Geek News

Oh, KFC. For every bizarre stunt you pull off, like chicken-flavored nail polish or a nightmarish VR work training experience , you tease us with useful combo meal tchotchkes like a phone-charging takeout box . Unfortunately, 'tease' is the word, since the company's flashy giveaways typically happen outside the US, like when its Canadian stores briefly sold chicken buckets for bitcoin . KFC's latest stunt is no different: Its Indian locations are selling a chicken wings box that doubles as a drone for a brief couple days this week. It appears that everything you need to fly this UAV is in -- and also, part of -- the box. Just punch out parts and follow the instructions available online , then download the app to control your junk food-themed aircraft. The 'KFO' drone is a typical quadcopter, though it will probably always carry the distinct aroma of fast food chicken. Keep in mind that it only comes in particular orders of Smoky Grilled Wings and can only ...

Fans of both Angry Birds and the NFL can get excited together with new Super Bowl LII content in the popular free-to-play mobile game from Rovio. Angry Birds 2 players can now outfit their avian characters with any of the 32 official NFL jerseys and helmets while competing in new levels and in-game competitions. Angry Birds Evolution now includes NFL characters to defeat in the strategy game, and you will find a new bird called the "Quarterback." Evolution 's player vs. player mode (The Oinktagon) has also been transformed into a football field in celebration. Rovio's special, limited-time outfits and in-game features will highlight all of the NFL's teams and logos, of course, so even fans of other teams than the Eagles or the Patriots can join in the action. The new football-themed activities and visuals go live starting tomorrow, January 24th, on both Google and Apple platforms. Here are a couple of trailers to keep you excited until then. Source: R...

You can already use Google Assistant to play Netflix , but it becomes a hassle if you have more than one Netflix profile. You probably don't want to muck up a partner's recommendations just because you couldn't bother to reach for the remote. Well, you won't have to risk it from now on: Google has revealed that Assistant can now match your voice to a specific Netflix profile. You don't have to do more than link the profile in the Google Home app's video settings. So long as you use voice matching in the first place, this should make hands-free Netflix control reatively painless in a busy household. You can tell your Google Home to resume playing and know that it'll return to your Narcos marathon instead of your roommate's Mudbound session. Really, this is another step toward voice assistants that are genuinely ready for whole homes, not just individuals. Via: Android Police , The Verge Source: Google Support via Engadget RSS Feed "http:...

We're back! After a CES and NAIAS-induced hiatus, we're digging into this week's lineup, which features the debut of Monster Hunter on new-gen consoles . Also, it's time for the return of Drunk History on Comedy Central featuring Tiffany Haddish, and Steven Soderbergh's edit of Mosaic is airing all week on HBO. While the Grammy Awards and season finale of Shameless are weekend highlights, I recommend checking out a new show that debuted during our break, Corporate , that should appeal to all Better Off Ted fans. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed). Blu-ray & Games & Streaming Geostorm Jigsaw (4K) 10 Cloverfield Lane (4K) Cloverfield (4K) Groundhog Day (4K) Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Geostorm (3D) Teen Titans (S1) Thank You For Your Service Goodbye Christopher Robin Assassin's Creed: Origins - The Hidden Ones DLC (PS4, Xbox One) Shu (S...

When Facebook said it would rank the trustworthiness of sources in your News Feed based on community feedback, it raised questions as to what that survey would look like. Well, we know now... and it's not terribly complicated. BuzzFeed has obtained the survey, and it's limited to the two questions Mark Zuckerberg alluded to when announcing the move: whether you recognize certain sites, and how much you trust them (from "not at all" to entirely"). No really, that's the extent of it. If you were expecting a nuanced examination of editorial integrity that helps you explain exactly what you trust, you're going to be disappointed. The simplicity makes sense, since it's likely that Facebook would get fewer responses with an extensive questionnaire. It also means that publishers might thrive or fail based on those two questions, however, and only some people will carefully consider their choices before answering. While Facebook isn't depending sole...

Back at Blizzcon 2017, Blizzard's big announcement for its hero shooter Overwatch was a new character Moira -- at long last, another healer for the lineup. But equally exciting was the reveal of a new upcoming map: Blizzard World, a Disneyland-esque theme park jam-packed with references to the studio's stable of games. Today, that map goes live -- along with a slew of new skins and other extras. New adventures are waiting for you! Play BLIZZARD WORLD now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. pic.twitter.com/XLXVLRcaRr — Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) January 23, 2018 The map is a hybrid type that starts as point capture and switches to escort, much like Numbani. Otherwise, Blizzard World is a visual delight, creating rides and zones patterned after particular locations and events (like boss battles or raids) from Blizzard's roster of games. Plus a few great puns (like Snaxxramus and The Lost and Found Vikings). But it's also a not-so-subtle homage to Disney's ...

