Google today launched Chrome 79 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The release includes built-in warnings about compromised passwords, real-time phishing protection, the WebXR Device API, and more. This release thus beefs up security for the world’s most popular browser, and sets the stage for bringing virtual reality to the web. You can update […]
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Facebook’s Portal TV now lets you sing on an augmented reality stage while wearing AR to look like an ’80s rock star, hippie, or punk rocker in one of several feature upgrades announced today. Facebook Messenger video calls with the new Mic Drop feature let you sing up to 90-second clips with songs like “Roar” […]
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If you’ve ever wondered which keywords are among the most popular on Pinterest, you’re in luck. The tech giant today announced the launch of Pinterest Trends, a new feature that that reveals the most popular search keywords within the year. Much like Google Trends and Bing’s Keyword Research Tool, Trends is publicly available and spotlights […]
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Four key events set the pace for each year’s smartphone camera innovations: Samsung’s February Galaxy Unpacked, Apple’s September iPhone event, Google’s October Made by Google event, and Qualcomm’s December Snapdragon Tech Summit. While the first three events focus entirely on products for the current year, Qualcomm’s is uniquely about what’s coming up next, though other announcements […]
Read MoreTEN Publishing has announced that it will end print operations for 19 of its 22 magazine titles next year. The media company, previously known as The Enthusiast Network, operates some of the industry’s leading automotive magazines. Among those being axed are 4-Wheel & Off-Road, Automobile, Car Craft, Classic Trucks, Mopar Muscle, Mustang Monthly, Super Chevy, […]
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As the holiday season arrives, the gaming industry as a whole has been increasing its TV ad spend: In November, 13 brands spent an estimated $62.7 million — over $2 million more than October’s spend — and shelled out big for the NFL, college football, and the NBA. PlayStation led the way for the second […]
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Location-based VR company Dreamscape Immersive is now offering a new experience that ties into DreamWorks’ How To Train Your Dragon film series. The project, titled Dragons: Flight Academy, will see you flying on the back of a dragon in VR with up to eight others. The experience is available to book now up until the beginning of […]
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Adobe is the new home for the Oculus Medium sculpting app, which Facebook originally launched three years ago. The surprising move raises intriguing questions about the ongoing strategies in VR and AR by some of the world’s largest creative and technology companies. Medium was seen as a groundbreaking sculpting app on the PC-based Rift headset when it […]
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Google Assistant on smartphones, smart displays, and smart speakers is getting a series of upgrades today, like the ability to create notes and lists with third-party apps and search podcasts by topic. Google Assistant on smartphones is also gaining the ability to share photos with voice so you can say “Hey Google, show me photos […]
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(Reuters) — Facebook on Thursday sued a Hong Kong company that it said baited people into clicking on celebrities’ photos and bogus advertising links, so it could install malware and run ads for counterfeit goods, diet pills and male enhancement supplements. The social media company accused ILikeAd Media International software developer Chen Xiao Cong and […]
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If you watch a popular livestreamer on Twitch, YouTube, Mixer, or Facebook, it might seem like they are juggling a lot at once. They are often playing a game, talking to their audience, and managing a suite of tools that provide chat interactivity, overlays, and more. But the truth is that software is simplifying a […]
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After more than a decade apart, CBS and Viacom are reuniting. In a deal that closed on Wednesday, the CBS Corporation, the company behind the broadcast network CBS and the publisher Simon & Schuster, merged with Viacom, the owner of Paramount Pictures and the cable outlets MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. The combination brings together […]
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Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, America’s least charismatic white supremacist, has apologized for covering the ongoing impeachment hearings, which he has deemed “tiresome,” “dumb,” and “boring.” As he declared in one recent broadcast: I’d like to open this evening with a breathless update on how some obscure diplomat you’ve never heard of said something forgettable to […]
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These days, Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt can boast that his customer management company has raised almost $300 million in venture capital for a $1.5 billion valuation. But he hasn’t forgotten the moment when the company came within inches of total failure. It took pivoting from its initial plan and moving in an entirely different direction […]
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Popular language learning app Duolingo has raised $30 million in a series F round of funding from Alphabet’s investment arm CapitalG. This takes Duolingo’s total money raised to $138 million, and gives it a valuation of $1.5 billion — more than double the figure at its series E round back in 2017. CapitalG, under its […]
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In case you missed the memo, podcasting is hot. This year’s annual Infinite Dial report from Edison Research and Triton Digital showed that 51% of the U.S. population (144 million people) had listened to a podcast at some point, up from 44% the previous year. Drilling down into the numbers showed that 32% of the […]
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Mozilla today launched Firefox 71 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 71 includes Lockwise password manager improvements, Enhanced Tracking Protection tweaks, and Picture-in-Picture video on Windows. There isn’t too much else new, possibly because Mozilla is getting ready to speed up Firefox releases to a four-week cadence (from six to eight weeks) next […]
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(Reuters) — Twitter is updating its global privacy policy to give users more information about what data advertisers might receive and is launching a site to provide clarity on its data protection efforts, the company said on Monday. The changes, which will take effect on January 1, 2020, will comply with the California Consumer Privacy […]
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YouTube said today that it will no longer restrict violent video game content, after an evaluation that concluded there is a difference between the simulated violence of movies and games and the depiction of real world violence. I learned about this restriction when I posted a story about whether it was OK for Call of […]
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Amazon’s re:Invent 2019 conference kicked off with a bang — or rather, with product announcements made during a midnight keynote at The Venetian. The Seattle company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) division unveiled Amazon Transcribe Medical, a new edition of its automatic speech recognition service that lets developers add medical speech-to-text capabilities to their apps, and […]
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In the aftermath of the twin shocks of 2016—Brexit on one side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump on the other—many in the media identified “fake news” as the culprit and as one of the emergent evils of the modern world. It was invoked the way terrorism was after 9/11: shadowy, stateless, destabilizing. It’s no surprise […]
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Facebook will allow its users to transfer all their photos and videos out of its platform and directly into Google Photos, representing the first major step in an ongoing initiative to address concerns — and new regulations — around data portability. The announcement comes two months after the social networking giant published a white paper […]
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(Reuters) — Chinese regulators have announced new rules governing video and audio content online, including a ban on the publishing and distribution of “fake news” created with technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Any use of AI or virtual reality also needs to be clearly marked in a prominent manner and failure to […]
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