AMD has had a great 2019, but the year isn’t over yet. Team Red will deliver a pair of upgrades for the desktop CPU market in a few weeks with the launch of its 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X (first teased last summer) and the upcoming 32-core Threadripper 3970X and 24-core Threadripper 3960X. There’s also a […]
Microsoft’s latest Surface hardware is now out in the world, and it’s clear that the biggest gamble that the company took with this year’s models — a move away from Intel’s market-dominating processors — hasn’t quite panned out. The focus on non-Intel chips was a big part of Microsoft’s 2019 Surface announcement. The company went […]
The research lab OpenAI has released the full version of a text-generating AI system that experts warned could be used for malicious purposes. The institute originally announced the system, GPT-2, in February this year, but withheld the full version of the program out of fear it would be used to spread fake news, spam, and […]
In October, Google officially discontinued its Daydream View VR headset — and the company took another step away from its initial leadership position in phone-based VR today by announcing that it’s open sourcing the software of Cardboard, its “no-frills” VR headset. It had already “open-sourced” the actual Cardboard VR viewer by posting its technical specifications […]
AT&T has a gift for wireless subscribers on many of its old Mobile Share Value data plans: it’s giving them an extra 15GB of “bonus” data — and it’s making them pay an extra $10 a month for that “bonus.” It’s almost like the company is forcing people to move to a more expensive plan, […]
Five years ago today, Amazon surprised the tech press by unveiling Alexa and the Echo, its first smart speaker. “Well this one came out of nowhere,” was the reaction of Verge reporter Chris Welch. Five years later, Alexa is a household name — literally. If you have children and an Alexa device, they probably know […]
It’s not uncommon for users to skip reading an app’s privacy policy because it’s too long and jumbled. Apparently, Apple wants to change that. Today, it released a new privacy page that makes its privacy policy easier to read and understand. The new privacy page looks more like a product page than your standard screen […]
Voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant can be hacked by shining a laser on the devices’ microphones, according to an international team of researchers. Dubbed “Light Commands,” the hack “allows attackers to remotely inject inaudible and invisible commands into voice assistants,” according to a statement from experts at the University […]
Media Arts Lab, a unit within Omnicom Group agency TBWA that’s dedicated to Apple advertising, laid off several staffers Monday. The company wouldn’t say how many were laid off, but a report from Bloomberg, which first broke the news, placed the number at 50. “Yesterday was a difficult day, as we had to part with […]
Sports car enthusiasts will sometimes balk at electric cars due to their usual lack of manual transmissions (there’s no need for a gearbox, after all), but Ford has hinted that stick shifting might not be completely dead. The automaker has partnered with Webasto on a Mustang Lithium project car (no, it’s not the Mustang-like SUV) […]
Amazon’s truly wireless Echo Buds earbuds are excellent for their $130 price, to the point that they were the elephant in the room when we reviewed Apple’s new AirPods Pro. And they managed that resounding feat without one of their biggest rumored features — the ability to double as a fitness tracker and measure the […]
After first launching in Japan last year, Google is bringing its Play Store rewards program to the US. Starting this week, you’ll be able to enroll in Google Play Points, allowing you to earn rewards by using the company’s digital marketplace. To join the program, launch the Play Store app on your Android smartphone and […]
