Technology news

Nintendo updated Super Mario Odyssey with new, free content yesterday. This introduced the Balloon World online mode that enables players to have fun with an asynchronous hide-and-seek mode. Players can either hide a balloon and earn coins as other players take turns failing to retrieve it, or they can try to find other players’ balloons before the timer runs out.
This is a fun end-game mode that enables players to use their knowledge of the level maps and how to control Mario to earn a lo

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just released a report about HIV trends for people under 30 in the U.S., and the numbers show an increase in one particular group: 25- to 29-year-olds.
After collecting data from all over the country on HIV and AIDS diagnoses between 2010 and 2014, the CDC found that overall rates of infection for 13- to 29-year-olds has remained stable overall. And for some of the younger groups, like those aged 15 to 19, rates have actually gone down.
But "W

In case you missed it, earlier this week, pop star Fergie of Black Eyed Peas fame gave a, uh, questionable rendition of the national anthem at the NBA All-Star game. 
To be fair, it's a very hard song to sing, but because this version was just so... unique, it sparked plenty of memes and criticism. 
SEE ALSO: Fergie responds to critics of that wildly unpopular national anthem performanceBut not everyone's a critic. In fact, the singer's ex-husband and father of her child, Josh Duhamel,

Pokémon Go might have gotten pretty old pretty quick, but a new augmented reality (AR) game with the same capture-and-battle concept could actually be pretty freaking awesome — because it's a Ghostbusters game, people!
Called "Ghostbusters World," Sony published a trailer for the new game on Friday. It depicts the powers of the Ghostbusters' proton pack and ghost traps getting charged into a smartphone. The game is described as "an all-new state-of-the-art augmented reality gam

Somewhere: The Vault Papers teases the possibility of an immense conspiracy unfolding — but the only way you can find out more is through texting. French developer Norseman Interactive has teamed up with publisher Playdius on its debut messaging-based narrative mobile game. It launches March 8 on iOS for $3, with an Android release to come at a later date.
The player must guide Cat, a journalist who’s been investigating a whistleblower’s claims. At the start of Somewhere, she t

In a well-deserved twist, a guy just looking to argue was turned into this week's most contentious memes. 
Steven Crowder, a conservative podcaster and professional troll set up a booth at Texas Christian University with a sign that said "Male privilege is a myth." The sign prompted students discuss whether or not he was right with "Change my mind," an ongoing segment he has on YouTube.  
SEE ALSO: This photo of a dog in a seat-belt sparked an ingenious Photoshop battleHello @TCU. Come

The Syfy channel has given us our first look at the next season of The Expanse, and let us know when we’ll be able to check out what the crew of the spaceship Rocinante is up to next: April 11th.Based on the novels by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse is a science fiction show set in a populated solar system roughly a century in the future, in which the destruction of an ice mining ship nearly triggered a war, all to cover up the existence of an alien substance known as the protomolecule.The

Keen Android users who’ve been following a somewhat obscure Google Issue Tracker thread from November of last year celebrated an exciting new development today. The thread, in which a user asked about a dark mode to improve battery life on Android phones with OLED screens, had been marked “fixed,” with a Google employee saying the Android engineering team had added this feature and that it would “be available in a future Android release.”
Unfortunately, Google now

Keen Android users who’ve been following a somewhat obscure Google Issue Tracker thread from November of last year are celebrating a new development: the thread, in which a user asked about a dark mode to improve battery life on Android phones with OLED screens, has been closed.The issue was marked “fixed,” and the Google employee who initially responded in the thread saying he would bring the feedback to the Android engineering team said that the “engineering team has a

Dropbox filed for an initial public offering today with the aim to raise $500 million for its cloud-based file storage and collaboration service. It had secretly filed to go public in early January.
The San Francisco-based company brought in $1.1 billion in revenue last year, with a net loss of $111 million. It has more than 500 million registered users, 11 million of which are paying users. The company’s last private valuation was $10 billion. Dropbox’s annual revenue has grown sign

A decade after it was founded, Dropbox has filed to go public. The beloved, easy-to-use (if somewhat stagnant) file syncing service had documents unsealed at the SEC today revealing plans for an initial public offering, where Dropbox is looking to raise up to $500 million. The company will trade on Nasdaq under the symbol “DBX.”
Thanks to its first public filing, we’re learning that the company’s revenue has been increasing for the past three years, growing from $603 mil

