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Showing posts from May, 2018

Ticketfly takes its websites offline as it scrambles to recover from hack

Events ticketing company Ticketfly has been compromised by a digital attack, according to an announcement today on Twitter. “Following recent site issues,” the statement reads, “we determined that Ticketfly has been the target of a cyber incident. To protect our clients and fans, and to secure the website and related data, we have temporarily taken all Ticketfly systems offline.” Billboard says users began noticing site defacement yesterday around 9PM PST. The hacker, who called themselves IsHaKdZ, replaced Ticketfly’s website with a picture of Guy Fawkes and a warning that read “Your Security Down im Not Sorry.” The hacker also left a yandex.com email account and cautioned that they had access to a database titled “backstage,” which... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2smZJfE

Here’s what Earth looks like from the US’s most advanced weather satellite

Almost three months after launching into space , the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest weather satellite, called GOES-17, sent us its first official images of our planet. The incredible views, which were captured on May 20th and made public today , were taken even as the satellite is having some issues with one of its instruments. GOES-17 went up to work with GOES-16 , another NOAA weather satellite that was launched in 2016 . The two probes, which are part of the so-called GOES-R series , are able to scan most of the Western Hemisphere from the coast of Africa all the way to New Zealand. Their observations from 22,300 miles (almost 36,000 kilometers) above Earth are key to monitor hurricanes, droughts,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2LcErs9

Cryptocurrency mining rigs are just PCs — so why won’t Stripe let you sell them?

At the end of 2017, and the height of the cryptocurrency craze, Noah Katz decided to start a mining rig company called Artesian Future Technology. His plan was simple: he would make custom computers for people who didn’t have the time or know-how to do so on their own, but wanted to enter the wildly volatile field of cryptocurrency mining. However Katz’s offering quickly reached stratospheric prices: the basic computer he sold cost $1,899, but customers could fill it with GPUs sometimes costing upward of $47,990. These machines were listed on Katz’s website and eBay, where they were explicitly labeled as mining rigs. Those machines would then mine alternative cryptocurrencies, and in theory at least, eventually pay for themselves. Katz’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xvTn2l

Kayak’s Trip Huddle helps make group trip planning less of a headache

Kayak has introduced a new tool intended to take away some of the frustration of planning group travel. Called Kayak Trip Huddle , the feature allows people to collaboratively decide on major decisions of a group trip, such as where to stay and what destinations to hit up. A group leader will have to start the process in order to start planning via Trip Huddle, which simply involves logging in and giving the trip a name. Once created, they can invite other members via a shareable link or email, and then start creating parameters for everyone to vote on. Think of it like a Doodle scheduling service, but for the full trip-planning process. The leader can add destinations, dates of travel, and ideas for accommodations, which can all then be... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xrfWVY

Why it’s time to study how rocket emissions change the atmosphere

Every time a rocket launches, it produces a plume of exhaust in its wake that leaves a mark on the environment. These plumes are filled with materials that can collect in the air over time, potentially altering the atmosphere in dangerous ways. It’s a phenomenon that’s not well-understood, and some scientists say we need to start studying these emissions now before the number of rocket launches increases significantly. It’s not the gas in these plumes that’s most concerning. Some rockets do produce heat-trapping greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, but those emissions are negligible, according to experts. “The rocket business could grow by a factor of 1,000 and the carbon dioxide and water vapor emissions would still be small compared... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xuTZVV

Microsoft is killing off Groove Music iOS and Android apps

Microsoft r etired its Groove Music streaming service last year, but promised to keep investing in the app for Windows 10 users. That investment won’t continue for iOS and Android users, though. “Tomorrow we’re notifying customers that on December 1, 2018, the Groove Music iOS and Android apps will also be retired and, effective June 1, are no longer available for download,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge . The app removal means you’ll no longer be able to use Groove Music as a locker service to access MP3s or other audio files from Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud service. However, Microsoft says music files will “continue to be available and playable on OneDrive” and other apps can access them. That’s not the same... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J8di9f

Westworld star James Marsden will star in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie

