Archive

CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday launched the company's new Messenger platform beta at its annual F8 conference. The Messenger announcement was the first major initiative in the long-term vision he presented. Zuckerberg outlined a major push to incorporate artificial intelligence and bots into the Mes...

Samsung has been granted a patent for a smart contact lens, according to news reports published last week. The lens is equipped with a tiny display, a camera, an antenna, and several sensors that detect movement and eye blinks. Eye blinks would provide the input, and a smartphone would be needed to ...

Ford on Monday revealed that it has been testing its Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle with no headlights on remote desert roads at night. While such a task would be quite perilous for a human driver, it was an important step in developing a fully autonomous vehicle, the company said. The te...

OPINION

Learning to Love Virtual Reality

At Nvidia's technology conference last week, I saw a variety of new technologies showcased. From deep learning systems -- computers that arguably are smarter than we are -- to self-driving cars that can drive better than we can, the technological advances on display made me feel just a tad inadequat...

A dozen trucks utilizing an autonomous driving system arrived Wednesday in Rotterdam, Netherlands, after traveling across Europe in the European Truck Platooning Challenge. The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, along with the Directorate General Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands V...

Reddit this week announced that it has extended the reach of its blocking tool, which was introduced in 2011 to let users fight harassment. The tool previously focused on blocking private messages; now it can block comments to users' posts. Clicking the Block User button while viewing a reply will h...

It appears that the Obama administration will refrain from giving its outspoken support to any legislation that aims to compel high-tech companies to help law enforcement agencies crack mobile phone encryption. On the other hand, it won't level any outspoken opposition either. Introduction of such...

Vivaldi on Wednesday launched the first release of its eponymously named browser. Vivaldi is the brainchild of CEO Jon von Tetzchner, a cofounder of Opera Software. Aimed at the power user, Vivaldi 1.0 packs in features that were stripped out of Opera 12. However, "Vivaldi is not about a single feat...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Apple, FBI Tussle Puts Bull’s-Eye on iPhone

The battle between the FBI and Apple over access to the iPhone of San Bernardino, California, killer Syed Farook came to an abrupt end last week when the agency announced it no longer needed the company's assistance to crack the device. Since the U.S. Department of Justice delayed a hearing on an or...

Facebook on Monday introduced automated alt text, a new tool that describes what's in an image to help visually impaired users engage more on the site. The goal is to help the blind community experience Facebook the same way others enjoy it. People using screen readers on iOS devices will hear a des...

WhatsApp on Tuesday told its 1 billion users that their communications would be better protected from prying eyes with end-to-end encryption. The company always has made data and communication security a priority, according to Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the founders of WhatsApp, which Facebook bought...

GADGET DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES

Gadget Ogling: Food Frenzies and Rollerblade Off-Roading

Of all the kitchen gadgets I own, the rice cooker is possibly my second-most favorite after the tea kettle. Sure, I could make rice in a pot, but the dedicated rice cooker makes it much easier to attend to other details instead of watching the pot. Xiaomi's pressurized version might prove even bette...

HP on Tuesday unveiled its latest challenger to Apple's laptops, touting it as the thinnest laptop in the world. At 10.4 mm, the HP Spectre's chassis is as thin as a triple-A battery, the company noted. The Spectre is powered by Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and weighs in at 2.45 pounds. It has a ...

IBM last week announced that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has purchased its TrueNorth processor-based cognitive computing platform. The purchase included an end-to-end ecosystem and a multisocket host node. The lab will build a supercomputer based on the platform to see how neural networks...


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