Month: October 2020

Judge blocks Apple from retaliating against Unreal Engine, Fortnite to remain off App Store

Elva Mankin 1 month ago

A federal judge on Friday granted Epic Games’ petition to prohibit any action by Apple against the Unreal Engine, but denied the game maker’s bid to reinstate Fortnite to the App Store.

In her ruling, Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers granted in part and denied in part Epic’s preliminary injunction that sought to both protect an affiliate developer account that maintains the Unreal Engine and force Apple to restore Fortnite after it was pulled for implementing a rule-breaking direct payment option.

The ruling cements an earlier decision from August and ensures the current state of affairs remains unchanged throughout

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Google Meet is getting breakout rooms, but only for some education customers to start

Elva Mankin 1 month ago

Google’s Meet videoconferencing service is getting breakout rooms, but they’ll only be available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers at first, according to a Google blog post (via 9to5Google). With the feature, teachers and educators will be able to break their classes into smaller groups for things like projects or focused discussions.

Google will let you make up to 100 breakout rooms in a single call. Once you’ve decided how many breakout rooms you want, Google will randomly group up the people on the call into rooms, but moderators can manually add people to other rooms if they

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Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield: Remote Work Will Not Magically End

Elva Mankin 1 month ago

Slack chief executive Stewart Butterfield knew the world was changing the night of March 11, right around when Tom Hanks announced from Australia that he had contracted Covid-19. The NBA postponed its season, and President Trump suspended travel to the United States. Butterfield’s team had already been working virtually for a week–something that came fairly naturally to the business-communications-tool startup.

Seven months later, Slack still is fully remote. Butterfield has had the same jarring experience so many executives and knowledge-workers have had going into his company’s near-empty headquarters. “It was pretty strange to be in there,” he said, of the

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FIFA 21 Is Limping Toward Retirement

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

The world might be strange and confusing, but there are still some things you can rely on. Every autumn, a chill comes into the air, the leaves begin to change color, and EA releases a new edition of FIFA, the all-conquering soccer simulation franchise.

WIRED UK

This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.

FIFA 21 arrives at a slightly odd moment for world soccer, which has been devoid of fans for more than six months in most countries. In fact, for some broadcasters, the piped in crowd noise they’re using to mimic the presence of real fans actually comes from

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Yelp Will Add Racist Behavior Tags to Business Pages

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

Illustration for article titled Yelp Will Now Advise Customers When a Business Is Racist Enough to Land in the News

Screenshot: Yelp

Yelp will now warn customers that they’re looking at a “business accused of racist behavior”—just so long as it’s been racist enough to warrant a mention in the news.

The review platform announced in a blog post Thursday that it will place an alert on a business page when a business “gains public attention” such as a news article documenting “egregious, racist actions from a business owner or employee, such as using overtly racist language or symbols.” Previously, Yelp implemented a “Public Attention Alert” feature that informed visitors that a business may be at the

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Epic judge permanently restrains Apple from blocking Unreal Engine, but won’t force Fortnite

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

Fortnite won’t be coming back to the App Store any time soon. On Friday, Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers refused to grant Epic Games a preliminary injunction against Apple that would force the game developer to reinstate Fortnite on the App Store, while simultaneously granting an injunction that keeps Apple from retaliating against the Unreal Engine, which Epic also owns (PDF). In other words, we now have a permanent version of the temporary restraining order ruling from last month.

That means the state of affairs, in which Epic is banned from publishing new games on iOS and cannot distribute Fortnite on

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Should you still buy it?

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

google pixel 4 xl long term review 2

Google has an impressive knack of creating polarizing products. The Pixel series is no different. These are phones that have been lavished with critical praise as much as they’ve received scorn for lacking fundamental features you’d expect from a modern smartphone. 2019’s Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL exemplified this love-hate relationship many have with Pixel phones.

Me? I love Google phones, warts and all — have done ever since the Nexus 4. The winning combo of pure Android software and innovative (even when doomed) features has been a cornerstone of the Nexus/Pixel lineage and that continued with the Pixel

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Apple’s 5G iPhone Will Need to Be More Than 5G

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

Apple Inc.


AAPL 1.74%

is master of the upsell, but 5G might present the company with its biggest challenge yet.

