Google confirms Home devices are facing widespread breakdown
What happens when a digital assistant decides it no longer wants to help you? In what is either a case of a sentient digital uprising, or just a software bug that Google is scrambling to fix, owners of a Google Home smart speaker may be waking up today to realize their daily dose of traffic conditions and weather updates are not being delivered to them on a cloud-based silver platter as usual.
First brought to attention by a user on the official Google Home Help Forum a few days ago, many users are discovering that every single "OK, Google" request they make to the digital speaker is being met with an automated error message.
MLB strikes deal with Intel for live VR broadcasts
Take me out to the ballgame, but keep me away from traffic and overcrowded stadium annoyances. With a new partnership between Major League Baseball and Intel, you'll be able to experience what it's like to be sitting up close to the action (or if you prefer, back in the bleachers), no matter where you are.
The partnership involves Intel's True VR app, which is available for the Samsung Gear VR platform, which will broadcast one live MLB game every week for the entirety of the regular 2017 season: beginning next Tuesday, June 6.
Xbox Game Pass opens up to everyone
Microsoft has officially launched its Xbox Game Pass service, allowing gamers to play Xbox 360 and Xbox One games in a streaming capacity, for all Xbox One users.
The service, which debuted to monthly-fee-paying Xbox Live Gold members last week, has more than 100 available titles (consisting of both Xbox One and Xbox 360 games). As soon as you subscribe, you're instantly able to play any and every title in that list. As long as you keep your subscription, you can keep playing. Microsoft says it will continue to update and add new titles to the burgeoning collection on a monthly basis.
Minecraft 'Discovery' update hits Windows 10/Pocket editions, has llamas
Minecraft developer Mojang has just announced the release of the latest update to its block-stacking, world-building smash hit video game. The "Discovery" update brings the Pocket Edition and Windows 10 editions of the game from version 1.0.9 to 1.1.0.
First announced in March, the update includes a new world, called Woodland Mansions, to explore. It also adds a smattering of new achievements, and ultra exciting glazed terracotta blocks (to say nothing of the concrete and concrete powder). And that's just the beginning.
'Alexa, how do people interact with Alexa?'
A new study analyzing the way users interact with their "smart speakers" shows that the most used feature of devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home isn't to stream music or even to get the latest weather.
The most commonly used feature of smart speakers is asking "general questions," proving that getting answers to life's daily queries and curiosities from a cloud-based computer voice is becoming an increasingly standard practice in today's society.
YouTube keeps Android users guessing, updates app
If you have automatic updates enabled on your Android phone, your index fingers and your brain may have hit a moment of panic and confusion as you realized everything was rejiggered from top to bottom, literally.
Par for the course with Google, you will now have to get used to a new interface, different placement of on-screen buttons, and more confusing navigation streams to get to the menu you want. That is, until you get used to it all, at which point you'll appreciate that they were all actual improvements after all.
Sony officially marks the end of the PS3
After nearly 11 years of continuous production, Sony has taken the final step in curtailing the number of PlayStation 3 consoles in the market; manufacturing of all iterations of the system has ended, and as of today, its final shipment has been funneled through its distribution network in Japan.
Production of all PS3 units has already halted in other countries, making this the official sign that Sony no longer has an active hand in PS3 console inventory.
It's about 'time': Parking meters are becoming smarter
Bluetooth Low Energy. The Internet of Things. Third-party cloud service integrations. Parking. Which one of these things doesn't belong? If you actually chose one of those four things, you're mistaken, as smart parking is increasingly becoming one of the hotbeds of mobile technology.
"Smart parking meters" is not a foreign term. There have been enhancements in this space for quite some time, but it is finally reaching a fever pitch, as competition to become the new standard in pay-for-parking is maturing in a big way.
Nintendo stock soars from Switch sales, GameStop gets profit boost
After years of disappointing sales, uninspired product launches, and even some doomsday predictions, Nintendo has reversed course -- evidenced no more forcefully than the 8-year high that its stock price reached by the end of this week.
The company closed at 33,510 yen ($300.72) per share on Japan's Nikkei exchange. The last time Nintendo was looking at numbers like that, it was busy celebrating the way it reinvented the gaming marketplace with its motion-sensing Wii console.
WorldPay wants to make it easier to take your money in VR
We've all been there. You're testing out your new virtual reality headset, exploring fantastical worlds and immersing yourself in all kinds of 360-degree awesomeness, when you suddenly stop and think to yourself, "If only there was some way I could simulate the process of taking out my credit card and tapping it to complete a purchase."
Well, that will soon become possible if payment processing company WorldPay is successful in getting its new platform accepted by app and game developers.
Amazon's physical retail presence grows in Seattle, New York
As Amazon runs out of ways to expand its mountain-sized market share in the online retail space, its attempts to grow its presence in the real world are continuing to materialize, with new plans being firmed up on both coasts of the United States.
Today, it officially launched AmazonFresh Pickup, a physical location where customers can pick up groceries ordered online, in its corporate home town of Seattle. It also cut the ribbon on its new retail book store in New York City.
T-Mobile disrupts the mobile space again with 'Digits' service
Continuing its brand-defining efforts to push boundaries, T-Mobile today announced that its "Digits" service, which lets customers use their mobile number to send and receive calls and texts from virtually any device, will officially launch to its entire subscriber base on May 31.
The third-place U.S. carrier emphasizes that this move is more than just being able to manage your texts wherever you are, or making a call in a pinch when your phone dies. It is instead a brand new method of how T-Mobile views the implementation of phone numbers forever moving forward.
It's on: Xbox Game Pass sets a new stage in console wars
The big news out of Microsoft's video game division today is the launch of a new service called Xbox Game Pass. For a $9.99 monthly fee, players will be able to access a wide library of Xbox One titles on demand, making it less and less necessary to dole out dozens of dollars every time you want to play a new game.
This represents not only a milestone moment in the evolution of the Xbox One platform and the way people play games on it, but also for the console wars as a whole. Sony has a competing service -- similar in some ways and starkly different in others -- which means it's officially time to clear the stage for a new chapter in the perennial battle for gaming dominance.
Iowa to have mobile driver's licenses in 2018
Ever since the first US smartphone to contain a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip for contactless mobile payments was released more than seven years ago, there has been no shortage of hype, commentary, news stories, and hopeful discourse about the concept of ditching the physical wallet for good.
Of course, such high-concept rhetoric always reliably meandered down the path of exceptions and caveats, making it nothing more than futuristic hyperbole. One of the biggest exceptions has always been needing to carry around a form of photo ID, like a driver's license, especially in places like Iowa where getting behind the wheel from point A to point B is a necessary part of everyday life.
Android vs. BlackBerry Round 2: The battle of car operating systems
BlackBerry has a pretty decent market share. When was the last time you heard that sentence? If you're talking about smartphone competition, it's been a while. In the world of in-vehicle operating systems, however, a new story is beginning to unfold.
As with its phone business, BlackBerry has a storied history with in-car telematics, with a footprint dating back more than 20 years. Its most relevant current presence, though, goes back to 2010. That's when BlackBerry (then known by the now-defunct parent company name Research in Motion) acquired the Unix-based embedded operating system QNX.
Mark's Bio
Mark Raby is an avid writer and technology enthusiast with more than a decade of experience in both the corporate and editorial sides of the industry. An early adopter through and through, he is always looking for the next big trend.
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