Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is acquiring Nianticâ(TM)s gaming division for $3.5 billion through its subsidiary Savvy Games Group. Niantic’s titles include the hit mobile game Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom. “Despite launching almost a decade ago, Pokemon Go is still amongst the highest-grossing mobile games in the world, with 30
Read MoreAn arbitrator has decided in favor of Meta in a case the company brought against Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Meta employee who wrote a memoir published this week detailing alleged claims of misconduct at the company. Macmillan Publishers and its imprint that published the memoir, Flatiron Books, were also named as respondents. The memoir, titled
Read MoreAn arbitrator has decided in favor of Meta in a case the company brought against Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Meta employee who wrote a memoir published this week detailing alleged claims of misconduct at the company. Macmillan Publishers and its imprint that published the memoir, Flatiron Books, were also named as respondents. The memoir, titled
Read MoreThe United Kingdom’s mobile browser market is “not working well for consumers and businesses” according to a final report from Britain’s competition watchdog, which says that Apple and Google are largely to blame. An independent inquiry group has concluded its mobile browsers investigation for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), identifying Apple’s policies around iOS,
Read MoreThe abstract of a paper published on National Bureau of Economic Research: We document that, after remaining almost constant for almost 30 years, real labor productivity at U.S. restaurants surged over 15% during the COVID pandemic. This surge has persisted even as many conditions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Using mobile phone data tracking visits
Read MoreThe abstract of a paper published on National Bureau of Economic Research: We document that, after remaining almost constant for almost 30 years, real labor productivity at U.S. restaurants surged over 15% during the COVID pandemic. This surge has persisted even as many conditions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Using mobile phone data tracking visits
Read MoreSnapchat Platinum subscribers will now be able to use video lenses featuring AI generated animals or flowers, Snap announced today. There will initially be three of the lenses, which Snap calls “AI Video Lenses.” The fox lens, for example, can have a fox snuggle on your shoulder, while the raccoon one can have raccoons scamper
Read MorePresident Donald Trump kicked off the first day of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive actions, including halting enforcement of the TikTok ban and rolling back the Biden administration’s artificial intelligence order. Having already run the country once before, Trump entered the presidency with the goal of hitting the ground running, having already
Read MoreImagine you want to monitor a pot on the stove to see if it’s boiling over for just a few minutes, but you don’t want to have a dedicated permanent IP webcam solution in your kitchen. [Sebastian Duell]’s FlyingCam hijacks an IKEA lamp gooseneck to become something you never knew you needed: a wireless camera
Read MoreThe Discovery Plus app is getting a much-needed upgrade. On Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it’s finally migrating the service to the same technology used by its flagship streaming service Max, which should offer improved app and video performance. The company says Discovery Plus will have a more “refined” homepage and navigation, along with
Read MoreWith iOS 18.4 you can now use robotic vacuum cleaners inside of the Apple Home app and with Siri. It’s still problematic but here’s what you can do so far, and what the benefits are. Robotic vacuums had been an oft-requested feature for what was previously known as HomeKit for ages, and is now called
Read MoreCredit: Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority Over two years have passed since the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) unveiled Qi2, the magnetic wireless charging standard that promised to bring MagSafe-like functionality to Android devices. Like many others, I completely bought into the hype from day one — a universal standard that could solve overheating due to
Read MoreCredit: Rushil Agrawal / Android Authority Gemini is hands-down one of my favorite tools, but it doesn’t always answer every question I ask it. Certain topics are completely off-limits, and that piqued my curiosity. I wanted to dig into which subjects it avoids and figure out whether AI censorship makes any sense — or if
Read MoreNiantic Labs has announced that it’s selling its video game division to Saudi Arabia-owned mobile developer Scopely for $3.5 billion after struggling to replicate the success of Pokémon Go across its other AR games. The newly inked agreement includes Niantic’s Pokémon Go, Monster Hunter Now, and Pikmin Bloom mobile gaming titles. “Niantic games have always
Read MoreIn 2024, 0.0001pc of total streams generated more than $10,000 on average. Read more: Spotify paid out $10bn in 2024, but many artists didn’t see profits
Read MoreCredit: Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority Despite a 7% YoY decline in global smartwatch sales in 2024, one brand saw immense growth. As per a new report, Xiaomi clocked in a 135% increase in sales over 2023 and secured a spot among the top five smartwatch makers globally. Apple still holds the lion’s share of
Read MoreAs part of the agreement, Google will provide €3m in Google Cloud credits, mentorship and access to AI tools. Read more: CeADAR and Google Ireland team up to help Irish businesses use AI
Read MoreA little over a year after releasing two “open” Gemma AI models built from the same technology behind its Gemini AI, Google is updating the family with Gemma 3. According to the blog post, these models are intended for use by developers creating AI applications capable of running wherever they’re needed, on anything from a
Read MoreBig players, including Microsoft, with Copilot, Google, with Gemini, and OpenAI, with GPT-4o, are making AI chatbot technology previously restricted to test labs more accessible to the general public. How do these large language model (LLM) programs work? OpenAI’s GPT-3 told us that AI uses “a series of autocomplete-like programs to learn language” and that
Read MoreIf you were one of the earliest of early adopters in the home computing revolution, you might have had to settle for paper tape mass storage. It was slow, it was bulky, but it was what you had, and that gave it a certain charm that’s hard to resist. And that charm is what [Joshua
Read MoreIf you were one of the earliest of early adopters in the home computing revolution, you might have had to settle for paper tape mass storage. It was slow, it was bulky, but it was what you had, and that gave it a certain charm that’s hard to resist. And that charm is what [Joshua
Read MoreCredit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority Google Photos on Android now lets you quickly delete your entire photos and video backup. The new feature is called “undo device backup,” and was previously rolled out on iOS. The option removes photos and videos that are stored on Google’s servers without removing them from the device. Google
Read MoreCredit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority Google has issued a fix for the media sharing problem on Messages. Users have reported slow media transfers and pixelated images, with some experiencing complete media transfer failures. Google says recently rolled-out updates should significantly improve media receiving performance. Google has acknowledged an issue in Messages that prevents users
Read MoreAn anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: There’s a power crunch looming as AI and cloud providers ramp up data center construction. But a new report suggests that a solution lies beneath their foundations. Advanced geothermal power could supply nearly two-thirds of new data center demand by 2030, according to an analysis by the
Read MoreAn anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: There’s a power crunch looming as AI and cloud providers ramp up data center construction. But a new report suggests that a solution lies beneath their foundations. Advanced geothermal power could supply nearly two-thirds of new data center demand by 2030, according to an analysis by the
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