The tech giant has scheduled an event for Oct. 13, when it is widely expected to unveil this year’s iPhone lineup. As is typical, the company has said nothing about its plans for what would be the 20th iteration of its iconic smartphone, not counting large-screen variants of the same models. But leaks and supplier reports all have confirmed that the next-generation 5G wireless standard will be included in at least some of this year’s designs, and Apple itself dubbed

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Amazon One uses your palm to approve store purchases

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

Amazon is putting contactless payments in the palm of your hand. No, seriously. Today, the company has revealed Amazon One, a service that uses your unique palm signature to authenticate purchases and let you into gated locations, such as offices, gyms and stadiums. For now, palm reading is restricted to two Amazon Go stores — the type that doesn’t require you to interact with a cashier or self-service checkout — in Seattle. You’ll need to ‘enroll’ on your first visit by inserting your credit card and following the scanner’s on-screen instructions. Once your card and palm have been paired, you’ll

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Kepler launches first internally produced satellites

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

WASHINGTON — Canadian startup Kepler Communications launched Sept. 28 the first two satellites built in its own facility as the company ramps up its plans to deploy a constellation for data and Internet of Things services.

The two six-unit XL cubesats, known as Kepler-4 and Kepler-5 but nicknamed Antilles and Amidala, were among the 15 smallsat secondary payloads brokered by Exolaunch that launched on a Soyuz-2.1b from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 7:20 a.m. Eastern. The primary payload for the launch was a trio of Gonets satellites for the Russian government.

The two Kepler satellites are the first

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From chief technology officer to CEO

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

In the digital era, strong technology leadership correlates ever more closely with business revenue growth. Technology strategy, and the ability of chief technology officers to deliver it, is key to business success, not just for managing the performance and cost efficiency of enterprise technology, but to create the architecture and agility for new business models, taking advantage of emerging opportunities, and reaching customers in innovative ways. 

The overall technology architecture of a business is increasingly delivered as a platform that enables digital transformation across the enterprise. This includes rolling out new software and digitalizing processes, building up analytics and machine-learning

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D-Wave’s 5,000-qubit quantum computing platform handles 1 million variables

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

D-Wave today launched its next-generation quantum computing platform available via its Leap quantum cloud service. The company calls Advantage “the first quantum computer built for business.” In that vein, D-Wave today also debuted Launch, a jump-start program for businesses that want to begin building hybrid quantum applications.

“The Advantage quantum computer is the first quantum computer designed and developed from the ground up to support business applications,” D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz told VentureBeat. “We engineered it to be able to deal with large, complex commercial applications and to be able to support the running of those applications in production environments.

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Leaker: ‘iPhone 12 mini’ and iPhone 12 Storage Capacities Start at 64GB, Pro Models at 128GB

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

Rumors suggest Apple’s iPhone 12 launch event will be held on October 13, with the more affordable 5.4 and 6.1-inch devices set to ship out ahead of the more expensive 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch Pro devices, and this morning hit-and-miss leaker Jon Prosser has further committed to that date by providing alleged details on Apple’s first shipment of finalized ‌iPhone 12‌ units.


Prosser claims the initial shipment of ‌iPhone 12‌ units will go out to distributors on October 5 in advance of the launch event, and this will include the 5.4-inch ‌iPhone 12‌ “mini” – which he says is “definitely the

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8 Qualities of Great Leaders Who Get the Best Out of Their Teams

Elva Mankin 2 months ago


6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


In a world of increased flux and uncertainty, today’s sense of normal continues to shift and slide to finds its place in our lives and work. Amid significant business changes, leaders need to dig deeper into their sense of courage, empathy, and trust.

Leadership practices can determine how teams feel, observe, and lean on in times of crisis and ambiguity. Your team will remember throughout this period how they were led. They will be concerned about the information coming through and that their leaders are committed

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Google to Enforce Play Store Tax on the 3% of Apps Not Paying | Technology News

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

By Paresh Dave, Google, says, 3% and of

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google on Monday sought to rebut criticism that it selectively enforces its 30% mobile app store tax, demanding that the over 3% apps selling digital items without complying follow the rules within a year.

The change follows lawsuits by “Fortnite” video game maker Epic Games last month accusing Google and Apple Inc of anticompetitive conduct. Apps sold on the tech leaders’ stores are required to use their payment systems so they can collect a portion of sales, which developers describe as a tax. The companies are

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Play Gaming’s Greatest Hits For Only $5 A Month

Elva Mankin 2 months ago

Say what you will about mobile gaming on Android and iOS platforms, but when you look closely, it has all the qualities to succeed — rather, dominate. After all, the idea of “gaming on the go” simply fits today’s fast-paced world. 

The rise of mobile gaming

There’s just no beating being able to play anywhere and anytime you like. And while not everyone has a PS4, Xbox or a high-rig gaming PC that costs thousands of dollars, almost everyone has a smartphone these days, making it easy to pick a game from Google Play or the App Store and start

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