Technology news

After Call of Duty: WWII launched last week, many players found the game struggling to maintain a solid connection. Through its November 3 launch and into the weekend, fans reported issues getting into multiplayer games. By Sunday, however, developer Sledgehammer had launched a patch to deal with the problem.
Since the update, WWII’s stability has improved a lot. I’ve had no issues finding online multiplayer gunfights. But Sledgehammer’s fix is a bandage; it beefed up its serve

GUEST: By definition, museums store and display objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural significance. Want to see dinosaur skeletons, medical oddities, Civil War weapons, or Renoir masterpieces? There’s a museum out there for you. But without relatability and modern storytelling, even the most captivating exhibits can be, well, a bit stuffy and boring. Especially for young people who are used to rich, complex multimedia experiences.
Scoff at generational expectations if yo

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which famously flew by Pluto in 2015, is now heading toward a very old, icy object at the edge of the Solar System — and the space agency wants your help in giving this world a new nickname.
The probe’s new destination is an object in the Kuiper Belt — the large cloud of small bodies that orbit beyond Neptune — and the space rock’s name is, to put it bluntly, a mess. The official title is (486958) 2014 MU69, a bunch of numbers t

Apple plans to give developers more freedom over the introductory pricing levels of in-app subscriptions. As referenced in the iOS 11.2 beta release notes, noted by 9to5Mac, Apple plans to expand pricing options from full price and free to include a new, discounted option to entice new subscribers to sign up for a subscription with auto-pay enabled. Prior to today, developers were only allowed to use single-use free trials as an incentivize to get users to enroll in auto-pay. It’s unclear

Google and Salesforce announced a massive strategic partnership today that’s aimed at driving value across their mutual customers.
As part of the deal, Salesforce plans to use Google Cloud Platform infrastructure as a preferred partner to power the tech titan’s international expansion. Google, for its part, will use Salesforce as its preferred CRM provider for selling its cloud services.
In addition, Salesforce is working to integrate its data with Google’s G Suite productivity

Every day, Chrono.gg features a single game at a discount. To get the word out about these one-day sales, the digital retailer works with YouTube creators and broadcasters on the livestreaming platform Twitch. It wants to help people find new games, with an added bonus of enabling YouTubers and Twitch streamers to get a revenue share from what they’re promoting on their channels.
“The business was really born out of the very strong belief that influencer marketing is not ju

The Paradise Papers have shed light on Apple’s shifting strategy for taking advantage of offshore tax rules. The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC News all have reports detailing how, in 2014, Apple moved two subsidiaries from Ireland to Jersey, described by The Guardian as “a crown dependency of the UK, which makes its own laws and is not subject to most EU legislation, making it a popular tax haven.” Jersey, according to the Times, “typically does not tax corporate

GUEST: The phrase “Sputnik moment” refers to the October 4, 1957, launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, by Sergei Korolyov for the Soviet Union. It was this American fear of the technological gap between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that ignited the space race to put a man on the moon. Nowadays the phrase is commonly used to describe the United States’ need to keep pace with the rapid development of other countries.
Today’s Sputnik moment is Chi

The city of Las Vegas is expanding its experiment with autonomous technology, offering members of the public free rides on a self-driving shuttle bus making stops in the city’s congested downtown. The shuttle will only make three stops on its 0.6-mile loop, but its operators are calling it “the largest self-driving pilot project in the US.”The shuttle, which is designed by a French startup called Navya, can seat up to eight passengers, including a safety driver. So while the ve

21st Century Fox has been in talks to sell most of its company to Disney, according to a report by CNBC. The discussions are said to have centered around Fox shedding its film and TV divisions, networks like FX and National Geographic, and the company’s stakes in international networks like Star TV and Sky.Fox is said to be primarily interested in selling its entertainment divisions in order to focus on what the company’s management is said to view as its most profitable areas; selli

