ANALYSIS: After seeing a duct-taped prototype of the Oculus Rift for the first time in 2012, one of my first calls was to Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford. I was looking to cut through the hype, and Bailenson offered a level-headed assessment of VR’s status that helped guide my repor … | Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE: With momentum building from a successful Private Sale that netted more than one million Ethereum (ETH) from over 5,000 individuals, ArcBlock, the pioneer in Blockchain 3.0 technology, announces that it has reached its total hard cap... | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: Rahul Sood made his name as an enthusiast gamer as the cofounder of VoodooPC, a maker of custom gaming PCs that he started in 1991. He sold that business to HP in 2006, and he headed HP’s efforts in gaming computers through 2010. He moved to Microsoft and started Micro … | Continue reading
In the past few months I’ve seen some really impressive stuff in VR. From standing atop the mountains of Skyrim, gazing down at a seemingly endless landscape, to the subtle nuances of the little girl in Wolves in the Walls, VR is really starting to hit its stride lately, especial … | Continue reading
GUEST: At first glance, the artificial intelligence industry seems to be on fire, with tons of consumer demand and ample investor interest. In fact, VC investment in AI startups rose from just $3.2 billion in 2014 to more than $9.5 billion just in the first five months of 2017. T … | Continue reading
An image leaked on Reddit shows a convincing look at what might end up being the retail packaging for Oculus Go, the standalone VR headset coming soon from Facebook. The image shows the box for the $200 device with available apps listed including Netflix, Hulu, Ultrawings, Facebo … | Continue reading
GUEST: The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into enforcement in four short months, and many are talking about the regulation as if it were a natural disaster: “Are you ready for GDPR?” While there’s no need for panic — especially if you’re already w … | Continue reading
GUEST: Every game needs a publisher, whether you do it yourself or hire another company for that role. Publishing is a skilled task, a necessary step for any game to find success. But what criteria determine whether a developer needs an external publishing partner (someone to fin … | Continue reading
GUEST: In celebration of 16 years of delivering market intelligence on the Chinese and Greater Southeast Asian digital games industry, we’ve put together 16 predictions about the 2018 digital games industry in the eight markets we cover: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippine … | Continue reading
Celeste is an excellent platformer. It’s already in the running for my top 10 games of 2018, which is something I’m normally not thinking about in January. But that’s how much I like Celeste. I also hate Celeste, though. The incredibly-challenging, retro-style adventure is out no … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: AI4All, an organization created by tech leaders like Melinda Gates and Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, launches its first-ever mentorship program today at Oakstop, a coworking space in Oakland, California. The program will join tech workers from companies like Salesforce, … | Continue reading
The first Steam hardware survey of 2018 is in, and it shows Oculus Rift and HTC Vive use at practically a tie. This month sees HTC Vive as 46.96% (a 0.3% decrease from last month’s 47.26%) of the overall usage, while Rift is at 46.09% (a 0.05% decrease from 46.14% in December). S … | Continue reading
GUEST: Hundreds of esports leagues, titles, and tournaments compete for the attention of avid fans This can make it more and more important for each of them to stand out. One way teams and leagues win those fans is through players. Fast hands, quick decision-making and good commu … | Continue reading
A Donkey Kong fansite has removed three high score submissions from arcade legend Billy Mitchell after an analysis revealed he likely misled the community about playing on real arcade hardware and that he instead submitted emulator gameplay. On Donkey Kong Forum, Mitchell previou … | Continue reading
GUEST: You likely already have plans for what you’ll be doing in 2018. Maybe you’ve already bought tickets for an epic trip or committed yourself to getting fit this year. Sounds like fun! But maybe 2018 is also the year that you should start the business you’ve always dreamed of … | Continue reading
REVIEW: For the last five years, the Logitech C920 has been the best affordable webcam for streamers and content creators. The problem is that if you wanted to upgrade, you would have a hard time finding a significantly better option without spending hundreds of dollars. You coul … | Continue reading
REVIEW: Fortune-499 brews up a delightful cross-genre adventure. It’s a role-playing game with deck-building in a world where magic and corporate espionage are inextricably intertwined. The story centers on Cassandra — or Cassie — a young oracle who works in the magical resources … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: The announcement that Civilization VI’s Rise and Fall expansion would include the leader Poundmaker of the Cree should have been cause for celebration. The Cree are worthy candidates: They’re the first geographically Canadian civ to be included, and Poundmaker himself i … | Continue reading
I have a confession to make: Even though I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro while wearing an Apple Watch and listening to Apple Music through a pair of Beats X headphones, I haven’t preordered the HomePod. I had one in my shopping cart the first day it was available for purchase. I … | Continue reading
Following a series of increasingly concrete 5G rollout announcements from AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, Sprint today committed to launching mobile 5G service nationally in the first half of 2019 — at somewhat higher prices. The commitment suggests that the fourth-place U.S. carrie … | Continue reading
The video game industry sought to celebrate one of its founders, Nolan Bushnell, with an award as a pioneer this week. But prominent gaming women, including congressional candidate Brianna Wu, objected because they felt it was inappropriate and tone-deaf to give such a man an awa … | Continue reading
Spotify has announced the latest step in its mission to get the music industry on its side: it will now show songwriter and producer credits for each track. The new feature is only available in the desktop version of Spotify for now. To access it, you have to right-click on any s … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Europe has been working hard to rejuvenate the economy by turbocharging local startups, and there has been definite progress in recent years. But a pair of recent reports point to a very mixed 2017, leaving the outlook for these efforts far from certain. There is little … | Continue reading
Aerospace giant Airbus announced that it had successfully tested Vahana, an autonomous electric flying taxi being developed by its Silicon Valley-based A³ lab. The company said that the VTOL aircraft managed to fly to a height of 16 feet before landing. The test was actually cond … | Continue reading