Huawei recently debuted the Mate 10 Pro at CES, and it’s already gearing up to launch another phone called the P20. Now, images of the phone have appeared on the website for China’s telecommunications regulator TENAA, giving a look at four sides, as reported by GMS Arena.
Previous rumors about the device said it could feature a three-lens system as well as a notch (like the iPhone X), but these photos show only two camera lenses. The vertical setup houses a laser autofocus and dual-

Minecraft players downloaded 239,062 pieces of content from the Minecraft Marketplace in January. The marketplace is available in the unified Bedrock version of Minecraft on Windows 10, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and mobile (Bedrock comes to Switch later this year), and it features products made by both The Minecraft Team and community developers. Players can earn this content through in-game currency, but they can also spend real money, and a portion of those revenues go to the people who made the con

Measles has made a dangerous comeback in Europe as vaccination rates have dropped, the World Health Organization says. Compared to 2016, the number of infections quadrupled to more than 21,000 cases across Europe in 2017. Thirty-five people died.The outbreaks hit 15 European countries — with especially large ones hammering Romania with 5,562 infections, Italy with 5,006, and Ukraine with 4,767. In a statement, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab, called it &ldquo

Tesla is expanding its charging infrastructure into a new area: office parking lots. A new “workplace charging” program unveiled today offers businesses free Tesla wall connectors and will also cover installation, provided they meet certain qualifications set forth by the California carmaker. Tesla won’t cover the cost of operating the charging stations, and the company says there could be other permitting, construction, zoning, or labor costs.The workplace charging stations w

As tech executives call for state education programs to do a better job of providing STEM education, states are jockeying to show that they are attuned to the industry’s needs.
This week, Michigan’s Republican governor Rick Snyder unveiled what he calls the “Marshall Plan for Talent” — a $100 million, five-year investment to restructure Michigan’s education system to do a better job of preparing students for the tech fields that are positioned to have the most

Newly unsealed documents show that Snapchat played an unexpected role in the investigation of an apparent drug murder in Colorado in 2016. Devon Smeltz disappeared in August 2016, shortly after a late-night disturbance was captured on surveillance video near his home in Fort Collins. Eight days after the incident, Smeltz’s body was discovered in a rural county one hour east of the city, launching an investigation by Fort Collins police.
The prime suspects in the disappearance were a group

Wakanda, the fictional African nation at the heart of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther, is a dazzling, technological utopia chock-full of science fiction gadgets and gizmos to make gearheads go gaga. What I didn’t expect, though, when settling into the seat of my Brooklyn theater last Saturday, was for the transportation-nerd parts of my brain to be so thoroughly tickled. Black Panther is a transit buff’s dream come true, with an array of cool planes, trains, and cars — and

Microsoft and Xiaomi have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work closely in cloud computing, AI, and hardware. It has so far been uncommon for a US company to partner with a Chinese company on artificial intelligence, but it definitely makes sense as both countries are the biggest markets for those products and services.Microsoft is planning to allow Xiaomi to use its cloud computing products, including Azure, to develop upgraded phones, laptops, and smart devices to bring them to a

Pretty much everyone can agree that a full understanding of document file types is pretty much rocket science. It’s not clear to anyone except maybe Bill Gates why exactly it’s so difficult to use Microsoft Word to edit a PDF file, and how to go about making changes to said file without routing it through a half-dozen different applications and re-saving it twice as many times.But whether you’re sending information online regarding your voter registration, or submitting a rent

OPINION: Google yesterday announced that the rich communication services (RCS) messaging experience on Android is now open to businesses. Nobody is using RCS yet, but businesses are already being encouraged to get on board. This is a big mistake.
First, some background. The default SMS app on Android — unless the carrier decides to change it — is called Messages. Google is using this app to push its implementation of RCS so that Android phones can offer features like group messaging,

Two years ago, you were younger and lovelier. Your childhood was closer to you than it is now, and you had just seen Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime show instead of some other Super Bowl halftime show.Also, a series of Snapchats were compiled into a short video and tweeted by Riverside Polytechnic High School student Josh Holz. The Snapchats were of his friend Daniel Lara, who was wearing sneakers. “Damn!” he was always yelling at Daniel. And in one instance, “Damn,

Xiaomi and Microsoft announced today that they’re deepening a previously established partnership to encompass work on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and PC hardware. Thus far, the two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding, pledging to evaluate future avenues of collaboration.
It’s good news for Microsoft, since Xiaomi is a fast-growing company with a strong presence in China that’s looking to build its business outside its home market. As Xiaomi rises,

