Technology news

Spoilers ahead for season 7 of Game of Thrones. Also: a lot of complaining. But some compliments too!A lot changed in season 7 of Game of Thrones. The season got shorter, while the episodes got longer. The pace accelerated rapidly. Characters who’ve been gone for years resurfaced; characters who haven’t seen each other in years reunited. Showrunners and writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss moved beyond the last of George R.R. Martin’s written material, and struck out on their o

China is cracking down on censorship once again, but this time things are a touch more serious. According to new rules published by China’s main internet censor last Friday, netizens who want to post comments online will now have to register with their real names. They can still use pseudonyms, but those names are tied to their real identities. These new rules come ahead of the communist party’s 19th National Congress, which convenes this autumn and is usually a time when the regime

ANALYSIS: Despite the warm response to news that Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has been selected to lead Uber, the odds of him being successful remain long.
His list of challenges appears to be infinite.
Repairing a culture rife with sexual harassment. Restoring public perceptions of the company. Uniting a divided board. Settling copious legal problems, including one involving the company’s largest investor. Finding short-term liquidity for some employees and investors. Hiring a compe

Actor Ed Skrein (Deadpool) has announced he’ll no longer be playing Major Ben Daimio in the upcoming Hellboy reboot, citing the importance of representation in film casting. Skrein joined the project just last week, but the decision to cast him as Daimio, a Japanese-American character in the comic books, was quickly met with backlash and accusations of whitewashing.“It is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people, and that to ne

The numbers are in, and last night’s Game of Thrones season 7 finale was the most-watched episode in the history of the series. That claim might sound a little familiar, but according to HBO a whopping 12.1 million viewers tuned in for the live broadcast of “The Dragon and the Wolf” last night. That number jumps to 16.5 million if you include streaming services like HBO Go.
A whopping 12.1 million viewers (not even counting streaming)
It’s another big victory for everyone

Human Head Studios is back with a sequel to one of its first games. The company announced Rune: Ragnarok today, which is the followup to its 2000 PC action-adventure Rune. Like the original, Rune: Ragnarok will take place in a world of Norse mythology. This updated take will have a heavier focus on role-playing elements while also giving players an open world to explore.
This is the first Rune since 2001’s Viking Warlord for PlayStation 2. The Madison, Wisconsin-based Human Head did not sa

DJI says a third-party company collected data about drone users without their permission, and it's now revoking the plugin's access in a new software update. The company clarified the situation in a blog post today, saying that a third-party plugin called JPush was used in its DJI GO and DJI GO 4 apps for Android to help serve push notifications when video files were uploaded to DJI’s SkyPixel video sharing platform.Although JPush wouldn't have needed much data to complete the job, DJI say

Here we are on the other side of Game of Thrones’ penultimate season. How does it feel? Are you listening to your break-up playlists in honor of Jaime and Cersei, or your twinkly sex-song playlists in honor of that other pair of close relatives? Are you drinking red wine with your breakfast in celebration of some first-rate drunken diplomacy, or are you munching on bugs, training yourself to subsist on lean proteins in preparation for a hard winter? Are you crying because it’s over,

Facebook added an additional defense today against the spread of fake news and viral hoaxes. If a Facebook page is found to be repeatedly sharing false stories, the company will ban the page from advertising on Facebook. The company uses third-party fact-checking organizations to flag stories that are false. Under Facebook’s rules, advertisers are already not allowed to run ads that link to false stories, but this new update takes that ban a step further.
In a blog post, the company says i

Microsoft is working on a Halo virtual reality experience for its Windows Mixed Reality platform. Developer 343 Industries, the studio responsible for overseeing Halo, has previously created demonstrations for the HoloLens augmented-reality headset that is still in early testing at Microsoft. But now, the 343 team developing a Halo game that is among the first wave of content to hit the mixed reality fork of Windows as a full consumer product. Windows Mixed Reality is Microsoft’s attempt t

