Articles by Peter Suciu

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, on Thursday released the second generation of its Spectacles, a wearable video camera that captures short clips that can be synced to a smartphone. The new version also takes still photos and is designed to be water-resistant The new Spectacles sport the same basic Ray-Ban style design as the first iteration, but ...

Google on Wednesday rolled out a number of new features designed to make its G Suite collaboration and productivity apps more efficient and safer to use G Suite currently has more than 4 million paying business customers, according to Google....

SalesHero on Tuesday introduced a new artificial intelligence-based sales assistant known as "Robin." Built for the sales rep, Robin can learn from a user's actions and automate processes to help improve a sales team's daily productivity Robin can access data from customer relationship management systems, customer interactions, and SaleHero's own p...

Amazon on Thursday introduced Alexa Skill Blueprints, adding personalization capabilities to its smart speaker devices. The new tool provides pre-crafted templates for users to create customized experiences. Among the possibilities are answers to specific questions or skills for particular users, such as houseguests With Alexa Skill Blueprints, use...

Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer for Amazon's next generation of Fire TV Edition smart TVs in the United States and Canada under a new multiyear partnership the firms announced Wednesday Best Buy will carry more than 10 4K and HD Fire TV Edition models from Insignia and Toshiba starting this summer....

Microsoft, Oracle, and Facebook, along with 31 other companies, on Tuesday, signed the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, an agreement aimed at defending against cyberattacks, whether coming from rogue hackers or nation-states. The 34 tech firms committed to stronger defenses, no offensive attacks, capacity building, and collective action The accord is des...

Disney on Thursday introduced ESPN+, an all-in-one, direct-to-consumer premium streaming service that offers thousands of live sporting events as well as original series and films. It also will provide access to the vast ESPN on-demand library ESPN+ is the first such premium service from The Walt Disney Company's Direct-To-Consumer and Internationa...

Facebook on Wednesday announced an update to its policies for restricting data access on its platform. The move came just two weeks after the company said it would take a "hard look" at the information apps could use when connected to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also discussed some of Facebook's new efforts to shore up user privacy protections in ...

Nearly a week after it became the target of one of the largest ransomware attacks to date, the City of Atlanta has made progress toward recovery, but it is still far from business as usual. Hackers encrypted many of the city government's vital data and computer systems The ransomware attack, which Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms characterized as "a host...

YouTube this week announced that it will ban videos related to the sale or assembly of firearms, as well as certain gun accessories, including bump stocks. The new rules will take effect in April. YouTube is a division of Alphabet-owned Google Under the new rules, all videos that show how to construct or even repair a firearm are banned -- even tho...

Google this week announced that it will open its Maps APIs to video game developers, which could result in far more realistic settings in augmented reality games. With access to real-time map updates and rich location data, developers will have many choices of settings for their games The APIs will provide devs with what Google has described as a "...

Samsung's new Galaxy S9 and S9+ handsets claimed the spotlight on Thursday as the first reviews of the smartphones surfaced. The general consensus appears to be that these new models were successfully built on past designs yet fell short in numerous areas. The new phones are good -- but anyone expecting revolutionary functionality may be disappointed...

Uber on Thursday introduced Uber Health, a new service designed to provide reliable transportation specifically for healthcare-related needs. The program, which is currently in beta, will offer healthcare providers a way to order rides for their patients to help them keep their appointments Uber Health addresses a growing problem, especially with s...

Apple's new US$350 HomePod could make an impact in several ways. In addition to providing listeners with highly praised sound quality, the smart speaker literally could make an impression on some of the wood surfaces it touches -- in the form of white rings The HomePod, which is compatible only with other Apple products, can stream music to those w...

The parade of Olympic athletes entering Pyeongchang, South Korea, could be quite colorful for a few reasons. Athletes from North and South Korea will enter together for the first time in more than a decade, and viewers at home will be able to see the ceremony -- and even some events -- like never before NBCUniversal has decided to make the XXIII Ol...

User engagement with podcasts has been steadily increasing, and many listeners actually prefer longer-format content, based on results of Apple's Podcast Analytics reported this week. The service, which Apple launched late last year, gives podcasters a way to track performance metrics, including the number of listeners, total time listened, and time per device...

Google on Thursday announced a new feature that will let users mute so-called" reminder ads" in third-party apps and websites that are powered by its ad engine. It plans to expand this feature to its own services, including Gmail, YouTube, and Google Search, in the coming months The new tool is the latest addition to Google's dashboard for ad contr...

Google on Wednesday announced that page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches starting in July. Speed has already been a factor in desktop search rankings. Soon, as part of Google's new "SpeedUpdate," page loading time will be factored in when ranking mobile search results as well The change will affect only pages that deliver the slow...

In recent years, CES largely has usurped the North American International Auto Show in Detroit as the "first auto show of the year." Automakers have used the annual Las Vegas shindig for all things consumer electronics to highlight the latest technology in vehicles So perhaps it was fitting that this year NAIAS, more commonly known as the "Detroit ...

Nintendo on Thursday revealed its upcoming Switch games for 2018 via a Nintendo Direct Mini video. Riding high after its major comeback last year, Nintendo announced a number of game titles that will be released in the first half of the year, including Mario Tennis Aces, Dark Souls, Donkey Kong Country, and Kirby Star Allies, as well as a new mode for the hit Super Mario Odyssey...