Tech giant’s first original production will feature developers trying to create ‘the next great app’Apple is seeking participants for its new reality TV show Planet of the Apps.The casting call issued on Tuesday by co-producers Propagate seeks app developers aged over 18 who are planning on making apps for Apple devices. Continue reading...
Burning airships, rocket guns, fighting on horseback – what did playing the closed alpha version of EA’s eagerly anticipated epic tell us about the future of a battered genre?“Preparing all-out war,†says the starting screen as Battlefield 1 loads up. It’s not kidding. When Electronic Arts launched the trailer for its first world war shooter, fans were delighted to see the series, not only returning to its historical roots, but heading even further back than the original start point: 1942. This heavily viewed slab of cacophonous action promised an epic war story of destruction and gritty combat; and judging by the closed alpha test – an early version of the St Quentin’s Scar map available only to a select few players – the game will deliver.After several days on the mostly stable 64-player servers, here’s what we’ve learned about the Battlefield 1 experience so far. Continue reading...
Dominant smartphone operating system maker given extra time to respond to European commission charges over market abuse of Android and Google Search and Chrome appsGoogle has been given a six-week extension until early September to respond to EU antitrust charges filed against its mobile operating system Android.In April the European commission said Google’s requirement that mobile phone manufacturers pre-install Google Search and the Google’s Chrome browser in order to get access to other Google apps including the Google Play Store, the largest source of Android apps with more than 2m available, may harm consumers and competition. Continue reading...
Britain’s biggest carmaker plans to deploy self-driving vehicles on motorways and roads near its Coventry HQ later this yearJaguar Land Rover has said it will create a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles over the next four years to test autonomous and connected technology, with the first hitting the streets later this year.
Architects and planners brought up on SimCity are using the principles of gaming to encourage sustainabilityMany children of the 1990s would have fond memories of the smash-hit computer game SimCity. The open-ended simulation that allowed players to plan entire cities while balancing public service, environmental and budgetary pressures smashed preconceptions of what a video game could be.At the time of SimCity’s emergence in 1989, a video game with no end and no set target was considered absurd. But the sheer detail (down to crime and traffic levels on each street), the ease of learning, constant feedback to player decisions (citizens moving into suburbs or buildings becoming derelict) and the ability to “play god†lifted this title from mere simulation to a global sensation. Continue reading...
Tesla said data suggested the driver’s hands were not on the wheel in a recent accident in Montana in which a Model X veered off the road and hit a postAnother accident involving Tesla’s autopilot system has been reported, this time in Montana when a Model X veered off the road and hit a post.Early on Sunday morning on a highway near Whitehall, a Tesla veered off to the right into a wooden guardrail, according to the Detroit Free Press, stopping the car before it left the road. The driver told a highway patrol officer that the car’s driver assist feature had been engaged. Continue reading...
Currency behind social media website Steemit, in which users are rewarded or paid based number of ‘thumbs up’, has rocketed to more than $150m in valueSteem, the digital currency behind the new social media website Steemit, soared more than 1,000% in value on Tuesday to more than $150m, two weeks after it first paid people who posted on its website, according to coinmarketcap.com.
By signing up to the retail giant’s affiliate network, Amazon Associates, publishers can earn commissions from linking to products on Amazon.comIn July 2015, Amazon declared its own annual holiday: Amazon Prime Day. The retail giant promised deals on a wide range of products for customers signed up to its membership program, Amazon Prime.This is the second Amazon Prime Day, and it’s pretty hard to miss. At the time of writing, the #PrimeDay hashtag was one of Twitter’s top 10 worldwide trends. Media outlets including the Daily Mail, USA Today, the Telegraph, PC World and CNet are publishing numerous stories about the discounts on offer, and urging readers to sign up for an Amazon Prime trial. Continue reading...
Brogan BamBrogan brings harassment and nepotism lawsuit against the supersonic transport company, claiming he feared for his physical safetySenior executives at Hyperloop One, the much-hyped technology company developing a high-speed transportation system, are being accused of nepotism and physically threatening and harassing employees in a lawsuit filed by the startup’s co-founder and three former employees.Brogan BamBrogan, a co-founder who recently resigned as chief technology officer, alleges that one executive left a “hangman’s noose†on his chair in one of the most explosive claims, which is bolstered by photos included in the complaint. Continue reading...