James Marsden will star in the film adaptation of Sonic The Hedgehog , Variety reports. It’s unclear what role the Westworld actor will play, and whether he’ll voice the iconic character or act as one of those ill-advised humans from later Sonic games. A hybrid live-action / animated Sonic film has been on the books since 2014 with little forward progress. It’s the first time Sonic will get his own film, though he’s made appearances on-screen in movies like Wreck-It Ralph . The character has struggled in recent years to resuscitate his cool image , while the long-running game franchise continues to whiff on successful releases. Online, Sonic memes can take a bizarre or even toxic turn . Jeff Fowler is directing the film, which is expected... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2H7oAZw

Google launches a beta of Neighbourly, an app for crowdsourcing local questions

Google is taking another shot at social apps with the beta release of Neighbourly , a new, hyperlocal-focused app designed to answer your questions, via The Next Web . The company envisions Neighbourly as a sort of crowdsourced city guide. The residents who know your city best can use the app to share tips, tricks, shortcuts, and recommendations with less in-the-know residents. Users will be able to ask questions, submit answers, and follow other people’s questions if they’re interested to see the results through a simple stack of cards. According to The Next Web , Neighbourly is starting off with a limited beta. It’s only available on Android and only open to residents of Mumbai, with support for English and eight Indian languages. In... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2ssnFOT

This virtual cadaver could help solve the medical shortage of dead bodies

At Montpellier Medical University in France, researchers are using 3D scanners to create “virtual cadavers” in hopes of solving the worldwide shortage of dead bodies . Cadavers have long been in high demand, but in recent years, the shortage has worsened. The number of medical programs is growing, so demand is going up, according to The Economist . At the same time, supply is going down because better communication means fewer unclaimed bodies. Donating is still taboo in some parts of the world, and the ideal cadaver — young, generally healthy, and intact — can be hard to find. Researchers hope that a virtual cadaver can teach students the basics of dissection, says Guillaume Captier , a surgeon and professor at Montepellier. Once they’ve... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2kEx7ub

GM’s self-driving unit gets $2.25 billion from SoftBank’s venture fund

General Motors has announced that its self-driving unit is getting a $2.25 billion investment from the SoftBank Vision Fund, a major venture investment effort that was started by the Japanese tech giant in 2016. Cruise Automation, which GM bought in 2016 for $1 billion to jump-start its self-driving efforts, will get $900 million when the transaction closes and $1.35 billion when GM is ready to deploy its autonomous cars for commercial use (which is currently slated for 2019). GM also announced that it will pump a fresh $1.1 billion round of investment into Cruise when the transaction closes, bringing the total to $3.35 billion. When all its investments have been made, SoftBank Vision Fund will own a 19.6 percent stake in Cruise. While... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J3qLik

Waymo’s fleet of self-driving minivans is about to get a thousand times bigger

The size of Waymo’s fleet of self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans just got radically bigger. The Alphabet unit announced today that it struck a deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, for an additional 62,000 minivans to be deployed as robot taxis. Moreover, the two companies have also begun discussions about how to eventually sell self-driving cars to customers as personally owned vehicles. Selling cars with Waymo’s self-driving technology at Fiat Chrysler dealerships would be a dramatic escalation in Waymo’s plan to bring driverless cars to the masses. To date, the company has spoken only vaguely about licensing its self-driving hardware and software to automakers. Today’s confirmation of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2stLZyW

iOS 12 will reportedly show how much time you’re spending on your iPhone

Earlier this month, Google announced that Android P is being developed with a focus on “digital wellbeing.” It will include a new user-facing Dashboard meant to give people an easy way to see how much time they’re spending on a device and inside individual apps. It’ll even show how many times they’ve unlocked their smartphone throughout the day. It turns out that Apple is working on something very, very similar. According to Bloomberg , as part of Apple’s iOS 12 reveal on Monday, the company will introduce a “Digital Health” area of the settings menu. Much like Google’s coming effort, it will include “a series of tools” that will outline how we’re spending our time on iPhones and iPads. There are already ways to do some of this today:... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2H77GKB

