Heads up Twitch, Facebook just hired gamer Snoopeh for its e-sports division

Heads up Twitch, Facebook just hired gamer Snoopeh for its e-sports division

459,000 years. That’s how long Twitch users spent watching other people play video games last year, and Facebook wants a piece of the pie. It might sound weird, but e-sports are wildly popular, and Facebook is getting serious about owning those video views. A source tipped us off that Facebook has hired e-sports super-connector and […]

Google opens a Research Center in Europe

Google opens a Research Center in Europe

Google announced this morning it’s opening a dedicated machine learning research center in Europe, which will be based in its Zurich office. The center will focus on the development of products and research in the areas of Machine Intelligence. Specifically, says Google, it will research ways to improve machine learning infrastructure as well as how to […]

Review: Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Active is ready to razzle dazzle

Review: Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Active is ready to razzle dazzle

S amsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have impressed us before, so half the Active’s job is already done, since it shares most of the core specs from the originals. By far the most rugged in the line, the S7 Active is designed to not only pass IP68 water resistance, but has a shatterproof display, the biggest battery in a Samsung […]

Samsung will acquire cloud-computing company Joyent

Samsung will acquire cloud-computing company Joyent

Samsung Electronics announced today that it has agreed to acquire cloud-computing company Joyent. In a statement, the Korean tech giant said that the transaction (its financial terms were undisclosed) will allow it to grow its cloud-based services for its smartphones and Internet-connected devices. Joyent will become part of Samsung’s mobile communications unit, but continue to […]

Good VR is great — and bad VR is abysmal

Good VR is great — and bad VR is abysmal

I don’t want VR to be boring. It’s strange to think that something so futuristic and promising, something we’ve looked forward to for decades, could be boring, but I can’t deny it, since I’ve experienced it myself. The fact is that with hundreds of companies joining the VR gold rush, we’re going to be panning […]

Google launches Android N Developer Preview 4

Google launches Android N Developer Preview 4

Google today released the fourth preview of Android N, the next — and as yet unnamed — version of its mobile operating system. As far as we can tell, the new preview does not include any major new features. Instead, the focus is on the various new APIs that developers will be able to access to […]

How to Use Moonlight as Your Main Light Source

How to Use Moonlight as Your Main Light Source

I hear a lot of chatter about how the decreased volume of camera sales is going to make some camera makers leave the market, or get absorbed by another company, or worse. Most of that speculation is all wrong for one very simple reason: it ignores the goals of the companies. Nick Ut’s ‘Napalm Girl’ […]

Good VR is great — and bad VR is abysmal

Good VR is great — and bad VR is abysmal

I don’t want VR to be boring. It’s strange to think that something so futuristic and promising, something we’ve looked forward to for decades, could be boring, but I can’t deny it, since I’ve experienced it myself. The fact is that with hundreds of companies joining the VR gold rush, we’re going to be panning […]