There are basically two kinds of Android devices out there in the world — ones that are certified by Google and come preinstalled with Google apps (including the Play Store), and ones that aren’t. While Google has been certifying Android devices for a while, today the company announced that it’s making it a bit easier to make sure that you’re getting a certified Android device with a new program that will put a Google Play Protect logo directly on your phone’s packa

(Reuters) — Wearable device maker Fitbit Inc on Monday launched its newest device, the Ionic smartwatch, with features ranging from fitness tracking to contactless payment, as it gears up to compete with rivals such as Apple Inc.
Once the market leader in wearables, Fitbit has recently struggled due to fierce competition and had earlier blamed a shift among consumers toward feature-rich devices and smartwatches for its revenue decline.
Ionic smartwatches will feature GPS, heart rate tracki

Google Play announced the 20 finalists for its second annual Google Play Indie Games Festival. The festival celebrates Android mobile games by independent developers and will take place on September 23 in San Francisco at Spin, a restaurant and event space.
The event is free, and attendees will be able to play the games and vote for their favorites. A panel of industry judges will select three winners. Around 300 people showed up at last year’s event, and Google Play intends to continue to

Three months after raising more than $500 million, Chicago tech darling Outcome Health announced today it has made a prominent hire — Twitter’s former vice president of engineering, Nandini Ramani, who will join the company as its chief engineering officer.
Outcome Health, founded in 2006 as Context Media, digitizes educational information that used to be displayed on pamphlets and posters in waiting rooms. Some of the company’s products include a digital anatomy board, which p

As new smartphone models hit the market this approaching autumn, it’s not only everyday consumers who are thinking of switching phones. The New York City Police Department says it will give up its 36,000 Windows phones and transition to iPhones by the end of the year.
The switch is prompted in part by news in July that Microsoft was ending support for Windows Phone 8.1, which a large percentage of all Windows-powered phones are still using. It’s a predictable end to the Windows phone

Though Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane on August 25th, it’s still dangerous despite its downgrade to a tropical storm. The worry isn’t the winds — which are how hurricanes are categorized — but the rain. The storm is expected to continue dumping rain across southeast Texas, and its heaviest rains haven’t yet hit the state.“We think the heaviest rainfall will be today and tomorrow,” says Dan Petersen, a forecaster with the Weather Predictio

EXCLUSIVE: In a mobile marketing world full of shiny new objects, sometimes it is the tried and trusted tactics that produce results.
Push notifications, for example, still drive outstanding returns. In fact, the data tells us that push notifications alone increase user purchases by 9.6X.
That’s according to a new report by Leanplum that was released today. According to the study — which takes in data from more than 56 million activities between December 1, 2016 and June 1, 2017

The US Food and Drug Administration has stopped a California company from continuing to inject the smallpox vaccine into the tumors of cancer patients.Last Friday, US marshals seized five vials of the smallpox vaccine from San Diego-based StemImmune Inc, which was using them as part of an unproven method for treating tumors. (The FDA found out about the vials from previous StemImmune inspections.) Each of the vials included 100 doses of the vaccine, and one of them was partially used. The vaccin

Hulu just announced that The CW has agreed to join its new live TV streaming service. This means CW shows like Riverdale, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Supernatural will see a simultaneous broadcast on Hulu’s live service when they air on linear TV. Hulu says the network’s shows will be available to watch “in the coming months.” Hulu has already signed similar deals with Disney, including ESPN, and channels like HGTV and Food Network.
Certain CW series have been available on H

PRESS RELEASE:Symantec CEO, LifeLock, Crosspoint, Ariba founders, and Hanna Ventures back comprehensive strategy to give consumers flexible identities for greater privacy and safety in the digital world.SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–August 28, 2017– Anonyome Labs, a consumer privacy startup from cybersecurity veteran Steve Shillingford, announced today it has closed a $20.4 million Series B round, on the strength of its consumer privacy and safety platform. Anonyome’s ap