Apple, Microsoft, Google collaborate on new universal standard for Braille displays

The USB Implementers Forum — a group that includes major tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google — has announced a new USB HID (Human Interface Device) standard for Braille displays. That may not sound like much, but it’s a big move forward to make computers more accessible to people who are blind or have impaired vision by making it much easier to use Braille displays across different operating systems and devices without having to worry about unique software or drivers for each device. Ultimately, it means that soon, users will be able to simply use Braille readers as plug-and-play devices across a wide hardware ecosystem, much in the same way that users are able to simply plug in a USB mouse or keyboard. The standard seeks... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2L8icDw

John Cameron Mitchell’s latest film blends Neil Gaiman, punk, and teen aliens

Neil Gaiman’s short story How to Talk to Girls at Parties captures a feeling a lot of teenage boys may have at some point: the fear that girls their age are utterly alien, operating on a completely different wavelength. Gaiman just makes that insecurity literal, with a teenage boy awkwardly trying to interact with girls who are actually aliens. John Cameron Mitchell’s film adaptation makes the metaphorical literal in a different way. While his version draws heavily on Gaiman’s 1970s suburban London setting (and on Gaiman’s own history), it also finds an eerie horror-movie symbolism in the generation gap, through a race of aliens that send their children out to have experiences, then devour them afterward. Mitchell, the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2kEnBHr

Uganda passes tax law on social media users to curb ‘gossiping’ online

Uganda’s parliament has passed a law to tax those who use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Viber, and WhatsApp, as reported by BBC . The controversial tax was first introduced in April after the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, wrote a letter to the treasury stating that social media encouraged gossip that was costing Uganda time and income. The tax will come into effect on June 1st, imposing a 200 shilling ($0.05) levy per day on those who use social media platforms, but it’s unclear how it will be enforced. About 17 million people, or 41 percent of Uganda’s total population, use the internet, and there doesn’t seem to be a definitive plan on monitoring how and when social media sites are accessed. According to the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J1C3aO

Solo demonstrates that the Star Wars expanded universe hasn’t been forgotten

Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted on May 24th, delivering an origin story for one of the franchise’s best-known heroes. The film has underperformed at the box office, setting off a wave of questions about the future of the film franchise. But fans might be interested in a different future entirely — the future of the now non-canon expanded universe, which lives on in a new form in Solo . Some spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story ahead. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the company made a controversial decision: it officially ended the long-running expanded universe , a complicated series of novels, comics, and video games that kept interest in the franchise running long after the first film trilogy ended in 1983. While those books and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2kCOCuB

Amazon to block Australians from shopping on its international sites

Australian shoppers will find themselves limited to a much smaller Amazon item selection beginning on July 1st. Instead of being able to visit and make purchases from international versions of Amazon’s web store — as most of us can do — they’ll be redirected to the local Australian site. Geoblocking isn’t the only strategy Amazon is taking; Amazon.com and the company’s other sites will no longer ship to Australian addresses as of the same date. When I say “much smaller,” Amazon’s local Australia site still sells tens of millions of products, but it’s definitely a significantly lesser total than you’d find from Amazon’s US site. Reuters estimates that it offers one-tenth of Amazon.com’s selection. All the basics should be readily... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2suxOcJ

YouTube is the preferred platform of today’s teens

Teenagers are more interested than ever in YouTube , home to the world’s growing influencer and vlogger base. According to a recent study conducted by Pew Research Center, 85 percent of teenagers (ages 13–17) say they use the platform. Closely behind are Instagram (72 percent) and Snapchat (69 percent). Pew’s findings indicate an ongoing trend of teenagers moving away from platforms like Facebook in recent years. (It’s worth noting that Pew’s report in 2015 did not include YouTube or Reddit.) A 2015 report pointed to 71 percent of teens who reported themselves as Facebook users; today, that number is around 51 percent. “For the most part, teens tend to use similar platforms regardless of their demographic characteristics,” Pew’s report... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J52Wa7

