Category: Biz Tech

Snap Inc. — Snapchat's new name — and Nintendo launched the Spectacles and NES Classic Edition respectively, and they have proved to be some of the hottest tech products this month. The wearable and the retro gaming console are terribly difficult to come by, as they sold like hotcakes when they rolled out. That means there are a lot of disappointed fans out there, and "a lot" is probably a big understatement. Snapchat Spectacles: Wearable Tech Keeps Selling Out Fast Priced at $129, the Spectacles

If you've been salivating over Snapchat's Spectacles, the company's video-recording plaything unveiled back in September, you'll be pleased to know Vuzix's Blade 3000 series of upcoming smart glasses functions far beyond what Snapchat is poised to accomplish. Similar smart glasses have not ambled well in the past, keenly exemplified by the lukewarm reception of the Google Glass, whose future still remains foggy. There are only a few companies developing smart glass at present, the most popular of which is Microsoft's HoloLens,

Zebra and quagga mussels, the best known Great Lakes invaders, reduce the ability of native mussel species to move, feed and breed. Authorities have already come up with several means to deal with these invasive mussel species that have been spreading in bodies of water across the U.S. Officials have provided decontamination services to boat owners and resorted to using special chemicals such as liquid potash to eliminate infestation of these invasive species in bodies of water. Now, Montana is trying a new strategy

By Chris Prentice | NEW YORK NEW YORK Facebook Inc chief executive Mark Zuckerberg again rejected the idea that the social network affected the U.S. presidential election, saying late Saturday it is "extremely unlikely" news hoaxes changed the outcome. Ensnared in a string of content controversies in recent months, Facebook has insisted that it is a technology company, not a media firm. But scrutiny of the site has heightened since the surprise election of Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday, with critics alleging

Facebook has been navigating the dark web in search of stolen passwords, buying credentials off the black market in a bid to protect users. By purchasing stolen passwords off the black market, Facebook aims to increase its own security, as well as protect users who rely on one password for two or more accounts. While most people know that it's highly recommended to use different passwords for each account, many still use the same passwords over and over again so they don't

Sony's answer to 4K HDR gaming is finally here in the form of the new PlayStation 4 Pro. Regarded as the best option for casual gamers who aren't ready to commit to a full-fledged PC rig, the PS4 Pro boasts of high-end specs rarely seen on a console. This bad boy features a more powerful 2.1GHz octa-core AMD Jaguar x86-64 CPU compared to the PS4 and an 8GB DDR5 RAM capable of handling 218GB/s of bandwidth. It also comes with an

The latest weekly Spotify chart has a new leader as "Black Beatles" by hip-hop group Rae Sremmurd hits the top spot on the strength of the viral "Mannequin Challenge" video craze, for which the song serves as the unofficial theme. Former chart toppers The Weeknd and The Chainsmokers both drop down a spot with their latest hits as does Drake's newest release "Fake Love." 'Mannequin Challenge': Viral Video Craze The latest viral video craze known as the "Mannequin Challenge" has taken the

Samsung was surrounded with a lot of debate after some of its newly launched Galaxy Note 7 phablet exploded due to faulty battery. Samsung has already announced a global recall of the Galaxy Note 7, but it seems that the Samsung phablet is not the only one that can potentially explode. GizmoChina reports that an iPhone 7 Plus exploded in China's Yunnan province, when it hit the ground accidentally. The impact made the battery of the Apple smartphone to catch fire. The

The Google Pixel, a device that is being considered as possibly the best Android smartphone to date, has just been hacked by Chinese team in less than 60 seconds. The feat was achieved by white hat hackers from security solutions company Qihoo 360 at PwnFest, a hacking competition held in Seoul, South Korea. The Google Pixel Hack At PwnFest, Qihoo 360 demonstrated an exploit that gave the team access for remote code execution on the Google Pixel. Using a zero-day vulnerability, the team hacked

The Apple AirPods release date may not be as close as some would hope, as analysts believe the wireless earphones may not hit the market this year after all. Apple was supposed to launch its AirPods in October, but said it needed more time to perfect the product before bringing it to market. The company did not specify just how much more time it needed to smoothen things over, but the general belief was that it wouldn't take too long. Earlier this month,

Vive, a virtual reality headset, is a product developed by HTC in partnership with Valve. It delivers one of the best virtual technologies to the world. Back in April, Taiwanese company HTC started a program called the Vive X. Under this program, HTC would support and endorse startups working on virtual reality (VR) development. The program was funded with $100 million and now the results are becoming clearly visible. A Wireless Add-On HTC has recently released an add-on tool that would cease the need

