Новости за 24.05.2017

Facebook’s plan to seed the service with television-like shows now has some names behind it. BuzzFeed and Vox are among the media companies that have signed deals with the company to create short-form series, according to Reuters. The shows, which were originally expected to debut next month, are now expected to arrive closer to the end of summer.

Changes are on the way to Sony’s smartphone lineup. The company is discontinuing its Xperia X and Xperia X Compact lines of devices, which it considers “premium standard” (midrange), Sony announced at its investor conference, according to XperiaBlog.

American air travel is miserable in almost every possible way, from increasingly onerous security procedures to the threat of literally having your teeth knocked out. But based on the video above, I’m going to cling to the notion that things are better in New Zealand, because airlines there are apparently busy figuring out how to let flight attendants read your emotions with augmented reality.

A new update to Google Photos will now let you archive photos from the main feed and hide them away, helping you declutter and privatize some personal photos. First spotted by 9to5Google, all you have to do is hold the photo(s) and hit the “...” menu on the right side to bring up the archive option. Later, when you want to revisit those photos, you can find them on the left side menu under a separate folder.

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has repeatedly made it clear that the company disapproves of players who use unofficial third-party software to boost their experience. Now Niantic has allegedly come up with a unique form of punishment. Rather than being able to detect and catch the fame’s full roster of pokémon, these so-called cheaters can only spot the most common creatures, like Pidgey, Rattata, and Zubat.

How do we judge Tesla’s progress over time?

Tesla, unlike other automakers, doesn’t have traditional model years. The predictable schedule of small annual updates between major refreshes isn’t part and parcel of Tesla’s DNA, nor its hardware.

Instead, the tech-centric company regularly updates software to improve or add performance and safety features in its electric vehicles. These wireless over-the-air software updates are a selling point to consumers who see value in, and are willing to pay for... Читать дальше...

Microsoft held a special event in China earlier this week to launch the company's new Surface Pro hardware. While the software giant promised to live blog the event itself, Microsoft's plans failed due to connectivity and the company didn't live stream any video of the event either. Microsoft has now posted a 45-minute video of the main part of the launch event, featuring Surface chief Panos Panay.

Last week at Google I/O, the company announced that it will expand Android Pay to a number of new markets, including Brazil, Germany, Spain, and Taiwan. It launched in Russia this week, and now it looks like it’s headed next to Canada on May 31st.

Fans finally got their first real look at the next season of Game of Thrones, and the series looks like it plans on outdoing itself. (Which is astounding, considering how Cersei basically blew up part of King’s Landing last year.) The events of the past few seasons have been littered with shocking deaths and over-the-top battles. But the seventh season raises the stakes beyond the petty wars between different kingdoms. Dragons are coming across the Narrow Sea, and White Walkers threaten to lay waste to the entire continent. Читать дальше...

Airport security: two words that can strike dread into the heart of any traveler. Largely due to the slow process of checking your bags, along with the added hassles of emptying pockets and removing shoes, belts, coats, and laptops into extra bins.

If you can even remember the year 2003, I’m guessing one thing you remember is that it’s the year Disney released a film based on a theme-park ride.

Twitter is expanding its emoji lineup to include “all the new emoji” (aka Emoji 5.0), designer Bryan Haggerty announced via the site today. Sadly the update hasn’t rolled out to every user yet, and it’s worth double-checking that you have the latest updates to Twitter apps for your device of choice.

Today, Facebook announced an update to its Trending Topics section that will make the list of news stories easier to parse on mobile with a more diverse list of sources. Now, when you click on a news topic from the search bar on an iPhone, you’ll get multiple stories from different outlets that can be swiped through in a carousel format, as well as the standard posts from friends and prominent celebrity and public figure pages you follow. The company plans to roll the redesign out to Android and desktop soon. Читать дальше...

I don’t like going to hospitals. I’m always wondering about what kind of bacteria are floating around and what pathogens I’m going to pick up. Well, my abstract fears have just gotten a little bit more real. A new study shows what kinds of organisms you encounter in hospitals — and how patients and the hospital rooms they’re in exchange these organisms with one another.

The original plan for Roborace, the world’s first racing series for self-driving cars, was to have 20 of its fantastically futuristic vehicles compete against each other before each race in Formula E’s third season. Teams of engineers would program the cars, (all provided by the series) and the algorithms in their computer brains with slightly different takes on how and when to be aggressive on a racetrack.

What exactly is the web? It seems like a stupid question because we all know the answer: the web is the thing Tim Berners-Lee invented in 1989. It's not the same thing as "the internet," which is what we use to access the web, apps, and streaming video. It's what we visit every day with our web browsers on our phones and laptops. Simple, right?

The Trump administration wants Congress to let law enforcement crack down on drones, according to a document published by The New York Times. The proposal, which apparently circulated yesterday, would let government agencies monitor any unpiloted aircraft system (UAS) flying over an American “covered facility, location, or installation.” They’d be given wide latitude to intercept wireless signals going to the drone, and if they determine that it’s a threat, they’d be able to redirect, disable, confiscate, or destroy it. Читать дальше...

In Master of None, Dev Shah (Aziz Ansari) has honed the perfect message to break through the clutter of unoriginal dating app one-liners. While most men greet potential dates with the dreaded “hey” or “hi” (the height of unoriginality), Dev takes a lighter approach: “Going to Whole Foods, want me to pick you up anything?”

In 2012, the science-fiction / horror film Prometheus brought Ridley Scott back to the film franchise he launched in 1979 with Alien. There have been many Alien sequels, spinoffs, and multimedia franchise additions over nearly 40 years, but Scott’s return to the series was big news. It raised fans’ hopes that the series could return to its earliest, most chilling roots. But Prometheus left a lot of questions behind. Many of the biggest ones were just exasperating plot holes: how does a geologist... Читать дальше...

Today Microsoft revealed that its new Xbox One game subscription service will be available on June 1st. Called Game Pass, the service was first announced back in February, and it offers access to more than 100 Xbox One and 360 games for $9.99 per month. (You can check out the full list here.)

A real feel-good story here: Samsung has responded to the 33 pages (now 34) of forum complaints from frustrated but mostly polite Samsung TV owners who think there's something wrong with how the company's modern TVs do automatic HDMI input switching. When The Verge described the situation last week, we requested a comment from Samsung, and yesterday Samsung gave us a statement:

Sony has released a pair of new trailers for Spider-Man: Homecoming this morning. Where the first two show off Peter Parker swinging around New York City, fighting low-level crime, dealing with high school, and aspiring to be an Avenger, these two reveal that we’re in for the most technologically focused Spider-Man film yet.

Eight months after it was announced at IFA, Asus is finally ready to begin selling its portable USB-C monitor. The Asus ZenScreen MB16AC is a 15.6-inch full HD display that comes in at just 8mm thick and features a foldable smart case that can act as a stand.

Sphero garnered lots of attention nearly two years ago for making an interactive BB-8 that could roll around the house and respond to The Force Awakens. Now the company is broadening its Disney partnership with a new toy based on the main character from Cars, Lightning McQueen. Kids can drive it around, play games, and hang out with the toy. Though it feels strange calling this thing a toy, because it’s almost too dismissive a term for a device that incorporates such serious robotics.

Garmin is expanding its action camera lineup into the world of 360-degree video. Today the company announced the VIRB 360, a waterproof spherical camera packed with bleeding edge specs. The new camera offers features that most other 360-degree cameras lack, but that comes at a price: the VIRB 360 will cost $799 when it goes on sale in June.