Новости за 24.10.2017

Livestream, which is now owned by Vimeo, has announced an upgraded version of its Mevo live-streaming camera, logically named the Mevo Plus, via Engadget.

Episode VIII of the Star Wars film series, The Last Jedi, will open in theaters December 15th, but a featurette released today offers fans a look at what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s focused on writer and director Rian Johnson, first as a fan, then as a director. And it features short thoughts from Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, and the late Carrie Fisher about working with him.

In the original Switch marketing campaign, Nintendo revealed a bold vision of the device as a truly portable console, with people bringing the Switch to friends’ houses or bars and enjoying Nintendo games together.

Spaceflight startup Vector — which specializes in micro-rockets — plans to launch its first orbit-bound vehicles from Virginia in mid-2018. Last week, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that Vector would be conducting its first three commercial missions from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a launch site at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. These will be the first Vector flights that carry satellites to space for commercial customers, and will help the company further validate the performance of its rockets. Читать дальше...

Wink, an app and hub that aims to connect all the smart things in your home in one centralized place (while working with both Alexa and Google Home), has just debuted a new security products bundle, according to Engadget. Wink’s hub has been offered as part of a bundle in the past, but with products made by other companies that are compatible with Wink’s platform. This time, all the products included are made by Wink.

It’s late at night, and I’m standing with seven other people on a loading dock in downtown Los Angeles. We’re masked, our faces hidden by bandanas that bear a single word: CREEP. A nearby door opens, and we walk single file into a darkened room. There, an empty chair waits, and a timer tick-tick-ticks the moments away. Crumpled balls of paper are piled against the wall, and when I reach down to unfold one, I discover a portentous warning: Your wife may not be who she seems.

Soylent is no longer available in Canada after running afoul of food regulation standards. Rosa Foods CEO Rob Rhinehart wrote today that Soylent doesn’t meet “a select few” of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s requirements for meal-replacement products. No more Soylent will be shipped to Canadian customers until it’s able to come to an agreement with the CFIA, something Rhinehart says will happen “as quickly as possible.”

A year ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stunned the automotive world by announcing that henceforth, all of his company’s vehicles would be shipped with the hardware necessary for “full self-driving.” By 2019, Tesla drivers would be able to sleep in their cars, he suggested. Musk one-upped that a few months later, vowing to demonstrate a completely autonomous, cross-country trip in a Tesla by the end of 2017.

Extreme weather events like hurricanes and wildfires have already cost the US more than $350 billion over the last decade, and climate change is only going to make things worse, according to a new government report released today.

Mark Zuckerberg has committed $45 million from his philanthropy organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), to help curb mass incarceration and improve affordable housing options in American urban centers, according to a report today from Vice News. The issues mark some of the first causes Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have targeted through political means, including donations and ballot support, beyond Facebook’s role in the immigration debate with the industry lobbying group FWD.us.

For now... Читать дальше...

The Phoros PS10 is a new home speaker that features support for Amazon’s Alexa assistant, which would ordinarily relegate it to a pile of similar, Alexa-infused products if not for one thing: it’s the first Alexa device to support DTS Play-Fi for multi-room audio.

Earlier this year, Google announced it would allow add-ons for Gmail, and the time has finally come. Launching today, add-ons will allow third-party developers to integrate their services with Gmail directly. The first partners include Asana, Trello, DialPad, Intuit QuickBooks, and Wrike.

Google is adding a bunch of new games and activities to the Google Assistant today as a way to keep kids entertained. The update, which was previewed earlier this month, includes “more than 50 new games, activities, and stories,” ranging from things like musical chairs and freeze tag to science trivia, Disney-themed games, and original kids’ tales. They’ll work on Android phones and the Google Home.

In 2015, game studio Supermassive released Until Dawn, a title that looked and played out much like a typical, almost cliche, horror movie. But there was one aspect of the game that made it feel different: choice. Horror movies are filled with people making seemingly inexplicable decisions that lead to death, and Until Dawn was your chance to show how smart you are by making the right choices and keeping everyone alive. Though it was a single-player game, Until Dawn became something of a social experience... Читать дальше...

Following a test this past summer, Instagram is now letting users broadcast live with a friend. Users can invite anyone who's currently watching their broadcast to join, although only two people can broadcast simultaneously, which is visualized through a split screen. The owner of the broadcast can remove their guest and add someone else whenever they want.

There’s a joke that circulates online every few years. It’s a picture of a floppy disk, accompanied by the claim that a kid thought it was a real-life version of the “save” icon. Every time it pops up, people laugh, hit “like,” and marvel both at their own age and the cluelessness of kids today.

At the start of this year, Chinese search giant Baidu introduced a new system called DeepVoice. It uses deep learning, a popular artificial intelligence technique, to build a system that can convert text-to-speech. The first version was able to produce short sentences that, at least on a cursory listen, were nearly indistinguishable from a real person. That system could learn one voice at a time, and required hours of data to master each one.

Uber is adding a bunch of new fees to sweeten the pot for drivers who may be reluctant to wait for slow passengers, drive longer distances for more out-of-the-way pickups, or get hit with trip cancellations at the last minute. That means some trips may become a little more expensive for passengers — especially those who live far away or take a little longer than usual to get in the car.

Late last year, Annapurna — the film production company behind movies like Her and American Hustle — announced that it was getting into games with a new interactive division, with a slate that included the next release from Ken Wong, lead designer on the original Monument Valley. (Wong had just recently set out to launch his own studio, called Mountains.) Now Wong is finally ready to reveal the studio’s first release: Florence, a visual novel about relationships and love. While it may look quite... Читать дальше...

This fall, The Verge is making a choice. The choice is fear! We’ve decided to embrace the season by taking in as many new horror movies as possible and reporting back on which ones are worth your time. We’re calling this series Hold My Hand, as we look at films you might want to watch with a supportive viewing partner. Get comfortable, put the kettle on, check the closet for ghosts, then find a hand to squeeze until the bones pop.

When Stranger Things debuted in 2016, it became an unexpected, massive hit that captivated legions of fans around the world. Now, with season 2 set to begin streaming on October 26th, it will be the end of a year of waiting to see what happens next. Netflix will make all nine season 2 episodes available at once, which means ambitious or addicted subscribers can take a day off work and get caught up with the entire story in a single day. But should they?

You'll soon no longer be chained to using "OK Google" to access the Google Assistant on your phone. As first reported by Android Police, Google is slowly giving Android phone owners the ability to activate the Assistant with "Hey Google." Google Homes already respond to both phrases, but phones had yet to gain the functionality.

In an attempt to provide more transparency on how Facebook’s News Feed ranks content, the company today announced a new set of guidelines for publishers.

Rescue robots could be incredibly useful tools in the future, diving into situations too dangerous for humans. But if you’ve seen current-generation robots try to tackle these sorts of scenarios, you’ll know even the most advanced lack the coordination and flexibility of movement required. To fix this, a group of researchers from Japan are trying a new method of robot-control, letting a human operate a bot essentially like a giant puppet.

Delphi, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, is acquiring Boston-based self-driving car startup NuTonomy for an upfront purchase price of $400 million as well as $50 million in earn-outs, the companies announced today.