Technology news

Artificial Intelligence is getting hip by learning about tattoos. A couple of developers for the app Tattoodo wanted a better way to categorize all the tat pics they receive, so they built an algorithm. The pair created a neural-network and taught it how to use an iPhone camera to determine the style of a tattoo. The process involved using a deep-learning framework called Caffe, and feeding it data-sets with images representative of different tattoo styles. Once the initial training session was

GUEST: Tech entrepreneurs are the cool kids on the block. Whereas young people once aspired to be rockstars or astronauts, today they dream of being startup founders, flush with venture capital and working out of sleek, open-plan offices in San Francisco’s trendy SoMa district or New York’s bustling Flatiron neighborhood.
Every year, countless founders make their way to these golden cities, armed with little more than a dream and a prayer. But truth be told, these entrepreneurs are m

After a slight delay and subsequent missed targets, the Essential Phone is finally, actually, really, officially shipping to customers. Andy Rubin’s new company just tweeted that those who’ve been charged for the phone should be on the lookout for tracking information to arrive by email sometime today. “We appreciate everyone’s patience,” Essential added.The $700 phone will be going it alone for now — Essential’s 360-degree camera module isn’t yet

VB LIVE: Virtual reality is an entirely new way of interacting with content, but is the technology too new to engender consumer confidence? Join our latest VB Live event for insight into the future of VR commerce and how payment technology can revolutionize – and monetize — VR experiences.
Register here for free.
At the end of last year, 6.3 million VR machines were in the field; VentureBeat’s most recent research estimates that we’re going to hit 35 million units by the

Wonder Woman is a feminist icon. She’s also a sex symbol. She’s a wish-fulfillment power fantasy and a sexual fantasy, which is part of why she’s had such lasting appeal to fans all over the gender spectrum. But her sex appeal has been a consistent cause of consternation for critics, fans, and casual passersby since her earliest days as a comic-book character.
Director James Cameron is the latest commenter to claim there’s a contradiction there, that feminism and sexiness

Microsoft is no longer selling its original Xbox One in the US. The software giant only offers retail versions of the Xbox One S and Xbox One X at its online store, with just $199 refurbished models of the original Xbox One available. Kotaku UK reports that while the original Xbox One has vanished from the US store, Microsoft’s UK store simply lists the old console as “sold out.”
The original Xbox One, that resembled a VCR unit, first launched nearly four years ago priced $100

When given the chance, zebrafish willingly dose themselves with opioids — even putting themselves at risk in order to get their fix.Scientists tested the drug-seeking behavior in a tank that allows the fish to trigger the release of the opioid hydrocodone in the water. The new tool, described in a study published online today in Behavioral Brain Research, can be used to study the underlying biological pathways that push zebrafish to seek drugs. And because zebrafish and humans are surprisi

Missing: The Complete Saga is in the final days of its Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a different kind of game. It’s about the experience of being a victim of child sex trafficking, something that happens every 26 seconds around the world.
This indie game comes from Leena Kejriwal, who has been working for a decade in an effort to stop sex trafficking of little girls in India, and game studio Flying Robot Studios in Kolkata, India. The idea is to use art and technology to drive so

In celebration of the 15th anniversary of Focus Features, the studio will be throwing itself a trio of weird, sad birthday parties on Facebook Live.The first will be tonight at 9 PM ET, at which time you can log on to Facebook and go to the Focus Feature page and enjoy a free screening of the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries. Gael García Bernal stars in this coming-of-age film / Che Guevara biopic set in the early 1950s, and the film ends with a brief mention of the fact that Guevara was

Few cliffhangers in video game history are as cruel as the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, where Valve left the story of former theoretical physicist and crowbar aficionado Gordon Freeman for, as of this writing, nearly ten years. But this morning, science fiction author and former Valve employee Marc Laidlaw posted a thinly veiled conclusion to the series — intriguing but bittersweet news for anyone still holding out hope for another Half-Life game.
Laidlaw’s “Epistle 3”

 Pioneer’s new AVH-2330NEX, which the company officially revealed at CES this year and started shipping just recently, offers both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in a single package, which is very convenient if you happen to spend time on both platforms. It also offers a CD/DVD slot, accessible via the sliding front faceplate, and a 7-inch resistive touchscreen with 800×480 screen… Read More

Every Friday night, folks from around the games industry get together for the Family Chicken Dinner Invitational Tournament on Twitch. This is a broadcast of friendly exhibitions in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the last-person-standing shooter from developer Bluehole. In the Family Dinner, teams of developers, media personalities, and others — as well as viewers — try to survive and kill their way to a win and a delightful meal packed with protein in a variety of custom match

