Geek News

The 1st Annual GDC Film Festival, sponsored by Steam, is happening now through Wednesday, March 21st at the Game Developers Conference 2018. To celebrate the inaugural film festival many of the entries are currently available at special prices on Steam now or available to stream free. via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2FNXieC"

The London-based analytics firm has only further complicated Facebook’s role in the 2016 US election by misusing the data of as many as 50 million users. Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2u6NPJU"

Environment Hazardous sea ice is going farther, faster. Off the northeastern coast of Newfoundland, Canada, sea ice is a normal sight between January and May. The icy coating usually disappears in the warmer months, letting… via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2ppqq1L"

With the Oppo R15 officially announced in China today, we have a good idea of what OnePlus’ next phone might look like, since OnePlus often sources designs from its parent company Oppo. For instance, the OnePlus 5 bears a strong resemblance to the Oppo R11, and the OnePlus 5T ended up looking almost identical to the R11S. The OnePlus 6 is rumored to have a 19:9 notched display, according to a leak from earlier this month spotted by Android Central . Likewise, the R15 has a notch that imitates the iPhone X’s look, hinting that the OnePlus 6 might also sport an interesting haircut. The rest of the R15’s specs include a 6.28-inch, 2280 x 1080 OLED panel with slim bezels, a 3,450mAh battery, and a MediaTek Helio P60 processor; it’ll sell for... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FTLt2C"

Technology It's the first fatal incident of its kind. A self-driving car in Uber's test fleet got into a fatal accident with a pedestrian last night. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2G61aXJ"

eBay has updated its Android app to include a new augmented reality feature that helps you figure out what box size you’ll need to use to ship your stuff, via Android Police . The AR feature is pretty simple: point your phone at whatever it is you’re trying to ship, and it’ll superimpose an augmented reality box over it so you can figure out if it’ll fit. It’s got a bunch of standard box sizes built in. The idea is that you’ll know that you need to get, say, a medium USPS flat rate box from the post office instead of overshooting and having to go back for a bunch of bubble wrap (to pick a purely hypothetical example). eBay says that the feature will only work on a few devices, although it hasn’t given a list ( Android Police speculates... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HODbcV"

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is now available on mobile in the US, on both iOS and Android . The game has already been live in Asia for quite a while and came to Canada last week, but there wasn’t a launch date for the US. The US release might have been sped up by Fortnite Battle Royale launching on mobile , another battle royale-style game that takes PUBG ’s core design and packages it up with better-looking graphics and some gameplay tweaks that have led to it breaking streaming records on Twitch . The mobile version of PUBG was developed by Tencent, the Chinese conglomerate that owns WeChat and invests in games like League of Legends . The mobile PUBG is true to the full game, although the graphics have been pared down for mobile... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2pu0ySz"

The world has a new record holder for the largest SSD, and it comes in at 100TB. The Nimbus Data ExaDrive DC100 is a new, massive drive that is currently being tested with select customers and will be available to purchase this summer. The company says the DC100 will utilize 3D NAND flash memory, which can provide enough capacity to store 20,000 HD movies, or 20 million songs, (if people still downloaded music), and is capable of read and write speeds of 500MB/s. Nimbus Data is also fully guaranteeing the drive for five years without restriction, so if your likely very costly drive kicks the bucket during that period you can get it replaced. As usual with these massive drives, they aren’t targeted at consumers, but they do give a... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HLQDOO"

IBM is kicking off its IBM Think 2018 conference this week with “5 in 5,” a collection of IBM Research inventions and technologies “that could change our lives in the next five years.” If you want to hear a large corporation tell you about AI, blockchain, and quantum computing all in the same breath, IBM Think sounds like the place to be. It’s a little hard to tease out the technology from the buzzwords, but, happily, Mashable spotted this gem : IBM is building the world’s smallest computer. Details are still thin — perhaps we’ll learn more this week — but there’s enough info to get excited about. The computer is 1mm x 1mm, smaller than a grain of fancy salt, and apparently costs less than ten cents to manufacture. To be clear, the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2pqMGaL"

