Technology news

Nintendo ended its latest Direct presentation with a surprise: a new, 3D remake of the Game Boy classic The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.While details are slim, Nintendo did have a trailer to show off the remake, which will see the 8-bit Game Boy graphics redone in a bright, colorful, and absolutely adorable-looking 3D style that wouldn’t look out of place in a Pixar movie.Link’s Awakening was originally released back in 1993 for the Game Boy, marking the first time that

Nintendo has finally taken the wraps off of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, revealing the first concrete details for the title since it was originally announced at E3 last year, along with an actual release date: July 26th.Three Houses will let players create their own main character, starting as a mercenary before joining the Garreg Mach Monastery to teach as a professor at the Officer’s Academy there. In a Harry Potter-esque move, the academy is split into the (titular) three houses: the Bla

Tetris is going battle royale, with a new competitive version of the iconic puzzler called Tetris 99. The game was announced during today’s Nintendo Direct, which also featured the announcement of Super Mario Maker 2 and provided more details about the upcoming Fire Emblem game for Switch, Fire Emblem: Three Houses.Players in Tetris 99 will compete online against each other until there is only one survivor left. Although there won’t be any running around and fort-building that playe

The latest main entry in the long-running Japanese RPG series Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest XI, is coming to the Nintendo Switch this fall, the company announced during one of its Direct live stream events this afternoon. Officially titled Dragon Quest XI Echoes of an Elusive Age S, the port features new music, new character storylines, and the ability to revert the overall look of the game to a classic 8-bit design, similar to a feature in the original 3DS version of the game.Prior to today&rsquo

Two alleged hackers in Southern California have been arrested and charged with multiple offenses following widespread Minecraft-related hoaxes that led to hundreds of schools in the UK and US being evacuated over false bomb threats.Timothy Dalton Vaughn and George Duke-Cohan, otherwise known by their respective hacker aliases “wantedbyfeds” and “DigitalCrimes,” were charged on February 8th with hacking crimes, conspiracy, and “interstate threats involving explosive

Super Mario Maker 2, Nintendo’s build-your-own-level game that originally debuted on the Nintendo Wii U in 2015, is officially coming to the Switch.It will include brand-new features, according to a new Nintendo Direct, which aired this afternoon. There are elements of the game that appear in the trailer that fans of the first title will recognize right away. Those focused on designing the hardest levels for their friends and the streaming community should be happy. Die-hard Super Mario M

Move over, sex buttons, it turns out that the company most likely to improve couples’ relationships and save marriages is actually... Ford? The company has been known to develop conceptual prototypes that utilize its car technology in unexpected ways, like this smart crib that puts babies fast asleep by replicating car rides, or this noise-canceling dog kennel. This time, the company’s created a conveyor belt bed that takes inspiration from Ford’s lane-keeping technology to ke

Apple’s upcoming March 25th event will see the introduction of the company’s long-awaited video subscription service, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Yesterday, BuzzFeed News reported that Apple plans to announce its news subscription service at the March event, but it seems like the company has more than just that in the works.Apple has reportedly invited Hollywood stars, including “Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner and JJ Abrams” to attend,

Last-minute negotiations over the wording of the European Union’s controversial Copyright Directive have come to a close, and only a full vote by the European Parliament stands in the way of the legislation becoming law.The final text of the directive has been wrangled over during closed-door negotiations for the last few months. It had been hoped by campaigners that these talks, known as trilogues, would mitigate or even remove what they see as the worst effects of two of the directive&r

Caviar, a sort of tech-jewelry company that rebuilds iPhones into $22,000 diamond-and-metal showpieces, has today announced its take on the AirPods with a set of repainted and fancified editions. Calling them “royal gift editions,” Caviar has spruced up the boring white AirPods with a choice of black or burgundy paint, complete with real gold lettering, for a price of $590 per pair. If you want to step up to the carbon fiber option — because of course there would be such an op

Twitter conversations can be notoriously hard to parse — just ask the company’s CEO and co-founder, Jack Dorsey, who participated in a conversation with Recode’s Kara Swisher yesterday that was deemed a “chaotic hellpit” that even Dorsey said was “definitely not easy to follow.” Part of the reason is that Twitter doesn’t automatically organize conversations in ways that are easy to dissect, and the volume of voices chiming in on certain threads ca

TikTok usage in India has led teens and young adults to participate in acts of “cultural degradation,” according to Indian lawmakers, who are asking the government to take action against the app.The government appears to be listening. M. Manikandan, information technology minister of the Indian state Tamil Nadu, said the state government will recommend that TikTok be banned in Tamil Nadu, according to a report from The Economic Times. Nagapattinam lawmaker Thamimun Ansari raised the

SoundCloud announced in a blog post today that the 200 millionth track has been uploaded to the platform. In 2016, SoundCloud boasted that it had 125 million tracks available across all its subscription tiers, so that’s quite a jump in uploaded content within just a couple of years.
When that number is compared to other streaming platforms it feels especially imposing. Spotify’s catalog has “more than 35 million” songs, while Apple Music’s has over 45 million. Othe