Stripe announced today that it will stop supporting bitcoin payments in April. The company started accepting bitcoin payments in 2014, but in a blog post, it said today that the cryptocurrency has become way less useful as a method of payment, and as bitcoin revenues have declined, so has its customers' interest in it. "Bitcoin has evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange," said Stripe, mirroring a belief others have expressed as well . The company specifically pointed to large increases in transaction confirmation times, transaction failure rates and fees as some of the main reasons bitcoin has become less functional for payments. "Empirically, there are fewer and fewer use cases for which accepting or paying with bitcoin makes sense," said Stripe. Stripe certainly isn't the first to thaw on bitcoin. Valve stopped accepting bitcoin last month , also citing transaction costs and high volatility as reasons for aba...

When KGI Securities' Ming-Chi Kuo pens a research note, it's not just his clients who tear into the results -- the tech community does too, because of his almost uncanny track record with Apple predictions. A recent note of his begat a series of unfortunate headlines, though. Depending on who you read, the iPhone X could be scrapped or killed or cancelled suddenly , as though Apple -- utterly disheartened by theoretically lackluster sales -- simply decided to call it quits. These headlines feel needlessly sensational, but they speak to a market reality rooted in rationality. Aside from a handful of analyst estimates, we don't know how many iPhone Xs Apple has sold. The company doesn't break out sales by iPhone model, though we'll learn more about iPhone sales overall in its earnings report next week. The general consensus is that the X sales, while not terrible , fell short of expectations. Let's put these sales forecasts aside -- what's done is done. ...

Yann LeCun has been the face of Facebook's AI research efforts since 2013, but you'll have to get used to some new people in the mix. An interview with LeCun at Quartz has revealed that he's stepping down from his position as part of a shakeup meant to place AI on an even higher pedestal at the company. LeCun will still be around as the chief AI scientist, but he's being replaced with IBM and BenevolentTech alumni Jérôme Pesenti, who'll take over both the research spot and the Applied Learning Group that rolls AI into products like the News Feed . The newcomer will "oversee all the AI at Facebook," LeCun said, and not just the experimental work. The company didn't have much choice. LeCun noted that both the research and Applied Machine Learning leaders were reporting to Facebook's technology chief, who was unsurprisingly overwhelmed given how important AI has become. Now, only Pesenti will report to the CTO -- and LeCun will get to focus more...

Pioneer 's DJ mix recording app is now available for your iPhone and iPad . Cleverly named DJM-REC , the free-to-download app connects to any mixer with a USB send/return channel to record, archive and even livestream your mixes. The app gives you a 30-day trial, after which you'll need to purchase the full app for $10. You'll need a digital send/return style mixer , like Pioneer's DJM-TOUR1 , DJM-900NXS2 , DJM-750MK2 and DJM-450 models. There's a firmware update you'll need to apply to your mixer so it can work with the new app. Once you connect your iPhone or iPad to your mixer via the same lightning/USB cable you use to power your iOS device, the DJ-REC app is ready to go. In addition to recording and streaming, you can edit the time-stamp that's automatically created from the data sent from the mixer to the app, which will let you create track lists more easily. There's a peak limiter, too, to ensure you don't clip out at high volume. The...

If you treat YouTube like a jukebox, you know how confusing it can be when your favorite artists have multiple channels. You may have to go to one channel to get the pure album cuts, and another to watch the music videos. Mercifully, YouTube is reducing that clutter -- it's launching unified Official Artist Channels that put all of a musician's content in one place. In theory, you just have to search for an artist by their name to find everything they've posted to the site. If you've subscribed to an artist's unofficial channel, YouTube will automatically switch you over to an official source when available and will unsubscribe you to the old one. It's not clear whether or not this will eliminate one of the bigger annoyances for music fans on YouTube: having to switch to a Vevo-branded channel to watch music videos. We've asked the company if this changes the situation and will let you know if it does. This could create problems for fans who want to li...

Apple just announced that its HomePod smart speaker is set to ship February 9th of this year. What didn't make the large print is that it won't support multi-room audio or stereo pairing on that date. These are pretty big features of all other internet-connected speakers these days, which really shows how down to the wire Apple is on getting HomePod into your living room. Before. After. Checking archive.org , Engadget found that a new "coming later this year" stamp has quietly been placed on the main HomePod page . The verbiage was not visible on the most recent snapshot of the page, dated January 18th. It was, however included in Apple's current press release . Sure, you'll likely be able to buy a second (or third) HomePod at some point in the future to enable a stereo or multi-room mode. Not having these two features ready now, however, can only hurt Apple's hoped-for sales of the late-to-the-game smart speaker. Source: Apple via Engadget RS...

Even as senators try to halt the FCC's gutting of former internet protections and tech companies express their frustration with the new rules, net neutrality is dead . Sure, there was an extension to the period of public comment on the matter when it was found that more than half of the comments were fake, but that didn't stop Ajit Pai's commission from killing it. Now there's even more evidence showing just how fake submissions to the governmental site were, including the fact that over one million bulk submissions used fake email addresses from pornhub.com. As reported by Ars Technica , Gravwell security researcher Leah Figueroa and her team analyzed the more than 22 million comments submitted to the FCC to figure out which were real and which were not. The analysis separated "organic" comments sent by real humans from automated comments from bots. Hundreds of comments were filed with identical time stamps, while many others were submitted at a stea...

