Atari has renamed its upcoming Ataribox console as the Atari VCS, which will be a retro-inspired entertainment platform based on PC technology. The iconic video game brand is showing off the latest version of the box at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where 25,00 … | Continue reading
At the Game Developers Conference 2018 in San Francisco today, Google introduced Google Play Instant, the new name for Android apps and games that can be launched immediately without having to install them first. Major game titles that are participating in the launch include Clas … | Continue reading
Multiple gaming technologies are coming together right now to enable real-time ray tracing. This is a technology that enables processors to replicate the physics of light, which is something video games have had to fudge up until this point. Nvidia’s new RTX tech will work with M … | Continue reading
Virtual reality and augmented reality headsets are set to grow dramatically in popularity, IDC projects, with 2018 sales expected to hit 12.4 million units — up from roughly 8 million in 2017. This year’s gains are expected to be the first in a series of five annual increases ave … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: Amazon peeled back the curtain on its SageMaker AI service today, unveiling how its customers are able to train machine learning models at massive scale while keeping costs down. The company uses novel techniques to keep the needed amount of computing power locked down … | Continue reading
You may not know it, but Otoy’s OctaneRender is an image renderer behind some cool film visuals like the opening of HBO’s Westworld, along with TNT’s The Alienist. And at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Otoy is announcing that the Octane 4 update will merge game … | Continue reading
HTC said today it will sell the Vive Pro virtual reality headset for $800, with global preorders starting now. And it will also cut the price of the existing Vive headset by $100 to $500. VR is off to a slow start, but introducing better quality headsets like the Vive Pro while m … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: You may have heard of Numerai — the unorthodox hedge fund that crowdsources predictive stock market models from data scientists around the world. It is now seeking more brain power and announced today that it is giving away $1 million worth of cryptocurrency to Kaggle … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Alphabet’s Google routinely fields product queries from millions of shoppers. Now it wants to take a cut of their purchases, too. The U.S. technology company is teaming up with retailers including Target Corp, Walmart Inc, Home Depot Inc, Costco Wholesale Corp and Ult … | Continue reading
As part of a long-term effort to fight rising racism and anti-Semitism, the French government announced today that it will introduce new legislation that places a greater burden on digital platforms to swiftly remove offensive content. In announcing details of the proposed law af … | Continue reading
TwoXar, a biopharmaceutical startup that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and develop new medicines, has raised $10 million in a series A round of funding led by SoftBank’s early-stage venture capital firm SoftBank Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowit … | Continue reading
After four years of work, Xilinx is announcing today its adaptive computer acceleration platform (ACAP), which is a new kind of programmable chip that will take flexible hardware to a new level. The company spent more than $1 billion to develop the new chip. San Jose, California- … | Continue reading
Bigscreen is only available on PC VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows VR platform, but that’s all about to change. Starting today, Bigscreen is starting its Alpha Testing signup phase for the Samsung Gear VR mobile version of Bigscreen. The mobile edition o … | Continue reading
GUEST: Some chatbots track your calorie intake, some assist you in finding a new place to live, and some even promote better mental health. But recently, developers have made chatbots with a social justice slant. They let you report misdeeds quickly and without giving your name. … | Continue reading
GUEST: Like any new market, the birth of the ICO market has brought with it an enormous amount of noise, messiness, and raw speculation. Armed with little more than a hunch, early investors seem to be all in, even with the most preposterous valuations. From the outside, such inve … | Continue reading
GUEST: Augmented reality is already entering everyday life. Based on the ubiquitous smartphone, it’s appearing in consumer oriented applications including games, finance and entertainment. In business, cloud access sets AR users free from hardware, and allows businesses to link t … | Continue reading
Piranha Games is giving fans another look at its upcoming future-military combat sim MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. After debuting the game in December, Piranha is now showing off various biomes in which players will pilot their giant bipedal tanks against similarly armed enemies. I … | Continue reading
Sega teased a new Sonic racing game with a short trailer shown at a panel during SXSW. [ TOP SECRET ] pic.twitter.com/OVQ6n77Rh4 — Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) March 16, 2018 The video shows a revving car before focusing on the silhouette of a logo, then the letter R begi … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: We’re all in tax mode here in the U.S. (or at least we should be). Although there are countless software tools available out here to help with this tedious task, other countries are lagging behind. In Latin America, for example, only about eight percent of individuals … | Continue reading
GUEST: If you ever visit Helena, Montana, you will see a lot of what you would see in other state capitals. There is a capital dome on a hill overlooking the rest of the city. It’s hard to drive very far without seeing the headquarters of some branch of state government, and it s … | Continue reading
Apple announced today that it will hold an event on March 27, focused on creative new ideas for teachers and students. The event is likely to include the debut of an updated iPad, as well as new software initiatives. A calligraphy-styled invitation for the event is titled, “Let’s … | Continue reading
Mobile esports is getting a big endorsement today as the esports franchise Immortals is announcing it has created a new division, Immortals Mobile, and acquired a team to compete in esports competitions for Tencent’s popular Arena of Valor game. Arena of Valor is a mobile multipl … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Nearly 20 percent of people in the U.S have a disability, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, with more than half of those reporting a “severe” disability. That figure is roughly consistent with other countries — in the U.K., for example, 13.3 million people are regis … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: BitGuild — the company that is creating a decentralized platform for gamers — has raised more than $20 million in under 6 hours via its ICO. The token — which goes by the name PLAT — will be used by gamers and developers alike, and smart contracts are being used to ver … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — General Motors said on Thursday it will invest more than $100 million in two facilities as it prepares to build production versions of its Cruise self-driving car next year at its Orion Township assembly plant in Michigan. The largest U.S. automaker also said roof mod … | Continue reading
