Technology news

Rogue One might have come out months ago, but Industrial Light and Magic just released a new highlights reel that shows how the post-production team used special effects to create the film's fantastic space battles, cityscapes, and characters.
The company released a pair of special effects reels earlier this year, one that showed off the Death Star blowing up planets, and another that showcased the Scarif space battle. This new video reveals even more of the work that earned the studio an Academ

The tacky-but-classic Big Mouth Billy Bass will soon be compatible with Amazon's Alexa assistant, according to Business Insider. This means the fish will be able to pair over Bluetooth and then lip sync and dance when music plays. I'm sure this is just what you all wanted: a connected, dancing silicon fish.
You'll presumably be able to cue it up through Alexa. Amazon says an updated Billy is coming later this year. I'm going to guess it'll be available in time for the holidays, of course.
A deve

Amazon announced its first ever update to the original Echo today — and it’s split the device in two. There’s now a smaller, cheaper, redesigned Echo with all the features of the original one; and there’s a more expensive Echo Plus that offers new smart home features and looks just like the original model.
Aside from a new silver color option, the Echo Plus really does look identical to the original model, but that hides just how much has changed inside. The Plus has a ne

EVE: Valkyrie, the multiplayer space dogfighting game that launched with the Oculus Rift in 2016, has gotten an update that makes the VR headset optional. The new expansion, called EVE: Valkyrie - Warzone, changes the Valkyrie gameplay pretty significantly. It reworks the fleet of ships to emphasize specific roles, removes the “launch tube” ship-selection system in favor of making all ships immediately available, sets up a new upgrade system, and adds a “capture the flag”

Google won’t tell Amazon why it blocked access to YouTube on its Echo Show device, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services said. Speaking to reporters at Amazon’s headquarters today, longtime Amazon exec Dave Limp said he would “send a team to Mountain View” tonight if Google would just specify what went wrong.
“It was a surprise to us,” Limp said, following an event in which Amazon introduced a series of new devices, including new iterati

Delta Air Lines announced today that it will be offering free access to in-flight internet for customers to access iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger on any flight with Gogo Wi-Fi starting October 1st, via 9to5Mac.There is a catch, though: when the company says “messaging,” they mean “text messaging” — so no pictures, videos, GIFs, or audio messages allowed.Still, considering Delta used to price in-flight messaging starting at $2.95 (prices varied depending

Anthony Levandowski is many things to many different people: brilliant engineer, serial entrepreneur, ruthless businessman, trade secret thief. (That last one is just alleged.) But now, thanks to an extensive profile in Wired, we can add another category to Levandowski’s long résumé: church founder.Levandowski, the multimillionaire who is at the center of the ongoing legal battle between Alphabet and Uber over autonomous driving technology, recently filed paperwork to create

The Terminator franchise is officially coming back. According to Variety, Deadpool’s Tim Miller will direct the film, with Terminator 2 director James Cameron returning as a producer. The untitled sequel will hit theaters on July 26th, 2019.
Cameron’s return to the franchise is certainly a move aimed at revitalizing it after a series of ill-advised sequels such as 2009’s Terminator: Salvation and 2015’s nostalgia-driven Terminator Genisys. Both films were attempts to rebo

 The biggest surprise of today’s secret Amazon event in Seattle was the sheer breadth of Echo-related announcements. Over the past several months, it’s seemed as if Amazon the company was moving more and more toward offloading hardware development to third-parties building Alexa into everything from thermostats to lamps. But the company’s first-party hardware continues to be… Read More

Amazon surprised everyone today with a press event that unveiled a bunch of new Echo hardware. The Echo speaker, originally launched in 2014, was overdue for an update after the company spun off devices with a camera and a touchscreen. Today’s event also introduced a refreshed Fire TV, just days after Apple launched its updated Apple TV with 4K support.
If you missed any of it, we have the biggest announcements right here.New Echo Spot
The most interesting announcement by far is the new Ec

Of the many new Echo devices announced by Amazon today, the Echo Spot is one that’ll likely be a hit this holiday season. The device is basically a smaller version of the Echo Show, Amazon’s first Echo device with a touchscreen. It includes a 2.5-inch screen that allows it to double as an alarm clock or a nursery camera, all while still being able to make video calls through the mini screen.
Amazon is hoping customers will buy multiple Spots and scatter them around the house. Things

Uber is shutting down its auto-leasing subsidiary, CNBC is reporting, as the company’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi looks to focus on improving Uber’s profit margin.“We have decided to stop operating Xchange Leasing and move towards a less capital-intensive approach,” a spokesperson told The Verge.“We have decided to stop operating Xchange Leasing.”
Uber signaled that it was willing to phase out its car-lending business last month, after The Wall Street Journal r