Health The condition often kills patients within a few years. Stephen Hawking lived for 55 years following his diagnosis with ALS, a condition that often kills patients within a few short years. The research isn't entirely clear on… via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2poFPPM"

Atari has renamed its upcoming retro mini-console from the Ataribox to the Atari VCS, according to VentureBeat . The device, similar to Nintendo’s NES Classic and SNES Classic consoles, uses a design aesthetic inspired by the Atari 2600 Video Computer System . In an interesting twist, the device will not only play classic Atari titles, but it will also play modern PC games (of the less intensive variety) thanks to the device’s custom AMD processor with Radeon graphics and a Linux-based OS. The device was slated to go on preorder back in December , but Atari pressed pause on the sale because the company needed more time “to create the platform and ecosystem the Atari community deserves.” We still don’t have a concrete release date, but... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2IBOS7T"

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to ban Venezuela’s new national cryptocurrency, the petro. It’s the first cryptocurrency-related executive order a president has issued and another blow to an already dubious virtual token that’s supposedly backed by oil reserves , as Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro has said. Trump’s order describes the petro’s initial coin offering as “recent actions taken by the Maduro regime to attempt to circumvent US sanctions,” and declares all related transactions unlawful. His order also makes reference to Venezuela’s National Assembly being in opposition to the launch of the petro. One legislator from the assembly called it “illegal and unconstitutional” on Twitter. In February, Venezuela... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2po4809"

YouTube is testing a picture-in-picture type function for desktop, as reported by 9to5Google . For those who have it, the test will mimic what’s already available on YouTube for Android and iOS, allowing users to minimize and watch a video while continuing to browse. If this is available on your account, you can play a video and then click anywhere on YouTube to navigate away without having the video disappear. Instead, the video will be minimized as a floating window in the bottom-right corner of your screen and the video / audio will continue to play. Controls will still be available on the floating video, including play / pause, replay, and the ability to watch the next clip. The video’s name will still be displayed underneath, and a... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2IDY23R"

Technology Facebook faces data security issues, while Catch up on all the tech news you missed while you were crafting the perfect NCAA bracket. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2IycjPH"

Facebook is hungry for some of the lucrative game streaming audience captured by Twitch and YouTube, and today the company announced a new software development kit designed to make it even easier to stream PC games live on the social network. The news, announced this morning in conjunction with the first day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, builds on previous Facebook Live developments, like live-streaming mobile Instant Games announced in December of last year, and a new partnership program to help better cater to professional streamers and build out monetization efforts launched back in January . Since 2016, Facebook has allowed Blizzard games, most notably Overwatch , to stream direct through its Live platform . The... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DFGmBa"

Samsung has confirmed that it has completed its Android Oreo beta tests and has officially begun sending out the software updates to Galaxy S8 and S8+ devices in the US. “After completing extensive testing and beta tests that are standard when we launch a new Android update or product, we are beginning to roll out Android Oreo to select US Galaxy smartphones, starting with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+,” a Samsung spokesperson told The Verge. “Galaxy Note8 will follow shortly thereafter.” When exactly you’ll see this update depends on your carrier; so far, users have reported receiving their Oreo updates on T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint. Samsung briefly halted Oreo rollouts last month after the update cause some phones to randomly reboot . ... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2G3YObV"

A new Indiegogo campaign has appeared to help you monitor your food’s temperature when you microwave it. Called Cmicro , the device consists of a little puck (the actual sensor), a number of different Cmicro container covers it can be attached to, and a small display that’s affixed to the front of your microwave. The Cmicro system works by putting the sensor on the desired cover — there’s a dome to put over plates, another for cups, and a Cmicro baby bottle with a lid — placing the covered food in the microwave, and then setting the front sensor to the temperature you’d like your food. As it cooks, the sensor measures the average temperature of the food via an infrared signal powered by the microwave, which is transmitted to and shown on... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2G5CY7R"

Interacting with computers and robots using normal, everyday language has been a mainstay of sci-fi moves since the 1950s. However it’s only been in the last five years or so that it has become an everyday reality, thanks to innovations such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and the widespread rollout of web-based instant messaging ‘chat’ platforms. These platforms connect people to chatbots – computer programs that can mimic human conversations using artificial intelligence – to handle a range of interactions between people and software, from following simple instructions to maintaining a quasi-conversation. Chatbots have been widely deployed in consumer-facing business sectors such as retail, insurance and financial services, providing additional support to call centre staff to reduce enquiry resolution times and deliver cost savings.  Indeed, recent research from analyst Juniper estimates that in some business sectors, chatbots can deliver average time savings of around 4 min...