As Ubisoft prepares to launch its third season, Rainbow Six: Siege is more popular than ever. But the publisher is introducing something outside of the tactical shooter’s core asymmetrical multiplayer with its new Outbreak mode. Unlike the head-to-head gameplay that has helped Siege grow to 25 million players, Outbreak has players teaming up for a cooperative horde mode.
Outbreak launches soon on the live servers, but I tried it out on the Rainbow Six: Siege test server on PC. It is a thre

Pointedly expanding its efforts to address Chinese cybersecurity threats, the United States today urged Australia to keep Huawei equipment out of its 5G networks, reports Australia’s Financial Review. U.S. lawmakers and security agencies previously lobbied top U.S. carriers to cut ties with Huawei, but today’s discussions with Australia reach well beyond American borders, suggesting the potentially global scale of the 5G security risk.
According to the report, the heads of the N

HTC has laid off several employees from its US offices, as reported by Digital Trends and independently confirmed by The Verge. The job cuts followed HTC’s president of smartphone and connected devices Chialin Chang’s resignation last week.
The Taiwan-based company has laid off a significant but unspecified number of its US-based staff, keeping only HTC Global employees in US offices. According to an anonymous source cited by Digital Trends, the number is between a few dozen to arou

I’m going to venture a guess and say you have a Gmail account. Chances are, you have more than one. I say this with confidence knowing Gmail currently sports more than 1 billion monthly active users, up from a relatively paltry 425 million back in 2012. It’s free, it’s fast, it’s reliable, it offers ample storage for most users, and it’s relatively easy to organize, so it’s a prime choice for both business and individual users. But there are some things that

Twitch today announced a collaboration with nonprofit organization 1,000 Dreams Fund (1DF) to offer a special grant for female streamers, as well as a series of of charity streams to raise money for the nonprofit in question. The BroadcastHER grant is designed to support female Twitch streamers, is worth between $500 to $2,000, and is awarded to two people every academic semester. To be eligible, applicants must be enrolled in high school or college, and have a demonstrable financial need. Acco

You’’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a Bitcoin block, with a mining pool having trouble mining it. You reach down, you tell them you won’t help them mine the block. The miners still can’t successfully find the block solution, their oily backs baking in the hot sun, posting curse words on Discord desperately trying to mine that block, but they can’t, not without your help. But you’’re not helping.

The nonprofit 1,000 Dreams Fund (1DF) is celebrating Women’s History Month with its Twitch BroadcastHER Grant for women creators who livestream. From March 1 to April 1, it has partnered with Twitch to run a charity stream that will feature 10 women broadcasters. The goal is to encourage folks to donate to 1DF to contribute to the BroadcastHER Grant. The nonprofit also wants to use the event to raise awareness about the challenges women face when they seek financial support for creati

Apple is working with local police to remedy a surge in unintentional emergency calls to 911 that are originating from the company’s distribution and repair center in Elk Grove, California. The influx of calls has been ongoing for months, averaging 20 accidental calls a day and totaling over 1,600 since October. 911 dispatchers hear silence and intermittent employee chatter when the calls come in.“We take this seriously and are working with local law enforcement to investigate the c

There’s been little word on Apple’s AirPower wireless charging mat since it was announced alongside the iPhone X and iPhone 8 in September, but a new report from MacOtakara claims that the charging pad will be shipping sometime in the second half of March, via VentureBeat.The AirPower mat differs from most other wireless chargers by offering support for charging up to three different devices at once. (Obviously, Apple envisions that those will be an iPhone, an Apple Watch Series 3,

Symantec, the software giant behind products like Norton AntiVirus, has severed a partnership with the National Rifle Association after public pressure.“Symantec has stopped its discount program with the National Rifle Association,” a company spokesperson told The Verge in a statement. No other information on the decision was given.
A still-available Symantec webpage offered discounts on products to NRA members.Since the shooting at a high school last week in Parkland, Florida, pres

Discord, a chat platform for gamers, has teamed up with a number of e-sports teams to expand its verified servers program. In other words, now users will be able to tell right away if they’re communicating with an official e-sports team: there will be a gray badge at the top left saying, “Verified.”
Discord has verified 20 new servers from pro teams that compete in games like Dota, League of Legends, CS:GO, and Overwatch. Some of these teams include the Overwatch League teams,