Technology news

TwitchPrime, the perks program for Amazon Prime members offering free loot, games and other benefits, is ditching one of its best features: ad-free viewing. According to an email sent out to AmazonPrime members today, ad-free viewing will no longer be included as a part of Twitch Prime for new members, beginning on September 14. However, members with existing annual subscriptions will be able to continue to enjoy ad-free viewing until their subscription comes up for renewal.
Those with monthly s

Animoto, a cloud-based video maker service for social media sites, has revealed a data breach.
The breach occurred on July 10 but was confirmed by the company in early August, and later reported to the California attorney general.
Names, dates of birth and user email addresses were accessed by hackers, but the company said it wasn’t known if data had been exfiltrated. The company also said that users’ scrambled passwords were exposed in the breach, but it wasn’t clear if the ha

Mike Rothenberg,infamous Silicon Valley venture capitalist and founder of Rothenberg Ventures,has been formally charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for overcharging investors to fund personal projects.
It’s important to note a formal charge is not proof of guilt and Rothenberg has not made any admission of guilt under these proceedings. However, Rothenberg has been under investigation by the SEC for the last several years.
The SEC now alleges in a statement the investor and h

A team of researchers developed an AI called AttN:GAN last year that generates original images from text input. Now you can try it for yourself, and we hope you do. Because we can’t figure out whether it works or not. The big idea behind AttN:GAN, which was developed by researchers from Microsoft, Lehigh University, Rutgers University, and Duke University, is to automate the task of generating images. Researchers consider this one of the fundamental challenges of machine learnin

Twitch Prime, the streaming video site’s Amazon-style benefits program, will no longer include ad-free viewing as a complimentary perk starting on September 14th, the company announced today. Initially launched two years ago as a suite of benefits for Amazon Prime subscribers, Twitch Prime has grown into a more robust platform that offers free games, in-game loot for select titles, and a monthly channel subscription credit that can be awarded to a streamer of the member’s choice.All

Dontnod has finally revealed the heroes of its upcoming game Life is Strange 2, an indirect sequel to its award-winning episodic series Life is Strange. The game stars two young brothers, Sean and Daniel Diaz (ages 16 and nine, respectively), on the run from authorities following a “tragic event” as they seek refuge in Puerto Lobos, Mexico.
The game will focus heavily on the bonds of brotherhood. According to Dontnod, as Sean, players will “need to make the kind of tough choic

Amazon is discontinuing its two-year-old video game preorder discount program for Prime members on August 28th, the company announced today. In its place, Amazon will offer members a $10 credit with a preorder, but only for select titles. The credit will take up to 35 days to arrive. Once activated, customers will have 60 days to put the money toward a separate purchase on Amazon.
Back in July, CNET noted a change to the Prime platform’s Terms of Service that suggested Amazon would change

Apple is nearing the release of a long-awaited, completely redesigned successor to its MacBook Air laptop, according to Bloomberg. The new “low-cost” model reportedly features slimmer bezels and a high-resolution Retina display. It will otherwise “look similar to the current MacBook Air,” though port selection is anyone’s guess.The once-revered MacBook Air has languished in update limbo ever since Apple shifted its focus to the MacBook Pro and 12-inch MacBook. Some

Google’s Undo Send feature has been saving people from embarrassing typos, mistakes, and other email taboos for years on the web version of Gmail. Now, the feature is being carried over to the official mobile version of Google’s email app, starting with a release on the official Android version of Gmail, according to Android Police. The feature should arrive with Gmail version 8.7.The feature started as a Google Labs experiment you had to toggle on before graduating to the official

Venezuela has just taken drastic and unprecedented steps to stabilize its currency as it grapples with hyperinflation and other economic issues. The country’s currency has not only been massively devalued and renamed, but is now tied to a state-issued cryptocurrency called the Petro, which itself fluctuates based on oil prices. Hardly anyone knows what to expect out of this.
The Petro is not new; it arrived earlier this year in the form of a stepped offering to private and then public buye

BEST PRE-BLACK FRIDAY DEALS ON GAMING LAPTOPS:Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop — $1,092.49 (save $107.50)
Lenovo Legion Y545 — $1,099 (save $500)
Asus FX504 Thin & Light TUF Gaming Laptop — $806.99 (save $193)
Asus ROG Strix Hero II — $1,372.10 (save $427.89)
Asus TUF 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop — $799 (save $300)
HP Pavilion 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop — $749.99 (save $50.01)
It's time to level up.
If you didn't already know, PC gamers take great pride in t

