Technology

Minecraft sales have officially topped 200 million, with 126 million people playing the game monthly. Microsoft is detailing the latest sales figures just as Mojang Studios celebrates 11 years since the first Minecraft alpha build was originally released. Microsoft has also seen a big increase in Minecraft usage during the pandemic. Minecraft saw a 25 percent increase in new players last month and a 40 percent spike in multiplayer sessions. Minecraft sales previously topped 100 million back in 2016, and the game hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. A surge in interest from YouTubers and nostalgia-induced playing saw Minecraft remain king of YouTube viewership stats last year. One of Microsoft’s best acquisitions Microsoft acquired Minecraft maker Mojang nearly six years ago for $2.5 bil...

One of today’s best deals is on Microsoft’s Surface Pro X, a tech product that’s only seen small price cuts. At Amazon and Best Buy, you can get a big discount on the upgraded model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It’s down to $900 (usually $1,299). For context, the base model launched at $999, so getting the version with more storage for $100 less than that reads as a good deal to me. The Surface Pro X has a 13-inch 3:2 aspect ratio display and features Microsoft’s custom SQ1 ARM-based processor and LTE compatibility. This model doesn’t include a Type Cover, and those currently cost an extra $100 or so at Amazon and the Microsoft Store. While this machine didn’t launch in the best state, mostly due to the many app incompatibility issues that Dieter Bohn encountered during his review...

Oculus is bringing the Quest’s experimental hand tracking system out of beta, making it an official feature of the VR headset. The Quest got hand tracking options late last year but only for the main Oculus menu and a few built-in applications. Now, it’s going to be appearing in third-party games and apps starting later this month. Three Quest experiences are getting the feature soon: the potion-mixing games Waltz of the Wizard and Elixir, plus puzzle game The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets. Animated VR films Gloomy Eyes and The Line will also launch for the first time — with hand tracking — on May 28th. Developers can start submitting hand-tracking projects on that day as well, so more titles should support it over the coming months. The Quest was released one year ago, and it’s gotten s...

The latest crop of startups backed by Samsung’s in-house incubator C-Labs includes SunnyFive, makers of an artificial window that supposedly delivers all the benefits of natural sunlight. The SunnyFive window looks to be similar in function to light therapy lamps marketed to sufferers of seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It outputs the full spectrum of natural light, and can be programmed to mimic the lighting effects of a real window. The light changes angle over the course of the day to mimic real sunlight The angle of the light will change throughout the day and incorporates various “sunlight scenarios” — aka sunrise, dawn, dusk, and sunset. A companion app lets users tweak color temperature and brightness, and it’s easy to imagine alarm clock functionality, too. According to Samsung, ...

Microsoft has admitted it was wrong about open source, after the company battled it and Linux for years at the height of its desktop domination. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously branded Linux “a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches” back in 2001. Microsoft president Brad Smith now believes the company was wrong about open source. “Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century, and I can say that about me personally,” said Smith in a recent MIT event. Smith has been at Microsoft for more than 25 years and was one of the company’s senior lawyers during its battles with open-source software. Microsoft is now the single biggest contributor to open-source projects in the world “Th...

Huawei rotating chairman Guo Ping has hit back at the US government’s stricter export controls intended to stop the Chinese tech giant from obtaining essential chips, following reports that its biggest supplier has already cut it off. “We still haven’t figured it out,” Guo said on stage at Huawei’s annual analyst summit. “The US government still persists in attacking Huawei, but what will that bring to the world?” “In its relentless pursuit to tighten its stranglehold on our company, the US government has decided to proceed and completely ignore the concerns of many companies and industry associations,” Huawei adds in an official statement. “This decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide. This new rule will impact the expansion, mainten...

Apple’s head of retail Deidre O’Brien has posted a letter on the company’s website detailing how it plans to safely restart operations at its retail stores. Apple shut all of its stores outside Greater China in March as COVID-19 spread worldwide; all the Greater China stores reopened that same month, while Apple is still in the process of taking careful steps elsewhere. “Our commitment is to only move forward with a reopening once we’re confident we can safely return to serving customers from our stores,” O’Brien writes. “We look at every available piece of data — including local cases, near and long‑term trends, and guidance from national and local health officials. These are not decisions we rush into — and a store opening in no way means that we won’t take the preventative step of closi...

The US Secret Service says it is investigating a Nigerian crime ring that has been using Americans’ stolen identities to file fraudulently for unemployment benefits, according to Krebs on Security. Authorities say members of the ring were able to exploit weak security measures within many states’ unemployment systems at a time when millions of Americans are applying for benefits. The agency sent a memo to field offices late last week which said the Nigeria-based ring appeared to be using a “substantial” database of stolen personal information, much of it from first responders, government personnel, and school employees, according to Krebs. The Secret Service said the fraudsters’ primary target was Washington State, with evidence of other attacks in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, O...

If you’re caught up on all your binge watching (my current obsession is The Good Fight because a) Diane’s wardrobe and b) what the hell is Memo 618?!) and need something new to stream, here are five options coming to streaming platforms this week, including a new standup show from Patton Oswalt and the season two premiere of Homecoming starring Janelle Monae. The Great (Hulu, available now) Polygon’s Samantha Nelson says this mostly-not-historically-accurate story of the young Catherine the Great is “a Mean Girls costume-drama feel, while upping the stakes with enough violence, sex, and intrigue to satisfy Game of Thrones fans.” Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult star. [embedded content] Hightown (Starz, May 17th) I am super looking forward to this police drama on Starz, if only to get a few ...

Dyson’s canceled electric vehicle was known internally as the N526, would have had a 600-mile range per charge and could go from zero to 62 mph in 4.8 seconds, company founder James Dyson said in an interview with the (London) Sunday Times. James Dyson says he even drove the prototype of the SUV-style vehicle, meant to rival Tesla’s electric vehicles, “secretly in a screened-off compound.” The vacuum cleaner company’s short-lived electric car project started in 2017, and at one point some 600 people at Dyson were working on it. In 2018, Dyson said it would build a manufacturing plant in Singapore to make the EVs, and was also working on developing solid-state batteries for the vehicle. Sir James Dyson, Britain’s richest man, spent £500m developing an electric car to rival Tesla’s. Then he ...

Users of videoconferencing platform Zoom are reporting problems hosting and joining meetings and the company is investigating, according to the its status page. “Our team is investigating the root cause of issues joining Zoom Meetings. These issues appear to be limited to a subset of users,” according to an update just before 10AM ET. Zoom users in the UK first began noticing widespread outages earlier today, although free accounts appeared to be functioning normally. Some churches have started using Zoom to hold virtual Sunday services during the coronavirus pandemic. Hi there – We have received reports that Zoom users may be experiencing issues hosting and joining meetings. Please see https://t.co/aqz5nS7fZY for updates. — Zoom (@zoom_us) May 17, 2020 Overall Zoom usage has increas...

All across the country, people are finding ways to adapt to our new stay-at-home normal, and for some, that means adopting a furry friend. Shelters in the US have reported an increase in adoptions since the start of the pandemic, some of which have had to create waitlists or pause applications until they can rescue more animals. Petfinder.com, which works with shelters and rescue organizations throughout the country, saw adoption inquiries jump 122 percent between March 15th and April 15th. It’s led to a unique set of issues that many shelters haven’t faced before: juggling increased applications for pet adoptions and foster homes while having to adjust to their new circumstances. Many rescue organizations have had to close their adoption and medical facilities, and with that change has co...