Drones launched from an autonomous vehicle could help guide it by mapping surrounding areas beyond what the car’s sensors can detect, according to Ford company officials Ford Motor Co. is studying a system to use drones to help guide self-driving vehicles, including on off-road adventures, company officials said. Drones launched from an autonomous vehicle would help guide it by mapping the surrounding area beyond what the car’s […]
The AWS cloud now has 42 Availability Zones in 16 regions but the two empty circles in France and China represent the location of two more regions coming online next year. Image: AWS Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform is now available from UK-based datacenters. The launch of the AWS Europe (London) Region means that AWS’s suite of cloud services is now available out of 16 regions […]
By Julia Love and Ginger Gibson | SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON Alphabet’s Google is racing to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy arm, trying to get a foothold in President-elect Donald Trump’s Washington after enjoying a uniquely close relationship with the administration of President Barack Obama. In the weeks since the Nov. 8 election, Google has ramped up efforts to hire Republican lobbying firms and […]
Microsoft launched officially its latest chat bot, Zo.ai, along with a new external AI web site with information on its various AI-related projects. Credit: Microsoft Microsoft officials talked up the company’s momentum across its various AI projects and initiatives at its AI day in San Francisco on December 13. A week ago, word leaked that Microsoft was providing early access to users on Kik to Zo. Zo […]
Qualcomm said it will work with Google to combine Android Things, an Internet of things operating system, and its Snapdragon processor. The move could give Google a much larger ingredient brand play in the smart home, Internet of things and smart city deployments. If the collaboration is successful, Android will be embedded with the processors in the IoT food chain. Keep in mind that Qualcomm recently acquired […]
Google, Facebook and other online advertising businesses face strict new privacy rules from Brussels on the ways they can track people online. The new rules would compel websites and browsers, such as Google Chrome, to switch from a default of allowing users to opt out of online advertising to asking them to opt in to view adverts based on their browsing history, according to a leaked draft […]
TechnologyOne, an enterprise software company listed among the ASX 200, has claimed the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) corporate tax transparency report, which states the company has paid less than 30 percent tax in the 2014-15 financial year, is “both confusing and misleading”. The company’s executive chairman Adrian Di Marco said TechnologyOne’s effective tax rate would have been 30 percent had the government research and development (R&D) tax […]
Minecraft arguably stands as one of the biggest names in gaming today, an impressive feat since its history harks back to a lone developer working on a project that would one day end up being bought by Microsoft for a hefty sum. A lot of factors contribute to Minecraft‘s popularity, one of which is the effortless accessibility with which players can let their creativity run amok. But what would […]
Time to put Cortana on your iPhone or Android? Image: Microsoft Microsoft is finally making its Cortana virtual assistant available through Android and iOS apps in the UK. The Cortana iOS and Android apps launched in the US and China exactly one year ago, but the UK version features a new simplified look and feel for the apps. The idea of the app is to extend the […]
Alienware’s Steam Machine Valve rolled out the Steam Machine concept at CES 2014: Desktops that would be sized to compete with video game platforms in gamers’ living rooms, and run the company’s Linux-based SteamOS. Since then, the company ran into delays with its Steam Controllers, and by the time manufacturers started to roll out the actual systems (nearly two years later), a lot of the buzz about […]
Patience and preparation are the key to a great deal. Buying a new PC or Mac is a major purchase, potentially costing $1500 or more. Top-of-the-line new designs like the Microsoft Surface Book and Apple’s MacBook Pro (2016) can easily approach a $3000 list price. But you don’t have to pay that sticker price. With a little preparation and some patience, you can save 30, 40, even […]
Screens from the Starbucks mobile app. At its annual meeting with investors on December 7, Starbucks executives outlined a bevy of initiatives involving new store formats, expanded food offerings, and new premium coffee beverages — but the other big story to come out of the coffee giant’s corporate hobnobbing was how the company’s use of technology has turned the brand into a digital innovation machine. Starbucks, which […]