Internapalooza provides an inside look at the peculiar cultural initiation to the tech industry: coding, entrepreneurship and a certain amount of privilegeThere were piles of free stuff at Internapalooza, the annual gathering of thousands of tech industry summer interns. In the club level at the San Francisco Giants’ stadium on Monday evening, name-tag-sporting millennials travelled in packs of three and four as they scooped up branded T-shirts, tote bags, water bottles, Moleskin notebooks, sunglasses, argyle socks from Zillow, mobile device charge pads from eBay, winter caps from Google, flip flops from Andreessen Horowitz, and – the overall favorite – selfie sticks and throw pillows from YouTube.Almost everything was free. Everything except the popcorn. Continue reading...
US Fish and Wildlife Service to target diseased prairie dogs, food for the ferrets, via specially designed drones that shoot the candies in three directions at onceThe US government is set to unleash drones that fire vaccine-covered M&Ms in a bid to save the endangered black-footed ferret, a species that is facing a plague epidemic across America’s great plains.
Investigatory powers bill could lead to video shot by reporters being accessed remotely by police or their phone microphones used as a bug, peers sayPeers have issued a serious warning that the government’s proposed “snooper’s charter†law could endanger journalists and their sources.The House of Lords heard a strong cross-party plea that greater protection for journalists’ sources was needed in Theresa May’s investigatory powers bill, which seeks to extend the powers of state surveillance. Continue reading...
Reverence for the original brand inspired two San Francisco-based Brits to bring back the magic with a modern twist: 3D moving imagesBefore everyone had a digital camera tucked inside their mobile phone, before the duck-faced selfies and sepia-toned filters of Instagram, before Flickr and Periscope and Snapchat, there was Polaroid.From 1948 to the early 2000s, that name was synonymous with “instant visual gratificationâ€. Wait 60 seconds, and the photo you just snapped would appear magically before your eyes. Continue reading...
Gears of War 4 developer will be owned by a company which, until 2015, exclusively dealt in chicken meatLondon-based games developer Splash Damage has been bought by Chinese chicken supplier Leyou.Best known for its involvement in the Wolfenstein, Quake and Gears of War franchises, as well as its own multiplayer shooter Brink, Splash Damage will be the second games developer owned by Leyou, whose Reuters profile describes the company as “engaged in supplying chicken meat products in the Fujian provinceâ€. Continue reading...
The latest video-game-to-movie adaptation will update an obscure Sega Mega Drive title from 1992 about a young superhero for hireAn obscure Sega Mega Drive title about a slacker who becomes a superhero for hire is the latest video game to become a candidate for a big-screen adaptation, according to Deadline.Rent-a-Hero, first released in 1992, has a backstory in which a small-town Japanese kid orders a pizza and instead receives a suit of power armour. Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink (who also co-wrote Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity) is on board to direct, and will write the script with Jeff Morris (The True Memoirs of an International Assassin). Continue reading...
In 2015, the story of a stolen iPhone went viral and led to a friendship forged on China’s Twitter. Now, the Finding Dory star is working on a film about itEllen DeGeneres and BuzzFeed are working together on a film inspired by a series of articles about a stolen mobile phone, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Continue reading...
From calendar to email, here’s what to replace the iOS defaults with to work better, harder and hopefully lessFace it: the best thing about iOS is the App Store. The iPhone has come a long way since version one, but the ability to add to the fifteen built-in apps has been the biggest improvement.These days, Apple’s default apps are showing their age. What’s more, they suffer from being too simple for power users and too complex for new users. Ask anyone who needs to get serious work done with their iPhone and they’ll tell you that the first step to a more productive life is to ditch the defaults and replace them with apps built from the ground-up for power. Continue reading...
