A new report says Microsoft may have come very close to owning its own smartphone company. Microsoft nearly reached an oral agreement to purchase Nokia's hardware division earlier this year, but talks have fallen through, according to The Wall Street Journal. The two sides are said to have met in...
It almost happened
Scientists have been utilizing a variety of different bionic eye and retinal implant technologies as a way to restore sight to blind people, and today a group of researchers from Stanford University are releasing details behind their successful...
Microsoft has offered its basic Office Web Apps to Outlook.com and Office 365 customers for over three years now, but one of the big drawbacks for students and businesses has been the lack of true real-time co-authoring. Google Docs has long supported real-time editing with multiple users, but the Office Web Apps have been fairly basic when it comes to editing documents alongside other users....
A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a "shared game library" and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower. Steam users can, of course, already share their games by lending friends their usernames and passwords, but that's not the most efficient or secure method of sharing.
A shared game feature would be a huge addition to the Steam platform, and a highly attractive feature in light of Sony and Microsoft's battle over sharing and used game policies for their next-generation consoles. Sony has seized recent confusion over the...
The strange tale of John McAfee keeps getting stranger. In a video posted to YouTube last night, the antivirus software founder and part-time fugitive callously sends up the program he helped create. Framed as a four-minute instructional video, "How To Uninstall McAfee Antivirus" features plenty of green screen, degraded women, smoking, drugs, partial nudity, and firearms. In the "humorous"...
Your move, Peter Norton
Until now, sharing images taken with Lytro's unique light field camera has required syncing with the company's desktop app for Mac and PC. That changes today — at least for iPhone owners — with the release of Lytro Mobile for iOS. The new app lets Lytro users quickly upload and share any light field pictures they've taken on the go.
Just how does it accomplish this? Lytro is finally...
If the brutal violence of the original Hotline Miami didn't satiate your thirst for pixelated blood, there's good news, as details have finally emerged about the game's sequel. Subtitled Wrong Number, the next Hotline Miami will also be the last, and it will feature multiple playable characters, each of whom has been inspired by the events of the original. Their stories will intersect as the game progresses, and it looks like the action will be very similar to the first — fast, brutal, and filled with blood. You can get a glimpse of Wrong Number in the teaser trailer below, and for more...
The film industry is obsessed with prequels, but there's one tiny problem: they rarely work. We know the eventual fate of the characters, so there are no stakes. We want to know more about iconic heroes, but seeing their backstory kills gravitas and mystery. From Star Wars to Prometheus, the landscape is littered with films set in familiar worlds that never come together — and often harm the originals they’re working from.
That’s the environment Monsters University is walking into. A follow-up to 2001’s Monsters, Inc., it’s a test not only of prequels but of Pixar Animation Studios itself. A good-natured callback to the...
Microsoft has put a reward out for identifying bugs in the Windows 8.1 Preview in an effort to rid the upcoming release of any particularly nasty flaws that may have gone unnoticed. It's the first time that Microsoft has offered to pay for bug reports — a security measure that competitors like Google and Facebook have been taking for some time now. Microsoft is offering up to $100,000 for what it's calling "truly novel exploitation...
Big prizes for big bugs
Facebook comment threads are about to get quite a bit more crazy. A new camera button is rolling out that allows users to reply to posts with a picture. It's a simple feature, but it's one that hasn't been available on the social network to date. Facebook hasn't yet officially announced the new...
The day before he turned 27, Nate Weiner drove from San Francisco to Mountain View for the most important meeting of his life. Weiner — he pronounces it "WINE-er," and yes, junior high was a rough time for him — made a mixtape for the occasion, something to boost his confidence before he sat...
FBI Director Robert Mueller has admitted that the Bureau uses aerial drones to conduct surveillance within the domestic United States. During his testimony at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier today, Mueller bluntly told Sen....
The European Commission and officials in several countries are asking Google executive Eric Schmidt whether Google is equipped to deal with the privacy implications of its Glass heads-up display. In an open letter, privacy commissioners from Israel, Switzerland, Mexico,...
With less than two weeks until Google shuts down Reader, Feedly has completed the rollout of its Cloud sync service, transitioning all users over to its servers. Announced on June 3rd, Feedly Cloud not only ensures that Google Reader users can continue to access their RSS feeds after July 1st, it...
The largest association of doctors in the US has voted to change its definition of obesity, in a move that could catalyze major changes in insurance coverage, research funding, and public perception of the condition.
In a vote held yesterday by the American Medical Association (AMA) at their annual conference, association delegates agreed that obesity — primarily characterized by a body mass index above 30 —...
It was a long time coming, but Rdio finally launched its streaming movie and TV service Vdio in April — though it was only open to those who were already paying for an Rdio subscription. Today, the shackles come off: anyone can now create a Vdio...
Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) incendiary comments about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs last week ended up overshadowing some more substantial news: his introduction of the Internet Gambling Regulation, Enforcement, and Consumer Protection Act of 2013, a bill that would...
As first books go, Dr. Adam Rutherford probably couldn’t have chosen a vaster topic: an investigation into both the origins of life itself, and...
One of the most cherished and time-honored traditions of computer security conferences like Def Con has been the Social Engineering contest. It's a simple but satisfying hacker bloodsport —...
Microsoft is planning to refresh its Surface RT with a Qualcomm processor. Existing Surface RT devices use Nvidia's Tegra 3 chipset, but Bloomberg reports that a refreshed version will ship using...
Apple TV users can finally watch HBO and ESPN without resorting to troublesome workarounds. The small media streaming box now has official support for HBO Go and WatchESPN, the former of which was s...
Warner Bros. has just released the first trailer for the The Lego Movie, an upcoming film based on the popular building blocks. Directed by Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs' Phil Lord and Chris...
Nintendo will launch its first game with a free-to-play business model later this year. Speaking to IGN, veteran designer Shigeru Miyamoto said...
Back in March of 2011, Japan suffered its worst nuclear disaster ever as the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a series of equipment failures and meltdowns due to a massive earthquake. It was the largest-scale nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 and caused the shutdown of all but two of Japan's 50 nuclear reactors. More than two years later, it looks like Japan's nuclear power plants...
Tesla is recalling some Model S vehicles manufactured between May 10th and June 8th 2013. In a PSA on the company's website, Tesla founder Elon Musk notes that an incorrectly welded mounting bracket for the left-hand latch of the rear seats "could be weaker than intended."
The defect could cause...
