Technology news

AMD’s initial response to the Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws made it clear “there is a near zero risk to AMD processors.” That zero risk doesn’t mean zero impact, as we’re starting to discover today. “We have defined additional steps through a combination of processor microcode updates and OS patches that we will make available to AMD customers and partners to further mitigate the threat,” says Mark Papermaster, AMD’s chief technology officer.AMD

Electric scooters are basically a dime a dozen these days. But few companies have been able to scoop up all the things that people like about them — solid range, fun to ride, smart features — and put them all together in a well-built package like California company Ojo Electric.The Ojo Electric scooter has a bountiful 25 miles of range, which can be doubled with an add-on battery pack. It has a top speed of around 20 miles per hour and is properly quick in the highest performance se

On Twitter this morning, comedy writer Megan Ganz told Dan Harmon that she is willing to forgive him for the harassment and abuse she suffered while working for him on NBC’s Community.Ganz responding after listening to episode of Harmon’s podcast Harmontown, where he confessed to the abuse and explained it in detail. That confession came after Harmon had tweeted a vague New Year’s resolution promising to become “not an asshole” in 2018 and Ganz responded by asking

The PC market is still declining, according to research firm Gartner, while IDC found that Q4 2017 actually saw positive growth and that 2017 was the most stable year the market has seen since 2011. But both agreed on the makeup of the top three computer makers: HP won 2017, followed closely by Lenovo, and Dell bringing up the rear.
The two firms were also optimistic about the PC market, despite more quarters and years in the red than in the black. In short, Gartner and IDC believe computers hav

Xbox One didn’t have a traditional blockbuster exclusive at the end of last year, but I’m having a difficult time seeing how that matters when the one game it did publish just surpassed 3 million copies sold since December 12. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds continues its reign as a sales behemoth and as a smart move for Microsoft. The company released the last-player-standing battle royale shooter for developer PUBG Corp as part of the Game Preview program for unfinished project

There’s a lot of buzz about smart speakers at the moment, and for once the hype is well-deserved. These handy AIs can streamline everyday tasks and increase efficiency using the most natural interface known to humankind: voice. Despite the advanced capabilities these devices have to offer, it’s possible that if you were the lucky recipient of an Alexa-enabled device over the holidays, you’re still trying to work out a few kinks. Things like figuring out why your device is slow

If you see a monkey in Florida, don’t touch it. It seems like pretty basic advice, especially now that scientists have found that more than a quarter of these adorable, feral invaders carry the deadly herpes B virus.
Though at least 25 percent of the population carries the virus — which causes mild disease in macaques, but can be deadly to humans — fewer were actually infectious. The virus lies dormant in nerves in between flare-ups, similar to cold sores in humans. Between 4

Deadpool fans won’t have to wait as long as expected to see the film’s sequel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox is shuffling the release dates for its slate of X-Men films, moving Deadpool 2 to May 18th, two weeks earlier than its original June 1st release date .Deadpool 2 isn’t the only film on the move. The studio is also bumping its horror-tinged The New Mutants nearly a year. The film was originally scheduled to be released on April 13th 2018, but now

The CES crowd seems to be dwindling every year as more tech companies wait until events like Mobile World Congress or their own developer shows to announce new products. But at CES 2018, even though we saw fewer things, they were also more interesting than previous years. We also saw Google, for the first time, make a spectacle out on the convention floors, fighting back against Amazon’s Alexa takeover.
Cover CES enough times, and you’ll also see trends start and grow from the show f

Spoilers for Marvel’s Runaways follow.
Hulu’s 10-episode opening season of Runaways has been a bit of a drag. In the original Marvel Runaways comic, launched by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona in 2003, six kids learn that their parents are secretly supervillains who run Los Angeles through a powerful and malevolent organization called The Pride. The kids run away, learn that most of them have some form of superhuman ability, and wind up fighting their parents in th

You’ve explored the Tomb of Annihilation and spat in the face of Acererak’s death curse. Now you’re ready to look for some good ol’ adventure in Chult, the tropical jungle island of dinosaurs and undead (and sometimes zombie dinos that vomit more zombies). And the Lost City of Omu is ready for you.
Cryptic Studios announced that its The Lost City of Omu expansion hits the PC version of its Dungeons & Dragons online role-playing game Neverwinter on February 27. This co

