Items tagged with Misc
Gay marriage rights is one of the most potent issues of today, and strong feelings from both sides have spilled over into Mozilla’s boardroom. Mozilla promoted Brendan Eich from CTO to CEO last week, but when it was revealed that Eich donated $1,000 to the Prop 8 effort (legislation to ban gay marriage in...
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After a couple of accidents involving Tesla’s Model S electric car resulted in fires, the company has scrambled to find a solution that didn’t involve completely re-engineering the undercarriage and engine compartment. That solution has taken the form of a relatively simple three-part titanium shield...
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This isn’t about cool virtual reality games anymore. When the news first broke of Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, the knee-jerk reaction from many fans of the Oculus Rift was to feel betrayed that this grassroots tech company, funded in part by its individual supporters, was going to be...
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Who doesn’t love a good Batman game? Rocksteady has the new Batman: Arkham Knight coming this year, and you can now preorder the title for PC, Xbox One, and PS4. For now, when you preorder, you also get the playable Harley Quinn add-on and can play as the newest baddie in the Rocksteady Batman world...
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Technically, Yahoo already has a YouTube-ish video service called Screen (show of hands, who knew that actually existed?), but the company is rumored to be hatching a plan to create a true YouTube competitor. According to Re/code’s sources, CEO Marissa Mayer wants a much bigger web video presence, and to do so...
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The announcement that Facebook bought Oculus VR felt like a suckerpunch to the gut for many ardent fans of the Oculus Rift and all the amazing work that the Oculus team has been doing, and even more people have bemoaned the acquisition as a death knell for the once-promising VR project. However, you can count Valve...
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We’d bet that when Mark Zuckerberg drunkenly dashed off the original Facebook precursor in his dorm room, he never imagined that within a decade he’d be actively trying to connect two-thirds of the world to the Internet and working with NASA to do so, but that is indeed what has transpired. Zuckerberg...
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Amazon is holding a press event on April 2nd, and it appears likely that the announcement will be the oft-rumored and long-awaited streaming video set-top box. Or at least, something pertaining to living room entertainment. The image that Amazon sent along with the invitation is a shot of a couch littered with a few...
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As both the general public and CEOs of Internet companies seethe in the wake of NSA spying allegations, some researchers at MIT are working on a tool called Mylar that they claim would essentially spy-proof web applications. The pain point, according to the team, is the server. Every web application relies on servers for processing and storing...
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Whether you’re an Apple fanboy or a dyed-in-the-wool hater, the influence of the original iPhone cannot be understated. In one fell swoop, Apple essentially created and perfected a new category of device, and it would be years before anyone else caught up. Greg Christie, a senior Apple engineer when the company was building the iPhone,...
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Facebook is snapping up Oculus VR, maker of the hotly-anticipated Oculus Rift virtual reality gaming headset. For those immediately worried that Facebook will ruin Oculus Rift, fear not: Mark Zuckerberg assured the world in a post that not only will Facebook be accelerating the Oculus Rift gaming platform, it will be leveraging Oculus VR’s...
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LG is developing smart lighting solutions. Its first release to that effect is an LED smart light bulb, and it actually sounds like a somewhat compelling product instead of some eyeroll-inducing googah for the geek elite. The bulbs come packing Bluetooth and WiFi technology and works with devices running Android 4.3 and higher as well iOS...
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As it turns, you can donate more than just blood to help others; you can donate your voice, and all it costs you is a stretch of time in a recording booth. And if Professor Rupal Patel and Dr. Tim Bunnell fulfill their vision, voice donations from all over the world may someday be generated with an iPhone app. ...
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Facebook has endeavored to make coding a more efficient process by developing a coding language called Hack. Facebook has been using Hack internally for quite some time, and now the company is open sourcing the tool for anyone to use. “Hack is a programming language for HHVM that interoperates seamlessly with PHP,” reads the “Hack...
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The sands of the ever-fickle music industry are shifting again, and this time it’s Apple that has to scramble to adjust. Once the king of digital downloads, Apple is facing a reported double-digit drop in music sales, largely because of competition from streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. In...
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Wireless security has always been something of a problem. Basic WEP encryption, for example, has been beaten so soundly that it’s a wonder device makers even offer it as a security option anymore. Fortunately, we’ve had WiFi protected access 2 (WPA2) keeping our networks safe--but perhaps no longer. According to Phys.org, researchers...
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Setting aside for a moment how jarring it is to see Ashton Kutcher’s name associated with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the trio are among investors in a startup called Vicarious FPC that has lofty goals for artificial intelligence technology. Specifically, Vicarious wants to essentially replicate the human...
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For all the ire the NSA’s spying practices have fomented among users and Internet companies alike, the revelations are prompting some positive changes. For Gmail users, those changes are coming in the form of better encryption on Google’s part. Although it’s been the default option since 2010, Google...
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Valve is still working on the final edits to its new Steam Controller, and it’s showing off the device at GDC where we got to spend some time snapping pictures of it on the show floor. We’ve already discussed what the new controller will look like, particularly compared to the original, but what we...
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If running around your house, office building, or a public space with your smartphone strapped into a gun-like gaming accessory while you and your pals engage in augmented reality video game that overlays gameplay in real time over whatever environment you’re in, you might be a person that wants to drop some...
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Charlie Rose sat down with Google’s Larry Page to talk turkey about the present and future of Google and technology at a TED talk, and the main takeaway is that the most exciting innovations are yet to come. If there was any doubt about Google’s intentions in the AI space, making computers smarter, Page...
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Every now and then we need a reminder that technology is more than games and gadgets, and this is one of those times: To help in the bizarre and tragic case of the Malaysia Flight 370 jet that has mysteriously vanished without a trace, a company called DigitalGlobe is using satellite images and crowdsourcing to help...
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