(Reuters) — A California judge on Monday granted the state’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking Uber and Lyft from classifying their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. The ruling by Judge Ethan Schulman of San Francisco Superior Court is a defeat for the ride-hailing companies, as they defend against a May 5 lawsuit […]
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WordPress.org today launched WordPress 5.5, which brings a slew of speed, search, security, block editor, accessibility, and developer updates. You can download version 5.5, which was developed by 805 volunteer contributors, now from WordPress.org/Download. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that powers over 30% of the web (including VentureBeat). This means there is a […]
Read MoreAt its Anywhere School 2020 event today, Google announced a slew of updates for educators across Google Classroom and Google Meet to help schools start this next semester. The company said its tools “lighten the load for teachers, school leaders, families, and especially the students who have navigated learning from home with grace and resilience.” […]
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(Reuters) — A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling against chip supplier Qualcomm in an antitrust lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission. The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also vacated an injunction that would have required Qualcomm to change its intellectual property licensing practices. The decision amounted to a […]
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Compared with the cameras found in smartphones, computer webcams were all but frozen in time a decade ago, such that most still sport 720p or 1080p resolutions with middling color accuracy and low light performance. Having previously revealed the hidden low light potential in older iPhone cameras, NeuralCam is back with a new app that turns Apple’s […]
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Rainway announced today that its streaming service will add a new feature that installs games from different PC launchers remotely. At its core, Rainway lets people play their PC games on other screens through its free streaming technology. But it also has its own game launcher, which can include titles from your libraries on other […]
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Standard Cognition today inked a partnership to pilot its cashierless checkout technology in a Circle K store in Phoenix, Arizona. The Circle K location’s existing fixtures, lighting, inventory management systems, replenishment processes, and store layout will remain the same post-retrofit, and customers will have the option of paying via an app or with cash and card […]
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The Linux Foundation — in partnership with IBM and startup Grillo — today announced an initiative called OpenEEW to accelerate the deployment of open source earthquake early warning (EEW) detection systems around the world. The organizations say OpenEEW will incorporate sensing, detection, and analysis components from Grillo’s EEW platform, along with a Docker software version […]
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Pinterest today announced updates to increase the discoverability of beauty products and tutorials personalized to individual skin tones, styles, and preferences on its platform. The network made its search filter for skin tone ranges available in countries beyond the U.S. including the U.K., Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Pinterest also refreshed the filter’s design […]
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Cybersecurity startup Elisity today emerged from stealth with $7.5 million in seed funding from Atlantic Bridge Associates. The company, whose founding team includes veterans of Cisco, Qualys, and Viptela, says its immediate focus is scaling up engineering, sales, and marketing teams ahead of the Elisity platform’s public launch. According to a recent study published by the […]
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At its I/O 2018 developer conference, Google launched Lookout, an Android app that taps AI to help blind and visually impaired users navigate with auditory cues as they encounter objects, text, and people within range. By keeping their smartphone pointed forward with the rear camera unobscured, users can leverage Lookout to detect items in a scene […]
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HMD Global, the “home of Nokia phones,” has raised $230 million in a “series A2” round of funding from some of its existing strategic partners, including Google, Qualcomm, and Nokia consumer division Nokia Technologies. The Finnish company stressed that this was the “first closing” of the round, suggesting more funding could be added at a […]
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Soon, Android devices will be able to detect earthquakes as they’re happening, thanks to a partnership between Google, the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) ShakeAlert, and academics at the University of California, Berkeley and Caltech. It’s one of several features heading to Google’s mobile OS today and in the coming weeks, along with updates to Android […]
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Simpplr today raised $10 million for its AI-powered intranet platform, which is designed to streamline communications. CEO Dhiraj Sharma says the funds will be used to drive customer adoption during the pandemic as Simpplr develops new products and extends its partner ecosystem. With people increasingly work from home, businesses have put a renewed focus on […]
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A lot of factors influence why mobile game players pick up new games. The top reason is that they want to play a game in particular genre, according to a new report by Facebook and GameRefinery. The researchers — including Facebook Gaming and Facebook IQ — found in a survey of 13,000 players around the world […]