Amazon is launching its Echo Show device in the UK and Germany soon. The online retail giant is opening up preorders for the Echo Show today, priced at £199.99 in the UK and €219.99 in Germany. Originally launched in the US, the Echo Show has all the same features as a regular Echo but with a 7-inch display attached.
The touchscreen display is designed to allow Alexa to show much more content to you, like tutorial videos or recipes. While the Echo Show launched with YouTube support, G

A staggering 88 percent of American adults watched the solar eclipse on August 21stas it crossed the US. That’s 215 million people, most of whom went outside to see the event in person, according to a new study by the University of Michigan.
About 154 million people ventured outside to watch the Moon slowly creep in front of the Sun and then cover it, either partially or in full. The astronomical event was also live streamed, and about 61 million people viewed the eclipse electronically. T

Amazon just surprised us all with a surprise announcement to introduce a bunch of new Echo and Alexa devices just before the holiday season. Slotting its announcement right after the new Apple TV 4K launched and right before Google is expected to launch a new Google Home speaker, Amazon is here to remind us that its Alexa technology is still here, and it is still one of the most adopted in the majority of gadgets in the voice-activated industry. From a new and updated Fire TV set-top box to seve

Today, Amazon introduced the Echo Spot, a device with a small screen that serves as a kind of smart alarm clock. The Spot has a 2.5-inch screen and is an evolution of both the Echo Dot and the Echo Show, marrying a screen with the kind of small device that can be placed throughout the house, the company says. “It works great as an alarm clock. But it does a lot more,” Amazon devices chief Dave Limp said.Like the show, the Spot can be used to make video calls. It has built-in sound, b

It’s a day of Echo speakers: Amazon just announced a new Echo Plus speaker, in addition to a second-generation Echo and Echo Connect speaker phone.The new Echo Plus is set apart, though: its abilities double as a smart home hub, one that connects to various wireless protocols to set up and control connected home gadgets and appliances.The Echo Plus was built with Amazon’s “second-generation far-field microphones,” said Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of de

Amazon today introduced a new $69.99 Fire TV with HDR and 4K capabilities. The redesigned Fire TV is a small flat square dongle with an HDMI cable sticking out, and it again ships with an Alexa voice remote included. It’s basically a smaller version of the discontinued set-top box that now plugs into the back of your TV and hangs there. The previous Fire TV box already did 4K, but this one can now play it at 60 frames per second and adds HDR (high dynamic range) as a brand new feature to A

Saying “good morning” to your Echo could soon trigger a whole raft of commands. As part of the Amazon event in Seattle today, the company showed off a new API that lets developers build multi-step routines into simple Alexa commands.In a demonstration, Amazon device VIP Dave Limp said “Alexa, good morning,” which then triggered a sequence of events in the faux-home setting that Amazon set up in its headquarters for the event. First, the lights came on in the demonstration

Amazon announced a new member to its Echo family, called Echo Buttons, designed to offer physical interaction with other Echo devices, specifically for use in playing family games.The new devices are small and roughly hockey puck-shaped in size (think a sleeker version of Staples’ easy button, but one that lights up). The Echo Buttons will be able to connect to Echos with a new “Gadget API,” and owners will be able to use them to play games in conjunction with an Alexa device.

Google is apparently working on a larger, stereo speaker version of the Google Home called the Home “Max,” according to a report from 9to5Google.
Details on the device are currently slim. 9to5Google is reporting that the device is a larger and more expensive member of the Google Home line, with a “premium” design meant to take on products like the Sonos Play:3. Apple’s own high-end smart speaker, the HomePod, which is set to be released later this year, can presumab

Danganronpa is the PlayStation Vita’s best-kept secret. The high school murder mystery series combines a Hunger Games-style premise with sheer anime absurdity. Very little has changed in its third iteration, Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, but its simultaneous launch on PlayStation 4, with cross-play options, makes the experience a more accessible one.Since its arrival in Western territories in 2014, Danganronpa’s path to mainstream success hasn’t been stacked in its favor. Th

Amazon’s Echo products have always been good at voice-related functions except for one key voice-related function: making phone calls. Now there’s a new solution for that.At a hardware event today on its new Seattle campus today, Amazon announced the Echo Connect, a $35 speaker-phone device that plugs into the wall and lets US customers make phone calls through their Echo speakers. The call is tied to the owner’s phone number so receivers will still know who’s calling the