Atif Siddiqi has been busy. Since his company Branch Messenger graduated from Techstars‘ first retail accelerator class last year, the company has increased its staff, moved operations from Pasadena, California to downtown Minneapolis, and raised $10 million in funding, exceeding Branch’s Techstars classmates.
Branch makes software that helps hourly workers manage their schedules. The company’s shift managing and communication system allows employees to

As we draw nearer to Apple’s September iPhone event, the rumor mill only grows louder. And one of the loudest rumors, one we’ve been hearing since February, is that the next generation iPhone will feature wireless charging. We can, with a reasonable amount of confidence, confirm that rumor today. In the weeks leading up to a launch event of this magnitude, the rumor mill begins spinning at a frenzied pace. Anonymous tips come in by the truckload, and few, if any, of these revelation

Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney thinks that mobile game publishers lost sight of what was good for players when they turned up the crank on monetization in the past seven years. That helped mobile gaming rocket to the top of the entire industry, growing to $46 billion in 2017, but it also soured a lot of players on excessive monetization practices.
Mahoney is working with developers like Cliff Bleszinski (head of Boss Key Productions, maker of LawBreakers) and others to make games with fun gameplay and l

Autonomous cars are coming, regardless of how I feel — and sooner than I think. Elon Musk’s lofty prediction that we’ll have driverless cars by 2021 sounds absurd, but the evidence bears him out. Even major car companies like Ford are going all-in on the concept, and I get to bear witness to just how many new innovations are made daily. But I don’t think I’ll be getting one. I know there will always be degrees of autonomy in cars. There may be a time in the near fu

Last night, The Verge and at least three other outlets received an email from someone claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of bitcoin. The email we received was brief and to the point: “I met with the SEC yesterday. I am ready to talk.”
The individual declined to give his legal name, but said recent leaks had forced him to speak to the press, even as he intended to remain anonymous. At the same time, he claimed that various agencies in the government, including th

Hurricane Harvey is expected to hit Texas tonight — and residents of cities like Corpus Christi and Port Mansfield could face coastal flooding, torrential rains, and winds of up to 110 miles per hour. In such emergency situations, it’s smart to have a Go Bag ready with basic necessities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends stockpiling enough emergency supplies to last you, your loved ones, and your pets roughly three days. These emergency kits should be ready before th

Netflix today released the trailer for Black Mirror’s fourth season. The 50-second long tour de force features the titles of all six upcoming episodes and a few tasty seconds from each. The previous three seasons of the technology-thriller anthology series have been met with critical acclaim, while quickly becoming a favorite for technology aficionados. Having touched on topics like the dangers of drones, bionic implants, and using humans as an alternative source of energy, we can expect

OPINION: When I was shopping for my last laptop, I made a conscious effort to exclude all models with touchscreens. It was an easy way to narrow down the choices and made sense to me: Any money I could save on opting out of the touchscreen would be better served to beef up any other hardware component, or could just stay in my pocket. I had accepted that touchscreens made sense for smartphones and tablets but were useless in traditional computers.
Now, I’m not so sure.
I’ve been play

Google Chrome will soon allow users to permanently mute websites, a feature that will bring joy to millions who suffer through autoplaying videos on (annoying) websites every day. Spotted by Android Police, the feature is currently available in the experimental Canary build of the browser.Google’s François Beaufort announced the addition this morning, noting that the Chrome team is still “experimenting with a setting to mute / unmute a website directly from the Page Info bubbl

Earlier this week, news broke that Martin Scorsese would reportedly be producing a Joker origin-story film for Warner Bros. But the most interesting part of the announcement wasn’t Scorsese’s involvement, or the idea of digging into the Joker’s history again — it was the fact that the planned prequel wouldn’t be set in the existing DC Extended Universe film franchise, alongside Suicide Squad and Justice League. Instead, it’d be part of a new sub-series of DC m

Hello and welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Nintendo finally adopts PayPal support, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ first tournament was a success, and the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) organization is under fire for how it’s separating an esports tournament based on gender.
Oh, and don’t forget to check out our Madden NLF 18 guide for the franchise mode if you plan to pick up this year’s football game!
Pieces of flair and opini

James Cameron, a director perhaps best known for the Dances with Wolves rip-off where aliens have sex by plugging their hair into each other, recently offered up some thoughts on Wonder Woman.
In an interview with The Guardian, he said, amidst a long and confusing conversation about “strong, independent women” in film and his personal life, that he did not care for the film or its reception. “All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder W