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The Hyundai-Aptiv Autonomous Driving Joint Venture, a collaboration between Hyundai and Aptiv (formerly Delphi) to develop autonomous vehicle technologies, has a new name. It’s now called Motional, a portmanteau of “motion” and “emotional,” and president and CEO Karl Iagnemma says it’s on track to begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and supporting robot-taxi and […]
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(Reuters) – Facebook and Microsoft’s grievances over how their gaming apps appear on Apple’s App Store may feed into an EU investigation into the iPhone maker’s business as EU antitrust regulators said such concerns are on their radar. The European Commission in June opened four probes into Apple, three of which are into its App […]
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As Apple’s Mac computers begin their two-year transition from Intel- to Apple-developed CPUs later this year, one feature that’s going away is Boot Camp — the Mac’s ability to boot directly into Windows and run PC apps natively. But Corel’s Parallels Desktop will still be there to let Mac users run Windows, and in this […]
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One and a half years after their CES debut, Nreal’s Light AR glasses are finally only days away from consumer availability — if you’re lucky enough to be in South Korea. Thanks to deals with Korean technology giants LG and Samsung, Light will hit stores on August 21 in bundles with two high-profile smartphones, while […]
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When Apple introduced its flagship iPhone X three years ago, it replaced fingerprints with facial recognition, pitching “Face ID” as even more secure than “Touch ID.” Within a year, the face-mapping tech came to additional iPhones and iPads, helping Apple ditch its finger-scanning Home buttons while following the industry-wide trend of shrinking phone and tablet bezels. […]
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Over the past three years, engineers and carriers across the world have largely agreed that 3.5GHz-adjacent radio spectrum is ideal for 5G deployments — a “mid band” compromise between the lower frequencies used by older cellular standards and the higher, shorter-distance millimeter wave frequencies. But in the United States, the Department of Defense (DoD) has […]
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Video platform startup Mux today announced it raised $37 million, bringing its total raised to date to $69 million. Mux plans to use the proceeds to expand its product, sales, and marketing teams as it gears up for growth in the coming year, a spokesperson told VentureBeat via email. Video is among the internet’s most […]
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Amazon has rebranded its Twitch Gaming membership benefits program as Prime Gaming. The move is part of an attempt to broaden the appeal of the benefits to players who don’t have Twitch livestreaming accounts or don’t consider themselves to be enthusiast gamers. One of the little-known secrets about Twitch Gaming is that you are a […]
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Apple’s Maps application became the dominant navigation option for Apple devices years ago, but Google apparently isn’t quite ready to cede either the growing wearables market or the automotive business to its chief rival. Today, Google announced that Google Maps for iOS will be adding both an Apple Watch app and support for CarPlay Dashboard, […]
Read MoreEven before the pandemic, the battle to own your living room was reaching a boiling point. Now the big screen is bigger than ever as 2020 accelerates the streaming wars and raises the smart TV platform stakes. Naturally, Google is making every effort to avoid being left behind. Today the company gave Android TV developers […]
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(Reuters) — Huawei will stop making its flagship Kirin chipsets next month, financial magazine Caixin said on Saturday, as the impact of U.S. pressure on the Chinese tech giant grows. U.S. pressure on Huawei’s suppliers has made it impossible for the company’s HiSilicon chip division to keep making the chipsets, key components for mobile phone, […]
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GamesBeat editor Jeff Grubb is back from vacation to get mad at people who don’t like the GameCube with reviews editor Mike Minotti. The pair discuss that, Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad, and Sony’s State of Play on this week’s episode of GamesBeat Decides. Also, Nintendo and PlayStation are making a lot of money, and Apple wants […]
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Facebook launched its standalone Facebook Gaming app on iOS today, but it complained loudly that Apple would not let it launch instant games that are part of the app on Android. This Facebook app helps players find games and connect with friends. But it doesn’t let people play with each other instantly, as it does […]
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Apple may now be the world’s largest or second-largest public company by market capitalization, but truly understanding the business requires a flash backwards to a different era: the mid-1990s, when Apple teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Founder Steve Jobs had no shortage of outside advice after returning to fix the sinking Apple ship, but ultimately focused […]
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It’s been a month since U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration was considering banning TikTok. Plenty has happened since, but the situation really accelerated last weekend. In the span of a couple hours, we learned that President Trump was planning to sign an order directing China’s ByteDance to divest its ownership […]
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The second-quarter earnings results from major game companies over the past two weeks have taught us more about how gamers are responding to the pandemic. The big question is whether the gains are temporary or permanent, as that will determine how much bigger the $159 billion game industry will become. We won’t know exactly for […]
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