News

Sony, Discord team up to bring chat-app to PlayStation

Sony Interactive Entertainment and Discord announced on Monday a partnership that will see the popular gaming-focused chat app integrated within the PlayStation’s in-house social tools, both companies said in a joint statement. While the brief announcement didn’t specify the nature of the partnership, it highlighted a promise to “bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer […]

Facebook reports soaring quarterly ad revenue, stock jumps

Facebook’s stock jumped Wednesday into record territory after the social media giant reported stronger-than-expected results for the first quarter thanks to soaring ad revenue. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the extra money means the company will invest more in new areas of potential growth — including augmented and virtual reality, commerce, business messaging and content creators, […]

Samsung reports profit jump on smartphone, TV sales

Samsung Electronics said Thursday its operating profit for the last quarter jumped 46% from a year earlier driven by increased sales of smartphones and televisions as its business continues to flourish amid the pandemic. The South Korean tech giant also said its quarterly revenue of 65.39 trillion won ($59 billion) was its highest for the […]

India censors social media, as second wave of COVID intensifies

Last week, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology urged several social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to take down user content critical of the nation’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak as cases go on a sharp rise yet again. Over 100 such take-down requests were sent out to stamp out […]

Microsoft profits soar as cloud demand continues in pandemic

Microsoft’s profits soared during the first three months of 2021, thanks to ongoing demand for its software and cloud computing services during the pandemic. The company on Tuesday reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $14.8 billion, up 38% from the same period last year. “Over a year into the pandemic, digital adoption curves aren’t slowing down. […]

Google's Q1 ad sales surge 32%, Alphabet profit doubles

Google’s digital advertising network has shifted back into high gear, with its corporate parent reporting profit that more than doubled after an unprecedented setback during the early stages of the pandemic. The robust first-quarter advertising growth announced Tuesday provides the latest sign that advertisers are expecting the economy to roar back to life as more […]

Toyota acquires Lyft's self-driving unit for $500 million

Toyota Motor Corp. has acquired the self-driving division of American ride-hailing company Lyft for $500 million, in a move that underlines the Japanese automaker’s ambitions in that technology. The acquisition, announced Tuesday, was carried out by Woven Planet Holdings, a Toyota subsidiary that began business in January and focuses on innovations and investment in projects […]

UK spy chief says West faces 'moment of reckoning' on tech

Western countries risk losing control of technologies that are key to internet security and economic prosperity to nations like China and Russia if they don’t act to deal with the threat, one of the U.K.’s top spy chiefs warned Friday. “Significant technology leadership is moving east” and causing a conflict of interests and values, Jeremy […]

The big Pentagon internet mystery now partially solved

A very strange thing happened on the internet the day President Joe Biden was sworn in. A shadowy company residing at a shared workspace above a Florida bank announced to the world’s computer networks that it was now managing a colossal, previously idle chunk of the internet owned by the U.S. Department of Defense. That […]

Unmute, please: Echoes, glitches resound in virtual summit

Climate. Climate. Macron. Macron again. Beep. Beep. Beep. Can someone please tell Vladimir Putin he’s on live? Mr. President, Mr. President? And please unmute yourself, Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Just like the rest of us, world leaders are still figuring out the tech side of virtual work, even more than a year into the […]