Tech Ops Labs

2020 has been another fantastic year for games despite the pandemic and lack of tentpole releases, from tiny indies to major PC games. https://bit.ly/3pIeJ2H

Apple has removed 39,000 game apps from its China store to comply with a year-end deadline for all game publishers to obtain a licence. https://bit.ly/2WZsSwf

It's time for GamesBeat to decides the game of the year, and we did so on our podcast. You can find the results right here. https://bit.ly/2X2eTWB

Astro's Playroom helped me realize that games are at their best when they meet us halfway to enable our quirks. https://bit.ly/2WWu7fH

A judge dismissed Apple's copyright infringement claims against a startup whose software helps researchers find flaws in Apple products. https://bit.ly/3rHTakD

Come read Jeff Grubb's top 10 games of 2020. It includes bangers and stuff you probably don't like very much! https://bit.ly/3n0QXxl

Small drones will be allowed to fly over people and at night in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday. https://bit.ly/3rA8gc2

Graphcore, a U.K.-based startup developing AI accelerator chips, raised $222 million at a $2.77 billion valuation. https://bit.ly/3pynKeW

Blue-collar games helped get me through 2020 by giving me a physics playground but also by teaching me about my relationship to failure. https://bit.ly/34Td5mV

This was an awful year, but ... at least we got some good games? Here are my top 10 video games of this year that we all had to live in. https://bit.ly/2M9oqc1

This year saw a surge in data consumption that propelled 5 companies to big IPOs: Palantir, C3.ai, Snowflake, ZoomInfo, and Kingsoft Cloud. https://bit.ly/3mUNz7g

Despite DeepMind's breakthrough in using AI to predict protein-folding, the U.K.-based AI company still racks up huge losses for Alphabet. https://bit.ly/2KGLyOR

Robotic process automation, or RPA, could help with the distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. https://bit.ly/37Tycrg

Businesses are changing the words they use in order to appeal to AI analysts and traders who assess SEC regulatory filings. https://bit.ly/3aLclE9

Blackmill Games and M2H turned to the Eastern front with WWI multiplayer shooter Tannenberg, with an eye on adapting its iconic combat. https://bit.ly/3nUGzZl

Machine learning has a problem with data mismanagement and a culture where anything goes, according to a recent AI research survey. https://bit.ly/34Lv8f3

For the game industry on TV this year, PlayStation had 4.22 billion ad impressions, while Nintendo had 4.17 billion, per iSpot.tv. https://bit.ly/3hmwHoQ

Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat picks his 10 favorite video games of the year, ranging from Cyberpunk 2077 to The Last of Us Part II. https://bit.ly/3mOfIN5

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google continued the AI talent arms race in 2020, snapping up myriad startups across the AI realm. https://bit.ly/3nQIDkS

Bloomberg has acquired data analytics platform Second Measure, a startup that leverages big data to glean insights from consumer behavior. https://bit.ly/3hoJ1ow

Zynga teamed up with the Black Eyed Peas musical group to help keep us safe during the holidays by extending the #PlayApartTogether campaign. https://bit.ly/3mPlspI

The U.S. cybersecurity agency said that a sprawling cyber espionage campaign is affecting state and local governments. https://bit.ly/38C8B5v

Google this year tightened control over its scientists' papers, telling authors to refrain from portraying its technology negatively. https://bit.ly/38AcS9g

The IoT revolution that Sigfox once hoped to ride never quite arrived. Now the French unicorn is rebooting its business to focus on data. https://bit.ly/37Ktk7N

Kenshoo is acquiring Signals Analytics to create an advanced marketing automation platform fueled by AI technologies. https://bit.ly/3mJ9AWy

VergeSense, a company that develops hardware and software to capture occupancy data from across the workplace, has raised $12 million. https://bit.ly/34zBI8k

Esports club Na'vi (also known as Natus Vincere), is launching a new gaming portal, or "metaverse," with the help of DMarket. https://bit.ly/2KO1ezs

Researchers at DeepMind claim that neural networks can outperform models with hardcoded rules and symbolic knowledge. https://bit.ly/3nBXdwB

Bolt, a startup developing ecommerce tools that leverage machine learning to combat fraud, has raised $75 million. https://bit.ly/3pe7Ea5

RealPage, which develops cloud-based software and data analytics for the real estate sector, will be acquired in a deal worth $10.2 billion. https://bit.ly/3nEvnQt

The U.S. unit of SoftBank-backed robotics startup CloudMinds has changed its name to distance itself from the blacklisted China-based firm. https://bit.ly/34wJnEk

If you saw The Game Awards, then you known Call of Duty and Dead Space veterans are creating The Callisto Protocol, a new survival horror game coming in 2022. Striking Distance Studios has quickly built a team of 150 developers in San Ramon, California, to create a science fiction game in the survival horror genre. […] https://bit.ly/38jTRrL

Well-established collaborative game development techniques are a solid base from which to build a proper response to COVID-19. https://bit.ly/3h6HOSy

Etermax launched eight games during the pandemic in 2020, and it has had more than 800 million downloads to date. https://bit.ly/2KEjrzA

The logistical challenge of COVID-19 vaccine distribution in the U.S. has fallen on algorithms, but lack of transparency plagues the process. https://bit.ly/2WwzHFu

The relationship between Nvidia and AWS is becoming complicated in part because AWS has also signaled its intention to build its own GPUs. https://bit.ly/2WvxtGk

I'm looking toward these 15 games in 2021 to show off what the next-generation PlayStation 5 and Xbox One Series X/S can do. https://bit.ly/34uBEq6

CoachHub, a digital coaching platform that leans on AI and analytics, has raised $30 million in a round of funding led by Draper Esprit. https://bit.ly/2Wyglzv

Cargo.One, a startup hosting a digital booking platform that matches freight with air routes, has raised $42 million. https://bit.ly/2KGwEIc

The Game Awards, the big show grew 83% to 84 million viewers. That growth rate is far better than that for shows like the Oscars. https://bit.ly/37rC96h

Texas and nine other states sued Google on Wednesday, accusing it of working with Facebook in an unlawful manner. https://bit.ly/3nuZsl8

Twitch's engagement reached a new record level in November as the company continues growing its appeal with wider audiences. https://bit.ly/3ajNW8I

Researchers at Google, OpenAI, and others show that large language models including GPT-2 can reveal sensitive information. https://bit.ly/3gX881b

MessageBird has acquired Pusher, a startup that enables developers to integrate real-time functionalities into their apps, for $35 million. https://bit.ly/3mp8oHt

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announced its CES 2021 Innovation Awards honorees in an online-only format. https://bit.ly/3oUF2T4

NDI Screen Capture HX is available now, and it uses Nvidia GPUs to accelerate production video sent over a network. https://bit.ly/3mmecBK

The U.S. scrambled to respond to a sweeping hacking campaign that officials suspect was directed by the Russian government. https://bit.ly/2ITqBiQ

Amazon launched a new Live Translation feature for Alexa that recognizes and translates between languages in real time. https://bit.ly/386WSvg

Roblox has acquired Loom.ai for an undisclosed price to enable its users to create realistic 3D avatars. Roblox also delayed its IPO. https://bit.ly/37jHmgs

The EU's rights watchdog has warned of the risks of using AI in predictive policing, medical diagnoses, and targeted advertising. https://bit.ly/3830sq9