Technology news

Facebook announced this week it had made its first outright ban of an app in the company-wide audit it’s been working on since the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year. The app in question had apparently been setting off red flags since April. Ime Archibong, Facebook‘s VP of product partnerships, revealed Facebook banned an app called “myPersonality,” which hadn’t been active since 2012. According to him, the app was banned “for failing to agree

Eventbrite filed an IPO today for $200 million, confirming reports earlier this summer that the event-planning company plans to go public later this year.
According to the document, the company plans to raise $200 million from selling Class A shares, but has yet to list the price per share.
As for what Eventbrite intends to do with the new funds, many are pointing to the need to recover the company’s recent losses. While the company reported a net profit of $201.6 million in 2017, operatin

Despite the myriad of leaks so far, one of the big mysteries surrounding the Pixel 3 is why the phone has two cameras on the front but only one in the rear. Now a report by 9to5Google gives an explanation: something called Super Selfies. According to 9to5Google’s sources, this is largely related to making portrait mode better for selfies, even though I thought the Pixel 2 already had the best implementation outside of the iPhone X. Using two cameras gives Google better dept

Welcome to the AI era. We missed the official announcement too, but it’s obvious that’s what we’re in. This new paradigm requires the acceptance or denial of a new brand of faith: Artificial general intelligence (AGI). Or, sentient machines, if you prefer. Either way, let’s talk about killer robots. It seems like the entire world is obsessed with AGI – the idea that a machine could become “alive” or “sentient.” At a bare minimum an AGI would

The Pixel 3 and 3 XL leaks keep coming, and today, 9to5Google reports additional details on both devices’ camera setups. The report says that both devices’ rumored dual, front-facing cameras will house one wide-angle sensor, so users can take “Super Selfies.” These cameras would also ship with an improved portrait mode. Google seems to be sticking with the single, rear-facing camera.
Every leak we’ve seen so far shows that Google is leaning into the notch trend wit

The Pixel 3 and 3 XL leaks keep coming, and today, 9to5Google reports additional details on both devices’ camera setups. The report says that both devices’ rumored dual, front-facing cameras will house one wide-angle sensor, so users can take “Super Selfies.” These cameras would also ship with an improved portrait mode. Google seems to be sticking with the single, rear-facing camera.
Every leak we’ve seen so far shows that Google is leaning into the notch trend wit

Sony has a new device for controlling media playback and other activities on the PlayStation 4 that aren’t exactly game pad-friendly. Called the PS4 Cloud Remote and developed in partnership with Performance Designed Products, the device is a programmable remote that can detect and control your television. That way, you can change inputs and even turn the volume up and down without having to use a secondary device.The product is an update to an existing PDP-made remote for the PS4 that ap

Dril, the Master Poster, has written a book. It is a 420-page tome that is available now from Amazon, titled Dril Official “Mr. Ten Years” Anniversary Collection.Before joining Twitter in 2008, @dril — revealed a few years ago to be a guy named Paul, though no one cares who he is because we still need good things online — originated as a regular contributor to Something Awful’s influential FYAD (that’s “fuck you and die”) board. When he and others

Fortnite might update regularly, but Epic Games still packs plenty of surprises within expected patches. This week sees the introduction of a rare item that is poised to shake up conventional playing methods even further away from “just build, lol.”Rifts have been populating the island since the start of the season, but until now, they’ve only appeared at fixed locations. As of patch version 5.30, players can now find a “Rift-to-go” epic-level item that acts as a m

Apple has given a straight-to-series order for an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s acclaimed science fiction Foundation trilogy after picking up the show for development earlier this spring.In April, Deadline reported that Apple was developing an adaptation of the series, which adds to the company’s growing list of original content offerings as it seeks to compete with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, and Disney. The initial order for the show is 10 episodes.The show comes from David S. Go

Recently, Google, Apple and IBM became the latest companies to join a trend of no longer requiring a university degree from prospective candidates. This is pretty huge. After all we’re talking companies that receive thousands of CVs every day, and they can afford to be very picky. So it’s not a matter of cutting corners in order to fill vacancies, but a recognition that the way in which we’re acquiring, maintaining and developing our skills has dramatically changed. Having inv

When news broke this week that Verizon was slowing California firefighters’ data speeds during a wildfire crisis, there was a predictable outrage over the company’s actions. In a legal brief filed by Santa Clara County fire officials against the FCC’s net neutrality repeal, emergency responders explained how Verizon dropped their connection to a crawl, even after being informed of the emergency. The company didn’t restore the speeds until the fire department paid for a b

If you teach a robot to fish, it’ll probably catch fish. However, if you teach it to be curious, it’ll just watch TV and play video games all day. Researchers from Open AI — the singularity-focused think-tank co-founded by Elon Musk — recently published a research paper detailing a large-scale study on curiosity-driven learning. In it, they show how AI models trained without “extrinsic rewards” can develop and learn skills. Basically, they’ve figur