BEST DEALS ON GAMING LAPTOPS:Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop — $1,099.99 (save $100)
Dell G5 15 Gaming Laptop Inspiron 5590 — $899 (save $50)
Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop — $313.48 (save $36.51)
Asus ROG Strix Hero II — $1,599 (save $200.99)
MSI GL65 9SC-002 15.6" Gaming Laptop — $699.99 (save $199.01)
Legion by Lenovo Y540 17.3" Gaming Laptop — $1,049 (save $250)
It's time to level up.
If you didn't already know, PC gamers take great pride in the way they

BEST DEALS ON GAMING LAPTOPS:MSI GP65 10SEK 15.6" Gaming Laptop — $1,399.99
Razer Blade 15 Base Gaming Laptop 2020 — $1,099.99
Alienware m15 15.6 inch FHD Gaming Laptop — $1,689.98
PC gaming is said by many to be the best way to play video games. In a lot of ways, that’s true — high-end gaming computers pack more graphical and processing power than any home console does, and they offer a level of freedom in terms of customization and game choice that you’

Today, aerospace venture Stratolaunch announced plans to develop a whole suite of rockets that will be able to launch from underneath the wings of the company’s massive six-engine plane. Three entirely new rockets are planned, including a reusable spaceplane that would bring cargo — and, eventually, people — to and from orbit. Stratolaunch says the plan is for the first of these new vehicles to launch in 2022.
Stratolaunch, created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has been

Though the Versa might be the new star of FitBit’s line up, the company hasn’t given up on its simpler fitness trackers. The company today announced the Fitbit Charge 3, bringing about several new features while maintaining the Charge’s overall simplicity. Aesthetically, the device comes with a revamped graphite or rose gold body and a Gorilla Glass 3 screen; the latter should provide a welcome durability upgrade over the prior model’s scratchtastic plastic. The screen g

Nvidia today revealed its newest GeForce series GPUs at Gamescom, the RTX series built on its Turing architecture. And, with it, the newest buzz-phrase in graphics: real-time ray tracing. According to Nvidia the RTX update is the biggest since CUDA. Real-time ray tracing brings cinema quality light and shadow reflections to gaming, but that’s not the only update. The new Turing architecture, developed over the last 10 years, brings a leap in performance that can only be described as incre

Amazonis today rolling out a set of new features to its Echo Dot Kids Edition devices — the now $70 version of the Echo Dot smart speaker that ships with a protective case and a year’s subscription to Amazon FreeTime, normally a $2.99 per month subscription for Prime members. Now joining the Kids Edition’s parental controls and other exclusive content are new skills from Disney, Hotel Transylvania and Pac-Man, as well as a calming “Sleep Sounds” skill for bedtime.
T

Weather app Dark Sky has been updated for iOS today with the same visual-focused upgrade that came to Android users several months ago. The update brings a few new features, most prominently the merging of forecasts into a single page that you can scroll through, which lists current weather conditions over the next hour, day, and week. There’s also a general interface overhaul that changes the app’s signature black-and-white weather icons into a colorful sun and clouds.
The app, whi

Ray tracing. It’s a term you’re going to hear a lot now that Nvidia has announced professional and consumer graphics cards that use this technique to produce some of the most life-like simulations possible in games and other animations. So, what is ray tracing exactly, and how does it differ from current graphics rendering techniques?The oversimplified answer is that ray tracing models the behavior of light in real time as it intersects objects in a scene.It’s a feature that c

Magnetic resonance imaging is an invaluable tool in the medical field, but it’s also a slow and cumbersome process. It may take fifteen minutes or an hour to complete a scan, during which time the patient, perhaps a child or someone in serious pain, must sit perfectly still. NYU has been working on a way to accelerate this process, and is now collaborating with Facebookwith the goal of cutting down MRI durations by 90 percent by applying AI-based imaging tools.
It’s important at the

What Robinhooddid to democratize buying individual stocks, Titan wants to do for investing in a managed portfolio. Instead of being restricted to rich accredited investors willing to pour $5,000 or even $500,000 into a traditional hedge fund that charges 2 percent fees and 20 percent of profits, Titan lets anyone invest as little as $1,000 for just a 1 percent fee on assets while keeping all the profits. Titan picks the top 20 stocks based on data mined from the most prestigious hedge funds, the

Osonde Osoba ContributorShare on Twitter Osonde Osoba is an engineer at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a member of the faculty of the Pardee RAND Graduate School.As a teenager in Nigeria, I tried to build an artificial intelligence system. I was inspired by the same dream that motivated the pioneers in the field: That we could create an intelligence of pure logic and objectivity that would free humanity from human error and human foibles.
I was working with weak computer system