Over two years, eight videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed more than 205m times, partly thanks to $100,000 in taxpayer fundingThe Australian producers who were behind eight fake viral videos which made news around the world were part of a Screen Australia-funded project to explore the impact of a short film narrative.Over two years, eight disparate videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed in 180 countries, more than 205m times. On YouTube alone they were watched for the equivalent of 164 years; they accrued 500,000 comments and 1.6m likes. Continue reading...
From its animist origins to its relationship with tech and capitalism, the game has more in common with religion than you might expectOver the past week, tens of thousands of people have taken to roaming the streets, interacting with invisible beings that now inhabit our cities.
The SEC is scrutinizing whether Tesla should have disclosed the self-driving car crash in a formal regulatory filing, according to the Wall Street JournalThe US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla failed to disclose to investors a lethal crash involving its autopilot technology.According to the Wall Street Journal, the SEC is scrutinizing whether the incident was “material†information that Tesla should have disclosed in a formal regulatory filing, though one source reportedly said the investigation may not lead to any kind of enforcement by the agency. Continue reading...
Five years after the US government took down the site accusing it of piracy, tech entrepreneur tweets about plans and hints new website will use bitcoinFlamboyant German tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is planning to relaunch file-sharing website Megaupload in January 2017, five years after the US government took down the site accusing it of piracy.
Government seeking steer from drivers on everything from collision liablity and car insurance to remote parkingA planned shake-up of motor insurance rules and changes to the highway code have been unveiled by the government in preparation for the arrival of driverless cars on UK roads.
Producers of content from toy-unboxing videos to Minecraft gamers and vloggers target growing children’s marketAt the Children’s Media Conference in London last week, one big structural shift in how the young watch TV loomed large amidst conversations about diversity and the impact of Brexit.YouTube was still the hottest of topics, with its ever-growing popularity among children making it impossible to ignore. In May 2016, 35 of the top 100 YouTube channels (by video views) were aimed at children, generating 8.6bn views collectively. Continue reading...
Hundreds of centers across the US are using virtual reality to train officers to shoot more accurately – and also help them to decide whether to shoot at allWhen I arrived, two women sitting in a hot tub asked me what I was doing in their backyard. I wasn’t quite sure myself. “I’m just here because I heard it was a little loud and I’m seeing if you could keep it down.â€In the corner of my eye, a tall man lumbered toward me from inside the house, swinging a bottle. I asked him once, then twice, to put down the threatening object. Continue reading...
Disappearing messages launched alongside new encryption feature, ‘secret conversations’For the fourth time, Facebook is trialling a Snapchat-style ephemeral messaging system.This time, however, the company is introducing the new feature alongside a much wider change: the first chance to use end-to-end encryption to secure conversations on Facebook Messenger. Continue reading...
OurMine Security released a few Vine videos through Dorsey’s account, which cross-posted to his Twitter feedThe Twitter chief executive, Jack Dorsey, had his Twitter and Vine accounts hacked.The hacking group which posted on Dorsey’s account, OurMine Security, is the same group which has previously defaced social media accounts belonging to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai. This time, OurMine released a few Vine videos through Dorsey’s account, which cross-posted to his Twitter feed. Continue reading...
Xbox execs Phil Spencer, Mike Ybarra and Shannon Loftis talk about Xbox One S, Scorpio, virtual reality – and why diversity is central to modern gamingAt the end of this year’s E3 conference in Los Angeles, one thing seemed clear: although a lot of journalists left feeling that Sony had “won†the hype war with its games-focused press conference, everyone was actually talking about Microsoft. The company choose the event to announce, not one, but two new consoles: an updated version of the Xbox One with a simple “S†suffix, and a more powerful upgrade – codenamed Project Scorpio – due out next year.The question on a lot of lips was, why? Why did Microsoft start its press briefing with Xbox One S, promising 4K compatibility, a new 40% smaller body and support for HDR gaming, only to apparently undermine the package by revealing Scorpio at the end? Due in late 2017, this intriguing iteration packs in eight CPU cores and promises six teraflops of processing power. And while Xbox One S will run 4K movies and promises to upscale games to that resolution, it’ll be Scorpio that delivers true, native 4K gaming. So why not keep it secret for a few more months? Why instantly cannibalise the Xbox One S market before it has even launched? Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian