Tag: Tech (81-90 of 842)

Apr 18 2012 01:19 PM ET

Mark Zuckerberg apparently bought Instagram without notifying Facebook's Board of Directors -- report

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Image Credit: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Facebook has spent 2012 making the sort of big-money rollercoaster-tycoon moves that send the go-go ’80s Reaganauts on Wall Street into fits of gold fever, while more sober critics begin pondering just how inflated a bubble can be before it bursts. Just a few weeks away from the company’s presumably-massive IPO, Facebook announced that it was buying the retrogasm delivery system known as Instagram for a cool billion dollars. Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook CEO and fencing enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg closed the Instagram deal on his own, without alerting the board of directors. Zuckerberg apparently invited Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom over to his house, where they haggled over the price of Instagram. (Per the Journal, Systrom initially wanted $2 billion.) READ FULL STORY »

Apr 17 2012 01:13 PM ET

Zooey Deschanel, Samuel L. Jackson in new iPhone ads -- VIDEO

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Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson are an unlikely pair, but iPhone endorsement has the power to unite them. Both actors appear in new ads that tout the 4S’s voice-recognition software. Siri helps the A-listers plan their persona-appropriate days: While the adorkable New Girl struts around in PJs, orders tomato soup from a darling establishment called the Cabbage Patch and has a one-person dance party, Jackson gets his seduction on with his electronic wingman and some ’70s smooth soul. See the ads below. READ FULL STORY »

Apr 10 2012 06:13 PM ET

Behind Facebook's billion-dollar bet: Seven burning questions about Instagram

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Something is always buzzing in the social media world, but this week Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of Instagram is the queen bee.

The deal between the social network giant and the quirky photo-sharing app has journalists, bloggers and the general mobile population (including 30 million Instagram users) overflowing with energetic opinions and questions about how Facebook plans to use its latest product, and what it means for the future of the little camera app that could did.

Why did Facebook purchase Instagram?
Any media savant will tell you that one of Facebook’s biggest struggles is with its mobile technology — notably on iOS — due to the massive amount of content offered and the clunky, inconvenient platform currently being employed to display it. “They realized that their mobile experience was just too cluttered,” said Nick Bilton, lead columnist for The New York Times’ tech blog. “Facebook has so many different services within the company that it takes 11 steps to take a photo and share it. With Instagram, it’s almost an instant process.”

One approach the company has started to take to rectify their mobile woes involves building out smaller apps — like the recently launched Messenger — which offer standalone doses of specific Facebook features. In the case of Instagram, and considering that photo sharing is the start-up bubble du jour — Facebook looks to have finally found a photo-sharing property that, coupled with other acquisitions, may be the missing puzzle piece of their mobile strategy. Tech pundit Om Malik’s opinion suggests far less amiability: “Facebook was scared s–tless… Facebook is essentially about photos, and Instagram had found and attacked Facebook’s Achilles’ heel — mobile photo sharing.”

NEXT: “The number to watch is really going to be Instagram’s audience”

Apr 9 2012 04:36 PM ET

Buzz Aldrin schools Buzz Lightyear in space travel -- VIDEO

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In March, a Buzz Lightyear toy that spent almost a year and a half orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station was formally inducted into the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. But that’s not the coolest part.

Before Buzz Lightyear the action figure, there was Buzz Aldrin the astronaut, who gave his Toy Story namesake a thorough crash course in preparation for the toy’s 2008 mission to space. In a clip that io9 dug up from 2010 (we call it charmingly vintage), watch Aldrin put Lightyear through a battery of tests, including a fitness assessment that looks remarkably like my own experience on the treadmill: READ FULL STORY »

Apr 4 2012 03:35 PM ET

Google announces 'Project Glass': At last, the virtual reality cyborg glasses we've been dreaming of!

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Remember when Google announced that they had a super-top-secret technology laboratory that was going to finally invent the exciting future promised to us by Back to the Future Part II, as opposed to the annoyingly smartphone-infested Philip K. Dick-esque future we currently inhabit? Well, the company has finally started to follow through on the promise of Google X, thanks to a just-revealed piece of juicy tech couture. “Project Glass,” aka “The Google Glasses,” which looks like a fashion-forward version of Geordi La Forge’s visor and allows the user to view the world in RoboCop Vision. Using an Augmented Reality system, the glasses basically appear to function as a smartphone-free smartphone. The company just posted a demo video which shows all the fun things you can do with Google Glasses: Receive email, make phone calls, check in to food trucks, take pictures, agree to meet your weird friend Paul at the bookstore, loudly yell out “Where is the music section!?” in the middle of said bookstore, and keep track of exactly how far away from the bookstore Paul is while you’re presumably planning to strangle him or something. READ FULL STORY »

Apr 3 2012 02:15 PM ET

Ashton Kutcher secures Steve Wozniak's blessing to play Steve Jobs

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Image Credit: Getty Images

Regardless of what the public thinks, Ashton Kutcher has a stamp of approval to portray late Apple founder Steve Jobs from at least one inside source. According to TMZ, Steve Wozniak, Jobs’ partner in founding the computer dynasty, is A-OK with the casting news.

“The fear that many might have is that Ashton was selected because he’s ‘hot’ right now,” said Wozniak, “but I feel that his selection was done in the most professional manner. And I’m glad that he’s on board. I think he’ll put a lot into it and that he cares about this particular subject.”

The indie biopic, from Swing Vote director Joshua Michael Stern, goes simply by the name Jobs and will reportedly follow the tech impresario’s transition “from wayward hippie to co-founder of Apple.” It’s set to begin filming next month. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 22 2012 02:30 PM ET

‘Angry Birds Space’ blasts off today. What do the reviews say?

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Angry Birds Space, the highly anticipated (by me, at least) third sequel to the massively popular, excruciatingly addicting, relationship-ruining Angry Birds franchise, launches into orbit today on iOS, Android, PC, and Mac.

The fourth iteration of the Birds’ vengeful odyssey against a clan of douchebag pigs sends the feathered heroes through a black hole and into the final frontier: zero-gravity space. Check out the expositional trailer below:  READ FULL STORY »

Mar 19 2012 03:00 PM ET

The Smithsonian will convince you that videogames are art

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I’ve always thought that it was pointless to argue about whether videogames can be art. After all, “Art” is one of the most loosely defined words in any known language. A great athlete is sometimes said to be an artist on the field. Virginia Woolf wrote a couple of books about women who carefully construct their parties as a form of art. Really, everyone could be called an “artist” — except for maybe Brett Ratner. Roger Ebert seemed to realize this point when, after throwing down the gauntlet and declaring that videogames could never be art, he back-pedaled by cheerfully explaining that — to paraphrase Lucille Bluth — he doesn’t know what they are and doesn’t care to find out.

Nevertheless, if you’re a gamer who spent your youth trying to explain to your lame parents why playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was a much more fruitful endeavor than studying for your chemistry test, then the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., just gave you some serious ammunition. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 14 2012 03:06 PM ET

'The Walking Dead Social Game' will devour Facebook in April

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AMC and RockYou are teaming up for an interactive Facebook game based on the TV series The Walking Dead, according to a joint press release. The story-based game “allows players to have their own, unique adventures with opportunities to encounter show characters at key moments suggested by the show’s rich narrative. The goal of the game is to survive the apocalypse by fighting walkers (zombies) to keep yourself and your fellow survivors alive, while scavenging resources and establishing camps on settings from the show.” READ FULL STORY »

Mar 13 2012 02:14 PM ET

'Angry Birds Space': Bring on the laser birds and intergalactic pigs! -- VIDEO

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In truth, the only thing missing from the original Angry Birds game was the presence of alien pigs. Developer Rovio has officially announced Angry Birds Space, a follow-up to the smash app Angry Birds and a follow-up to follow-up Angry Birds Seasons, which will be released on iOS, Android, PC, and Mac on March 22. Video of the upcoming cosmic pig-killing madness has since emerged from SXSW. See Rovio’s official teaser and and find out a few intriguing game details below. READ FULL STORY »

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