A decade and a half after the third installment of the Matrix trilogy, a fourth in the series has been announced.
Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss - Neo and Trinity - will return for The Matrix 4 which is to begin production in early 2020. Lana Wachowski is set to direct the fourth film, written by Wachowski, Aleksandar Hemon, and David Mitchell.
"We could not be more excited to be re-entering 'The Matrix' with Lana," Warner Bros. Picture Group chairman Toby Emmerich said, reports Variety.
"Lana is a true visionary -- a singular and original creative filmmaker -- and we are thrilled that she is writing, directing and producing this new chapter in 'The Matrix' universe."
Wachowski noted that many of the ideas she explored with her sister Lilly when they wrote and directed the Matrix trilogy movies a couple of decades ago are more relevant now than they were then. This is undoubtedly true with artificial intelligence and even theories of simulated realities being in the mainstream.
European Union regulators are to investigate Facebook and its upcoming 'Libra' digital currency for potential anticompetitive behavior.
Bloomberg reported the story on Tuesday after seeing an official document that detailed a European Commission investigation into potential anti-competitive behavior related to Facebook's proposed Libra digital currency.
The concerns surround the exchange of information and the use of consumer data and who it is limited to, with an eye on the integration of Libra-based applications into WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Libra is supported to launch globally in 2020.
This is only the latest in a slew of probes into Libra from authorities around the world, whose concerns range from the amassing and use of consumer data to the threat to the financial system that digital currencies pose.
Disney has finally revealed what devices will be supported once the new subscription service, Disney+, will launch in November. Service is set to launch with pretty aggressive pricing, set to be $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, if paid annually.
At the launch, the list of supported platforms and devices is already pretty impressive, with just one notable exception there:
Apple TV
Android (phones and tablets)
Android TV
Chromecast
Desktop web browsers, including Chrome
iPad
iPhone
Playstation 4
Roku devices
Roku TV
Xbox One
Most notable "not there" in the list is definitely the Amazon's Fire TV.
Launch countries and pricing
As said, the service will launch in November. On November 12th to be exact, in United States, Canada and Netherlands. List of all countries that will get the service in November are (but not necessarily on 12th of November):
As Netflix made it obvious, for Redbox and Blockbuster painfully so, that streaming is the new medium for TV and movies, every major player in both media as well as tech space started planning on their own platforms.
The same can be said for Spotify that is still the top dog even after Apple investing copious amounts of money to play catch-up.
One of the ones that should've had perhaps one of the strongest claims to the thrones, Google, has barely gotten their feet wet after years and years of trial and error.
Be it YouTube Red, Google Play Music, or even the newer iterations called YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium, none of them have really made a splash in the game.
Earlier this year Google announced that it is planning on bringing YouTube Originals to customers without a Premium subscription. Obviously this is due to the poor performance by their exclusive content.
Now, YouTube has indeed confirmed that this is happening soon. After September 24, all YouTube users will be able to view YouTube Originals without a paid subscription.
However, this doesn't mean that Premium subscribers no longer exist, and they still have a few advantages over the ones without the $12 a month service.
As the second half of the year is well on its way, we're closing in on some of the year's most important smartphone releases. Of course fall release is imminent for both new Pixels as well as iPhones.
The latter is likely going to be first, as traditionally Google waits until October to release their Pixel phones. Apple on the other hand is said to be ready in September.
Now we've got a little bit more confirmation about that fact too, and might even have an actual release date. According to AppleInsider, new hints have been found from iOS 13 beta versions to suggest that iPhone release is scheduled for September 10.
However, it's not entirely written on stone yet, and one option is that the iOS release is the date in question and iPhones would be released at an earlier or later date.
Last seven years Apple has released their new iPhones in early September, and this is probably not going to change.
However, what is going to change, according to a Korean publication The Elec, are iPhone displays. Rumors have it that Apple is getting the same build of Samsung's OLED panels as Galaxy S10 and Note10 this time around.
Foldable phones have been rumored for years upon years but finally last year we started seeing some concrete proof that they would be indeed released to the public sometime soon.
Both Samsung and Huawei gave us sneak peeks late last year of their Galaxy Fold and Mate X, and earlier this year they were promising release of their respective devices in the first half of the year.
Samsung's release was an utter failure with callbacks on review devices and massive problems with displays and the hinge system. The company had to re-evaluate how to stop debris from ruining the device.
Huawei saw the issues and decided to push back the initial June launch. Now in August neither of them are yet available. Samsung is promising theirs in September, and according to a new report by TechRadar, Huawei isn't ready yet either.