Beneath Death Coming’s cheery graphics lurks a dark sense of humor. As the tiny sprites go about their business, they’re blissfully unaware that you’re plotting their deaths. You play as the Grim Reaper in the debut title from Chinese indie developer Next Studio, which is now available on Steam Early Access for PC.
As the Grim Reaper, you track your targets as they wander around the map. You avoid angels, which patrol the area and will “arrest” you if they catc

The ACLU of Northern California issued a press release today saying it intends to defend a blogger who has drawn the ire of Taylor Swift.On October 25th, writer Meghan Herning received a letter from Swift’s legal team demanding the removal and retraction of a blog post she wrote in September titled “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation.” The post appeared on PopFront, a tiny pop culture blog with 78 Twitter followers.
The post details how

After years of sparring in the courts, Apple has once and for all claimed victory over Samsung to the count of $120 million. The Supreme Court said today that it wouldn’t hear an appeal of the patent infringement case, first decided in 2014, which has been bouncing through appeals courts in the years since.
The case revolved around Apple’s famous slide-to-unlock patent and, among others, its less-famous quick links patent, which covered software that automatically turned information

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds won’t launch on Xbox One until next month, but players aren’t waiting to get into some battle royal action on consoles and PC. Epic’s Fortnite, which has a free last-player-standing mode, has surpassed 20 million total players, according to the developer. This is not earning any money directly for Epic, but it is raising the profile of the Fortnite brand and its paid defensive shooter mode.
Fortnite is available on PC as well as Xbox One and

Comcast's internet service, Xfinity, appears to be suffering an outage across the country. DownDetector.com shows it being down around the United States, including inlarge cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston. So far, online reports don't suggest that TV service or home phones are affected.
This looks bad: https://t.co/MnIJMfLjG3 pic.twitter.com/4Al33UbbE7— Eric Neustadter (e) (@thevowel) November 6, 2017Comcast confirmed the reports in a tweet on its customer care account.
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This past weekend, Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok became the studio’s 17th straight number-one opening, thanks to a well-established formula of heroic action moments, grand mythology, and evil entities eager to destroy the universe. The format fits the familiar pattern of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Ragnarok nevertheless stands out due to the unique comic sensibilities of director Taika Waititi. He doesn’t take himself — or superheroes — too seriously, and he heavil

PRESS RELEASE: SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–November 6, 2017– Generation Investment Management LLP, a long-term, sustainability-focused investment firm, has today announced the launch of its 2017 Sustainability Trends Report. This report will be updated on an annual basis and documents the commercial progress being made towards a more sustainable global economy. It covers five key sectors: Mobility, Energy, Built Environment, Food Systems and Wellbeing. The report highlights a

Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has announced that its new flagship OnePlus 5T smartphone will launch at an event in Brooklyn, New York, on November 16.
While all will be revealed about the OnePlus 5T in exactly 10 days time, we do already know for sure that it will come with a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The launch comes five months after OnePlus unveiled the OnePlus 5 at an event in London. The Brooklyn event will be the first time OnePlus has hosted a keynote in New York, but, curiously, the compa

People recognize Tivoli Audio for its wooden, classic gadget designs, and today, the company is launching a wireless subwoofer called the Model Sub. It can pair over Wi-Fi with any products from the company's Art line, including the Model One Digital, the Sphera, and the Cube.The Sub looks like a rectangular platform with engraved branding across the front. It can lie flat, hang on a wall, or stand on the floor. It costs $399.99, and you'll need at least two additional speakers to create a full

GUEST: If it seems like rural Americans face an uphill fight, it’s because they do. Research shows that job growth in rural areas significantly lags job growth in urban areas and still has not returned to 2008 pre-financial crisis levels. Prime-age (25-54) workers in rural areas are also poorer than their urban counterparts, and a disproportionately high percentage of rural workers are affected by changes in technology and environment regulations.
However, it isn’t all bad news