Canon has ended sales for its last film camera

Canon has announced that it is officially discontinuing the EOS-1v , its last film camera, as reported by PetaPixel . Production of the EOS-1v — which was launched in 2000 — actually ceased back in 2010 , but Canon continued to sell the remaining stock. A professional 35mm SLR, the EOS-1v introduced Canon’s fifth generation of professional SLRs, and its body design became the basis for future cameras from the company, including the EOS-1D. The translated page from Canon’s website delivers the news casually: “Thank you very much for your continued patronage of Canon products. By the way, we are finally decided to end sales for the film single lens reflex camera ‘EOS - 1v.’” According to Canon’s statement, it will repair existing EOS-1v units... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2LIUG0W

Spotify’s hateful content policy was ‘rolled out wrong,’ says CEO

Spotify’s recent controversial decision to apply a conduct code to artists’ personal conduct was handled poorly, according to CEO Daniel Ek. Speaking to Recode ’s Peter Kafka and Kara Swisher at Code Conference, Ek says that the goal was never to act as “moral police” toward artists. “I think we rolled this out wrong, and we could have done a much better job,” he said. Earlier this month, Spotify announced a new policy on “hate content and hateful conduct” that would apply to artists’ personal lives. The policy was immediately controversial. Online, people questioned its interpretation and how to enforce it; it also reportedly caused dissent within the company . Two weeks later, the company had decided to “ walk back ” that decision. Ek says... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J3qUCi

Xiaomi’s transparent Mi8 Explorer Edition doesn’t show the real internals

Xiaomi’s just-announced Mi8 flagship has a special “Explorer Edition” that, along with an in-display fingerprint sensor and iPhone X-esque 3D face recognition technology, features a cool transparent back panel to show off the inside of the phone. There’s just one slight problem with that see-through back: it’s not real. The false back was spotted by Chengming Alpert , who offers a few reasons why the Mi 8 Explorer Edition can’t be real. In a series of tweets, Alpert claims the “S845 can’t be in that position; all the components around is too far away from each other; no graphite or other pipe/wire/cable for thermal.” Good luck to people who believe #XiaomiMi8 Explore edition has a "transparent" back. Truth: it's a sticker. — Chengming... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xueQZP

How to use predictive text keyboards for AI-generated comedy

I’ve been a big fan of Botnik Studios , the comedy group responsible for internet gems like the neural network-generated Coachella lineup poster containing bands like “Billions of Mario.” They’ve been putting out consistently great parodies of Scrubs scripts , ads for beef , and handsome names for boats , each of them made using a predictive text keyboard. I was curious about what exactly this meant and how I, too, could utilize AI to create viral hits, so I called up Botnik Studios CEO and former Clickhole writer Jamie Brew to explain in the video above. Botnik has a browser-based Predictive Writer that you can load up with “voices”, hence its name, Voicebox. It works in a similar way to your phone’s predictive text, by suggesting a group... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2LaYqr4

Inside the bad math that lets Coca-Cola say it gives back all the water it uses

When Coca-Cola announced plans earlier this year to recycle the equivalent of 100 percent of its packaging by 2030, the company touted the effort as building on its success with sustainable water use. In a 2016 full-page ad published in The New York Times, the company proclaimed, “For every drop we use, we give one back,” boasting on its website that it was “the first Fortune 500 company to hit such an aggressive target.” But a year of reporting into Coca-Cola’s water program shows that the company is grossly exaggerating its water record, which suggests that its new “World Without Waste” recycling plan should also be viewed with skepticism. Coca-Cola came under fire for its water practices in the mid-2000s. (The company did not answer... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2kFaHsK

Alcatel’s 1X is the only Android Go phone you can buy in the US

Alcatel’s first phone running Android Go, the 1X , will go on sale in the US next week for $100. Not only is this Alcatel’s first device running Google’s optimized OS for cheaper phones , it’s also the one and only phone running it that’s currently for sale in the United States. Technically, ZTE beat Alcatel with the launch of an Android Go phone in March, but ZTE has since been banned from buying US components and is basically sitting dormant until the ban is lifted. So thanks to an unlikely series of events involving US sanctions on Iran and North Korea, Alcatel gets this dubious honor. (And it won’t be alone for long: the Nokia 2.1 launches with Android Go in July .) The 1X isn’t a particularly exciting phone, but that’s usually the case... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J00qWv