Today, Apple released updates that will protect some older operating systems against the Meltdown vulnerability. Patches for High Sierra were released earlier this month and now Sierra and El Capitan will be protected as well. The Meltdown and Spectre bugs have been a massive and ongoing issue for the industry. Intel has pledged to patch all recently made chips by the end of the month and faces a number of lawsuits over the vulnerabilities and its handling of them. Congressional leaders have also requested briefings from Intel, AMD and ARM. You can see the details of Apple's updates here . Via: The Verge Source: Apple via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2Dy2PF7"

Siri's news reading feature is no longer limited to the beta testing crowd. Apple has officially released iOS 11.2.5, and the centerpiece is the ability to ask Siri for the latest happenings. If you're in the US, UK or Australia, you can get a briefing from a slew of local sources, such as NPR and the Washington Post in the states or the BBC and Sky News in the UK. And it doesn't have to be general news, either -- you can ask for business, music or sports news as well. Not surprisingly, 11.2.5 is also key to unlocking support for the HomePod speaker . If you happen to score Apple's Siri-savvy device, you can set it up and transfer all your account details in one fell swoop. The release comes alongside a slew of updates for the Apple TV, Apple Watch and macOS, although they're mostly minor. The biggest improvements come for Mac users: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 fixes a number of security issues (such as running code when playing malicious sound files), while tho...

We're nothing if not helpful here at Engadget and we're always looking out for your wellbeing. So today we have a little bit of advice for you -- don't bite your iPhone battery . One man found this out the hard way, Appleinsider reports, causing a minor explosion at an electronics store in China. You can check out a video of the incident here . It shows the man bringing an iPhone battery up to his face, then biting it, and as he removes the battery from his mouth, it explodes. Taiwan News reported that the customer was at the store buying a replacement battery for his iPhone and that because Chinese electronics stores often carry fake Apple products, the man was probably biting it as a way to test its authenticity. Apparently nobody was hurt and the video -- CCTV footage posted to Miaopai.com -- is nearing five million views. However, that no one was injured by the blast is probably just a major stroke of luck, so please don't go repeating it just for fun. We don...

It's been nearly two years since Sony announced it would revitalize the God of War franchise , and now we finally know when Kratos' next adventure will arrive. The next game in the series, simply titled God of War , will be available on April 20th. To go along with the release date, Sony has also detailed some extremely lavish and expensive pre-order bundles and released a new trailer. The latter will likely be more exciting to fans, so let's start there, shall we? The trailer gives us more detail about the game's plot than any preview we've seen thus far. As we already know, Kratos will be journeying through the world of Norse mythology with his son -- it seems that the pair are on a mission to bring the boy's mother's ashes to a far-off location as her last wish. But along the way, the fact that Kratos is a god (which also appears to make his son some sort of immortal being, as well) will cause some problems between the pair. The trailer features many...

Elon Musk's Boring Company hasn't finished digging its first LA-area tunnel , but it's already talking about a second... and it's facing some resistance. The startup has pitched Culver City's council on a 6.5-mile "proof of process" tunnel between the town and LA that would gauge its ability to build across jurisdictions, which is rather vital when you're planning large-scale transportation systems. This wouldn't be as focused on individual cars, however -- rather, the emphasis would be on mass transit that it has previously hinted at in vague terms . The Boring Company devoted its attention to the Loop, a system of small multi-passenger pods (8 to 16 people each) that would shuttle you across the city. This wouldn't be a direct subway equivalent. While it would have numerous stations, a pod would carry everyone aboard to one station instead of pausing at every station along the way. The autonomous electric skates carrying these pods would ...

Last year, Susan Fowler , a former Uber employee, penned an essay detailing rampant sexual harassment and sexism at the company as well as a complete lack of interest on the part of administrators to do anything about it. That report led to an investigation , a handful of firings and eventually a new CEO . The investigation into Uber's toxic culture, conducted by Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran and shared with the company last June, recommended the company establish a chief diversity and inclusion officer position and now Uber finally has. As Recode reports, the new position will be filled by Bo Young Lee who is currently the global head of diversity and inclusion at professional services firm Marsh & McLennan. Uber confirmed the hire to us and said that she will be based in New York and will join the company in late March. "As I was interviewing for this role, it became very clear that Uber is taking its cultural transformation seriously and truly wants to create a c...

Fans of Blizzard games might have dodged a bullet. Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy has revealed that virtually all the developer's titles (including Overwatch and World of Warcraft ) were vulnerable to a DNS rebinding flaw that let sites hijack the Blizzard Update Agent for their own purposes. Intruders had to do little more than create a hostname their site was authorized to communicate with, make that resolve to the target of their choice (such as the victim's PC) and send requests to the agent. From there, they could install malicious files, use network drives or otherwise create havoc. Thankfully, the emphasis here is on the past tense. Blizzard's communication was inconsistent, but it applied a short-term fix in recent days. It also responded to Ormandy's concerns with with promises of a "more robust" fix that whitelists internet hosts, so only those sites Blizzard explicitly approves will get through. We've asked Blizzard for comment a...