desperately need some kind of quick resolution to tie up their storylines.
They've been given what is quite possibly the most ridiculous plot in the show so far. It's going to

The leaks just keep coming.
The hackers responsible for the massive breach of HBO haven't let up, and reached out to Mashable to share their latest exploits. And while the latest data dump doesn't include any Game of Thrones spoilers, it definitely contains some information that the network wouldn't want out in the open. 
SEE ALSO: The HBO hackers just hit us with another huge data dump
Specifically, what appears to be the login credentials for almost every single HBO social media account.

The world just got a sneak peek at a feature Facebook's working on to make its highly anticipated AR glasses a reality.
According to a patent published Thursday, the device "may augment views of a physical, real-world environment with computer-generated elements" and may "be included in an eye-wear comprising a frame and a display assembly that presents media to a user's eyes."
SEE ALSO: Watch the weird new trailer for Oculus' first full-length VR movie
The so-called waveguide display with two-d

People living across the continental U.S. will have a chance to see a total solar eclipse for the first time in 99 years next week on Aug. 21, so you might be thinking about taking some pics. 
An event of this scale won't happen again until 2316 so it's understandable to want to whip out your iPhone and start shooting. (Another total solar eclipse will take place in 2024, but it won't cross the entire contiguous U.S., like this one.) Slow down, though. There are some things you should think