In fact, Huawei has delayed their Mate X release quite a bit. The company now is aiming for a November release.
It seems like they still don't want to be the first one to the market. Instead they are going to see what happens with the re-launch of Galaxy Fold and try to avoid same mistakes, again, in November.
Apple's MacBooks haven't quite been themselves recently. The iconic laptop has gone through a couple iterations that include bad keyboards and even faulty batteries.
The latter is obviously a bigger problem in terms of terminal damage to the laptop, and could even prove dangerous to its surroundings.
Apple has issued a recall to the specific MacBook Pro models that are dangerously unstable due to faulty batteries that might spontaneously combust, and now FAA has decided to take them more seriously too.
The Feredal Aviation Administration has banned the recalled MacBook Pro devices from its flights. Fire risk is obviously something FAA takes seriously, and they did the same thing couple years back with the infamous Galaxy Note7.
European Union Aviation Safety Agency has issued a similar warning earlier, although it only requires to switch the devices off and not be used during flights.
The MacBook Pro in question is a 15-inch version that was sold between September 2015 and February 2017. You can get more information about the recall program here.
Ahead of its foray into the smart television space, OnePlus has revealed a predictable name for its upcoming product and revealed the logo.
Having asked users on its forums for name suggestions for a smart television over a year ago, the folks at OnePlus have decided to keep it simple and go with OnePlus TV. The first lucky person to suggest the name in the contest held by OnePlus will still receive a big prize, of course.
"Honestly, it was harder than you could imagine during the naming process as we have seen so many creative names which made it a difficult decision. Eventually, we chose to be true to our core values, but we are thankful for all the suggestions from you," wrote dsmonteiro on the OnePlus forums.
Unfortunately, there are no tech specs or any indication of when we will see a OnePlus TV product, but we are told to 'stay tuned' as there is more exciting news coming soon.
For now, though, the firm has unveiled the logo for its OnePlus TV products.
Facebook has confirmed that some of its workers were tasked with listening to audio snippets from Messenger conversations.
Just as had been revealed at Google and Apple, employees at Facebook reportedly listened to snippets of audio and were tasked with transcribing them. According to a report from Bloomberg, the Facebook employees were not told where the audio they were transcribing was coming from.
The purpose of such transcribing is to aid artificial intelligence systems to improve automatic voice to text transcription for users as a service if they required it.
Facebook insists that the recordings of the audio were only made when users had opted into transcription service and given permission for microphone access. However, the social network giant followed Apple and Google and paused human review of audio more than a week ago.
Regulators around the world will now probe the practice at Facebook and others. In the European Union, the Irish regulator has already confirmed that it is seeking information from Facebook.
"Further to our ongoing engagement with Google, Apple and Microsoft in relation to the processing of personal data in the context of the manual transcription of audio recordings, we are now seeking detailed information from Facebook on the processing in question and how Facebook believes that such processing of data is compliant with their GDPR obligations," the commission said in a statement sent to Reuters.
In an interview with GameSpot, Xbox boss Phil Spencer shared some extra details about Microsoft's goals for the next Xbox generation.
Project Scarlett was detailed in some ways at E3 this year when Microsoft said that it would be approximately four times as powerful as the Xbox One X. Besides providing for better graphics, Spencer said they are focused on how smoothly games run on the new system, with a view toward ensuring the maximum frame rate at 4K.
"People love 60 frames-per-second games, so getting games to run at 4K 60 [FPS] I think will be a real design goal for us.,"Spencer said, while also emphasizing the desire to have games load incredibly fast.
Beyond that, there is also good news for those who care about backward compatibility.
"Making sure that all four generations of content--so the original Xbox games that run on your Xbox One today, the OG Xbox; the 360 games that run on your Xbox One; your Xbox One games; and the new generation games--all run on the next platform is important to us," Spencer said.
He also confirmed that cross-generational play will be supported, so you can continue to play against others on older hardware. Additionally, Spencer said Microsoft is aiming to make sure that controllers bought for the Xbox One X will be compatible with newer hardware.
Video sharing apps and platforms may soon face very large fines if it is determined they fail to prevent vulnerable people from accessing harmful content.
Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, may soon have the power to fine tech companies millions of pounds if it determines the firms are failing to tackle harmful videos. Such videos could include adult-oriented content that is unsuitable for younger people, or videos depicting serious violence.
Such new fines are under consideration as part of the UK's adoption of the European Union's Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), but the UK may not have to comply with the directive at all as it is set to exit the EU on October 31.