A new Pew study published this week suggests teenagers are more aware of the drawbacks of smartphones than you might think — and quite a few of them are actively taking steps to police their own usage. If you’re the parent of a teenager, you’re the parent of someone who’s had smartphones and internet-connected devices available for probably their entire conscious lives. It seems like my generation and the one after it are perpetually focused on the bright allure of

Logitech announced the MX Vertical earlier this week, a mouse designed to improve ergonomics and reduce strain. Though I’m lucky to never have been afflicted by any computer-related discomfort, I was surprised by how much I like the vertical grip. Granted, the MX Vertical is far from the first vertical mouse out there – a company called Evoluent has been selling them since 2002, and there are plenty others – it’s the first product I’m aware of from a major accessor

Nvidia’s new RTX 2000 series of GPUs are designed with ray tracing in mind, a rendering technique that enables real-time light reflections and cinematic effects in games. While we’ve seen some technical demonstrations of what is possible with ray tracing in the past, Nvidia’s Battlefield V demo earlier this week really shows some impressive real world examples of how the company’s RTX cards will make a difference in rendering games and make them a little more movie-like.

Vive Studios today announced it will debut the world’s first feature-length virtual reality film at Raindance. Called 7 Miracles, the film will bring the Gospel of John to life in glorious 360-degree VR. And yea, it was good – for it has been nominated for the festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Story. The film is a seven part (presumably one per miracle) VR experience that allows VR users to immerse themselves within it. You’ll be able to walk around and see

Twitch may have figured out how to play Pokémon, but now it faces its greatest challenge yet: watching all of Pokémon. The popular streaming site is preparing to embark on its biggest marathon event yet, airing 19 seasons and 16 movies of the Pokémon anime, beginning on August 27th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET for viewers in the US, Canada, Europe, Latin America, and Australia.
Now, before you get too excited about trying to watch 932 episodes of Pokémon in a row, it’s

Bitmain, the Chinese megafirm responsible for the industrialization of cryptocurrency mining, has released a new water-cooled mining rig that seemingly borrows concepts from the DIY community it stifles. The Antminer S9 has become the gold-standard in cryptocurrency mining. It’s the preferred hardware of the biggest cryptocurrency mining farms in the world. Marathon, a NASDAQ-listed company, runs 1,400 Antminer S9s in its facility. Another operation maintained by Global Bit Ventures has 2

Sony announced today that it’s going to release its robot dog Aibo in the US, following the brand’s relaunch in Japan last year. The new edition will be available to purchase in September for $2,899 and will be bundled with three years of Sony’s AI Cloud service as well as a variety of toys, including a pink ball, an “Aibone,” paw pads, and a charging station. The AI Cloud allows Aibo to send its daily activity back to Sony’s servers, which the company claims

Destiny 2’s next big Forsaken expansion launches on September 4th, and one of its big additions is a new Gambit mode. It’s a mixture of the game’s player-versus-environment and player-vs-player modes, and the combination sees players battle enemies in two separate zones with the ability for one player from each team to teleport into a rival’s zone and cause carnage. It’s one of most highly anticipated parts of Destiny 2 Forsaken, and now fans will be able to play i

Moon-mining enthusiasts were particularly gleeful this week when researchers claimed that they had found definitive evidence that water ice exists on the surface of the Moon. There’s even more water ice than we thought up there, too, and we know exactly where a lot of it is. That may make it even easier to mine this water in the future.
Long before this discovery, researchers have been eager to scoop up any water that may be lurking on the lunar surface. It’s a resource that could b

Windows 95 is the operating system that’s now used as a yardstick for what’s possible on modern devices and platforms. We’ve seen Microsoft’s popular OS appear on the Apple Watch, an Android Wear smartwatch, and even the Xbox One. Today, someone has gone a step further and made Windows 95 into an app that you can run on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Slack developer Felix Rieseberg is responsible for this glorious app, allowing nostalgia lovers to play around with Windows 95

After flooding dozens of cities with tens of thousands of pay-per-minute electric two-wheelers, the bike and scooter companies have hit a snag: cities are increasingly passing new rules to regulate their use. As part of their effort to get into the good graces of regulators and lawmakers writing these rules, the scooter startups are rolling out new products and initiatives that emphasize charitable giving, outreach to low-income communities, and infrastructure improvements. It’s image reh

Soon you’ll be able to see what it’s really like to sit on the Iron Throne. Today, game publisher Devolver announced a partnership with HBO, the result of which is Reigns: Game of Thrones, a Westeros-themed spinoff of the excellent indie game.
Reigns and its sequel turned the life of a monarch into a Tinder-inspired strategy game; you swiped left or right to make decisions, all the while balancing things like your reputation with the church, the happiness of your people, and the amo