Dell is reportedly working on a dual-screen Windows ARM device

Microsoft has long been rumored to be working on a foldable dual-screen device, much like the Courier concept. While we’ve only seen patents and third-party design concepts , there are now signs that Microsoft’s close OEM partners are working on similar devices. WinFuture reports that Dell is working on a similar dual-screen device that runs Windows 10 and an unreleased Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 ARM processor. Dell’s device is reportedly codenamed “Januss,” and has been under development since last summer, but it’s not clear whether the device will ever come to market. Dell was working on mobile Windows devices before, and those devices were canceled. Microsoft also canceled its own Surface Mini device , just weeks before it was due to be... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2sm1CJy

Telegram says Apple has been rejecting its app updates even outside of Russia

Russia ordered a ban of the Telegram secure messaging app back in April, and the knock-on effects continue to cause issues for users outside of Russia. Following the messy block of 15.8 million IPs on Amazon and Google’s cloud platforms, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says Apple has been blocking updates for the app globally. The lack of Telegram app updates mean some features, like stickers, aren’t working correctly in the recently released iOS 11.4 update . “Apple has been preventing Telegram from updating its iOS apps globally ever since the Russian authorities ordered Apple to remove Telegram from the App Store,” explains Durov in a Telegram message . “While Russia makes up only 7 percent of Telegram’s userbase, Apple is restricting updates... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2LbjQUP

Philips’ app that syncs Hue lights with computer displays is surprisingly good

Today, Philips is making its Hue Sync app available to anyone looking to synchronize their Hue lights with whatever’s running on their Windows or Mac computer. Hue Sync detects whatever colors it sees on the screen and then projects a matching aura onto the walls around it. It works with anything, really, even music and web browsing, but the experience is especially immersive when gaming or watching video at full screen. It works surprisingly well, too. I know because I’ve been testing a pre-release version of the app on an iMac for the past few days. Let me guess: like me, you spend a lot of time behind your home computer. Maybe it’s also the biggest screen in your house, surrounded by a rumbling speaker configuration that’s perfectly... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2soe4rk

Xiaomi announces $26 Mi Band 3 with 20 days of battery life

Xiaomi has announced the Mi Band 3, the latest in the company's popular line of ultra-low-priced wearables. The Mi Band 3 has a bigger, higher resolution OLED screen than the previous model, the Mi Band 2 , and Xiaomi says it's more comfortable on the wrist. The company claims the same 20 days of battery life, but water resistance has been upgraded to 50 meters. As usual, the most important feature is the price: Xiaomi is going to sell the Mi Band 3 for 169 yuan, or about $26, which is slightly more than the Mi Band 2 but still less expensive than the last pizza I ate. It'll be available in China at first, and comes in red, black, and blue. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2JiPlyZ

Xiaomi announces Mi 8 flagship phone, transparent Explorer Edition, and smaller SE model

Xiaomi has announced its new flagship phone, the Mi 8 — and yes, it’s the company’s first phone with a notch. The Mi 8 has a 6.21-inch OLED screen from Samsung, wrapping around a fairly large notch that houses a 20-megapixel selfie camera. The phone has a four-way curved glass back panel and an aluminum frame. Inside there’s Qualcomm's high-end Snapdragon 845 processor, and the new 12-megapixel dual camera setup apparently scores 105 on DxOMark, for what that’s worth . Xiaomi also says that this is the first phone ever to use dual-frequency GPS, which is supposed to give more accurate location data. Xiaomi’s numbered Mi flagships tend to be extremely good phones for the price, if not especially cutting edge. For that, the company is... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xuX60m

