Technology news

Just two weeks after it successfully launched a batch of satellites into orbit, SpaceX is slated to send another Falcon 9 into space. The company will launch a SES-12 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with its launch window beginning at 12:29 AM EDT on Monday morning.
The satellite in question is from SES, a Luxembourg-based telecom company, and will provide communications services for the Asian-Pacific and Middle East regions. The company notes that it’s one of the

Microsoft has reportedly acquired GitHub, and could announce the deal as early as Monday. Bloomberg reports that the software giant has agreed to acquire GitHub, and that the company chose Microsoft partly because of CEO Satya Nadella. Business Insider first reported that Microsoft had been in talks with GitHub recently.GitHub is a vast code repository that has become popular with developers and companies hosting their projects, documentation, and code. Apple, Amazon, Google, and many other big

If you’ve been hoping for a new clever mobile Go game from Square Enix Montreal, you’re out of luck. In an interview with PocketGamer, the studio behind Hitman Go and Lara Croft Go says that it is no longer producing the premium mobile games in the series, focusing instead on free-to-play games.Square Enix Montreal studio head Patrick Naud confirmed that the studio is not working on any new Go games, saying that “one of the challenges we have today is the premium mobile market

Sony’s ambitions to try and build its Spider-man cinematic universe without Spider-man has hit another stumbling block: it’s removed Silver & Black from its release schedule and is sending it back for further development.Word broke last year that Sony was developing the superhero spinoff based on the Spider-man-adjacent characters Black Cat and Silver Stable, and Sony announced that the film would hit theaters in February 2019, just months after its other Spider-man spinoff film

A year ago, science fiction publisher Tor Books announced that it was launching a new imprint: Tor Labs, dedicated to experimental storytelling. Its first project was a serialized podcast called Steal the Stars, a pulpy audio drama about the employees of a secretive government contractor that is studying a crashed UFO.Across 14 episodes, Steal the Stars follows Dak (voiced by Ashlie Atkinson), the chief of security for a defense contractor called Quill Marine that in possession of an alien spac

Microsoft’s Xbox One console will soon include support for both Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant and the Google Assistant. Windows Central reports that future versions of the Xbox One dashboard include the ability to enable Alexa and Google Assistant support through a skill on both platforms. Microsoft currently only supports its own Cortana digital assistant, through its Kinect accessory or a headset, but Cortana has a limited set of skills right now.
The expansion to Alexa and Goo

In September, 21-year-old Askia Khafra was found dead after a house fire in a suburban Bethesda home belonging to security researcher Daniel Beckwitt. Now Beckwitt has been charged with murder in connection with Khafra’s death. Prosecutors say Khafra had been hired to construct an intricate network of tunnels below Beckwitt’s home, and that his death resulted from unsafe working conditions.
According to court documents, the tunnels were dug 20 feet below the basement of the home, sp

June 1st marked the beginning of Pride month, and last year, users who liked Facebook’sLGBTQ@Facebook page could get a custom reaction of a rainbow pride flag for a limited time. This year, that option doesn’t appear, and Facebook tells Business Insider that won’t be releasing custom reactions anymore.Facebook rolled out its expanded like button reactions — Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry — back in 2016, and has experimented with several custom ones over the

On Friday, Halo and Destiny studio Bungie announced a major partnership with Chinese tech and gaming company NetEase, “to help us explore new directions.” The deal is to the tune of $100 million, giving the NetEase a minority stake in Bungie, as well as a seat on its board of directors, according to GamesIndustry.The partnership will help Bungie grow into a “global, multi-franchise entertainment studio,” according to NetEase CEO William Ding. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons told

Third-party data is often obtained without explicit consent, so we can reasonably expect that all third-party activity will vanish now that GDPR is in effect, right? Don’t panic yet — third-party data isn’t going anywhere. Data collected without GDPR-level consent will become obsolete, but the practice of acquiring data from outside sources is here to stay. To use third-party while complying with GDPR, you have to evaluate and rethink your methods — as well as your partn

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security launched a pilot project in Washington DC, deploying a network of sensors to ascertain the extent of cell phone surveillance being conducted in the capitol. They found that not only were International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers in use, but some were being used in proximity to “potentially sensitive facilities like the White House.”The revelation comes from a letter sent toSenator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a member of the Sele

Last month, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, triggering a wave of panic among unprepared tech companies. This month, why not harness the power of that legislation to calm your own worries and get a good night’s sleep?
Meditation app Calm provides what it calls “bedtime stories for grown-ups” (an eclectic mix of lullabies, fairy tales, and short stories in audiobook form). But it’s now added highlights from the GDPR leg

Sometimes, the world can feel like a relentless nightmare, designed by someone with all your pain points in mind. Being online, whether you have to be or just want to stay in the loop, can make all that worse — your therapist would probably tell you to close this tab and go outside. While that’s generally good advice, all due respect to your therapist, but she hasn’t seen these ASMR role-play videos in which a velvet-voiced Funky Kong soothes your world-weary heart with some g

This Indiegogo campaign aims to help people who need to locate their friends and family in a pinch. Lynq is a little gadget that you can clip on your clothes or bag that tells you how far and in what direction other people are without any data connection needed.
The palm-sized device is as simple as can be: there’s only one button, and the sole purpose of Lynq is to show the distance and direction of other people in your group via a tiny circular screen. It uses long-range, low-power freq

Creators of science fiction and fantasy books, films, and TV shows present stories of possible or imaginary worlds – and their presentations can range from the realistic to the fantastical. When we watch Westworld (and viewership is growing, with the season one finale drawing 2.2 million viewers), we look forward 30 years into a potential future envisioned by its writers. Returning to the notion of reality and fantasy (or fact and fiction), the extent to which a sci-fi film might be descr

Whether you’re a small e-commerce startup or a multinational online sales platform, your need for accurate data analysis is at a premium. You need customer and visitor data in order to ensure you can target your visitors’ needs effectively, as this both leads to happier, better served customers and increased revenues for your organization. This makes it imperative to secure access to quality data analysis technology. Yet not all data analytics tools are created equal. You need to kn

We’ve all been there. Bounced around to different departments, put on hold, shifted from agent to agent, forced to repeat our mailing address or ticket number or describe the problem we’re desperately trying to get solved again and again across a multitude of different channels. Somehow, despite all the hype around machine learning, conversational interfaces, and personalization, the vast majority of customer experiences still leave us wondering if we’re trapped in a particula