Genius, the startup that aims to annotate the web, has added a feature that makes it easier for users to report abuse, in response to critics who claimed that the platform enabled online harassment. The company had come under fire for its News Genius tool, which allows users to a … | Continue reading
The first consumer version of the Oculus Rift was released this week, and techies of a certain mindset have been clamoring to answer one question: how easy is this thing to take apart? Thankfully, the team at iFixit is here to help, and their teardown of the new Rift reveals a de … | Continue reading
The FBI will assist in unlocking an iPhone and an iPod connected to a murder case in Arkansas, the Associated Press reports, just a few days after the Bureau announced it had accessed the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters without Apple's help. The FBI agreed to a … | Continue reading
Square Enix held a huge spectacle of an event to announce the release date for Final Fantasy XV — and at the same, it announced more games, an anime series, a feature-length CG movie with an all-star cast, and a lot more. Here's everything you need to know. Continue reading… | Continue reading
Whether it's Triple Triad or Chocobo racing, minigames have been some of the best-loved elements of the Final Fantasy series, and you'll be able to check out one from Final Fantasy XV soon... on your phone, at least. JusticeMonstersFive, a pinball-style game, is getting a mobile … | Continue reading
It's finally happening: the first big Final Fantasy in years has a release date. At a lavish event in Los Angeles this evening, developer Square Enix revealed that Final Fantasy XV will launch on September 30th. It had previously been pegged for some time this year, and the game … | Continue reading
You don't have to wait to get a taste of Final Fantasy XV. At its "Uncovered: Final Fantasy XV" event in Los Angeles tonight, Square Enix not only announced a new demo for the upcoming RPG, but also revealed that it will be available later tonight as a free download on Xbox One a … | Continue reading
If you were on the fence about Final Fantasy XV, the latest trailer might just change your mind. The new clip shows the game at its most epic and bizarre, jumping back and forth between awe-inspiring battles and strange, personal moments. There are familiar FF sights like chocobo … | Continue reading
Final Fantasy XV isn't just a game anymore: it's also a movie. Today, Square Enix announced a feature length CG animated film called Kingsglaivee: Final Fantasy XV, which will tell a story that runs concurrently with the main game. It's being directed by Takeshi Nozue, who previo … | Continue reading
Final Fantasy XV is getting its own anime series. Dubbed Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, the series is somewhat of a prequel, telling the story of main character Noctis and how he came to be friends with the three characters that he'll be traveling with in the game. The series wil … | Continue reading
Nintendo has fired Alison Rapp, a marketing staffer who became the target of a sustained campaign of criticism on social media last year after she was erroneously linked with the removal of certain sexualized sections in Japanese games for their Western release. Rapp announced he … | Continue reading
Nest generated about $340 million in sales last year, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. That’s an impressive figure for a company in the very nascent market of Internet-connected devices.But it’s below the initial expectations Google had set for Nest when it … | Continue reading
Ever since college, the way that I've been told to study computer science was to avoid Windows for writing code. In class, we used Ubuntu, a flavor of Linux to complete our assignments. Students who showed up to class on the first day with a Windows laptop (myself included) were … | Continue reading
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a reputation for dribbling little hints about the company's plans on Twitter — and on the eve of the unveiling of the mass-market Model 3 near Los Angeles, he's at it again. Continue reading… | Continue reading
Microsoft's HoloLens headset starts shipping to developers today with a price tag of $3,000, but early versions of the device are already being used by a handful of corporations around the globe. We've seen some neat uses of the augmented reality technology from these third parti … | Continue reading
If you were to take a really serious, old-school iPhone launch day with big lines in front of Apple Stores, but substitute a $35,000-plus giant gadget in place of a phone, you'd get Tesla Model 3 pre-order day. It's getting real out there. Continue reading… | Continue reading
Satya Nadella’s tenure as Microsoft’s CEO has been marked the knowledge that the company has to find a future beyond Windows. "Our industry does not respect tradition," Nadella said when he was appointed. "It only respects innovation." Since then, Nadella reorganized the company … | Continue reading
The one giant of the American tech industry that's transforming faster and more violently than all the others is Microsoft. Today's Build 2016 event was a marathon two-hour affair, but it was almost completely devoid of incremental or iterative improvements. Dead-end projects lik … | Continue reading
Porsche would like you to buy a new 911. In order to convince you of that, it has created "the world's first interactive hologram print ad."Now, it's not exactly a "hologram print ad." It's a print ad, included in 50,000 copies of Fast Company's April issue, that includes a prism … | Continue reading
The voice assistants in our phones have always sounded somewhat robotic, but Google is taking steps to do away with that. It's rolled out a new voice for the Google Now / Search app on iOS and Android, and it sounds a lot more natural than the old version. You'll definitely still … | Continue reading
A fetus that was aborted weeks after the mother was infected with Zika provides striking evidence that the virus causes fetal brain abnormalities, researchers say. The report, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, isn't the first to document a case of a mother p … | Continue reading
Microsoft kicked off its Build developer conference in San Francisco with a focus on Windows 10, bots, and developer tools, but there was something missing: Windows Phone. A single demo of Skype running on a Windows Phone was the only time a phone running Windows 10 Mobile appear … | Continue reading
Axel Willner has the power to change the way you think about music. An engineer can point out a tiny part or switch within a larger, more complicated device, revealing a more profound truth about the process as a whole. That’s what Willner does with samples, looping them and stit … | Continue reading
A Few Good Men, the Aaron Sorkin stage play that spawned the classic line "You can't handle the truth!" is set to be NBC's next live production in 2017. TheWrap reports that Sorkin has been tapped to adapt the play for the small screen.Sorkin, known for a work that includes The W … | Continue reading