Nvidia is unveiling its new GeForce RTX 2000 series of graphics cards today at Gamescom in Germany today. While we’ve seen a number of teasers and plenty of card leaks recently, the GeForce RTX 2080 is finally official today. Based on Nvidia’s new Turing architecture, the RTX 2080 is designed to succeed the popular GTX 1080, and push new real-time ray-tracing effects in upcoming games.At Nvidia’s event in Germany today, the company is unveiling the RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is negotiating a more than $1 billion investment into Lucid Motors, an electric car startup run by battery company Atieva, Reuters reports. The Saudis and Lucid are far enough along in discussions that the two sides have drawn up a term sheet, a document typically used to outline the broader points of a potential deal.As it stands, the sovereign wealth fund’s investment in Lucid Motors would come in stages, and the first would be for $500 million

Winemakers are playing music to their fermented grapes in an attempt to coax more flavor from the bottles. It sounds odd, but they say the waves help improve the way the wine develops. According to National Geographic, a few wine companies are playing music to their aging barrels. Not just playing music while drinking the wine — I mean actually playing music for the settling liquid as it slowly ferments. Chilean winery Montes Wines plays quiet music, saying the “soft vibrations make

CBSin the beginning of the year brought its streaming service for cord cutters, CBS All Access, to Amazon’s a la carte TV service, Prime Video Channels. At the time, however, only the higher-priced, $9.99 per month commercial-free subscription was offered to Prime members. At the time, CBS said its $5.99 per month ad-supported tier would arrive in the months ahead. It’s now making good on that promise with the launch of the Limited Commercials plan option on Amazon’s Channels.

Audible is getting into the fitness business with a little help from Aaptiv. The Amazon-owned audiobook giant is adding content from the popular audio fitness app. There are only three guided courses to start — all firmly targeted at beginners.There’s audio coaching to run a mile, a 5K and a guided meditation course, all with 20 sessions apiece. The service says it will be adding new courses through the year, including four workouts and a session aimed at improving sleep in the comin

You know that feeling when a deadline’s bearing down on you like a runaway train? If you hope to secure a spot in Startup Alley at Disrupt San Francisco 2018 — which takes place September 5-7 — you’d best get moving, because that deadline is coming at you full steam ahead. Your chance to buy a Disrupt SF Startup Alley Exhibitor Package ends on August 24.
Disrupt San Francisco 2018 will be our largest, most ambitious Disrupt event ever, with more than 10,000 attendees desc

A year ago I felt a panic that still reverberates in me today. Hackers swapped my T-Mobile SIM card without my approval and methodically shut down access to most of my accounts and began reaching out to my Facebook friends asking to borrow crypto. Their social engineering tactics, to be clear, were laughable but they could have been catastrophic if my friends were less savvy.Flash forward a year and the same thing happened to me again – my LTE coverage winked out at about 9pm and it appear

We’ve been unable to escape the prolific spread of Snapchat Stories since last year, seeing it superseded by Instagram and copied by everything from WhatsApp to even real estate websites. Now Giphy is announcing that it’s refreshing its homepage to prominently feature Stories, which will be curated by an editorial team. Stories will be centered around the day’s trending subjects, told through GIFs. One story will be published every hour, curated by categories of Entertainment,

A convincing and polished, yet entirely fake, advertising campaign under the slogan, “Don’t Believe Every Tweet,” made the rounds early this morning, fooling tech critics and reporters into thinking Twitter had launched a marketing effort centered on its own inability to police fake and misleading information. The company confirmed to The Verge that it has nothing to do with the campaign.The project includes a Twitter account, a YouTube video featuring comedian Greg Barris, an

Dark Sky, one of the more popular mobile weather applications on the market, is out today with a complete refresh of its app, which has now been re-written from the ground up, the company says. The biggest change is the introduction of a new unified timeline that combines both the precipitation predictions Dark Skyis best known for, and its weather forecast all on one page. This makes it easier to view all the critical weather information in a single view, without having to tab around to differe

Back in January, Skype announced it was testing end-to-end encrypted chat conversations, secured using Signal Protocol by Open Whisper Systems. Now, the feature is available for all users on Skype iOS, Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows Desktop.
To initiate a Private Conversation, select “New Private Conversation” from the compose menu or the recipient’s profile. The recipient will then receive an invite, and all calls and messages that transpire within that conversation will be

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law that had banned gambling on sporting events in most states. That ruling is set to unlock billions of dollars in new business opportunities for online fantasy sports sites like DraftKings.
That’s why we’re absolutely thrilled to have DraftKingsCEO Jason Robins join us on stage at Disrupt SF.
DraftKings launched back in 2012 and quickly grew into a household name by offering daily and weekly fantasy sports contests across a numbe