This week on The Verge, Dieter was able to get his hands on the new Galaxy Note 8. So on The Vergecast, Nilay, Dieter, and Paul go over the first impressions of Samsung’s latest product and what the pricing will mean for future smartphones.Next up, Loren Grush returns to the show to talk about the second episode of Space Craft, as well as her experience seeing the eclipse this week in Nashville.There’s a lot more in between, like Android Oreo’s name announcement, Verizon’

Everyone who reads this website, The Verge, and this blog, Circuit Breaker, should know my feelings on pods. I'm not going to rehash them, but have linked back for your convenience. I will say, however, I am ready for a pod future, where all my goods are proprietary and available in single-servings. Why not!
Today we learned that pods are coming to diffusers. Pium, a smart diffuser, will be on show at the IFA tech conference in Berlin next week. It'll sit alongside Samsung Electronics because ap

Facebook is one of the easiest ways to take a stroll down memory lane, what with its endless collection of your ancient photos and comments. But while Facebook usually highlights memories from years past, now it’s adding options for more recent memories too. The company is today launching a new experience that recaps memories from the past month or season. At first glance, it’s a little puzzling; we imagine most people don’t have such short term recollection that they need to

Google Assistant for iOS is now available in Europe, as Google rolls out the app to the UK, Germany and France today. Assistant for iOS was first announced at Google I/O earlier this year, alongside a release for US users.The iOS version of Google’s virtual assistant is slightly more limited than the Android version, largely due to Apple’s API restrictions that prevent it from higher level system functions, like settings alarms or working as a true replacement for Siri on your home b

In the past nine years, I’ve written around 10,000 stories on games. In this column, I’m going to mention quotes from about 10 of those stories I’ve written. These ten quotes tell me something about the state of the game business today.
I spoke about this at the Devcom event in Cologne, Germany, this week. I called the talk Strategic Zoom, because of Chris Taylor’s game, Supreme Commander. It was a beautiful real-time strategy game where you zoom in on soldiers fighting a

Apple announced today that its App Development with Swift curriculum will be taught at over 30 community college systems this coming school year,Designed by Apple to teach students without any coding experience how to build apps in Swift
The course — which is already available through iBooks — was designed by Apple to teach students without any coding experience how to build iOS and Mac apps using Swift, Apple’s open source programming language. Apple CEO Tim Cook explained tha

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 ho

What if your gaming laptop just looked like a laptop? That was the promise of Nvidia’s Max-Q tech that the company announced earlier this year — a new specification that could put the company’s most powerful GPUs into laptops that were just as thin, light, and quiet as a regular machine.
The $2,699 Asus ROG Zephyrus is one of the first Max-Q designed laptops to come out, and it only partially succeeds. Taken as a gaming laptop, the Zephryus is one of the thinnest and most power

Yoshiaki Koizumi has been the face of the Nintendo Switch ever since its launch event in January, but he’s also been intimately involved with the Super Mario series for decades, serving as assistant director on the groundbreaking Super Mario 64 and directing the subsequent Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy.That continues with Super Mario Odyssey for the Nintendo Switch, which Koizumi is producing. I got to play it for the first time at this week’s Gamescom trade show in Col

A number of Google Voice users are having trouble receiving text messages, according to user reports. In a thread in Google’s Help forum spotted by Android Police, users have complained that while they can still send text messages through the VoIP service, text messages sent to them have not been showing up.The issue seems to be present on both mobile and desktop, and Google has said it’s looking into the problem, but as of right now there isn’t a fix. “Thanks for reporti

Struggling Chinese conglomerate LeEco has resurfaced with an upcoming Kickstarter campaign, of all things, for a hybrid skateboard-scooter. The Scooterboard, as it’s known, is a lightweight, foldable, electric lean-to-steer rideable with a stated maximum speed of 15.5 mph and a range of 9.3 miles. The design features a single curved handle with three wheels that kind of looks like your grandparent’s orthopedic crutch. Designers say that the idea originated when the team members strug

RHA is expanding their consumer line and will debut several new earphone models at IFA 2017 in Berlin next week. The company makes pretty decent earphones — the T20i among them.In a review, Vlad found that “they sound great.” Those retailed for $249.95, so can be seen as a little pricey for the average consumer.RHA, which stands for Reid Health Acoustics, isn’t quite as well known as some other well-established headphone makers, but past placement in the Apple Store has h