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Showing posts from May, 2020

8 ways to bring your employees back to work

Guidelines to keep your company healthy and strong while transitioning back to the office and navigating the inevitable changes in your team culture. https://bit.ly/3gyLBr0

Blade & Sorcery launches out of early access June 4 on Oculus and Steam

The new trailer for the massive “Sorcery Update” for Blade & Sorcery reveals that it will hit both Steam and Oculus Home for Rift platforms on June 4. https://bit.ly/2McUdFZ

NASA resumes human spaceflight from U.S. soil with SpaceX launch

SpaceX launched two Americans into orbit from Florida in a landmark mission marking the first spaceflight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil in nine years. https://bit.ly/2TWFvHc

The coronavirus crisis could push the U.S. to adopt online voting by 2024

The technological building blocks for online elections are already available. Here’s what else we need in order to move to digital voting. https://bit.ly/2XJGOub

Pico Neo 2 and Tobii-powered eye-tracking variant now available worldwide

Pico Interactive is making its Neo 2 line of standalone headsets available worldwide. The base model is $700, while the Tobii eye-tracking variant is $900. https://bit.ly/3gyAvSW

Amazon discontinues the Echo Look and migrates AI style recommendations to other apps and devices

Amazon has discontinued the Alexa-powered Echo Look as it migrates the connected camera's key features to other apps and devices. https://bit.ly/2XdP6eL

Uber now lets U.S. riders book trips for $50 an hour

Uber is introducing a new service that allows riders in the U.S. to book trips for $50 per hour up to a maximum of seven hours. https://bit.ly/2XGHl03

Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz is stepping down

Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz confirmed he has raised a new round of funding, and he also said that he will step down as the CEO. https://bit.ly/3cddnG7

HP Reverb G2 virtual reality headset arrives this fall for $600

HP unveiled the HP Reverb G2 VR headset with high-resolution specs that the company hopes will make it appealing to enterprise users and consumers. https://bit.ly/2ZNOyOG

Vesta raises $125 million to fight payment fraud with AI

Vesta, which provides an AI-powered platform for payment fraud detection and prevention, has raised $125 million in venture capital. https://bit.ly/36AUjAq

GameRefinery: Match-3 games are 21% of U.S. iPhone gaming market

Match-3 games like Candy Crush Saga are the most prominent subgenre in the U.S. iPhone game market, accounting for 21% of the market's revenue. https://bit.ly/2TLt0yp

Spike Trap: Animal Crossing and Warzone surged on social in different ways

Animal Crossing: New Horizons surpassed all other games as the leader in social engagement during March as shelter-in-place rules began. https://bit.ly/2ZJiKu0

App Annie: Mobile gaming will widen its lead over console and PC titles in 2020

As the pandemic rages on, mobile gaming and apps are a kind of salve. So much so, 2020 will be a blockbuster year for smartphone content. https://bit.ly/2ZGa0ox

Pandemic slows electric vehicle revolution due to lithium battery shortage

The coronavirus pandemic has paused the electric vehicle revolution, forcing producers of lithium into survival mode with output cuts. https://bit.ly/2XwGr6h

Facebook’s AI convincingly inserts people into photos

Facebook researchers propose AI that can insert people into existing images, and even change the hair and clothing styles of those inserted people. https://bit.ly/3ejInWs

HTC cofounder Peter Chou launches XRspace to bring social VR to the masses

In a global announcement streamed on YouTube today, XRspace finally revealed how it is bringing social VR to the public during a time of social separation. https://bit.ly/2LZl9c7

Alice&Bob raises $3.3 million to create the first fault-tolerant quantum computer

Alice&Bob has raised $3.3 million to accelerate research on technology to make this next-generation computing method more stable.  https://bit.ly/2ZAwAij

A ‘jet skis’ methodology can reinvigorate your middle-aged company

Launching small, independent innovation teams that are free to fail can lead to fast development of disruptive products and keep your company competitive. https://bit.ly/2TFM8Od

Waltz of the Wizard hand-tracking hands-on: Magic in your hands

Quest Quest's new hands-free hand-tracking is here. How does it work? We try it out with Walt of the Wizard, a VR game with hand-tracking. https://bit.ly/2A1AcPL

Will the real VCs please stand up

It’s time for the VC industry to remember its task is to build the future, not to focus on safe “PE like”  investments and top-up rounds. https://bit.ly/2LY7cex

4 sectors where we’ll see the first post-pandemic stars emerge

It might be challenging to find bright spots in financial news these days, but seismic economic shifts always give way to new markets and opportunities. https://bit.ly/2TB4zDE

Twitter is not breaking new ground with its remote work policy

When I saw the New York Times article suggesting Twitter is breaking new ground by letting its employees work remotely, I wanted to set the record straight. https://bit.ly/3eh9IbE

AI proves it’s a poor substitute for human content checkers during lockdown

Major social media companies have replaced many of their human content moderators with AI during the pandemic. And the results aren't encouraging. https://bit.ly/2A10VvO

Facebook opens its $1,000 Oculus Quest enterprise headset to all businesses

Facebook announced that its $1,000 enterprise-edition Oculus Quest, part of its Oculus for Business platform, is now available for all companies. https://bit.ly/3egz6P8

The RetroBeat: I want to celebrate Pac-Man’s 40th birthday with this tiny cabinet

Pac-Man turns 40 years old today, and MyArcade is celebrating with an attractive (and functionable) collectible that you can display and play. https://bit.ly/3bTzGAr