Researchers have found that a special type of iPad game is more effective at treating lazy eye, or amblyopia, in children compared to traditional patching treatment. Treating Lazy Eye In Children As the primary cause of monocular visual impairment in children, lazy eye affects 3 percent of kids in the U.S. The condition has been traditionally considered as a monocular disorder treatable via patching the opposite eye. Patching treatment forces the usage of the lazy eye but it is not guaranteed that

If you own the Sony Xperia X Performance smartphone — which hit U.S. shelves in July — you would be pleased to learn that the handset is now receiving a software update that fixes the niggling accelerometer issue. As promised, Sony has now pushed out a software update which resolves the accelerometer issue. Some handset owners were also facing issues with the responsiveness of the screen rotation functionality, the barometer, magnetometer, gyroscope etc., and this update will fix these problems as well. What Was

Splash has long been viewed as a useless move in the Pokémon universe, and for good reason. When Splash is used, absolutely nothing happens — the move does not deal any damage, nor does it cause any status effects. However, that is seemingly going to change for Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, with Splash to become possibly one of the best moves in the games. Understanding Z-Moves In Pokémon Sun And Moon One of the new features coming to Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon are Z-moves, which are

Top retailer Best Buy has announced its Black Friday deals for 2016, and they include discounts on some of today's hottest technology items, including PS4 and Xbox One bundles, a $199 49" Toshiba 4K HDTV and more. The retailer has also announced its official store hours for Black Friday, including those for Thanksgiving Day and the weekend following Black Friday. Most of the nation's largest retailers, have either announced their Black Friday deals and bargains, or the details on their annual

By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON More than 40 international business and technology organizations representing hundreds of companies on Friday expressed “deep concerns” to the Chinese government about a new cyber security law they said would likely increase the separation between China and the rest of the world economy. Beijing on Monday adopted a cyber security law it called necessary to counter growing threats of hacking and terrorism. The measure, to take effect in June 2017, was swiftly condemned by overseas critics, including

By Tim Baysinger Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) said it was able to deliver more viewers than promised to advertisers on a U.S. election night livestream, good news for the microblogging site as it tries to ward off growing competition for ad dollars from Snapchat and Instagram. Twitter partnered with BuzzFeed to host an election night broadcast on Tuesday and attracted major advertisers, including Paramount Pictures, Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) “Man in the High Castle,” Activision Blizzard Inc’s (ATVI.O) “Call of Duty,” Johnnie Walker and

By Dustin Volz Facebook Inc said on Friday it would no longer allow certain advertisers to exclude racial or ethnic groups when placing ads on its service, following criticism that the practice was discriminatory. The move comes amid growing scrutiny of how the world's largest online social media network's policies and algorithms shape what content appears in a user's news feed. The unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election this week has prompted questions over how much voters were swayed

Ever since Microsoft launched the first Surface device, the company has been pushing to get creative apps in the Windows Store in hopes to have creators switch from the Mac to Windows. So far, the company has been doing a decent job, and the latest app to cross over is Affinity Photo. The app began life on Mac OS X, but now it's coming to Windows 10. According to many, it's one of the best alternatives to Photoshop. Not a bad

Xbox One may already be cementing its position as the best-selling console in the United States after consistently beating PlayStation 4 in the past four months. This is considered the longest Xbox One dominance in the history of the consoles' rivalry since they were both launched in November 2013. Xbox One October Sales The information is based on data gathered by The NPD Group and GfK Entertainment and was promptly shared by Microsoft. It found that in October, Xbox One outsold the

Findings of a new study now offer a hint on how the universe will eventually come to an end. The scenario involves dark energy causing the universe to rip itself apart until such time that there will be nothing left. What Is Dark Energy? Dark energy is an unseen force believed to accelerate the expansion of the universe. Study researcher Mariam Bouhmadi-López, from the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal, said that it appears the distribution of dark energy favors a gradual ripping

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been relatively quiet on the topic of his own personal political inclination in the lead up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But the unprecedented win of Republican candidate Donald Trump after such a tumultuous campaign has now prompted Cook to address his employees and the entire company in an effort to unite the people. How To Conduct Business After 2016 U.S. Elections Cook wrote in an email to employees in U.S. and addressed how Apple will conduct business after

The Android 7.1-based CyanogenMod 14.1 (CM14.1) nightlies have landed. Technically, CM14.1, the latest version of the community-built Android distribution was already launched a few days ago with an experimental build roll out for the OnePlus 3. Now, more devices can get a taste of CyanogenMod 14.1 as handful of nightly builds get pushed out. In a blog post Tuesday, Nov. 8, CyanogenMod project founder Steve Kondik announced a number of handhelds that are getting CM14.1 nightly builds. The list includes the Nexus

