Technology

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, on Wednesday said that Apple has barred Fortnite from the App Store until all court appeals in its legal battle have ended, a process which could take years. “Late last night, Apple informed Epic that Fortnite will be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until the exhaustion of all court appeals, which could be as long as a 5-year process,” Sweeney wrote in a tweet, with an image of a letter from Apple’s lawyers. Late last night, Apple informed Epic that Fortnite will be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until the exhaustion of all court appeals, which could be as long as a 5-year process. pic.twitter.com/QCD7wogJef — Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) September 22, 2021 The case first began in August 2020, when Epic Games updated its iOS app to allow pla...

As expected, Microsoft announced the new Surface Duo 2 during what was an otherwise laptop-focused Surface event. The tech giant debuted the new Android phone alongside four new Surface devices, including the Surface Pro X, Surface Pro 8, and Surface Go 3. Packed with some major updates, the successor to last year’s Surface Duo is faster and comes equipped with an improved camera and support for contactless payments. Pricing starts at $1,499.99, and the dual-screen, hinged device will launch on October 20th. However, you can preorder the phone — as well as the other Surface hardware — from several retailers now, and check out our hands-on to see if it’s worth the purchase here. How to preorder the Surface Duo 2 Unlike its predecessor, the Surface Duo 2 runs on Android 11, supports 5G as we...

Ohio-based electric vehicle startup Workhorse is suspending deliveries of its C-1000 electric delivery vans and recalling 41 vehicles that have already been sent to customers, telling regulators the vans need “additional testing and modifications” in order to comply with federal safety standards. It was the latest setback for the company, which recently abandoned its effort to overturn the US Postal Service’s decision to let a different company build the next-generation mail truck. That contract was awarded to defense manufacturer Oshkosh earlier this year. It was the latest setback for the company The C-1000 is meant to be Workhorse’s flagship vehicle, with 1,000 cubic feet of cargo space. The company said it was continuing to tinker with the design, even as it finally got the vehicle int...

Since leaving Microsoft, ex-CEO Steve Ballmer has devoted his life to the Los Angeles Clippers, transferring his enthusiastic, often scary keynote energy into pure, sport-oriented hype. But what about his passions? What’s replaced Windows “developers, developers, developers” in the heart of the man who’s spending around $1.8 billion to build the new Intuit Dome arena in Inglewood? One word: toilets (via ZDNet). “I’ve become a real obsessive about toilets,” Ballmer shared at the groundbreaking for the new arena. “Toilets, toilets, toilets.” To be fair to the enterprise software evangelist turned NBA chairman, it does seem like the Intuit Dome will have a lot of them — one toilet for every 27 seats in the arena’s upper deck, The Washington Post writes, “an unmatched ratio in the NBA.” The ba...

YouTube is testing an official way to download videos on your desktop web browser (via Android Police). If you want to see if you’re eligible for the test, which runs through October 19th, check out YouTube’s experimental features page, which lists tests available for Premium subscribers. I was able to opt in to the test, but a colleague of mine wasn’t, which seems to indicate that not everyone is able to try the feature just yet. If you’re opted-in and on a supported browser (“the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, or Opera,” according to Google), when you’re watching a video, you should see an option to download the video under the player. When you click it, YouTube will download the video, which you can then watch from the Downloads section that’s accessible from the hamburger menu on the...

Microsoft is set to announce a whole bunch of new Surface computers today. At an event starting at 11AM ET / 8AM PT, we are expecting to see a new Surface Pro 8, Surface Book, Surface Go, Surface Pro X, and even the Android-based Surface Duo. That’s a lot of devices for one livestream, so we’ll be live blogging with real-time analysis right here. Details of the Surface Pro 8 have already leaked, so we are confident we’ll see a new slate with an Intel 11th Gen processor, 120Hz display, and a switch to Thunderbolt ports — finally. The Surface Duo has also been spotted with a big camera bump, so Microsoft may be addressing one of the biggest problems of the original — and may support some form of wireless charging, though it’s possible that’s simply to charge a Surface Pen. And finally, the S...

When Amazon makes a new movie or TV show, the reason is pretty clear: the tech giant needs to build out its streaming service Prime Video. One of the best ways to do that is to make (or buy) exclusive series and films. But when Amazon develops a new video game, the reasons aren’t so clear. The company’s upcoming MMO, New World, isn’t exclusive to Amazon’s Luna cloud service or Twitch (which Amazon also owns). It’s a regular PC game you can buy on Steam. But according to Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann, the reason is pretty simple: if you want to be involved in entertainment in any way, you can’t ignore games. “It’s almost impossible to imagine a world where you have a foot in entertainment without considering games,” he tells The Verge. New World is far from Amazon’s first foray into ga...

When trees and plants disperse their seeds, they often rely on the wind to carry them to pastures new. Different seeds adopt different methods of flight: some glide through the air, others parachute to the ground, and some spin like helicopters on the breeze. For scientists, these aerodynamics have provided the inspiration for a new sort of airborne sensor — tiny fliers, some smaller than a grain of sand and others electronically equipped, that could, in the future, float into the atmosphere for tasks like environmental monitoring. Microfliers could be dispersed by drone to monitor atmospheric data These fliers, which range in size from around 40mm across (the largest) to 0.4mm across (the smallest), do not move under their own power. Instead, they’ve been designed to linger as long as pos...

Microsoft is announcing the Surface Pro 8 today, the biggest upgrade to its Intel-powered Surface Pro lineup since the Surface Pro 3 in 2014. While we’ve seen tweaks to the design of the Surface Pro for seven years, the Surface Pro 8 jumps to a 120Hz display with thinner bezels, Thunderbolt 4 support, and a new keyboard that neatly houses an upgraded Surface Slim Pen 2. Microsoft’s Surface Pro 8 has taken most of the best parts of the Surface Pro X and paired them with an Intel chip. It’s the Surface Pro we’ve been waiting years for. The new 13-inch Surface Pro 8 display.Image: Microsoft The 13-inch PixelSense Flow Display, as Microsoft calls it, is larger than the 12.3-inch display found on most other Surface Pro devices, and it has a higher resolution, too. The display also supports Dolb...

iRobot recently launched a new robot vacuum cleaner that uses AI to avoid dog poop, but the company’s Roombas have long struggled with a more basic problem: confusing dark patterns on carpets and rugs for perilous drops. A video recently shared on Twitter by IBM researcher Dmitry Krotov shows exactly the problem: a Roomba rolling around inside a rectangular box pattern on a rug, refusing to drive over the lines as if were physical walls. Usually, iRobot’s software flags this sort of problem as a dangerous “cliff,” and a quick search on Twitter for “roomba rug cliff” shows it’s a pretty common error. As one user complains: “I swear that Robby the Roomba is a right drama queen!! This is NOT a cliff Robby. It’s a rug!” The actual mechanics behind this error are pretty fascinating, though. And...

Uber says it may be profitable this quarter for the first time in its history. The disclosure came in a new filing made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Whereas the company previously expected to make a net loss of under $100 million, it now believes it could make an adjusted profit of up to $25 million. “We believe Uber is now tracking towards Adjusted EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] breakeven in Q3, well ahead of our prior guidance,” said the company’s CFO, Nelson Chai, in the filing. In a worst case scenario, the company cautions that it could still make a loss of $25 million. However, criticism has been levelled at the way Uber calculated its adjusted profits. Gizmodo notes that the company’s definition of EBITDA includes an unusuall...