Hit game Fortnite is now a hit on mobile as well, and you can’t even get into it without an invite yet. Epic Games sent out the first wave of invites earlier tonight, and apparently that was a sizable wave. Fortnite is already the No. 1 most downloaded iPhone game in the United S … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Streaming music leader Spotify used its cultural cool factor to appeal to mom-and-pop investors in an unconventional presentation ahead of its April 3 stock market listing. Led by 35-year-old Chief Executive Daniel Ek, wearing jeans, white t-shirt and a dark blazer, e … | Continue reading
Google has confirmed last week’s rumor on Reddit: Android Wear has been rebranded to Wear OS by Google. In short, Google’s wearable operating system is no longer tied to Android — it’s “a wearables operating system for everyone.” Users will begin to see the new name on their watc … | Continue reading
A fledgling augmented reality (AR) startup launched out of stealth today backed by $17 million in funding from some big names in the venture capital (VC) world. London-based Blue Vision Labs has today announced a fresh $14.5 million series A investment round led by Alphabet’s VC … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Walt Disney said on Wednesday it had created a new unit for its streaming video and international businesses as the company retools its traditional media operation for a world rapidly embracing online video. Kevin Mayer, the company’s chief strategy officer, was named … | Continue reading
Google-owned Nest today announced its Nest Hello video doorbell and a smart lock created with Yale are now available for purchase. A Nest Temperature Sensor for tracking and changing the temperature in specific rooms in your home makes it debut today and will begin to ship in Apr … | Continue reading
I’m out of the office this week, but there are still a number of conversations that I had at VentureBeat’s Blueprint conference that are on my mind. Last week, I wrote that the benefits to being outside the Bay Area are growing — many executives I’ve spoken with say that it’s emp … | Continue reading
Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, a three-part TV series that made its debut in January, is being made available free to watch in honor of Hawking’s life, according to tech and science video streaming site Curiositystream. The renowned astrophysicist passed away today in Cambrid … | Continue reading
As more games come to the Switch, it’s more noticeable how Nintendo hasn’t taken advantage of the system’s modular nature. The system debuted a year ago, and you would think that the company would have a line of custom Joy-Con grips that are better suited to playing specific genr … | Continue reading
Valve today announced the beta release of a major new feature for SteamVR users: automatic resolution optimization tailored to both the current GPU and VR headset. Without user involvement, the feature enables connected headsets to experience superior graphics from high-performan … | Continue reading
Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), which provides coworking space for startups, has closed a $58 million round of funding from European real estate developer HB Reavis (HBR). CIC campuses are essentially a mix of startups, “corporate innovation spin-outs,” and VC funds, with tena … | Continue reading
Microsoft announced today that it’s expanding its cloud datacenter footprint to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, the company is adding more datacenter regions in Germany, where the company already has servers up and running. It’s part of the company’s contin … | Continue reading
Google shared today that the company’s ads team killed 3.2 billion so-called “bad ads” in 2017, an increase of 88 percent from the previous year, when the company removed 1.7 billion “bad ads.” Put another way, Google took down more than 100 bad ads per second last year. “Bad ads … | Continue reading
Apple has announced that its 2018 Worldwide Developers’ Conference will be held from June 4 to June 8 in San Jose, California. As of today, $1,599 tickets are being offered “by random selection” from the pool of developers who have signed up by 10 a.m. Pacific on Thursday. Known … | Continue reading
Mozilla today launched Firefox 59 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls “by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004.” Version 59 brings faster page load times, private browsing mode that strips path informati … | Continue reading
Apple engineers will lead a collection of unusual panel discussions at Display Week, a Los Angeles-based symposium and trade show running from May 20-25 this year, MacRumors discovered today. Apple’s participation is atypical in two ways: Its management typically does not allow e … | Continue reading
Immediately after Apple publicly announced its acquisition of magazine subscription service Texture this morning, the company’s senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue took the stage at SXSW 2018 to discuss some of Apple’s upcoming content plans. Most not … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: If you don’t recognize the name Inseego, that’s probably because the company’s popular wireless hotspots and home modems have been sold for years under the MiFi and Novatel names. Back when Verizon was rolling out the first 4G/LTE network, I relied on a MiFi to give my … | Continue reading
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced yesterday that it has begun pre-registration for its Westworld mobile game, based on HBO’s most-watched original TV series. I’m a huge fan of the Westworld TV show, and I interviewed the show’s creators back in 2016, before the fir … | Continue reading
Planet Alpha is a platformer on a beautiful alien world. It’s Danish indie developer Adrian Lazar’s newest game, and he and his small team have partnered with publisher Team17 to bring it to PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch later this year. They aren’t telling me … | Continue reading
GUEST: It is no secret that Microsoft has struggled to deliver compelling exclusives to the Xbox One. Even Microsoft gaming executive Phil Spencer admits the company can do a better job. By contrast, PlayStation 4 exclusives like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy … | Continue reading
In an echo of studies that say more than half of U.S. households will have a smart speaker in the coming years, the 2018 Tech Trends report released today at SXSW predicts that by 2021 more than half of all computing in developed nations will be performed with voice. To deal with … | Continue reading
GUEST: Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming an integral part of every tech company’s strategy, so it’s no surprise that big firms are ramping up their acquisition of AI startups. M&A activity has already seen a fivefold increase in the number of AI startup acquisitions — f … | Continue reading