The National Security Agency revealed a huge increase in the amount of call metadata collected, from about 151 million call records in 2016 to more than 530 million last year — despite having fewer targets. But officials say nothing is different about the year but the numbers. A transparency report issued by the Office of […]
A Waymo self-driving vehicle was involved in a serious accident in Chandler, Arizona earlier this afternoon. Local police said there were minor injuries from the incident after a sedan swerved into the Waymo van to avoid another collision. Although Waymo has said it will be testing vehicles without safety drivers in Arizona, this was not […]
Update: The Atlas V rocket lifted off on-time and is currently eleven minutes into the second stage of the flight, the booster having separated successfully… LIFTOFF! Humanity’s next mission to Mars has left the pad! @NASAInSight heads into space for a ~6 month journey to Mars where it will take the planet’s vital signs and help […]
Today is the day Google makes good on a lot of its 2017 I/O VR promises. The company just announced that it will be open sourcing Seurat, a tool designed to reduce complexity in high-fidelity mobile VR scenes, improving performance considerably. This launch arrives alongside the release of the Mirage Solo, the first headset on […]
The volume of data particle physicists have to sort through at the Large Hadron Collider is staggering, and it’s about to increase by an order of magnitude. To cope with this torrent of data, CERN is turning to machine learning, offering prizes for AI models that can cut through the clutter and help make the […]
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel are building a tic-tac-toe game to help patients with their rehabilitation exercises. The game is played on a grid of boxes and includes “embodied” and non-embodied play. Embodied play means a robotic arm will grab and place a marker – in this case a small cup […]
Google Assistant is gaining some new capabilities thanks to a deal with Fandango that should make ordering movie tickets a quick and easy process. Simply tell Google Assistant that you want to buy some movie tickets and you’ll see what’s playing nearby; you can dial in the specificity to find out just what’s playing at […]
There will be no “Vine 2”, at least for now. Trying to take on the giant social social networks without external funding proved too tall a task for 6-second video app Vine’s co-founder Dom Hofmann. “I’ve made the very difficult decision of postponing the V2 project for an indefinite amount of time. There are several reasons […]
In a self-congratulatory statement, Carl Icahn compared the Xerox/Fujifilm story to television dramas like House of Cards and Billions. Certainly the whole thing has its share of twists and turns. Two days after dumping its CEO and board members, the company announced that its leadership is staying put for now. “Xerox and its Board of […]
Timed with the release of the Mirage Solo headset, Lenovo is also releasing the first camera based on Google’s 180 tech. The Lenovo Mirage Camera, which seems to be geared heavily toward YouTube creators, packs a pair of fisheye 13MP lenses positioned about eyes-distance apart, allowing for high-quality 3D vision that’s perfect for VR viewing. […]