Technology news

WNBA star Brittney Sykes made one young fan's dream come true with a heartwarming gesture that left the girl — and us — in tears.
After Sykes' Atlanta Dream team lost to Las Vegas on Thursday night, she went over to the stands. She then handed her autographed sneakers to 9-year-old superfan Mya Danielle Nelson. The young girl was so overcome with excitement that she broke down crying, as seen in the video captured by videographer Wayne Gethers (via Deadspin).THE WNBA MATTERS !! @Brit

Ah, the joys of foreign languages. 
To English ears, the French language can sound beautiful and flowing — if a bit difficult pronounce. But, thanks to this video from French Morning, we can now rest easy knowing the the people of France have their own issues with pronouncing English words.
Enjoy as various French people struggle their way through pronouncing such difficult English words as "hedgehog," Massachusetts," and "jeweler." This is the best cultural exchange we could hope for

While EA is best known for blockbuster franchises like Battlefield, FIFA, and, more recently, Apex Legends, the publisher’s EA Originals label is home to some excellent smaller experiences. Today, at E3 in Los Angeles, the company revealed three more intriguing indie games that are in the works.
The first is called Lost in Random, and it’s developed by Zoink Studios, the team behind the meditative adventure Fe. We don’t know much about the game, but, like its predecessor, it h

Remember that dramatic spinning helicopter rescue? Well, it turns out it was as terrifying as it looked.
Katalin Metro, the poor hiker who was spun around uncontrollably while she was being rescued, "thought she was going to die" during the incident, according to her husband.
Metro's ordeal became national news last week when video of her being lifted up to a helicopter from Piestewa Peak in Phoenix, Arizona went viral.WILD HELICOPTER RESCUE: Firefighters say a 74-year-old woman had to be flown

No forking shirt, The Good Place will permanently move on to the afterlife after its upcoming fourth season, which debuts sometime this fall.
The announcement was made Friday night by series creator Mike Schur (who's also responsible for Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks & Rec). He shared a statement to Twitter, in which he says, "Making this show is a rare, creatively fulfilling joy, and at the end of the day, we don't want to tread water just because the water is so warm and pleasant."Dear Resi

Beware the seagulls of Maine for they take what they want — especially if it's a lobster roll.
That was the lesson learned by Alicia Jessop, who was simply trying to take a photo of a delicious lobster roll she was eating for lunch during a visit to Maine. A thieving-ass seagull had other ideas and swooped in to nab the sandwich away from her. Well, at least she got one hell of a photo for her troubles.This is why we can’t have nice things. I was trying to take a picture of the lobst

Cult classic TV series Veronica Mars is returning next month with a new, long-awaited fourth season on Hulu, but before it does, fans will be able to catch up on the entire show. Hulu revealed today that the show’s three seasons will be available starting on July 1st.The show follows Veronica Mars, a high school student played by Kristen Bell, who moonlights as a private detective, while also navigating the problems that arise with your regular high school existence. The series ran on UPN

YouTuber Ozzy Man scored an interview with Chris Hemsworth, so he took the opportunity to quiz him on Australian slang. Of course, Hemsworth is Australian, so he had to play the expert version.
He does pretty well, though he does stumble on the phrase "do a Harold Holt," which apparently refers to when someone goes missing, never to be seen again. (This happened to the former Australian prime minister of the same name.) 
In the end, his score is solid enough to win him a pair of "budgie smu

Footage of Respawn Entertainment’s upcoming game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order just hit the web, and it shows off a really interesting connection to the rest of the franchise: Saw Gerrera, the leader of a rebel faction in the years before the formation of the Rebel Alliance.The 14-minute clip follows the game’s character, Cal Kestis, a Force user who escaped the Jedi Purge at the end of the Clone Wars, and who is now on the run from the Empire. Saw appears towards the beginning on th

You've gotta love the idea at the heart of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Be your own Jedi! Kick the Empire's ass! Use a lightsaber and Force powers while you're doing it!
Respawn Entertainment shared a world first look at the Nov. 15 Star Wars game during Electronic Arts' annual EA Play showcase. And hey, it looks wild. Would you expect less from the studio behind Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends?
This 15-minute slice of game showcases the vibe of Respawn's single-player, story-driven adventure. The