"If the UK leaves the European Union without a deal, we will not be bound to transpose the AVMSD into UK law," a spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, confirmed to the BBC.
Regardless, it was reportedly agreed before the summer break that Ofcom should be able to find firms up to 5 percent of its revenues or even outright block them in the country if they don't comply with certain rulings. Ofcom is keen on getting such strong regulatory powers.
Roscomnadzor has warned Google to stop promoting 'illegal mass events' through YouTube as protesters target the government.
Russia has seen some of its largest protests in years ahead of elections in Moscow. Some opposition political candidates have been blocked from taking part in the elections, sparking demonstrations which have since widened to protests against the Russian government.
The communications regulator in Russia, Roscomnadzor, sent a letter to Google complaining about the use of its platform to organize and raise awareness about 'illegal mass events'. It says that some YouTube users have been buying advertisements on YouTube and using push notifications to spread information about the protests.
If Google fails to respond and address the issue, Roscomnadzor warned that it will be seen as interfering in the country's sovereign affairs.
Russia has introduced tough laws in recent years that can force search providers to remove results, messaging services to share encryption keys, and social networks to retain users' personal data on servers within the country.
While Google Search seems like the same service you started using perhaps 15 or even 20 years ago, it has evolved massively over time.
The illusion is, one might suggest, of just having a single search field and list of results in the same vein as years ago when it started as a tiny startup. However, the world's most influential company is constantly developing new features and tweaking the layout to serve the customer better – and make more money.
The newest addition to Google Search is the better integration of one of today's biggest trends: podcasts. Google has added a dedicated podcast player to it's search engine.
You can, for example, search for 'grilling podcasts' and choose an episode to play straight from the search results. No launching apps needed.
What's more impressive is that Google doesn't only search for podcasts for suitable titles or descriptions, but it also uses speech recognition to determine whether the searched subject is found in the content. The feature requires that one of the search terms is 'podcast'.
The feature has only been rolled out in limited manner but will soon be available to all users and all platforms. Later this year Google brings the feature to Google Assistant and Google Podcasts for web.
Wireless headphones have gotten really good, and really popular in the last, say, five years. It's hard to say to what degree this is due to Apple removing the headphone jack from the iPhone, but most certainly it hasn't hurt.
Initially many disliked, even hated, the move by Apple, and obviously competitors capitalized on it. Samsung released funny commercials mocking Apple's dongles and lack of headphone jack.
Now that the new Galaxy Note10 is out, and the company has decided to rid the headphone jack themselves, it's perhaps time to look back in time, and make them feel at least as silly as Apple was made to feel about the their removal.
Samsung knows that the backlash was coming as soon as it announced a powerhouse of a smartphone, designed for the most tech hungry power user out there, and they've omitted the headphone jack.
While the actual financial consequences are probably fairly minimal at this point, since many of us have already moved on from wired headphones – and yes, dongle still works – and don't really care if there's a headphone jack or not, there's still a fairly hefty sense of irony floating around.
Fortunately, even though Samsung deleted their videos from YouTube, you can't take things off the internet, as you known.
Samsung was one of the first smartphone companies to join the VR revolution with their own headset. Gear VR has been an integral part of the company's VR strategy since its inception in 2015.
Every single major flagship smartphone release since then have been supported by Gear VR headsets, be it already sold or new one introduced with the smartphone. Now it seems like the new Galaxy Note10, and Note10+, are the first to deviate from the pattern.
The newest version of the Gear VR, SM-R325, supports Galaxy S6, S7, S8, S9, and this years S10 series. There's also support for Galaxy Note5, Note8, and Note9 – Note6 didn't exist, and Note7 exploded – but there won't be support for Galaxy Note10.
Samsung has confirmed that this is indeed the case, that Galaxy Note10 isn't supported by current Gear VR headsets. However, it is still possible that the company releases an adapter or completely new headset for the device, although the company hasn't revealed anything about such plans.
It's still unclear whether Samsung still believes in smartphone VR headsets, or whether it has decided to give in to standalone devices like the Oculus Go and VIVE Focus Plus.
A decade and a half after the third installment of the Matrix trilogy, a fourth in the series has been announced.
European Union regulators are to investigate Facebook and its upcoming 'Libra' digital currency for potential anticompetitive behavior.
Disney has finally revealed what devices will be supported once the new subscription service, Disney+, will launch in November. Service is set to launch with pretty aggressive pricing, set to be $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, if paid annually.