Representatives from Breakthrough Listen launched Nov. 7 the Parkes Radio Telescope, a $100 million project that had been going on for a decade, in the attempt to seek extraterrestrial life. The telescope is currently looking for proof in the vicinity of Proxima Centauri after the discovery of a possibly habitable planet in August 2016. Humanity's interest in discovering alien life has gained traction along with the technological advancements. Since the beginning of the 20th century, when radio technology was discovered, the

Apple will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of iPhones in 2017. The company is said to skip the iPhone 7s name and call its anniversary model iPhone 8. The rumor mill of the next iPhone has already started and undoubtedly it will be an upgraded version of the current-gen iPhone 7. Here is a comparison of Apple's current and upcoming flagship smartphone. Design Rumors claim that Apple will bring radical changes to the design of iPhone 8. The smartphone may have thinner bezels

With retailers like Best Buy and GameStop not offering preorders for Nintendo's NES Classic console, the battle to find one on its November 11 launch day has become all the more competitive. Many gamers are looking to Amazon for a chance to snag one of the retro consoles, and now we have more details on exactly when the machines will go on sale. Go ahead and set your alarm: the NES Classic will go on sale on Amazon starting at 2

Staples is looking to cash in on some Black Friday 2016, and it aims to do that with some smashing deals. Folks who are looking to pick up a new Surface laptop and or other Windows 10 devices should be pleased by what Staples is offering. We know of what Staples is planning because of a recently leaked advertisement. From what we can tell, these deals are more than just cutting the cost of items but shipping as well. The ad claims

The model numbers for Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 series and Galaxy Note 8 have leaked. According to a reliable source, the SM-G950 and SM-G955 will make up the Galaxy S8 series, while SM-N950 has been reserved for the Galaxy Note 8. Samsung and wireless carriers who sold the Galaxy Note 7 have been urging Note 7 owners to exchange the defective smartphone, but as we saw in the comments section of a recently published article, many Note 7 users are refusing to

By Catherine Cadell | SHENZHEN, China SHENZHEN, China Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said it racked up more than $5 billion in transactions in the first hour of its annual 'Singles' Day' sales blitz on Friday - a third more than in the first hour of last year's spree. The 24-hour event held annually on Nov. 11 offers a benchmark for Alibaba's performance and an insight into China's swing to online shopping, especially via smartphones. Launched in 2009, Alibaba's version

By Makiko Yamazaki | TOKYO TOKYO Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp swung to an operating profit in the July-September quarter, driven by strong demand for NAND flash memory chips from Chinese smartphone makers. That boom in demand has been a blessing for Toshiba, which is seeking to recover from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal by turning itself into a company more focused on chips, nuclear energy and social infrastructure while getting rid of unprofitable businesses. Toshiba posted an operating profit of 76.7 billion yen

By Jonathan Stempel A federal judge on Thursday directed Amazon.com Inc to set up a year-long process to reimburse parents whose children made in-app purchases without permission, but rejected a U.S. regulator's request for a $26.5 million lump-sum payout. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, in Amazon's hometown of Seattle, issued his order more than six months after finding the online retailer liable, in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC in July 2014 accused Amazon of making it too easy

Wearable camera maker GoPro Inc said on Tuesday it would recall about 2,500 of its recently introduced Karma drones because they lost power during use. GoPro's shares were down 4.7 percent at $10.35 in extended trading. The recall comes less than a week after GoPro downgraded holiday forecasts to $600 million to $650 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, below analysts average estimate of $666.14 million due to production issues with the Hero 5 Ultra HD Action Camera. "Management might be rushing

DUBLIN Ireland's government will this week formally submit its appeal against the European Commission's multi-billion-euro demand for back taxes from Apple (AAPL.O), Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Tuesday. Ireland's cabinet agreed in September to join the iPhone maker in appealing the Commission's order that the U.S. tech giant pay up to 13 billion euros to Dublin after ruling the firm had received illegal state aid. [nL8N1BE1ZT] Dublin is seeking to protect a tax regime that has attracted many multinational employers. The

By Abhirup Roy | MUMBAI MUMBAI Ford Motor Co is investing 13 billion rupees ($195 million) over the next five years in a technology and business centre in the Indian city of Chennai to develop new products, design mobility solutions and provide business services. Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford, which has already invested over $2 billion in India till date, will hire 3,000 people and bring in 9,000 from other centres in the southern Indian city to staff the facility which will be operational