With a bustling stand-up scene and perhaps the best Improv scene on the planet, Chicago is more often than not the place aspiring comedians flock to as they embark on their comedy careers. Indeed, the list of comedy greats who got their start in Chicago is seemingly endless: Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Steve Carrell, Bob Odenkirk, Chris Farley, and Adam McKay are just a few of many who come to mind.
We already know that the Finns are exceptionally good at developing mobile games but it turns out they have other talents as well, including coming up with exciting new death-defying stunts.
With several incidents of alleged police brutality making headlines in recent months, it seems police in New York have come up with a new way to bolster their public image: By editing Wikipedia pages on alleged police brutality incidents and changing them to make them more favorable to the officers involved.
The pirate's answer to Netflix is now offline. Popcorn Time streamed dozens of free movies straight from their torrent files to computers all around the world, and the creators never stopped claiming that it was all completely legal. They even checked four times! But despite the massive response, much of which the creators say was positive, the app has been permanently disconnected. According to the message that now dominates the front page of the app's website, the creators no longer want to be a part of "endless debates about piracy and copyright, legal threats and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love." We'll be keeping an eye out to see if the team has anything else in store for the future.
Just like Apple but on a smaller scale – at least for the time being – Google has been hit with an in-app purchase related lawsuit recently, prompting the company to issue an update for its Google Play Store that brings a fix to this potential content purchasing issue. Android Police was the first to spot the Google Play Store 4.6.16 update, which brings a new “Require password” option that, when turned on, will always require the account password for purchases. Otherwise, the 30-minute purchase window will still be available once an application is acquired.
Samsung is preparing its second-generation S Band, even as it failed to ship its first-generation version. According to a sales guide obtained by SamMobile , the new S Band will function similarly to its predecessor but feature a much-improved design. The new S Band will track sleep, calories, steps and distance, and will connect to compatible Samsung smartphones over Bluetooth. If the S Band loses its connection it will alert the user with a vibration and LED light. The new design is sleek and simple, with no screen and only a single LED light. It can be worn either as a watch or as a clip attached to clothes; when worn as a watch, the black band can be swapped for different color bands, including white, yellow, orange and gray.
Although every smartphone has its share of fanboys, not everyone who who uses a particular phone is destined to become particularly loyal to it. The Wall Street Journal draws our attention to a recent Statista survey of more than 3,000 smartphone owners that asked them whether they planned to stick with their current brand the next time they bought a new device. Unsurprisingly Apple fans were the most loyal, as 76% said they planned to stick with the iPhone. Samsung came in second place, with 58% of Galaxy owners saying they planned to buy a Samsung phone with their next purchase.
Titanfall is quite possibly the most fun any of us will have with a video game in 2014. It's not perfect, it's not especially robust, it doesn't offer limitless customization or even a real campaign, but the sheer joy of movement coupled with some of the most intense action of any online shooter in console history more than makes up for any missing features.
Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates isn't going to sugarcoat things: The increasing power of automation technology is going to put a lot of people out of work. Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots.
While some companies are coming up with new hardware and software meant to thwart spying attempts and protect the privacy of the users, other companies are creating exactly the kind of software the NSA would be proud to use in order to covertly access all data on a smart device, Forbes reveals. Devices pre-loaded with mSpy software, that’s apparently undetectable to the user, can send a boatload of information to a site where the person who has access to the software can track activity.
Consumers excited by the prospect of a fitness tracker that does more than just sit idly on your wrist and record your steps can now rest assured that one of the most intriguing wearable concepts we have seen do date will definitely be launching later this year. Moov on Friday announced that not only did it reach its crowdfunding goal of $40,000, its campaign took just 90 minutes to do so. And $40,000 is nothing compared to the company's total raise thus far, which now sits at almost $1 million two weeks after the campaign launched.
According to Moov, its campaign is "the most successful fitness crowdfunding campaign ever."
Long before sales figures and game releases dominated the headlines, the only thing any gamer wanted to talk about was Microsoft's radical online strategy for the Xbox One. As it was originally described, the Xbox One was going to be an online-only console in the strictest sense -- if you weren't connected to the Internet, the device wouldn't function. After several unsuccessful attempts to reach a middle ground with consumers, Microsoft threw in the towel and reverted to the standard policies of the previous generation.
After months of testing, Apple's iOS 7.1 software was finally released to the public earlier this week. It came right on schedule, as per an earlier exclusive BGR report, but the wait was still agonizing for enthusiastic iPhone users waiting to see what Apple had in store for its first major revision following the big iOS 7 overhaul last year. Overall, the update brings tons of important improvements and bug fixes, and it brought about some new problems as well, the worst of which is likely shorter battery life. But what's the best new feature in iOS 7.1?
One highly anticipated Apple gadget rumored to release this year has been the so-called "iPad Pro," a 12.9-inch version of Apple's iconic tablet that was to have been targeted toward educational markets. However, Digitimes' sources now hear that Apple has scrapped this project for the time being in part because "large-size tablet projects face difficulties because of lack of support from related platform developers and ecosystems."
iOS users that have not yet upgraded to the latest OS version may have a good reason to stay away from it even though it offers several improvements and refinements, and it's not the fact that iOS 7.1 breaks the evasi0n jailbreak. Users who have upgraded to iOS 7.1 have complained on Twitter and on Apple’s support forums that they’re experiencing battery issues. Apparently, the batteries on many different Apple device models are draining faster with iOS 7.1 installed than with a previous version.
We hadn't heard much about the rumored set-top box from Amazon this month, but on Friday we finally got a glimpse of what looks to be the official game controller that the device will support. Zatz Not Funny has leaked the first images of the controller, which appears to draw heavily from the Xbox controller design, with similar placement for the analog sticks, the d-pad, the face buttons and the shoulder buttons.
9to5Mac's Mark Gurman has been on a roll all week with leaked information on iOS 8 and he continues on Friday by giving us some more details on changes being considered for the Notification Center and Messages. According to Gurman's sources, Apple is considering greatly simplifying the Notification Center in iOS 8 by adding all your missed notifications in with the general pile of notifications. In this way, instead of having three columns in the Notification Center for today's notifications, missed notifications and all notifications, you'll only have two for "Today" and "All."
After a couple of reports from Taiwan suggested that Google may be posing significant opposition to Asus’ plans to ship the dual-booting Android/Windows Transformer Book Duet tablet/laptop combo, a new story from the Wall Street Journal reveals that Microsoft is equally interested in stopping such projects. Thus, the Transformer Book Duet, one of the interesting new devices unveiled at CES 2014, has been “indefinitely postponed,” according to sources familiar with the matter.
In-flight entertainment services have made huge strides over the past several years but there has still always been major problem: It's just not much fun to watch a movie on a dinky little screen. Via AppleInsider , United Airlines is looking to change that, which is why it's announced a new streaming service that will eventually let you watch in-flight movies on your own tablet, laptop or smartphone.
Before they were famous: Video of Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Bill Murray, and others at Second City