Nintendo's Miitomo Smartphone 'Game' Fails to Charm Investors

Nintendo shares fell 9 percent on Thursday, and partner DeNA's stock dropped 15 percent after Nintendo announced that it would wade into the mobile waters next year with social mobile app Miitomo.Based on the Mii digital avatars made popular by the Wii, Miitomo will seek to connect players through trivia, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said in...

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Sony Talks VR and 2016 Games in Paris

While Microsoft has been driving home the potential hits it has for the holidays, Sony has sat silent. That changed this week at Paris Games Week, when Sony set the tone for the next year or so by touting 21 games, mostly exclusives, poised to redefine the PlayStation 4 experience.It's what PlayStation fans have been waiting for -- a listing of completely new games. Sony had...

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SXSW May Put Online Harassment in the Spotlight

ManageEngine OpManager, a powerful NMS for monitoring your network, physical & virtual (VMware/ HyperV) servers & other IT devices. Deploy and start monitoring in less than an hour. Trusted by over a million admins world-wide. Try it for free.SXSW Interactive might include a daylong event on combating online harassment, Re/code reported Tuesday.The news followed SXSW's...

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Walmart Catches the Drone Delivery Bug

ManageEngine OpManager, a powerful NMS for monitoring your network, physical & virtual (VMware/ HyperV) servers & other IT devices. Deploy and start monitoring in less than an hour. Trusted by over a million admins world-wide. Try it for free.Walmart on Monday filed a request with the Federal Aviation Administration to begin deploying commercial drones to transport...

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Using Tech to Fix the Horrid US Political Debates

I Watched with interest last week's Republican debate and realized very quickly that whatever that was on my TV, it sure as hell wasn't an actual debate. The idea is for us to be able to compare the qualifications and positions of a variety of candidates and then make a more informed choice -- but if every candidate is asked a different question, then how do we compare the...

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Gadget Ogling: Smarter Smartphone Gaming, Modular Watches, and Vampiric Charging Cables

Welcome, one and all, to another edition of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that somehow musters the energy to scour the latest in gadget announcements for those that deserve our praise or scorn, while still full of turkey from this week's Canadian Thanksgiving.In our post-poultry bliss, we look at a smartphone with a focus on encryption, a modular smartwatch, a game...

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Salesforce's Message to Europe

SAlesforce last week said it would invest US$100 million in emerging sales force partners in Europe. The company previously announced a similar program for the Americas, and it hopes to discover valuable new companies and business solutions.Paul Greenberg and the team at CRM Idol (of which I have been a part) have been doing the same thing -- trying to discover interesting...

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PRM's Next Act

Partner relationship management, or PRM, has seen its ups and downs over the first part of this century.Running an indirect channel is vitally important to any vendor trying to extend its reach without incurring the high costs of building up a sales team and all that supports it. Many vendors figure it's more economical to pay partners for performance than to endure the corporate...

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Sony Shears PS4's Price

Sony last week knocked US$50 off the price of the PlayStation 4, putting the console on par with the $349 Xbox from rival Microsoft.A cost cut also went into effect in Canada, where the price dropped from Sony's recommended price point of CA$449.99 to $429.99.Touting upcoming multiplatform games Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Star Wars: Battlefront, Sony Computer Entertainment...

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Another Day, Another Billion Android Users at Risk

ManageEngine OpManager, a powerful NMS for monitoring your network, physical & virtual (VMware/ HyperV) servers & other IT devices. Deploy and start monitoring in less than an hour. Trusted by over a million admins world-wide. Try it for free.Google on Monday released an over-the-air update for Nexus devices, which includes patches for the latest Stagefright vulnerabilities...

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Apple TV Reviews: Kinda Buggy, Kinda Great

ManageEngine OpManager, a powerful NMS for monitoring your network, physical & virtual (VMware/ HyperV) servers & other IT devices. Deploy and start monitoring in less than an hour. Trusted by over a million admins world-wide. Try it for free.The latest version of Apple's streaming media set-top box, expected to hit U.S. retail stores on Friday, has gathered a bundle...

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ONOS Project Gets Linux Foundation Bump

e Linux Foundation on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership withON.Lab and its ONOS project community to develop open source network services.They will build infrastructure for software-defined networking and network function virtualization technology. The foundation will provide its global reach, experience and infrastructure to seed ONOS' growing community.This latest...

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Google's Nexus 6P and 5X Win Some Love

The reviews are out for Google's Nexus 6P and 5X, unveiled late last month, and they can be summed up in two words: Love them!They're described as "the best Nexus devices ever produced" and "Google's answer to Apple's iPhones," but those tired phrases are rolled out with every new Nexus or flagship Android smartphone, so what else is new?The camera, for one. The phones' cameras...