Google Chrome now lets you sign in to most services without a password

Google just released Chrome 67 for desktop, as spotted by ZDNet . This version of Chrome will allow password-free sign-ins for most websites, meaning you can avoid hunting through a password manager for specific credentials. Password-free sign-ins come from the Web Authentication standard, which was launched in March by the FIDO Alliance and the W3C. It lets you sign in to any virtually any online service through unique credentials that you don’t have to memorize, such as fingerprint readers, USB keys like YubiKeys , etc. The standard is also meant to make it less likely a bad actor can obtain your most commonly used passwords by making it easier to give each service different login credentials. Mozilla’s Firefox was the first to get the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2sx5Mh5

Wolverine: The Long Night opens up the possibilities for a Marvel Podcast Universe

There’s a scene in the sixth episode of Marvel and Stitcher’s radio drama podcast Wolverine: The Long Night where special agent Tad Marshall is interviewing a boy whose home was attacked by… something. The agent is searching for Logan, aka the mutant hero Wolverine, who the agent thinks might be behind the attack. But the boy swears it wasn’t a man; it was a beast — and a huge one at that. This is the first time Marshall believes Logan might not be the cause of all the murders in the town of Burns, Alaska, though he’s still not wholly convinced. Meanwhile, the audience isn’t sure what to believe. This account notwithstanding, the evidence points uncomfortably to Logan. But he’s the good guy, right? And the special agents must be the bad... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2JhgtOT

This is the Pride Apple Watch face arriving Monday

A beta version of iOS 11.3 hinted that Apple would have a special pride face for the Apple Watch, and the release of iOS 11.4 and watchOS 4.3.1 has confirmed it, as reported by 9to5Mac . According to code found in iOS by 9to5Mac , the watch face was inspired by the rainbow flag and will move if you tap the display. 9to5Mac also found video assets within watchOS which show the bands of color moving as the watch itself is moved, and the movements should be different every time. The new pride face will be available Monday, June 4th at 12PM PST, meaning it will likely be announced and made available during WWDC. You could technically test out the watch face before Monday by changing the time on your Apple Watch, but there is the risk of losing... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2Jh4LUA

NBC’s new VR thriller Reverie is a schmaltzy take on techno-dystopia

In the first few minutes of Reverie , a new episodic science fiction thriller premiering Wednesday, May 30th on NBC , the protagonist starts ranting about smartphones. Mara Kint ( Person of Interest’s Sarah Shahi) is a former hostage negotiator turned college professor, and she complains that her students are living with their nose to their screens. “They get the whole world in their pocket. Is that such a bad thing?” asks her former boss, who’s recruiting her for a mysterious job at a tech company. “It is if they’re not developing the most important tool of all: empathy,” Kint says sagely. “We learn empathy by observing, and we’ve stopped doing that.” The speech could be lifted from an episode of the tech-wary TV series Black Mirror , and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2siV6TB

The Skydio R1 is becoming the drone GoPro should have made

The Skydio R1 is not a perfect drone . It shoots 4K footage, but the image quality pales in comparison to what you get from DJI’s drones. It is relatively big, it doesn’t fold up, and at $2,500, it’s far too expensive for... basically anyone. But today, the small California startup is adding an update to the R1’s flagship feature — autonomous flight capabilities — that will make that price tag hurt a tiny bit less. Most notably, Skydio’s first big software update adds the ability to follow vehicles. The company has trained the neural networks that run on the drone’s embedded computer to recognize everything from cars to golf carts to 4x4s. Skydio says it’s also improved the drone’s ( already impressive ) ability to avoid and navigate... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J2DK3U

Ambien manufacturer wants you to know its product does not make you racist

Roseanne was canceled by ABC yesterday following a racist remark star Roseanne Barr tweeted about Valerie Jarrett, who was a senior adviser to President Obama. Following the cancellation, Barr tweeted out a long-winded apology, which included a claim that the damning tweet had been influenced by a dose of Ambien. "I have had odd ambien experiences tweeting late at night" This is just a whole handful of chef's kisses pic.twitter.com/8KtPLktGQj — Hanif Abdurraqib (@NifMuhammad) May 30, 2018 Barr’s excuse prompted Sanofi, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures Ambien, to weigh in. People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xsAb5F