OnePlus is just a week away from unveiling its next phone. The company announced today that it’ll be holding a launch event for the OnePlus 5T — a rumored revamped, larger version of this year’s OnePlus 5 — on Thursday, November 16th.
We’re getting some launch details early, too. OnePlus says the 5T will go on sale in North American and Europe just a week later, on November 21st. It’ll be widely available in India starting November 28th, and it’ll come t

If you’ve ever accidentally sent an embarrassing text to the wrong person, you know the horrible, sinking feeling that settles in your chest when you realize that your ill-considered words or provocative photos have gone astray — and there’s no taking them back.
That sense of horror is the animating force behind Social Sabotage, BuzzFeed’s new “awkward party game.” The concept is simple: players receive cards that tell them where to share a message or video (y

Motorola’s Alexa speaker Moto Mod for its Moto Z phones — officially known as the Moto Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa — will be available for preorders starting on November 7th for $149.99. The attachment will be available a week later on BestBuy.com and Motorola.com, starting November 13th, and will come to Verizon a few days after that on the 16th.
As noted when Motorola first announced the Moto Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa, it’s worth remembering that you can just

The Walking Dead is back, and for us here at The Verge that’s an opportunity to examine just how effective the show can be in creating a complex villain. As played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, big bad Negan has always been violent. But due to his man-baby antics, he’s stubbornly remained a comic book thug, never truly becoming the nuanced character the show so sorely needs.
Each week, I’ll be analyzing a new episode of The Walking Dead through its presentation of Negan: how he acts,

PRESS RELEASE: NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–November 6, 2017– Stonehenge NYC and Rhino announced today that new residents across Stonehenge NYC’s 22 apartment buildings now have the option to sign up for Rhino and avoid paying an upfront security deposit commonly required by New York residential landlords. This innovative new alternative will allow residents to save thousands on upfront move-in costs. With Rhino, renters pay a small monthly fee through the term of their lease

ANALYSIS: Last month, Ann Arbor-based startup Duo Security announced that it had raised a new $70 million round, valuing the company at $1.17 billion. That made Duo Security — which creates a two-factor authentication app for enterprise companies — the first unicorn company in Ann Arbor, and its $70 million series D the largest round of venture capital raised by any company in Michigan history.
Duo Security’s fresh round of funding is just one in a number of positive signs of g

Drones are tons of fun, but also require some real skill to pilot safely. If you live in a big city, it can be tough to find places where you are legally, much less safely, able to get up and fly. A lot of drones now come with a flight simulator that lets you practice on a screen. But that doesn’t help to teach you the kind of situational and spacial awareness you’ll need when piloting in the real world.Today Epson is announcing the launch of an augmented reality flight simulator tha

Drones are tons of fun, but also require some real skill to pilot safely. If you live in a big city, it can be tough to find places where you are legally, much less safely, able to get up and fly. A lot of drones now come with a flight simulator that lets you practice on a screen. But that doesn’t help to teach you the kind of situational and spatial awareness you’ll need when piloting in the real world.Today Epson is announcing the launch of an augmented reality flight simulator tha

SPONSORED: Presented by Indeed
If we look back to only a decade ago the best jobs were often word of mouth, and even when published, were difficult for a job seeker to find. Since then, aggregating jobs from thousands of sources has resulted in everyone online having equal access to job information and has fundamentally changed how people search for work. But with most jobs now online, finding the best-fit jobs without the help of artificial intelligence would be like finding a needle in a hayst

When details about Star Trek: Discovery first emerged, fans and critics alike paused for a moment to scratch their heads. The series — the first new Trek show since Enterprise concluded in 2005 — promised a stunning reimagining of the existing Trek universe. From sleek CG and intricate costumes to a complete makeover of one of Trek’s core races, Discovery was supposed to bring the 51-year-old utopian franchise fully into our glittering technological present. The two-hour premie