GDC starts this week in San Francisco, and Google is looking to burnish its reputation among game developers with a handful of new announcements . The most newsworthy is “Google Play Instant,” which allows game demos to be played on Android devices simply by clicking a link, rather than fully installing the game. It’s also pointing to improvements in its game ad ecosystem and a new way to set up multiplayer game servers. The goal of Google’s announcements, so far as I can tell, isn’t to beat back the conventional wisdom that iOS is a more powerful platform for gaming than Android. Google, of course, doesn’t agree with that characterization, noting that it offers the “vast majority of top mobile games” along with a slew of tools to... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HINFuc"

Police are using Google’s immense collection of location data to find criminals using warrants to request that the tech giant turn over account info from any mobile device that comes too close to a crime scene, reports Raleigh local news agency WRAL . The news service cites court records that show Raleigh police used search warrants to request that Google turn over location data for devices that were close to the crime scene in at least four investigations in the past year that involved murder, sexual battery, and possible arson. An arrest has been made in only one of those cases. The warrants are not for specific user accounts but for any accounts that were within close proximity to the crime scene during particular times, like before... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HMn3sk"

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Animals Larger animals live longer, but tiny dogs outlive big ones. What's the deal? How does body size relate to longevity? We know larger species (usually) live longer, though smaller animals within those species live longest. Uncovering the secrets… via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2G8deYH"

Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is taking the first steps toward opening its platform to outside developers. The company just announced a preview of its software development kit and “creator portal,” which will offer resources for people who want to build for its yet-unreleased Magic Leap One headset. You can now download a preview build of the Unreal or Unity engines, designed for what Magic Leap dubs “spatial computing.” The creator portal touts a set of tutorials, a community for technical support, and a “Magic Leap Simulator” that will presumably help people preview apps before they get a headset. The Magic Leap One was announced late last year, and it’s supposed to be released this year, but we still don’t know details about... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HMuq36"

Google Maps shortcuts are live for select users in India, according to a user tip via Android Police . Specifically, the new feature arrived on Google Maps version 9.72.2. You can select up to four shortcuts at a time from a selection of 14, such as nearby food, malls, metro stations, directions to home, and directions to work. By default, Maps selects three for you to start, with the ability to add one more or swap the default choices to something else. It’s an expanded version of what you could previously add to your home screen by holding the Google Maps icon and selecting a saved location for quick navigation. Now, you’ll see these shortcuts as you open up the app for search. The expanded shortcuts feature appear to be live only for... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FLd1LM"

Facebook is investing in its creator community in an attempt to get them to make content for the social network. The company announced multiple new creator features today, including the ability for fans to support creators with monthly payments. Fans will receive exclusive content as a reward, as well as a new badge that shows their support. Top fans can also display the badge based on how often they comment, share, react, or watch a creator’s content, but they have to opt-in to this experience. In addition to the fan sponsorships, Facebook is making it easier for brands to sponsor a creator’s work. The company says creators can set up a portfolio highlighting their area of expertise, and advertisers will be able to search and find... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HNlzOq"

Japan is launching a Cray XC50 supercomputer for advanced nuclear fusion research, which will begin production this year . While the Cray XC50 supercomputer is far from the most powerful on the planet, it will be the world’s most powerful within the field of nuclear fusion research. The National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology picked out the computer for its research, and the computer will be installed at the Rokkasho Fusion Institute, one of the institutes’ centers for nuclear research. It will be used for local nuclear fusion science experiments, and it’ll also play a role in supporting ITER, a massive multinational fusion project headed by the EU that’s halfway to completion. Over a thousand researchers... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2IzjDue"