GUEST: WebVR being a game-changer for the VR industry is a message that I’ve been eager to spread for the past couple of years. The JavaScript API that enables you to load VR experiences on your browser enjoys all the benefits that the open web has to offer an emerging tech (like … | Continue reading
Apple is the new global smartphone king, surpassing rival Samsung, if only for one quarter. For those In getting a big déjà vu, this is indeed a trend: Samsung dominates the first three quarters in the year, and Apple settles for the fourth. Smartphone vendors shipped a total of … | Continue reading
GUEST: The illusion of job safety for the 3.5 million cashiers in America was shattered last week when Amazon Go, the first cashierless grocery store in the United States, opened in Seattle. By most accounts, the store is highly functional: It is difficult to shoplift, and the te … | Continue reading
How great of an effect a tech company can have on a new town comes down to one thing: jobs. And not just how many jobs that company creates, but how many other businesses are prompted to hire from that town because that new tech company set up shop. For many heartland cities, the … | Continue reading
Sea of Thieves buzz is hot coming out of its closed beta on Xbox One and Windows 10. It had one of the biggest audiences on livestreaming sites like Twitch and Mixer over the last week, and a huge number of people seem excited for its March 20 release. The online cooperative pira … | Continue reading
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced today that the tech giant’s cloud division reached a significant milestone during the last quarter of 2017: it is now making $1 billion per quarter selling computing services to other businesses. Pichai believes that Google Cloud is the fastest … | Continue reading
Apple released record first-quarter 2018 financial results today, and in keeping with tradition is hosting a live question-and-answer session for financial analysts to speak with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri. The Q&A session will focus substantially on two broad themes … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Amazon.com on Thursday said its sales surged over the winter holiday season and profit topped expectations, as the online retailer drew millions of new customers to its Prime fast-shipping club and as changes to U.S. tax law added to its bottom line. Shares rose more … | Continue reading
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, closed out its last quarter of 2017 with revenue of $32.3 billion, and non-GAAP earnings per share of $9.70, according to figures the company released today (PDF). Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected revenue of $31.87 billion, and non- … | Continue reading
GUEST: The transportation industry is on the verge of unprecedented change. Slowly but surely, city and state governments, municipalities, and transportation agencies are introducing technologies powered by the Internet of Things (IoT). These technologies connect our streets and … | Continue reading
SPONSORED: Presented by Smartsheet Low-code tools are making it easier for citizen developers to create custom business apps that improve productivity and agility. But do they put an organization at risk? Business users have traditionally relied on IT personnel who can write code … | Continue reading
Since coming out of stealth last year, Mode.ai has created bots for Levi’s, Louis Vuitton, and Pro Flowers, but today the computer vision startup announced it has launched a platform for small businesses and ecommerce merchants to create their own Facebook Messenger bots. Since a … | Continue reading
Clash Royale maker Supercell has invested $4.2 million in mobile game studio Trailmix, a startup created by two former King game developers. Supercell has about 250 people, a very small number given its value above $10 billion. To stay small, the company has begun making investme … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: If you remember the year 2010, you might recall America’s transition from 3G to 4G wireless, which started with very few 4G devices and cities. It’s now clear that this year’s 4G to 5G transition will repeat that experience: Leading wireless carrier AT&T has confirmed t … | Continue reading
2018 so far has saw some major moves in the Russian esports realm, which has emerged as a sizable European market with established players operating globally. Last week, Mail.Ru Group — an LSE-listed Internet company which controls the largest Russian-language social networks and … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — PayPal shares fell as much as 12 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday after former parent company eBay said it had signed up a new primary payment processor. EBay said it will start processing payments globally using Dutch payments company Adyen, allowing its u … | Continue reading
GUEST: Technology is mostly incremental. We make batteries last 20 percent longer. We make glass strong enough to serve as the front surface of a cellphone. We let headphones sample ambient sounds so they can filter more noise. Products perform better. They cost less. They last l … | Continue reading
Piece of Cake Studios tested its debut game, Hacktag, on Steam Early Access last June. It’s a stealth co-op title about infiltrating big corporations and stealing their data, and it enters its full release state February 14 for PC. Unlike other stealth games, which favor more mil … | Continue reading
Skylanders inaugurated the “toys to life” industry that combined physical toys and digital games. It became a billion-dollar business for Activision, and John Coyne was one of the marketers who got to ride its wild rise — and fall. Last year, Activision decided to give the produc … | Continue reading
Starting at $999, the iPhone X is Apple’s most advanced model to date, but it’s apparently not selling well enough to keep manufacturing at current rates. Nikkei reports that Apple is cutting iPhone X production in half due to slower-than-expected sales in the U.S., Europe, and C … | Continue reading
GUEST: If you’ve been following tech news in 2017, chances are you’ve heard quite a bit about the ICO phenomenon. According to a December report by PwC, at least 438 ICOs took place in 2017, raising over $4.6 billion. And the majority of those were done by startups that did not h … | Continue reading
The traditional bicycle sports a pretty smart design, one that has stood the test of time. But this might be the moment for smart bikes to take over. That’s the thinking behind the Flash ebike, a technology-heavy bike with an electric motor that helps you get over tough hills and … | Continue reading
Hands-down my biggest issue with the HTC Vive as a platform is the lack of a thumbstick (or joystick or control stick or whatever you want to call it) on the Vive wand controller. While acceptable in most cases, the touchpad just doesn’t get the job done for some games. Moving ac … | Continue reading
Dragon Ball wasn’t just an anime thing that I was into back when I was an awkward teenager. It turns out that most awkward teenagers are into it and many of them carry that fandom with them into adulthood, and that mainstream appeal has helped draw PC players to Dragon Ball Fight … | Continue reading