Sony is dropping the price of its two PlayStation VR bundles. The company announced today that it will start selling the $399 “core” PSVR set — which previously included only the headset — with a PlayStation Camera, which has a $59 list price. The more expensive $499 bundle, which includes a camera, two PlayStation Move controllers, and the Sony-produced minigame collection PlayStation Worlds, has been dropped to $449. Both bundles will go on sale September 1st.
PlayStati

When images of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle first leaked ahead of E3 this year, it felt like a joke. Here was Nintendo’s most important character paired with… a Minion-like rabbit taking selfies in Princess Peach cosplay? Things got even stranger as more details emerged. Not only was the mash-up real, it was a turn-based strategy game in the XCOM mold, complete with Mario, Luigi, and crew wielding laser-spewing guns. But the biggest surprise is that Mario + Rabbids isn’t jus

In the near future, you might ask your email client how to get an introduction to a new professional contact. That’s the idea behind the latest updates to Trove, a service that’s designed to analyze users’ email messages and provide them with insights about their professional network.
The update, which is available today on iOS and Android, will allow people to create teams with Trove so that they can pool their connections and help each other get introduced to the right people

REVIEW: Never have I thought to myself, “Gee, I wish I could play Dance Dance Revolution with my thumbs.” Then, along came The Metronomicon: Slay the Dance Floor, a riotous rhythm and role-playing game mashup. The Puuba Games studio released The Metronomicon last year, but this expansion has some new goodies: local multiplayer, a new character, new challenges, and passive abilities that are unlocked when you’re on a hot streak. Oh, and of course, some toe-tappin’ tun

Boosted, the company known for making the best all-electric longboards on the market, is changing up its executive ranks. Founder Sanjay Dastoor is stepping down from the CEO role and into a position on the company’s board of directors. In his place, Jeff Russakow — an executive who’s spent time at Yahoo, Symantec, and Adobe, to name a few — is the new CEO of Boosted.Russakow spoke exclusively with The Verge ahead of the announcement (he’ll also be doing a Reddit AM

ANALYSIS: Amazon closed its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market today, kicking off a new chapter not only for these two players but for the entire retail industry.
The companies, which outlined their plans in a joint statement last week, are wasting no time making changes that will affect their customers. Starting today, Whole Foods will offer lower prices on a range of produce, meat, and other staples, and Amazon will start upgrading the stores’ point-of-sales systems to offer it

Apple is reportedly holding an event on September 12th to launch the next iPhone, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The company is expected to release three new devices — a new flagship device (possibly called the iPhone 8), with a new edge-to-edge OLED display and 3D face scanning technology, along with updated versions of the current iPhone 7 and 7 Plus that are rumored to add an updated glass back design and wireless charging.Apple has yet to send out invitations to an

Insta360 has launched the One, a 4K, 360-degree video camera with a unique feature that allows you to shoot the video first and then set the point of view later, during postproduction.
The Los Angeles startup said the FreeCapture technology on the camera is a breakthrough in immersive storytelling, allowing people to capture and share framed video in a new way.
“We set out to make the easiest-to-use, most versatile 360 camera in the world, and the One is the result of those efforts,”

Shenzen-based Insta360 has been making 360-degree cameras for a few years now, but — like most consumer 360-degree cameras — none of them have been anything terribly special. The resolution is usually spotty, the image stitching is noticeable, and they don’t help solve the problem of when, where, and how we should use 360 cameras. That changes today with new $299 Insta360 One.The shape of a Beats Pill speaker, but the size of small sausage link, the new camera won’t blow

Apple's planning to release WatchOS 4 to Apple Watch wearers in the near future, and up until now, we haven't heard much about how workouts will change. Today, however, iHelp BR says it's discovered a host of new icons that it thinks indicate support for a wider variety of workouts.The icons depict the following activities: badminton, barre, baseball, step training, surfing, sailing, skating, snow sports, pilates, paddle sports, kickboxing, jump rope, lacrosse, stretching, functional strength tr