Why it’s so hard to develop the right material for brain implants

The brain is soft and squishy, like “a swollen network of gooey gel.” Electronics, on the other hand, tend to be rigid. So designing a brain implant can be tricky, like sticking a plastic fork into a bowl of Jell-O and hoping the fork doesn’t move too much. The first sensor was implanted into the brain of a paralyzed patient in 1998. The past 20 years have seen growing interest in brain-machine interfaces, which are brain implants that can record information from our neurons and also stimulate the neurons. Millions of dollars have been spent on developing this technology, from government-funded projects to Elon Musk’s startup NeuraLink . The possibilities are intriguing: help those with motor disabilities, treat depression, or, if you’re... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2L5eCdy

Oculus launches live entertainment app Venues for Oculus Go and Gear VR headsets

Oculus VR’s new platform for live entertainment experiences is launching today for the new, standalone Oculus Go headset and Samsung’s Gear VR. The platform, called Oculus Venues, was first announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference at the beginning of May. It’s centered on delivering live events like sporting matches, concerts, and comedy shows in the style of a streaming TV service — but in VR. That means viewers effectively get front-row seats to live shows from the comfort of their home, so long as they’re content with wearing a VR headset for an extended period of time. The first Venues event will be a live Vance Joy concert at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater, followed by a Gotham Comedy Live show streamed from New York City... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2JjE29O

Google is expanding its Project Fi phone lineup with the LG G7, V35, and Moto G6

Google announced today that Project Fi users will soon have a few more device choices. Three new phones will work with Google’s wireless service: the LG G7 ThinQ , the just-announced LG V35 ThinQ, and the Moto G6 . Up until now, customers could only choose between Pixel phones, Nexus phones, and the Moto X4 . The Moto G6 costs $199 through Project Fi and is currently available to preorder through the Fi website, while the G7 ThinQ and the V35 ThinQ will come to Project Fi next month with a $50 Fi service credit for each preorder. The V35 was initially rumored to be an AT&T-exclusive phone, but that clearly is no longer the case. The phone, which was announced in tandem with this Project Fi news, features a Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2soHCFp

Netgear’s Arlo security cam app has been having problems for days

Owners of the wireless home security camera Arlo have noticed issues with the app over the past few days. Problems range from not being able to log in to the app completely crashing. Arlo’s message boards have been flooded since the issues started on May 27th, with users urging parent company Netgear to find solutions. Arlo owners report that the app is displaying error messages pointing the problem to “internet connectivity issues,” “internal error,” “currently unavailable,” “incorrect password,” and more. On the forums , a Netgear community manager says that the issue is only affecting some customers on certain service providers, and it can be traced back to a DNS issue with some ISPs. Although a solution hasn’t been found, there is a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J2lrvR

Two million people tuned into Bethesda’s day-long stream of a toy

For almost 24 hours, eager Fallout fans showed up online in droves to watch ... well, basically nothing. On its Twitch channel yesterday morning, developer Bethesda streamed a continuous shot of a Vault Boy statue, placed against the background of a monitor displaying the message “Please stand by.” (Its official Twitter and Facebook accounts posted the same message around the same time.) Occasionally, something weird would happen — like a strange sort-of puppet show, or someone would appear and play with balloons to break up the monotony. The stream ended with a teaser for Fallout 76 , but not before Bethesda’s Todd Howard made an appearance to remind everyone that millions of us have wasted precious minutes of our lives. “We have had... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J1uay9

A better metaphor for technology

I spend a lot of time thinking about how words work. It’s a big part of my job, after all, but it’s also what I was studying years ago in grad school. And while I don’t want to give you an exegesis (there’s a word for you) on it, I think the collective vocabulary we use to talk about technology is a little limited. We shouldn’t be too judgmental about that, though. In the broad sweep of history, consumer tech as we usually think of it is a very new medium, and it takes time to understand a new medium. I’m using the word “medium” intentionally here. Words don’t have a one-to-one denotative meaning. When you use a word, you’re not just referring to a single thing; you’re also conjuring up a world of associations. So when I write “medium,”... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J05JBa