Call of Duty Endowment Fearless Pack inspired by Medal of Honor recipient

Activision is launching the Call of Duty Endowment Fearless Pack and an exclusive Warzone T-Shirt in honor of National Military Appreciation Month. https://bit.ly/3ggnyNm

NPD: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is still the best-selling title of 2020

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare came in at the No. 2 best-selling game of the month for April, according to market researcher NPD. https://bit.ly/2ZzfTEd

Nvidia reports $3.08 billion in Q1 2020 revenue, up 39% as AI and cloud soar

Nvidia posted revenues of $3.08 billion for the first quarter ended April 26, up 39% from a year earlier as datacenter revenues soared. https://bit.ly/2Tqj251

Why game companies are touting the number of games in the works

Embracer Group (formerly THQ Nordic) and Take-Two Interactive both revealed just how many games they have in the pipeline. https://bit.ly/3bPxXft

Clara Analytics nabs $25 million for AI that expedites workers’ compensation claims

Clara Analytics, a startup leveraging AI to expedite workers' compensation claims, has raised $25 million during the pandemic. https://bit.ly/2TqNRXg

Take-Two hits record financials, with in-game revenues up 34%

Take-Two Interactive had a record fourth-quarter for net bookings thanks to a huge increase in microtransaction spending as players shelter-in-place. https://bit.ly/3cLeG06

Intelligently manage your iPhone and iPad files with this $15 app

SPONSORED DEALS: The iMazing iOS Device Manager can help you manage files and data across your devices with ease. https://bit.ly/3bPl1q6

Unity names new human resources chief in wake of harassment suit

Unity Technologies has named Scott Pitasky as its new head of human resources in the wake of a sexual harassment lawsuit.  https://bit.ly/3cPTAhc

Push buttons and open doors safely with this $20 antimicrobial tool

SPONSORED DEALS: SafeFinger Helps You Avoid Germs on Buttons and Handles in Public Spaces https://bit.ly/3bNrSjC

Facebook details the AI behind its shopping experiences

In a series of blog posts, Facebook detailed the various AI and machine learning systems behind its ecommerce systems, including Marketplace. https://bit.ly/2AN1xpr

Microsoft debuts WhiteNoise, an AI toolkit for differential privacy

During Build 2020, Microsoft debuted a number of privacy- and fairness-focused enhancements to Azure Machine Learning, including the WhiteNoise toolkit. https://bit.ly/3cM2hcn

Apple accuses U.S. of ‘false claims’ on Pensacola terror investigation

Apple responded to the Attorney General and FBI Director's accurations of failure to cooperate in a terror investigation, calling them out for false claims. https://bit.ly/3bIrfba

IronSource adds creative insights to its user acquisition platform

IronSource is adding creative insights to its user acquisition platform so that advertisers can examine how each creative asset performs. https://bit.ly/3bGf52I

IBM adds noise to boost AI’s accuracy on analog memory

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, IBM claims to have achieved state-of-the-art AI model accuracy using phase-change memory. https://bit.ly/2WGhHJo

4 things this CEO didn’t expect about remote work life

Remote working has surprised me in positive ways, but I'm still dubious that an all- or largely-remote workforce is as simple as some would like to think. https://bit.ly/2WJNfyp

Microsoft chief scientist: Humans and AI work better together than alone

Humans and AI work better together than alone in tasks like finding galaxies or breast cancer metastisis, according to work from Microsoft Research. https://bit.ly/3bG7voG

China asks U.S. to stop ‘unreasonable suppression’ of Huawei

China's foreign ministry said on Saturday the United States needed to stop the "unreasonable suppression" of Chinese companies like Huawei. https://bit.ly/2TdqX5A

Shoppable ads prove their mettle during lockdown

Shoppable ads aren’t brand new, but in our new COVID-19 reality, they're newly urgent. Getting them right is a critical competency for advertisers. https://bit.ly/2yWbGzw

Hugging Face dives into machine translation with release of 1,000 models

Hugging Face launched about 1,000 AI models for translation, the first venture into translation for the startup that seeks out and shares cutting-edge NLP. https://bit.ly/3dPaCft

Facebook acquires Giphy to integrate with Instagram

Facebook is acquiring Giphy, a popular website for making and sharing animated images, or GIFs, and will integrate it with its Instagram photo-sharing app, https://bit.ly/2z2PK5I

The RetroBeat: Dragon Quest XI finally turns me into a fan

I love Japanese role-playing games like the Final Fantasy and Persona series, but I just never got into Dragon Quest. That has finally changed. https://bit.ly/2LzLDk5

Turtle Beach sees boost in headset demand as gamers play during the pandemic

Turtle Beach is seeing increased demand for its gaming peripherals like headsets for gamers as isolated players upgrade their gear. https://bit.ly/2LJCzcN

Tesla’s secret batteries aim to rework the math for electric cars and the grid

Electric carmaker Tesla plans to introduce a new low-cost, long-life battery in its Model 3 sedan in China later this year or early next. https://bit.ly/3fU8a9t

Ghost of Tsushima — Sucker Punch takes a deep dive into cinematic gameplay

Ghost of Tsushima is one of Sony's last big exclusive games on the PlayStation 4, and developer Sucker Punch showed off more gameplay. https://bit.ly/3cAAFGS

Ubisoft says 11 games sold over 10 million copies each in PS4/Xbox One era

The revealed revealed that 11 of its games have sold more than 10 million copies in the current console cycle. https://bit.ly/2Wxv4eV