The Mac is in trouble. And that’s not due to a decline in quality (okay, maybe a little); you can attribute it to more robust competition. As a writer at PCMag, my primary laptop has been a MacBook Pro for the past eight years; I also had an HP Z420 desktop. I’d been holding on to my 2011 MacBook Pro, waiting for the new machines […]
Microsoft now officially owns LinkedIn, a popular social networking platform geared toward employers and professionals. The multi-billion acquisition first made headlines in June, and the European Commission has given the acquisition a go-ahead earlier this week, joining the approval of other regulators around the globe, including those in the United States, Canada, Brazil, and South Africa. “This deal will allow us to keep growing, investing in and innovating […]
Pearson, Microsoft and Google collaborate on state-of-the-art learning technology. Dubai,UAE, 9 December 2016 Pearson launched its latest augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) educational technology in the Middle East. This includes content for Microsoft HoloLens, the brand new augmented reality viewer, as well as content for VR including interactive 360° courseware. Microsoft’s HoloLens, is the world’s first untethered augmented reality system. HoloLens is a device that […]
Some probably think that performance and quality of components such as chipsets are all about the hardware but this is not the case. AMD has just proven that graphics processing units (GPU) could also get amped up through its software or a software update. The company released the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive, which refreshed the driver of its latest Polaris and Fury GPUs. As a result, these […]
For the 2014-15 financial year, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and Google all upped the amount of tax they paid in Australia over the year prior. According to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) 2014-15 Corporate Tax Transparency report, with revenue in the region totalling AU$8.3 billion, Apple coughed up AU$146 million in tax — AU$72 million more than the iPhone maker did in 2013-14. Similarly, Samsung, with 2014-15 revenue […]
Dropbox is often the choice solution for file storage in the cloud, but the problem is that as smartphones proliferate the market, widespread internet coverage is slow to follow suit, so accessing the cloud is not always an easy feat when physically moving from place to place. In this case, cloud-based file storage basically becomes useless on a smartphone. Dropbox previously enabled a solution for this by allowing […]
Pebble’s time ran out. Pebble did not launch the first smartwatch or even the first smartwatch of the modern era. But its combination of long battery life, daylight-readable display and iOS compatibility led it to become the highest-grossing Kickstarter campaign ever. Its campaign for the Pebble Time — which noted that over a million Pebble watches had been sold and that it was the top-selling smartwatch on […]
The holiday season 2016 has already started and shoppers are looking out for deals for themselves and for gifting. Gaming consoles are one of the top picks every holiday season. Analysts predict that this holiday season, Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) will be ahead of Microsoft Xbox One in terms on sales. Global PS4 Sales Surpasses 50 Million On Wednesday, Sony announced that PS4 sales have surpassed 50 million […]
This article by David Haggith was published first on The Great Recession Blog: I risked losing my fellow anti-establishment readers in September by suggesting Trump may be an establishment Trojan horse. After seeing Trump choose Pence as VP and a Goldman Sachs exec as campaign finance manager, I was concerned the establishment knew a citizen’s revolt was brewing and made sure that even the road to revolt led back to […]
Microsoft has unveiled a new chatbot named Zo, but this time, she’s available on Kik, instead of Twitter, where earlier this year, her predecessor—known as Tay—went on a rather racist tirade before being shut down. I’ve never heard a clear explanation as to why Microsoft is making chatbots, and I have to assume the worst: They are on track to deliver ads. If you ever […]
NoHold, a Milpitas, California-based artificial intelligence (AI) company that pioneered chatbots in the 1990s, has launched a “quickstart” platform targeted towards small to medium size businesses (SMBs) and individuals interested in creating virtual assistants quickly, easily, and cheaply. The Sicura Quickstart platform allows SMBs and individuals to create a virtual assistant automatically by uploading word documents, tables, PDFs, and images. No programming or advanced technical skills are […]
Image: Dropbox Dropbox on Tuesday announced the launch of Dropbox Mobile Offline Folders. The cloud-based file sharing service provider says the new premium feature will let users stay on task on their smartphones even when data and Wi-Fi is unavailable. With mobile offline folders, users can tag an entire folder to have its contents synced automatically to their phone or tablet, as opposed to marking each individual […]
