Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I thought I would do something different for a holiday message this year. It’s based on a talk I gave to a game journalism class at Stanford University recently. It’s about my life in game journalism, and how I got to where I am today. I hope y … | Continue reading
Imagine a world where consumers buy their groceries directly from manufacturers, cutting grocery stores and supermarkets completely out of the equation. That’s a future blockchain startup INS wants to enable. And the company has just raised roughly $43 million (60,000 Ethereum) i … | Continue reading
FEATURE: More so than any other kind of games, mobile titles feel like they slot into our lives in a very specific way. For me, the mobile game I still play every day is Sirvo’s numbers-based puzzler Threes — especially after I found out that it really actually does have an end a … | Continue reading
Merry Christmas, friends! It’s December 25, and I’ve suspended my war on Christmas to observe this day and receive presents. I’ve also decided to spend the next year creating a new war on Boxing Day, so enjoy a year off in 2018, Santa. But speaking of presents, we’ve got somethin … | Continue reading
Steve Lukas and his son Christian were able to explain VR and AR to a third grade class without needing other kids to put on a headset. Earlier this year I decided against bringing VR to a recent career day at my child’s school because I would’ve insisted upon permission slips be … | Continue reading
GUEST: Japan will lead the world in cryptocurrency adoption, according to a survey of crypto investors my team at Waves conducted last month. We surveyed 678 cryptocurrency investors from the EU, the US, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, and other countries to gauge their level of confiden … | Continue reading
GUEST: During Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts, CEO Tim Cook said, “AR is going to change everything.” He wasn’t exaggerating. Augmented reality (AR) is shaping an entirely new paradigm for mass technology use. We’ve quickly evolved from typing on our PC keyboar … | Continue reading
Virtual reality is taking off a little slow, but the team at Holospark is practicing its VR storytelling skills so that it can deliver cinematic moments the way that the best movies and games do. The Bellevue, Washington-based VR studio has a half-dozen people on a Séance: The Un … | Continue reading
GUEST: With current housing prices skyrocketing in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, even grads with well-paying jobs are struggling to make rent on a place of their own. As a result, millennials and Gen Z’ers who don’t want to move back in with mom and dad ar … | Continue reading
You know how when you put someone in VR initially that doesn’t understand the technology or know very much about it, one of the first things they always do is reach out with their hands and try to touch the digital world? VR headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear V … | Continue reading
GUEST: Sixty years after the first Ford Model T rolled off the production line, Congress passed a law requiring the installation of seat belts to address public safety concerns. Many auto manufacturer lobbyists claimed this would be the end of the U.S. car industry. But of course … | Continue reading
Players will soon be able to admire World of Tanks’s historical detail in high definition. Developer Wargaming announced today that it’s rolling out an update for its hit multiplayer action game that will overhaul it visually with its new CORE graphics engine. The update is for t … | Continue reading
In a surprising move today, Ubisoft has announced that Star Trek: Bridge Crew is no longer a VR-exclusive title. According to a Steam Community post the update is being delivered by way of a “broad compatibility patch” that “enables non-VR play as well as adding enhanced support … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Stocks that surged in recent weeks because of the cryptocurrency mania have managed to hold onto most of their gains despite the recent retreat in the price of bitcoin and scepticism from market participants. A Reuters analysis of 17 stocks of companies that have made … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: AI has been on everyone’s lips in 2017 and nowhere more than in marketing technology, where it has not only augmented marketing tasks but also replaced some roles entirely. Today, Cobiro — an AI marketing service for small businesses — announced that it has received $2 … | Continue reading
Amazon’s Alexa team is beginning to analyze the sound of users’ voices to recognize their mood or emotional state, Alexa chief scientist Rohit Prasad told VentureBeat. Doing so could let Amazon personalize and improve customer experiences, lead to lengthier conversations with the … | Continue reading
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc has told bankers it would top its annual revenue target by as much as 18 percent, sources with knowledge of the matter said, marking a comeback from a sales slump in recent years that triggered a business overhaul. Xiaomi, … | Continue reading
Have you ever sent a motivational text to a friend? If you have, perhaps you tailored your message to an activity or location by saying “Good luck in the race!” or “Have fun in New York!” Now, imagine doing this automatically with a compuuuter. What a great invention. Actually, n … | Continue reading
GUEST: Artificial intelligence has permeated our culture and is revolutionizing our daily lives. Alexa turns off our lights before bed, chatbots manage our online purchases, and Uber tells us when we will arrive at our destination. AI technology is so ingrained in our day-to-day … | Continue reading
Apple is working on expanding the heart monitoring capabilities of future Apple Watches, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. Following in the footsteps of AliveCor, maker of Kardia-branded accessories for iPhones and Apple Watches, Apple is said to be developing an integrate … | Continue reading
Apple quietly updated its rules for developers yesterday with a new version of its App Store Review Guidelines, and it now requires that developers disclose the odds of getting cool loot in the loot boxes for free-to-play games. Loot boxes have become a big monetization opportuni … | Continue reading
Virtual reality educational startup MEL Science has created 28 VR chemistry lessons that fit into the curricula of U.K. schools at various grade levels. Each lesson costs $10 on the Google Play store and is compatible with the Google Cardboard and Daydream devices. A one-year lic … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: Appodeal found in a report that rich interstitial ads (which display an ad for a few seconds before disappearing) and rewarded video ads are the most popular formats in mobile apps and games. Appodeal released its in-app advertising monetization performance index for t … | Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE: GumGum, an artificial intelligence company with deep expertise in computer vision, will end the year with record revenues, surpassing $100 million, representing 53% year over year growth and a 99.4% CAGR for six consecutive years. International... | Continue reading