Respawn Entertainment heard complaints about the first season of its battle royale game Apex Legends, and is shifting gears in season 2.The second season is called Battle Charge. It will introduce a new weapon (called the L-Star, seen below), a new legend (Wattson, also below), and other improvements on the first season. The team is also introducing a “Ranked Mode” to Apex Legends in the second season to help players hone their competitive skills, according to Drew McCoy, project le

Maker Media, the company that publishes Make Magazine and Maker Faire is laying off its staff and halting its operations amidst financial troubles, according to TechCrunch.Maker Media CEO and founder Dale Dougherty confirmed to TechCrunch that the company was ceasing operations and that it had laid off 22 employees, citing financial difficulties with publishing a magazine and the lack of corporate sponsorship. “I started this 15 years ago and it’s always been a struggle as a busines

This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.Toddlers and babies speak a language all their own. I mean, that was the premise of Boss Baby, right? Rugrats? It's practically its own genre at this point. 
But in real life, it's harder to get inside the mind of these little bundles of joy. Their brains are developing, and they when they do respond to the world around them, it's not always clear what they're saying. Frazzled

One young Jedi is running rampant in the first 15-minute, uncut gameplay trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.The footage takes place three hours into the game. Main character Cal Kestis is no longer a Padawan but also not a full-fledged Jedi. The game footage takes place on Kashyyyk, a Wookie planet, where Wookies have been enslaved. Cal Kestis is accompanied by an adorable little droid, BD-1, on his mission in the forest-heavy world. It even appears that Forest Whitaker, who played Saw Ge

Chinese governmental officials reportedly warned numerous tech companies of “dire consequences,” should they cooperate with a US ban against doing business with Chinese tech firm Huawei, according to a report in The New York Times. The move comes after China threatened to set up a blacklist of “unreliable entities” in retaliation for the ban.The Times reports that the warnings came in a series of meetings held earlier this week by members of China’s National Develo

London celebrated Queen Elizabeth's 93rd birthday with Trooping the Colour, her annual birthday parade, on Saturday. Prince Louis, however, was the real star of the show.
This was the prince's first public appearance at the parade, which makes sense because he was one month old when the last one happened. By the looks of the photos, he spent the day experiencing the full range of human emotion, from extremely grumpy to absolutely thrilled. (Again, he is one year old, so this checks out.)
It seem

Twitter is a bad place to do a lot of things, like "have a nice conversation" and "not get harassed." But it remains a good place to make corny jokes, especially if they are about Keanu Reeves.
In the past few days, people have started tweeting out all kinds of riffs on Keanu's name, which is easy to do because "Reeves" rhymes (and almost rhymes) with a lot of words. It's the latest meme to arise from his well-deserved resurgence in internet culture, and it probably won't be the last. The "Keanu

Current Futures, a new sci-fi anthology of short stories, was published online this week in honor of World Oceans Day, taking readers deep into fantastic (and wet) futures.Genetic editing, holograms, and underwater cities each make appearances in the 18 stories and 18 accompanying illustrations. The stories were edited by sci-fi author Ann VanderMeer,and come from authors all over the world. One author, Lauren Beukes, even wrote her story, “Her Seal Skin Coat” while in Antarctica.
T

Premium cable network Epix announced that it is now available on Amazon Prime as a video channel, six months after it launched as such on Roku. Prime subscribers can add on the network as a channel for $5.99 a month.The feature is much like what subscribers can do with other premium networks like HBO, Showtime, and Starz on Amazon Prime, and it allows subscribers to keep their bills all in one place. Expanding the availability over to Amazon makes sense: Epix has been developing a string of ori

Well, fork. NBC’s fantastic, surreal drama The Good Place is coming to an end. Series creator Michael Shur posted a statement on Twitter saying that the upcoming fourth season would be the show’s last.In the statement, Shur (who also created Brooklyn 99 and Parks and Recreation) says that following the show’s renewal after its first season, he and the show’s writers plotted out where they wanted to take the series. “I began to feel like four seasons — just ov

We humans have always been held back only by the limits of our imaginations. And this is a good thing. Yet historically, we have tended to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, spit out the seeds, and think little of what might grow where they land. The adoption of technology is an excellent example. Since the industrial revolution, technology has been enthusiastically invented, produced, embraced, and widely adopted… while the societal impact was considered only ex post facto, if at a

In 2019, Facebook isn’t just a homepage; it’s a passport. As mobile apps look for an alternative to passwords, big networks like Facebook and Google have become login services, letting a single login sign you into dozens of different apps. As long as Facebook or Google will vouch for you, most apps are happy to take them at their word, using open protocols like OAuth to verify the login. In return, the big companies find out what you’re logging into and when. It’s a good