Fitbit just announced a new smart scale, the Aria 2, that has a new design and updated features compared to the company's original Aria scale.
According to Fitbit, the Aria 2 is easier to setup over Bluetooth directly on your smartphone using the Fitbit app than the original Aria, and offers more accurate readings. The Aria 2 is also able to recognize up to eight users, making it possible to share a single device with multiple family members.The Aria has been due for an upgrade for a while, give

If you're having trouble playing television audio though your Sonos Playbar then you can take comfort in knowing you're not alone. Owners of the Sonos soundbar speaker have been reporting a variety of audio issues, apparently linked to the latest version 7.4 software update released last week.
Reported issues vary from complete audio loss when DirectTV is on, for example, to audio loss on just some television channels like Sky News and ITV4, to a delay of up to 60 seconds when playing from sourc

Amazon closes its Whole Foods acquisition deal today, making the supermarket chain an official subsidiary of the online giant. But if you haven’t been following the news, the next time you enter a Whole Foods, it should seem abundantly clear. As of opening time for most Whole Foods stores on the east coast, Amazon already marked its territory with display stands for Echo smart speakers.
The display cheekily passes the Amazon Echo off as another one of Whole Foods’ “Pick of The

This season of Game of Thrones has felt like a sprint, packing in huge plot points, long-awaited reveals, and action-packed sequences in record time. The season finale, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” hewed to that formula from the very first frame. Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, and Cersei Lannister all ended up in the same location at the same time. The Clegane brothers finally faced off, if only for a moment. Littlefinger finally ended up on the losing end of a manipulation gone wrong.

Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality headsets recently started shipping to developers, but they won’t really feel complete until people can get their hands on the accompanying motion controllers, which go on sale this holiday. Microsoft first revealed these controllers in May, and we finally got to check them out a little bit last week, in advance of a public appearance at the IFA electronics show. They’re not the most elegant hardware, but they’re an impressive technical ac

Dell has unveiled more details for its Dell Visor virtual reality and mixed reality headset debuting on October 17.
The new headset is part of Microsoft’s push to support mixed reality technology on the PC, and the company’s goal is to bring VR to more consumers and enterprises. Dell plans to sell the headset for $350 and the hand controllers for $100. All told, a full PC system with the Visor could bring down the cost of PC VR to about $1,000, compared to about $2,000 in 2016. Dell

Fitbit is officially getting into the smartwatch business with the Fitbit Ionic. While the company has dabbled in fitness-focused watches before with the Fitbit Blaze, the Ionic is the company’s first (and long-awaited) true smartwatch, distinguished by its support of third-party apps.But given how late to the game Fitbit is compared to its competitors, expectations are high.
The Ionic will cost $299.95 when it’s released sometime in October
First off, the hardware: the Ionic is buil

Fitbit is jumping headfirst into the smartwatch market with the newly announced Ionic. But alongside its new wearable, the fitness tracker company is also entering another new field today: headphones, with the new Fitbit Flyer.The Flyers are a fairly ordinary pair of fitness-focused Bluetooth headphones. They’re designed to be sweat-proof and water resistant, so they’ll survive a serious workout or a sudden rain shower. Fitbit claims they’ll last around six hours of use off a s

Dell is launching a series of new Inspiron- and XPS-branded laptops and tablet-laptop hybrids that use Intel’s latest 8th Generation Core processors. That means they’re going to be speedier for people who want to watch videos, multitask, and have all-day battery life.
The new models include four different laptops that are targeted at specific parts of the market and feature Intel processors that are 44 percent faster than previous-generation chips. Dell is showing the laptops at the

The final piece to LG’s V30 puzzle — after the bezel-starved 6-inch OLED display and amped-up camera capabilities — was always going to be a return to LG’s strength of audio processing. Today LG has confirmed that the widely lauded Quad DAC system of the predecessor V20 is returning in the V30, now with an upgraded set of customization options. Powered by the ESS Sabre ES9218P digital-to-analog converter, LG’s audio system can rival dedicated portable music players,