During my time at the 2016 SMITE World Championship, I had the chance to sit down with co-founder and COO of Hi-Rez Studios, Todd Harris.
DriveThruRPG, one of the largest online distributors of role-playing games, is embroiled in controversy because online social justice activists discovered the site was selling an RPG entitled Tournament of Rapists. RPGs often describe gory battles in fictional settings, and aren’t known for avoiding violent themes. Rolemaster, for
According to the Daily Beast, expressing a racial preference on your dating profile is racist. They’re buffoons, obviously, but this latest provocation got me thinking: am I racist for not dating white dudes?
California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a controversial drone privacy bill Wednesday, declaring that it would expose hobbyists to excessive litigation.
Apple Inc. threw a party and shareholders got a headache Wednesday when the company introduced a slew of only slightly better stuff.
The new iPad is 12.5 inches and can go for 10 hours. But that’s about the only virile thing about Apple these days, which is sliding into middle-age with some admittedly impressive products but none of the cool factor for which it became globally admired under Steve Jobs.
The end of another “red line” farce draws nigh, as China waves aside the Obama administration’s bluster about cyberwar sanctions and claims to be more victimized by hackers than the United States is.
The FBI is investigating an Ohio State University professor who disappeared and may have given defense secrets to the Chinese government.
With Apple’s stock price under pressure, the company is gearing up at the San Francisco Cow Palace for the September 9 World Developer Conference.
At around 10PM on Labor Day Sunday, I posted a coding problem to the popular software developer forum, Stack Exchange.
(Ferenstein Wire)—A brand new taxi design was unveiled last week to mixed fanfare, as the tech-enabled Nissan NV 200 “Taxi of Tomorrow” runs on a decidedly 19th-century technology: fossil fuel combustion.
On September 5, the California Senate passed a bill banning residents from flying drones over prisons or jails in the state. Those caught doing so would face misdemeanor charges.
The “Internet of Things” (IoT) incorporates a dynamic array of technologies that mobilize sensors to monitor environmental conditions and radio-frequency identification RFID tags to facilitate objects interacting with users. California, with its high-tech industry, will lead the nation in IoT deployment.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign claims the Clinton family personally paid Bryan Pagliano, the former State Dept. employee who invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to give testimony incriminating himself, for maintaining the private email server where Hillary conducted official government business as Secretary of State.
He’s received $3M from donors who self-identify in tech industry employers, compared to Jeb Bush’s $525K. Clinton, a presumptive Silicon Valley favorite, has only managed about half of Bush, at $247K. See the full graph for the breakdown.
Hard on the heels of reports that China and Russia are busy using stolen U.S. government data to identify American intelligence officers and assets, comes word that the Obama administration is considering retaliatory sanctions against Russian and Chinese targets.
A French woman who claims she suffers from electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) was awarded $560 per month as disability allowance from a French court.
In Colorado, where recreational use of the marijuana became legal last year, the average of infusion of psychoactive compounds into the brain by volume from smokable marijuana is about 7.88 percent and about 3.5 percent for edible marijuana, according to a new study. That is 50% more potent than marijuana available elsewhere.
Middle-aged tech scene beta males go to Burning Man, an annual festival of self-indulgence and terrible fashion at which the worst people in the world congregate for a week of free love and bartered narcotics.
The White House may activate targeted sanctions against companies and individuals in China as part of a comprehensive response against Beijing’s cyber attacks on U.S. industry.
I may have just visited the most San Francisco-ish restaurant in the entire history of San Francisco: a tasty fast food quinoa eatery that will operated by robots.
(Ferenstein Wire)—The taxi industry has launched yet another high-profile attempt to conquer their arch nemesis Uber. The upcoming Arro, like many of its predecessors, is an app for hailing and paying for a taxi, much like other ride-hailing companies out of Silicon Valley. Every similar app, so far, has either completely shut down shortly after launch or failed to slow the rise of Uber.
“So now we are going to blame Twitter or we are going to blame Facebook … well heck, I don’t think that’s the problem,” Chris Christie says. “The problem is, the stuff we put on it. The stuff we put on it is a problem, you know who does that? Someone who takes their device out and types it in. It doesn’t get there by itself.” Christie pointed out that more and more people were frustrated that there was no longer any accountability for one’s actions – especially politicians.
(Ferenstein Wire)—Drones can now legally fight criminals in the United States with non-lethal weapons, thanks to a recently-amended bill in North Dakota. The law’s author Rep. Rick Becker originally wanted to require police to secure a warrant for drone surveillance.
As much as global financial concerns are going to hit tech companies harder than other sorts of enterprise, so too will their own lack of ambition. The ugly truth is that Silicon Valley has largely given up trying to fix big problems and has retreated into photo-sharing apps and productivity tools.
(Ferenstein Wire) – A European agency has taken the “Right to Be Forgotten” to the next level: Google may be forced to remove links to news reports on why the search giant had to remove the links in the first place. Europe has pioneered a new legal concept that permits individuals to force search engines to remove links to information about themselves that they find incriminating or embarrassing.