Didi Chuxing has announced another gargantuan equity funding round, as the Chinese ride-hailing giant reveals it has raised a further $4 billion. This latest round comes just eight months after the company raised $5.5 billion, which followed a year after it raised $7.3 billion fr … | Continue reading
Snapchat’s parent company has announced that it’s opening its Snap Accelerate program to startups across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The news comes almost three months after the Californian company debuted the program for startups in the U.S. The core raison d’être of Sn … | Continue reading
GUEST: Amazon’s Echo has long ruled the smart home market, but Google Home’s recent updates make it a contender for the top slot. The smart home market is evolving faster than you can say “third-party device,” and the competition between these heavyweight companies is good for yo … | Continue reading
GUEST: Year after year, blockbuster films are replete with Turing-test-passing examples of AI — and this past year was no exception. From Blade Runner 2049 to Marjorie Prime to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it seems the public’s appetite for depictions of truly intelligent AI is insa … | Continue reading
The Council is a narrative adventure that features historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte and George Washington in a murder mystery starring what seems to be an Illuminati-esque secret society. Developer Big Bad Wolf has partnered with publisher Focus Home Interactive to r … | Continue reading
Call of Duty fans were eager to return to World War II. The shooter franchise’s latest entry has already earned $1 billion in sales since launching on November 3 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, according to Activation. Call of Duty: WWII is now the best-selling game of the y … | Continue reading
SPONSORED: Presented by Intel Universal Studios is no stranger to horror movies. So it makes sense that the creators of a virtual reality horror game happen to work on the studio lot. And recently, VRWERX managing partners Alex Barder and Russell Naftal invited us to their office … | Continue reading
As Amazon tries to keep its HQ2 selection process under wraps, details continue to leak at a steady rate. Last week, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that a lobbyist representing Amazon registered with the Georgia state capitol. And on Wednesday, the public got its eyes … | Continue reading
GUEST: Chatbots are an increasing part of our daily lives, redefining how we engage with the internet and with businesses. Canadian messaging company Kik explains it like this: “First there were websites, then there were apps. Now, there are bots.” Just like the early internet, b … | Continue reading
Dutch mobile game publisher Spil Games has a hit with Operate Now: Hospital, a surgery game that has been downloaded more than 10 million times in six months. The surgery simulator is available on iOS and Android, and most of the downloads have been organic, or through word of mo … | Continue reading
Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has announced that its first French data center is now officially open for business. The news comes a little more than a year after the cloud computing giant first revealed plans to open a new region in the French capital. … | Continue reading
Finished, overly designed video games never want to force a player to go backward. Maybe you’ll retread areas in a Metroid, but even in those situations, you are always progressing forward. Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy focuses on making players experience the emotions of lo … | Continue reading
When developer Radiant Entertainment announced that Riot Games had acquired it last year, the studio also revealed that it was shuttering its indie fighting game, Rising Thunder. But in a Reddit post today, Radiant unveiled Rising Thunder: Community Edition, a free, open-source v … | Continue reading
Kitfox Games’s The Shrouded Isle is a stylish cult simulator, and its new DLC Sunken Sins adds even more eldritch horrors. It’s out now on PC as a free update. Sunken Sins adds a few elements that improve the overall game. Though I enjoyed the original title, I found the gameplay … | Continue reading
(Reuters) — Moscow-based security software maker Kaspersky Lab said on Monday it has asked a U.S. federal court to overturn a Trump administration ban on use of its products in government networks, saying the move deprived the company of due process. The Department of Homeland Se … | Continue reading
PRESS RELEASE: Fyusion, a technology company applying 3D computer vision and machine learning expertise to make images as intelligent as they are beautiful, today announced it has completed a $22 million Series B round of financing to further drive... | Continue reading
Netflix and Hulu may be bigger names in video streaming, but Amazon’s Prime Video service is building momentum: according to Amazon (via iPhone in Canada), the Apple TV version of Amazon Prime Video was the most downloaded of any tvOS app ever in its first seven days. The app off … | Continue reading
Dragon Ball Fighterz is coming out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on January 28, but you can try out the new fighter a bit before that for free. Bandai Namco announced today that Dragon Ball Fighterz will have an open beta starting on January 14 at 12 a.m. Pacific until Janu … | Continue reading
Without a doubt, smart speakers like the Amazon Echo or Google Home will be some of the most popular gifts this holiday season. But unlike last year, when there were only a handful of choices, you now have dozens of ways to speak with AI assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, a … | Continue reading
Uber has nabbed a notable new partner in its quest to target the lucrative Indonesian market: BBM Messenger. BlackBerry’s once globally popular messaging service, BBM has pretty much died out in most markets around the world. However, it is still a major force in Indonesia, which … | Continue reading
This has been a gonzo year for stock markets. So even though IPOs had a rebound after a catastrophic 2016, on the whole, 2017 will be remembered as another weak year for tech companies entering the public markets. The questions remains: Why? In its year-end report on IPOs, Renais … | Continue reading
Ubisoft created such a massive world for Assassins Creed: Origins, the latest open world game set in the world of ancient Egypt. And one of the people responsible for that massiveness was Raphael Lacoste, art director on the project. He spoke at the MIGS 2017 event in Montreal ab … | Continue reading
Shoot-em-ups are a popular genre in video games. But Ubisoft wanted to make a “chop-em-up” melee game, and it had to think hard about how to create a new brand and a new kind of game with its launch of For Honor. The responsibility for this task fell to the only marketing guy on … | Continue reading
GUEST: I’m a big believer in keeping things simple. Don’t make more work for yourself, especially if you’re a launching a startup. Growing a business, staffing it, and keeping ahead of the competition is more than enough for anyone to tackle. So when I see a startup has organized … | Continue reading