If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that nobody agrees on how to create economic growth. That shouldn’t be surprising — successful and sustainable economic development is a monumental challenge. In St. Louis, we’ve primarily used public place-based investments, like tax increment financing, to revitalize our city.
But at Arch Grants, we’ve chosen venture philanthropy, a people-based development model that combines the principles of venture capital with

GUEST: Having processed more than 20 billion chat messages over the past year at Dashbot, my team decided to take a look at the top messages users send to Facebook chatbots. Here’s an overview of our findings.
Common openers and closers
“Hi” continues to be the top message sent to bots. It makes sense. Much like with traditional conversation, “hi,” “hello,” and “hey” are common conversation starters.
“Thanks” and “stop&rdquo

Google will reportedly start more strictly vetting YouTube channels that are part of its Google Preferred premium advertising program, reports Bloomberg Technology. Anonymous sources tell Bloomberg that the company will use both human moderators and machine learning to identify videos that shouldn’t be part of Preferred bundles. The move is supposedly a response to advertisers’ concerns over inappropriate videos featuring children, as well as offensive behavior from YouTube stars li

GoPro’s announcement this week that it would exit the drone business was greeted by many observers as a foregone conclusion. Karma, the company’s first foray into drones, had sold poorly after an embarrassing recall in 2016. Under pressure to cut costs amid slowing sales in its core action-camera business, GoPro’s hand was forced. Viewed in that light, Karma was just one more tech company side hustle that didn’t pay off.But to shrug off GoPro’s drone is to ignore a

HBO announced this afternoon that it has signed a three-year deal with investigative reporter Ronan Farrow. His back-to-back, in-depth reports at The New Yorker were a major part of the Harvey Weinstein unmasking and the subsequent avalanche of sexual abuse revelations in Hollywood. His work built off of an initial bombshell report by The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, published in early October 2017.Now, he’ll develop and star in a series of investigative documentari

I haven’t looked at the reactions to the latest Nintendo Direct from fans, but I can imagine that a lot of people are dropping snarky comments about how the system gets so many older games. Nintendo’s video event sprinkled in a couple of new releases among a deluge of ports and remasters. The biggest of these is Dark Souls: Remastered, which is due out May 25 for Switch as well as PC and the other consoles. This will give fans a chance to play one of their old favorites, but it&rsquo

Microsoft today announced the latest Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) was the fastest Windows 10 release to reach 100 million devices, “all while achieving higher customer satisfaction ratings compared to prior updates.” We don’t know exactly how many out of Windows 10’s 600 million users (as of November 2017) are running the latest version, but it’s safe to say the figure is probably over 20 percent.
Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a

Following Apple’s admission of and apology for battery-related iPhone performance problems, another battery issue is receiving attention — this time for MacBook laptops. Spotlighted today by VentureBeat reader Nicholas Antoniou and confirmed with reports on Apple’s Support Communities and other discussion groups, some MacBook laptops promising “up to 30 days standby time” are seeing much higher battery drain, an issue Apple technicians appear unwilling to fully test

We’re almost nearing the end of CES, which can’t come soon enough. Just kidding! We love CES, despite the flooding and power outages. We’re in it for the gadgets, baby. Yesterday’s episode of Circuit Breaker Live had a very HighQuality guest, none other than HQ’s Scott Rogowsky! Plus, Ashley brought us more crowdfunded gadgets she found from the show floor, like the Moodo “scent DJ” and the latest craze after raw water, water pods! So hip. Then Lauren c

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has penned an open letter to the rest of the technology industry, addressing concerns over the two major CPU security flaws. Intel has been issuing cleverly-worded statements, and altering its guidance on performance issues related to security fixes, but the company now says it’s ready to be transparent. “As we roll out software and firmware patches, we are learning a great deal,” admits Krzanich. “We know that impact on performance varies widely

There’s just one event where you can find Star Wars: Battlefront II’s star, the games industry’s first major congressional candidate, and one of the chief scouts for China’s biggest gaming company.We’ve got three new speakers for GamesBeat Summit 2018, which will take place at the beautiful Claremont Resort in Berkeley, California, on April 9 and April 10. Our conference is all about making games better and improving the business, and these speakers will help u

If you’re worried about leaving your house or apartment unattended for long stretches of time, you might set your lights on a timer or leave your TV on. But now there’s a new smart speaker that wants to do all of that for you — by flashing lights and playing TV sounds and other noises to make it seem like someone’s home.
The speaker is named Kevin — certainly a nod to Home Alone — and is made by a Swiss company named Mitipi. From the front, it looks just like