When engineers train AI agents to play video games, they often do so at an accelerated rate, having the bot go through hours of human-speed gameplay in a matter of minutes to stress-test its capabilities. Unfortunately, no such shortcut exists when developing AI that controls machines in the real world. You can’t fast-forward reality.
Well, you can if you simulate it, which is what Amazon is doing to test its new Scout delivery robot. Speaking to The Verge, Scout VP Sean Scott explains th

Welcome to CHEAP, our series about things that are good, but most of all, cheap. CHEAP! Everyone loves a little bit of on-the-go gaming. There’s little better than kicking back on a plane, train, or any other sort of transport, and losing yourself in a title. And you know the best way to play games when you’re out and about? Nah, not on your phone – on one of Nintendo‘s fantastic portable consoles. You know, like the 2DS? Oh – and you’ll never believe this &n

Anyone who's made a New Year’s resolution to work out more knows: The hardest part of getting moving can be just getting out of the house. Even longtime runners need to bribe themselves with DoorDash afterward on occasion.
Home treadmills are a godsend for this exact reason. They're a sweet, sweet solution for the days when it's too cold, wet, or swampy to run outside, or the days when you don't feel like brawling over a machine at the gym.
The pandemic brought a whole new meaning to share

Hotstar,India’s largest video streaming service with more than 300 million users, disabled support for Apple’s Safari web browser on Friday to mitigate a security flaw that allowed unauthorized usage of its platform, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The incident comes at a time when the streaming service — operated by Star India, part of 20th Century Fox that Disney acquired — enjoys peak attention as millions of people watch the ongoing ICC World Cup

Financial troubles have forced Maker Media, the company behind crafting publication MAKE: magazine as well as the science and art festival Maker Faire, to lay off its entire staff of 22 and pause all operations. TechCrunch was tipped off to MakerMedia’s unfortunate situation which was then confirmed by the company’s founder and CEO Dale Dougherty.
For 15 years, MAKE: guided adults and children through step-by-step do-it-yourself crafting and science projects, and it was central to th

E3 doesn’t technically start until Tuesday, but the leaks are already arriving fast and furious. Now that winter has come from HBO’s Game of Thrones, creator George R.R. Martin’s got several other projects in the works, including, reportedly, a new video game.
Welp.
Looks like everything is leaking before E3. Elden Ring is probably next up.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) June 7, 2019Word is we’ll be hearing more about that last bit on Sunday, during Microsoft’sbig

Lyft filed a lawsuit against San Francisco today claiming city authorities are violating a contract it has with the ride-hailing company that gives Lyft exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs in the area. San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, on the other hand, says it has the authority to sign partnerships with dockless (also called stationless) vendors, and that Lyft’s contract gives it exclusivity only on docked bike shares. Lyft is seeking a temporary restrai

Ten years ago, Sequoia Capital began quietly encouraging founders of its portfolio companies to consider which of their founder friends they might like to get behind financially. Sequoia would let them write checks to those companies, and it would share with them any later rewards.It was a brilliant idea. It allowed Sequoia to keep tabs on entrepreneurs — and nascent technologies — not yet in its universe. It cemented the firm’s ties to the founders who were already in its fami

Two of the biggest names in fantasy are collaborating.
According to a new leak just ahead of an official E3 reveal, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is working with Dark Souls studio FromSoftware on a new game called Elden Ring. At this point we don’t know anything else about the game aside from the title, but given the creators, it’s safe to assume it takes place in a deeply realized fantasy world. The game is slated for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, and will be published by Band

In the history of human existence there isn’t a single scrap of peer-reviewed, verified evidence supporting the idea that it’s possible to overdose on cannabis. Yet, somehow, a coroner from Louisiana claims to be 100-percent positive that a 39-year-old woman’s become the first to do so. His reasoning? She had THC in her system and his team couldn’t come up with any other explanations for her death. The doctor in question, Christy Montegut, told The New Orleans Advocate:

Of all of the WWDC announcements this week, Sidecar got me the most excited. I’m on the road a lot these days, and apps like Duet and Luna have been lifesavers. They’ve afforded me the ability to carry around a reasonably sized laptop, with an optional second screen in the form of the iPad.
Both products have their respective strengths, but I’m very interested in seeing how native second display support for iPad plays out, and I’m sure I’m not alone among their curr