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TWC's New Virtual Assistant Curries Customer Favor

The new Ask TWC Virtual Assistant lets customers use a mobile device or computer to type a question in their own words, or choose from a list of common questions to get immediate assistance.The type and volume of inquiries and their resolutions will let TWC constantly learn, the company said.Customers in all TWC service areas can access the tool, said TWC spokesperson Judy Barbao.The virtual assistant may direct customers to a specific location on...

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HP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Go Separate Ways

The long-awaited split of HP's personal computer and enterprise operations has taken place, and CEO Meg Whitman, who oversaw the transition of the massive, listing ship, clearly faces the most challenging crisis of her career -- trying to save a legacy business from being buried by the sands of time and progress.HP, which struggled for more than 15 years to compete in a modern...

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The New York Times May Get Technical With Ad Blockers

The New York Times Company last week indicated would take steps to circumvent ad-blocking tools."As you know, the Times' digital subscription revenue stream means that we are less exposed than most publishers to the impact of ad-blockers," said NYT Company CEO Mark Thompson during an earnings call. "Nonetheless, let me make it clear that we oppose ad blocking."Creating "quality news content is expensive," he noted, and online advertising is an important...

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Google Migrates Project Loon to Indonesia

project Loon, part of Google's parent company, Alphabet, on Wednesday announced that it has signed agreements with three mobile network operators in Indonesia -- Indosat, Telkomse, and XL Axiata -- to begin tests of its balloon-powered Internet service in 2016.Only about one in three of Indonesia's 250 million residents is connected to the Internet. Project Loon will transmit...

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Tesla's Autopilot Drifts Toward Driverless Cars

Tesla Motors on Wednesday introduced an autopilot system featuring Tesla version 7.0 software that could aid drivers in finding parking spots making lane changes, and watching for blind spots on the road.The system is not designed to do the driving just yet, but it could help relieve drivers in the most tedious and thus potentially dangerous aspects of road travel.The autopilot...

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Chrome OS Is Dead, Long Live Chrome OS?

Google is two years into a plan to consolidate the Chrome operating system -- which it uses as the platform for a series of stripped down, low-cost computers -- and the Android mobile OS, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.Google officials quickly pushed back against the WSJ report, which claims that the company, now a subsidiary of the newly formed Alphabet conglomerate,...

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Google Fine-Tunes Self-Driving Cars' Kid Perception

Google last week announced that it has developed technology for its self-driving vehicles that would be able to detect people in costumes -- presumably children dressed for Halloween.The company is teaching its cars to drive more cautiously around children and thus be ready to adapt to sudden and even erratic movement, it said.Google's engineers are striving to help the cars...

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Marine Corps' new helicopter completes its first flight

CH-53K King Stallion (Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation).King Stallion, the U.S. Marine Corps’ brand spanking new helicopter, completed its first flight Tuesday.The Marines’ new helo is incredibly advanced - it will be able to lift a whopping three times more weight than its predecessor.Made by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, the CH-53K King Stallion prototype is also known by...

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YouTube Just Divulged the Details of 'Dance Camp,' Its First Feature-Length Film

As rival platforms make a foreboding play for the $13.8 billion online video ad industry, YouTube is ramping up investment in its own creator ecosphere like never before.Case in point: after rolling out on Tuesday its latest television, print and outdoor marketing campaign spotlighting beloved creators Tyler Oakleyand Lilly Singh, the Google-owned platform has just divulged...

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In rare appearance, Larry Page discusses new Alphabet structure

left1 of 3rightIn a rare public appearance, Google co-founder and Alphabet Inc CEO Larry Page explained why he was spurred to create a whole new structure for the company he created with Sergey Brin almost two decades ago."I want to push the envelope for what's possible for an innovative company with large resources," he said during a Q&A session with Fortune editor Alan...

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YouTube Is Seeing 'Red' With Brand New $10 Monthly Ad-Free Subscription Service

Following months of anticipation, YouTube has finally taken the lid off its ad-free, subscription service that the company has dubbed YouTube Red.Launching October 28 for $9.99 per month on Android devices (and $12.99 on iOS,) YouTube Red enables viewers to watch videos uninterrupted by ads. On mobile, the service also lets users play videos in the background while using other apps, as well as save videos offline for future viewing.The service will...

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Watchmaker Citizen harnesses space technology

Watchmaker Citizen is harnessing the power of space technology with its new Satellite Wave F900 watch, which was launched earlier this month.The device connects to a satellite to update its time and date in as little as three seconds. Citizen says that the watch’s satellite GPS timekeeping technology with synchronized time adjustment is available in 40 time zones. The company is also touting the F900, at 13.1 mm, as the world’s thinnest satellite...

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