After failing to launch last month, US spaceflight startup Rocket Lab will try again at the end of January to get its experimental rocket to orbit. The company plans to launch the vehicle, called the Electron, from its New Zealand facility sometime during a nine-day window that begins on January 20th. If all goes well, it could be the last test flight before Rocket Lab begins commercial flights in the coming year.This will be Rocket Lab’s second attempt at this test flight called “S

Directly adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center is a Renaissance hotel with a pair of special staff members: robots. Savioke’s Relay robots have been on the job for three months, helping out the concierge by delivering items to guests during peak hours. The two robots, named “Elvis” and “Priscilla” by the hotel, pick up orders from the front desk, call and ride the elevators without help, and call the guest’s room phone when they’ve arrived. They n

The #MeToo movement that started with accusations against Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood has finally spread to China, although it’s facing different obstacles there, thanks to China’s sociopolitical landscape of patriarchal Confucian values and repressive politics.One of the catalysts for #MeToo in China, translated as “我也是” or #WoYeShi, was a social media post by academic Luo Xixi last month, in which she accused her former doctoral professor Chen Xi

Nintendo just gave Switch owners a preview of what they can expect in the followup to one of the company’s strongest years ever. The publisher held a “mini” version of one of its Direct video events today, and it revealed a startling number of ports for its hybrid handheld/home console along with some new surprises.
Highlights include The World Ends With You: Final Remix, which is a revised take on the excellent 2007 Nintendo DS role-playing adventure from Square Enix. Publishe

Good news! The first F-52 fighter aircrafts have made it safely to Norway, President Trump announced today. Bad news! F-52s aren’t... real. They’re advanced fighter aircrafts that exist only in the game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.The Washington Post pointed out the blunder following Trump’s puzzling assertion that these fictional planes completed their trip. “In November we started delivering the first F-52s and F-35 fighter jets,” Trump said. “We have a

Startup Dreamlight debuted a new sleep mask at CES that makes a number of promises, including the ability to lessen the effects of jet lag, recommend adjustments to your sleep habits based on your 23andMe profile, and, um, project infrared light to supposedly help with under eye circles.
Aside from some of these questionable claims, the Dreamlight mask does have concrete features that are unique and can help you get a more restful night’s sleep. I tried it for a night, and it does work. T

Netflix has released a new, full-length trailer for its upcoming show Altered Carbon, a tech noir mystery about solving a murder in a world where death has lost all meaning.
Based off of Richard K. Morgan’s novel by the same name, Altered Carbon is set three centuries in the future, where people can transfer their consciousness from one body to another — if they can afford it. The trailer likens it to a person shedding their skin like a snake, allowing them to potentially live forev

The Associated Press reports that Ecuador has granted citizenship to Julian Assange. The Wikileaks founder has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, when he was faced with extradition to Sweden for allegedly sexually assaulting two women. The New York Times also reports that Ecuador has sought to give Assange diplomatic status, but Britain has rejected the request. Diplomatic immunity would allow him to leave the embassy without the possibility of being arrested for jumpin

This is the second year that CES has had a section dedicated to sleep tech and the gadgets that promise to make everything right with the world if you just get enough sleep. Sleep trackers, “three-in-one” kits, and a variety of headsets all dangle the possibility of better rest. But while the tracking technology might be getting more accurate, most scientists agree that more data is not always better.Sleep is important for quality of life, and sleep deprivation is associated with he

It didn’t take long for me to understand the draw of Peloton’s indoor cycling bike when I gave it a two-month try last winter. Its allure was less about convenience – any exercise equipment at home is, for most people, more convenient than going to the gym – and more about its magic sauce: live-streamed classes, lead by exuberant fitness pros who somehow manage to chatter constantly throughout class.The Peloton Tread, the $4,000 treadmill unveiled Tuesday, holds the same

Uber employees based in San Francisco could remotely lock down equipment in the company’s foreign offices to stymie local authorities from obtaining any incriminating data, according to a report in Bloomberg.While many companies have remote “panic buttons” that shut off computers during police raids, Uber’s secret system stood out for the number of times it was employed. The secret tool, called “Ripley” after Sigourney Weaver’s hero from the Alien franc