When it comes to sperm, only the fiercest swimmers can wriggle past the bottlenecks of the female reproductive tract, new research shows. The study could help one day improve tests for male fertility. But, in the meantime, it brings us delightful footage of sperm desperately, fruitlessly swimming into a fake fallopian tube. Sorry, little guys.With a single ejaculate, 100 million sperm can swim up the female reproductive tract — and the theory goes that only solid swimmers can make it to t

Google CEO Sundar Pichai today announced that the company will expand its US footprint into several new states, including Nebraska, Nevada, and Oklahoma. The company plans to build new offices and data centers across the country, citing more than 10,000 construction jobs in those areas and total investments of more than $13 billion. In 2018, the company invested $9 billion in facility expansions.
“With this new investment, Google will now have a home in 24 total states, including data cen

Apple’s upcoming TV service is supposed to let viewers bundle together their favorite networks, but according to CNBC, Netflix isn’t on board with the plan and HBO may not be either. The service is supposed to be announced at an event on March 25th, according to Bloomberg.
The streaming service, which CNBC says could launch in April or early May, will be centered around Apple’s own original shows and movies. At least some of those titles will be made available for free to Appl

An Instagram account posting comics with gay characters disappeared this week after Indonesian officials pressed the company to take it down. The Indonesian government is now saying that Instagram removed the account, but Instagram denies any involvement. With the situation unclear, Instagram has come under criticism for its alleged censorship of an LGBTQ artist.The account, Alpantuni, posted comic strips about what it’s like to be gay in a Muslim Indonesian community, showing how gay cha

On Wednesday, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles released the latest batch of reports from companies testing self-driving vehicles in the state. The reports offer the public its best glimpse into the slow and often-opaque process of testing autonomous vehicles on public roads. But because companies have a lot of leeway in how they report their data, the story it tells can be misleading.By law, all companies that are actively testing self-driving cars on public roads in California a

Backblaze is a fantastic option for automatically backing up your computer’s files to the cloud, where they’re free from the potential threats of theft or damage that external hard drives can face. But as with many good things, this one is about to get a bit more expensive. The company has announced that it’s going to be increasing its subscription costs slightly beginning on March 11th. The month-by-month subscription will rise from $5 to $6, and the annual fee will jump to $

Harmonix has announced a new virtual reality “rhythm shooter” game called Audica, which is launching as an Early Access game for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on March 7th. Based on the first trailer, it’s a musical shooting gallery reminiscent of AudioShield or Beat Saber, another VR title that turns highly physical combat into a rhythm mechanic.
Audica is the latest of several Harmonix VR music games, including its 2017 game Rock Band VR. Its initial version will come with 10 son

Using marijuana as a teen is associated with a higher chance of experiencing depression as an adult, according to a new study that adds to a growing debate over the health effects of marijuana.Cannabis is the most popular drug for teens, who are increasingly turning to marijuana before alcohol and tobacco. Yet even as support for marijuana legalization grows, there has also been a push to highlight the downside and potential dangers of marijuana and mental health (including a much-hyped but poo

Samsung’s next Unpacked event, where it’s expected to announce the latest flagship phones, falls on February 20th this year — and we’ve got an unusually good idea about what’s coming, thanks to even more leaks than usual. We might be getting as many as five different phones, including as least three versions of the Galaxy S10, plus Samsung’s long-awaited foldable phone, and maybe even a 5G handset. Oh, and how about an early launch of Samsung’s AirPods

Former Apple lawyer Gene Levoff has been charged with insider trading by the SEC, which is accusing Levoff of exploiting his position at Apple to trade stocks ahead of earnings, via CNBC.Ironically, before he was fired, Levoff worked as the head of the corporate law group at the company and was “responsible for Apple’s compliance with securities laws.” In other words, his job was to make sure that Apple and its executives didn’t do the exact thing that he was caught doin

Musician Joel Zimmerman (otherwise known as deadmau5) deleted his Twitch live-streaming account yesterday after being suspended for homophobic slurs. In a now-deleted Reddit post, Zimmerman said his comments had been “generally toxic as fuck,” but that they were not intended as hate speech. “I’m not going to stand for Twitch’s double standard when it comes to censoring and suspending me for harmless shit,” he said. “While we’ve had some fun partne

In the first book of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol run, the world is overrun by creatures that can cut their victims out of reality. Doom Patrol leader Niles Caulder (aka “The Chief”) asks Robotman (a human brain in a metal body), “How do you propose to deal with the current crisis?” Robotman replies, “If we had any sense, we’d call Superman.”
They don’t call him, of course, and their team of exceptionally weird superheroes saves the day by c

Those who wait for deals are eventually rewarded with some good price drops, and today is paying off if you’ve had an eye on the GoPro Hero 7 Black or Xbox One X.
GoPro’s Hero 7 Black camera is its fastest-selling camera yet, and it’s now $50 off at its website. Normally $399.99, the camera is now $349.99, and comes with a SanDisk 32GB microSD card and GoPro beanie for free with purchase. Hypersmooth, a feature powered by this camera’s GP1 custom processor, allows for su