Category: Tech news

 An augmented reality developer platform, group chat bots, and a virtual reality version of Facebook itself were just a few of the launches at the social network’s big F8 conference today. Here’s a breakdown of each major announcement and why they’re important to you and Facebook. Read More

 Today Facebook open sourced Caffe2. The deep learning framework follows in the steps of the original Caffe, a project started at the University of California, Berkeley. Caffe2 offers developers greater flexibility for building high-performance products that deploy efficiently. Read More

 Today’s Stories  Facebook launches augmented reality Camera Effects developer platform Facebook launches beta of Spaces, its goofy and fun social VR platform Snapchat introduces World Lenses – live filters for just about anything Steve Ballmer’s new project sheds light on U.S. Government spending Pandora Premium opens to all, invites no longer needed Credits Written… Read More

 Oracle just announced that it has acquired ad measurement company Moat. Founded in 2010, Moat helps advertisers and publishers measure whether people see and interact with online ads. The need to create what CEO Jonah Goodhart has called “the currency for digital advertising” seems increasingly important given advertiser concerns around viewability, fraud and trust, and Moat has… Read More

 Have you always wanted to check out that StarCraft game you’d heard so much about, but somehow managed to go nearly 20 years without buying a copy? Good news! Nearly two decades after its 1998 release, StarCraft is now free. Legally! Read More

 You can’t be hanging around in the world of crowdfunding for as long as Kickstarter without spotting a few trends here and there. Taking a leaf out of Y Combinator’s Request for Startups, the crowdfunding site is highlighting what it thinks are opportunities in the coming year. It sends a signal to potential campaigns, hinting what Kickstarter will throw its not inconsiderable… Read More

 Virtual reality really isn’t good enough yet to justify going broke for. Though VR headset prices are steadily coming down, the fact is it’s still not all that accessible for even the most gadget-obsessed consumers to get started on high-quality VR. Today, HTC, which makes the popular Vive headset, announced a few deals that will help new customers spread out the cost of the… Read More

 Electric production vehicles may be relatively rare, but electric concepts abound, and most of them are targeting 2020 for a rough production date, as is the Volkswagen I.D. CROZZ, an all-electric design whose name I hope dies in a horrible fire between now and whenever (if ever) it does end up hitting the street. Read More

 Well, it was fun while it lasted. The NES Classic Edition (it went by several names, but you know what I mean) was the must-have item of the holidays and pretty much ever since, owing to short supply of the compact retro gaming console. And Nintendo just confirmed that it was indeed ending production of the device in Europe, the last region they were still officially available. Read More

 At its F8 developer conference, Facebook today announced that it is open-sourcing Litho, a declarative framework for building efficient user interfaces on Android. Litho is the same framework Facebook uses internally to build its own Android app, which is currently being used by more than a billion people every month. Read More

 Facebook today announced the launch of React VR, a new JavaScript framework that lets developers build virtual reality experiences with the help of JavaScript. React VR takes its cues from Facebook’s existing React framework; just like with React for standard web apps, VR developers can now use the same declarative model to write apps for their 360-degree experiences. Read More

 Facebook has completely rewritten React, its popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. The company hasn’t previously talked about React Fiber, as the project is called, but it has actually been working on it for a while. In addition, it is also launching a rewrite of Relay, its framework for building data-heavy applications. Read More

 Apple quietly rolled out updated versions of its iWork, iMovie and GarageBand apps on Mac and iOS today, making them free for all customers on both platforms. Many customers already had free copies of these apps, as they came free with new Mac or iOS devices. The pricing change, however, removes the requirement to have bought new Apple hardware to get the apps for free. This expands the… Read More

 Audi’s newest electric vehicle is a crossover SUV with a 4.5-second 0-60mph time, and an impressive range of around 300 miles when its 95kWh battery is topped up. The Audi e-tron Sportback is set for production starting in 2019, and it’s part of Audi’s larger strategy to bring at least three fully electric cars to market by 2020. Read More

 The Spectre 13 x360 I strangely loved from late last year is back with a 4K screen and pen support for the Windows Creators update that went global this month. Read More