Новости за 27.09.2017

EVE: Valkyrie, the multiplayer space dogfighting game that launched with the Oculus Rift in 2016, has gotten an update that makes the VR headset optional. The new expansion, called EVE: Valkyrie - Warzone, changes the Valkyrie gameplay pretty significantly. It reworks the fleet of ships to emphasize specific roles, removes the “launch tube” ship-selection system in favor of making all ships immediately available, sets up a new upgrade system, and adds a “capture the flag”-style game mode called Extraction, along with two new maps. Читать дальше...

Google won’t tell Amazon why it blocked access to YouTube on its Echo Show device, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services said. Speaking to reporters at Amazon’s headquarters today, longtime Amazon exec Dave Limp said he would “send a team to Mountain View” tonight if Google would just specify what went wrong.

Delta Air Lines announced today that it will be offering free access to in-flight internet for customers to access iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger on any flight with Gogo Wi-Fi starting October 1st, via 9to5Mac.

Anthony Levandowski is many things to many different people: brilliant engineer, serial entrepreneur, ruthless businessman, trade secret thief. (That last one is just alleged.) But now, thanks to an extensive profile in Wired, we can add another category to Levandowski’s long résumé: church founder.

The Terminator franchise is officially coming back. According to Variety, Deadpool’s Tim Miller will direct the film, with Terminator 2 director James Cameron returning as a producer. The untitled sequel will hit theaters on July 26th, 2019.

Amazon surprised everyone today with a press event that unveiled a bunch of new Echo hardware. The Echo speaker, originally launched in 2014, was overdue for an update after the company spun off devices with a camera and a touchscreen. Today’s event also introduced a refreshed Fire TV, just days after Apple launched its updated Apple TV with 4K support.

Of the many new Echo devices announced by Amazon today, the Echo Spot is one that’ll likely be a hit this holiday season. The device is basically a smaller version of the Echo Show, Amazon’s first Echo device with a touchscreen. It includes a 2.5-inch screen that allows it to double as an alarm clock or a nursery camera, all while still being able to make video calls through the mini screen.

Amazon is launching its Echo Show device in the UK and Germany soon. The online retail giant is opening up preorders for the Echo Show today, priced at £199.99 in the UK and €219.99 in Germany. Originally launched in the US, the Echo Show has all the same features as a regular Echo but with a 7-inch display attached.

Uber is shutting down its auto-leasing subsidiary, CNBC is reporting, as the company’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi looks to focus on improving Uber’s profit margin.

A staggering 88 percent of American adults watched the solar eclipse on August 21st as it crossed the US. That’s 215 million people, most of whom went outside to see the event in person, according to a new study by the University of Michigan.

Amazon just surprised us all with a surprise announcement to introduce a bunch of new Echo and Alexa devices just before the holiday season. Slotting its announcement right after the new Apple TV 4K launched and right before Google is expected to launch a new Google Home speaker, Amazon is here to remind us that its Alexa technology is still here, and it is still one of the most adopted in the majority of gadgets in the voice-activated industry. From a new and updated Fire TV set-top box to several new Echo devices... Читать дальше...

Today, Amazon introduced the Echo Spot, a device with a small screen that serves as a kind of smart alarm clock. The Spot has a 2.5-inch screen and is an evolution of both the Echo Dot and the Echo Show, marrying a screen with the kind of small device that can be placed throughout the house, the company says. “It works great as an alarm clock. But it does a lot more,” Amazon devices chief Dave Limp said.

It’s a day of Echo speakers: Amazon just announced a new Echo Plus speaker, in addition to a second-generation Echo and Echo Connect speaker phone.

Amazon today introduced a new $69.99 Fire TV with HDR and 4K capabilities. The redesigned Fire TV is a small flat square dongle with an HDMI cable sticking out, and it again ships with an Alexa voice remote included. It’s basically a smaller version of the discontinued set-top box that now plugs into the back of your TV and hangs there. The previous Fire TV box already did 4K, but this one can now play it at 60 frames per second and adds HDR (high dynamic range) as a brand new feature to Amazon’s streaming devices. Читать дальше...

Kano’s been making build-your-own computer kits for a while now, but while they let you put together an actual PC, you were still building what amounted to a desktop computer with no screen or internal battery. The company’s new Computer Kit Complete takes the next natural step for the DIY computer: building a laptop (via The Next Web).

FCC chairman Ajit Pai is genuinely one of the nicest people in Washington. He’s smart, personable, and the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with. But nice guys don’t always make good policy (I’ve been bipartisan on this), and Pai’s record means real danger for American consumers and the internet itself. If you believe communications networks should be fast, fair, open, and affordable, you need ask your senator to vote against Pai’s reconfirmation. Now.

Amazon introduced a second-generation version of the Echo today with a dedicated bass tweeter and a modified, shorter design. The new device looks to be about half the size of the original Echo, is cloth-covered, goes on sale today for $99. The company is also selling a three pack for the first time, offering multi-room audio for the price of $50 per device.

LG introduced its new India-exclusive K7i smartphone today. It's a fairly standard budget phone with a 5-inch HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and an unspecified quad-core processor. It's even running Android Marshmallow with no public plans of updating to Nougat or Oreo. What a classic budget phone move. The new device does have one unique feature, though: built-in, mosquito-repelling ultrasonic sound wave technology.

While the United States may be slowing its drive to reduce emissions as a nation, California could press for more stringent standards that could end up being as strict those recently planned by some countries.

The Assassin’s Creed series has always been about exploring ancient cities, and the upcoming Origins looks to continue that with its Egyptian setting. The game will also introduce a new mode aimed at turning its historical elements into something educational.

The Russian company that makes the iconic AK-47 machine gun is branching out into rideables — specifically flying rideables. (Is that a thing?) Kalashnikov Concern — part of the Russian defense giant Rostec, which is named after AK-47 designer Mikhail Kalashnikov — demonstrated its unnamed prototype on Monday, according to Popular Mechanics. It looks similar to a handful of drone-quadcopter-hoverbike hybrids that we’ve seen popping up around the internet with increasing frequency.

Astronomers say they have detected another set of gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space and time traveling throughout the Universe. It’s the fourth time this phenomenon has been measured by the scientists at LIGO, or the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. The same group made history by detecting the first wave signals early last year. While such detections seem to be routine now, this latest discovery is unique since it was also picked up by a separate non-LIGO observatory. Читать дальше...

Sony’s phones have looked mostly the same for the last four years, but it sounds like they could finally be in for a change. In an interview with Indian Express, Sony’s managing director for India, Kenichiro Hibi, said that the company is “planning to launch [a] new generation of products, and you can expect a complete new design from the devices.”

Today, Apple published a newly refreshed privacy page. With it came the most new information the company has released on Face ID since the iPhone X was announced. The details come from a new support page and a technical white paper on Face ID security, mentioned during the keynote and currently live on Apple.com. Over the course of six pages, the paper walks through the various privacy and security measures built into the new facial recognition system, including crucial details on how the new... Читать дальше...

Google’s Made with Code and Snap are collaborating on a competition that will see one teen creating an official Snap lens. The contest, called #MyFutureLens, launches today and five finalists will be sent to the TEDWomen conference in November to work with Google and Snap engineers to create lenses for the Snapchat app.