"Someone called me irrelevant and I was like thank fucking god," reads one of Melissa Broder's most recent tweets. It's a tweet which, like all of Broder's work, contains about 10 different statements about life online in the space of very few words."Irrelevant" is a timeless sla … | Continue reading
Every year, Microsoft holds a developer event called "Build." And recently, those events have gone from snoozers to exciting showcases. Microsoft has a winner with Windows 10 (as long as you ignore the phones), a robust personal assistant in Cortana (that works just fine on a lap … | Continue reading
In a major victory for reproductive rights advocates, the FDA has just approved new labeling requirements for mifepristone, the most widely used abortion drug in the country. The decision will make it easier for millions of women seeking a medication abortion to get one, and unde … | Continue reading
Nextbit's executives took to Periscope today to announce that a forthcoming software update for the Robin smartphone would address a number of performance issues the device has had since its launch in February. The update, due to arrive sometime next month, brings along Android 6 … | Continue reading
NASA is teaming up with Microsoft to give you a glimpse of the Red Planet. A new exhibition called "Destination: Mars" will let visitors use Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality headsets to take a virtual stroll on Mars, alongside a "holographic" tour guide, astronaut Buzz Aldr … | Continue reading
Roborace will be the world's first driverless racing series when it debuts either later this year or early next year, but the organizers have finally unveiled what its custom-made electric cars will look like — and boy do they look wild. The four-wheeled autonomous vehicles appea … | Continue reading
For the first time ever, a study demonstrated that fracking has contaminated underground water reservoirs, BuzzFeed reported. The polluted aquifer is near the small town of Pavillion, Wyoming.The study’s lead author Dominic DiGiulio, a former EPA scientist, used public records an … | Continue reading
The future is going to be full of people talking to chatbots, says Microsoft. This is the grand vision the company unveiled at Build today, and to populate the world with these bots, it's launching what it calls Microsoft Bot Framework. This will let anyone create a text program … | Continue reading
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, a respected leader of one of the world's largest and most important technology companies, speaks as if humanity lives on the cusp of science-fiction. At today's Microsoft Build press conference, Nadella said of the not-so-distant-future, "It’s not go … | Continue reading
AT&T is thinking about partnering with Cyanogen to build its own version of Android, according to a new report in The Information. The report cites two sources, who claim the carrier had looked to ZTE to build phones running the fork before export sanctions complicated that aspec … | Continue reading
Apple has just released a new version of Safari designed for web developers who want to test out the latest web technologies before they hit the consumer version of the browser. Similar to what Google Chrome does with its Beta and Canary builds, Apple's Safari Technology Preview … | Continue reading
You'll soon be able to use Skype to books trips, shop, and plan your schedule, just by chatting with Cortana. During its Build conference, Microsoft demoed how Skype users will soon be able to start a chat with Cortana and get things done just by having a conversation."Cortana is … | Continue reading
Today, astronomers have figured out the temperature of a super-Earth — one of the first studies to provide details on the climate of these planets. Not only does it show the planet is extraordinarily warm, it also creates new puzzles for researchers hoping to characterize this w … | Continue reading
Microsoft today announced a number of new features for its virtual personal assistant Cortana. The company is extending Cortana's abilities with greater integration into the Outlook email and calendar apps, as well as smarter recognition of specific time and activity requests. Ot … | Continue reading
Microsoft's AI chatbot Tay may have grabbed headlines last week when it went rogue on Twitter, but Microsoft has far bigger plans for its bots. At the Build developer conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled the company's grand vision of "conversation as a platform" — mak … | Continue reading
Microsoft has officially announced that its HoloLens development kits are shipping today, and a new example project will be available for buyers. Microsoft opened preorders for the $3,000 kits last month to qualified developers in the US and Canada, who will be able to develop an … | Continue reading
Microsoft is bringing together its Windows and Xbox app stores. This summer, with the release of Windows 10's Anniversary update, the two stores will be combined into one, creating "a single unified store across devices," says Xbox lead Phil Spencer. Continue reading… | Continue reading
Microsoft is finally ready to deliver on the promise of Windows apps running on the company's Xbox One gaming console. Today at its Build 2016 keynote, it was announced that universal apps will arrive on Xbox with this summer's Anniversary Update. Cortana, Microsoft's personal as … | Continue reading
Microsoft is reaching out to Linux developers in a way that the company never has before. "The Bash shell is coming to Windows. Yes, the real Bash is coming to Windows," said Microsoft's Kevin Gallo on stage at today's Build 2016 keynote. The announcement received an uproarious a … | Continue reading
Microsoft has returned to San Francisco for its annual Build conference. Last year, Microsoft unveiled Windows 10, so this year's event is expected to be low-key in comparison. We'll get word of new Windows 10 universal apps, plus details on HoloLens, and Xbox One. Continue … | Continue reading
Say goodbye to support@uber.com, the email address used by drivers and passengers to report everything from lost bags to fishy-looking fares to fisticuffs spurred by lost bags or fishy-looking fares. The company is mothballing the email address it has used for six years, and repl … | Continue reading
Legendary film composer Hans Zimmer is retiring from scoring superhero movies now that he's finished collaborating with producer Junkie XL on the score of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. "I have officially retired from the superhero business," said Zimmer in an interview with … | Continue reading
Microsoft is trying to put styluses "front and center" with its next update to Windows 10. To do that, it's introducing something called the Ink Workspace, which appears to be a hub within Windows for launching apps meant for writing and sketching. To help people fill that sectio … | Continue reading
Microsoft's Redstone update for Windows 10 is being detailed today at the company's Build conference, with Windows chief Terry Myerson announcing it will be coming this summer, for free to all Windows 10 users. Myerson also took a friendly jab at Apple, saying Microsoft welcomes … | Continue reading