PRESS RELEASE:Consortium will build cloud-based data resources, tools, and interoperable standards, giving researchers simultaneous access to biomedical datasets from across the National Institutes of HealthCAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–November 6, 2017– Seven Bridges, the leading biomedical data analysis company, today announced that it has been selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the NIH Data Commons Pilot Phase. As a corporate service provider,

Rivals Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are teaming up to produce a laptop computer chip that uses an Intel processor and an AMD graphics unit. The partnership will pit the two companies against competitor Nvidia. The new chip will be made for laptops that are designed to be thin and portable, but still powerful enough for gamers who need a stronger option to play intensive games. It’ll be part of Intel’s eighth-generation Intel Core line and marks Intel and AMD’s first p

Amid its legal battles with Apple and the United States Federal Trade Commission, chipmaker Qualcomm today was offered an unsolicited bid by Broadcom for a $130 billion acquisition. Qualcomm’s brand is often associated with the Snapdragon chips that power gadgets like the Samsung Galaxy S8, LG V30, and Google’s Daydream VR. Consumers are less familiar with the name Broadcom. So what is it, and why is it trying to acquire the troubled chipmaker?
Like Qualcomm, Broadcom is a semiconduc

EXCLUSIVE: Southeast Asia’s PC online and mobile game revenue is projected to reach $2.2 billion by the end of 2017, and it could rise to $4.4 billion by 2021, according to a new report by market researcher Niko Partners.
This year’s forecast is higher than in the past, mainly on the strength of esports and new hit international games entering the Southeast Asia market. The numbers make Southeast Asia the world’s fastest-growing region for all online games revenue (PC and

Sprint and Altice USA, the fourth largest cable company in America, have agreed to a strategic MVNO agreement that will allow Altice to launch its own wireless carrier using Sprint’s network, the two companies announced last night.
The deal comes just a day after the merger talks between T-Mobile and Sprint were officially called off.
Altice, which operates Optimum and Suddenlink, and was previously known as Cablevision, did not say when it would launch its mobile network. Considering how

Today provided a brutal reminder of how fundamental shifts to mobile technology have caused a profound upheaval in the semiconductor market and are transforming some of the biggest names in the industry.
The move away from desktop computing started long ago. But the increasingly powerful smartphones we carry, the explosion of internet of things (IoT) devices, and the accelerating development of autonomous transportation options have knocked incumbents off balance. The result is a wave of big dea

PRESS RELEASE: PARIS & LONDON & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–November 6, 2017– Tinyclues, provider of a leading artificial intelligence (AI)-first marketing solution, today announced its launch in North America. Tinyclues, launched in 2013, has been expanding rapidly in Europe out of London and Paris, where brands such as Club Med, Lacoste, Manor, Thomas Cook and Voyages-sncf.com, are among those boosting campaign revenues with Tinyclues. The nimble, AI-first marketing solu

As it has been for more than a decade, Twitter became the place to look for breaking news updates following the Texas Church Massacre on Sunday. And, as it has been increasingly in recent years, Twitter became a hive of lies, propaganda, misinformation, and fake news.
People searching for the name of the alleged shooter via a legitimate news report were just as likely to stumble across deliberate misinformation as pro-gun bots swung into action:
Of course, not all of these posters were bots:This

For as long as gift-giving has been a tradition, there’s also been the inability to come up with good gift ideas. Whether it’s for your mom, dad, sister, brother, partner, friend, colleague, they, them, him, her, cat, dog, secret Santa, or for a White Elephant party, it can often be tricky to select the perfect present for your recipient. Price can also be a huge factor in holiday shopping — whether you have a tight budget and / or a long list of friends and family members to b

Since the moment they were announced at Apple’s iPhone X event, my reaction to animoji has been the same as Sideshow Bob’s reaction to rakes. It’s probably a sign of my advancing age that I don’t find animated avatars — no matter how precisely they map to a person’s facial expressions — all that exciting or thrilling. I’m the guy that gets jazzed about bigger batteries, more storage, and better cameras. The hard and universally tangible things. Not