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Watch the Google Cloud Next keynote in under 13 minutes
With the Google Next 2018 conference -- the I/O for cloud computing -- now underway in San Francisco, the company spent some time Tuesday morning crowing over its most recent cloud-based accomplishments and explaining where the platform will be expanding in the future. Diane Greene, CEO of Google Cloud, took the stage to announce that this year's conference is the "biggest Google event ever" with more than 20,000 registered attendees.
'No Man's Sky' comes to Xbox this summer alongside huge update
No Man's Sky is coming to Xbox One this summer and it's bringing a massive update, called "Next", with it to PS4 and PC as well. It's so massive, in fact, that it's even got its own logo. There's no word on what it'll include, but previous updates Foundation, Pathfinder and Atlas Rises all drastically built upon the scope of the game, so you can expect significant additions. In a tweet, game founder Sean Murray said Next is "our largest update so far."
Steve Jobs' vintage wardrobe is up for auction
What's an Apple fanboy or fangirl supposed to do once they've filled their basement with vintage Apple hardware? Start filling up the closets with Steve Jobs' old clothes, of course. As TechCrunch reports, a whole wardrobe of the late Apple founder's shirts, bowties, watches, ID badges and other tossed-off goods are currently up for auction.
OS X is now macOS
After 15 years of large cats and a few California landmarks, Apple's OS X is getting a new name that's actually an old name. Apple's senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi announced that, henceforth, the operating system on desktop and laptops will be called macOS.
AT&T streamlines its smartphone installment plans
AT&T's current Next installment plans are a little bewildering, to put it mildly. Do you want to trade in at 12, 18 or 24 months? How about a downpayment and installments for 28 months? Mercifully, the carrier knows what a mess it made. As of June 9th, it's streamlining its installment plans to give you just two choices. The first, Next Every Year, is for habitual upgraders: you can get a new phone every 12 months if you agree to a 2-year payment plan. The regular option, just called Next, lets you upgrade every 2 years if you're willing to make payments over 30 months.
The first website went online 25 years ago today
If the web were a person, it wouldn't have trouble renting a car from now on: the world's first website, Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web, went online 25 years ago today. The inaugural page wasn't truly public when it went live at CERN on December 20th, 1990 (that wouldn't happen until August 1991), and it wasn't much more than an explanation of how the hypertext-based project worked. However, it's safe to say that this plain page laid the groundwork for much of the internet as you know it -- even now, you probably know one or two people who still think the web is the internet.
Huawei still thinks 6-inch phablets is the way to go
It's been well over a year since Huawei launched its premium Mate 7 phablet, and as of August, over five million units have been sold worldwide. That's far more impressive than the original goal of just one million phones. While the smaller Mate S has since been released, the company still believes in sticking to the masculine roots of the Mate series, which brings us to the Mate 8. Like before, this model sports the same 6-inch 1080p display spec but now also covers 95 percent of NTSC gamut. As a bonus, there's a piece of 2.5D glass on top of that. Of course, the biggest selling point this time is the new octa-core Kirin 950 chipset which promises much higher performance and efficiency at the same time, mainly thanks to the new 16nm FinFET+ process, some more powerful CPUs (4 x Cortex-A72 and 4 x Cortex-A53), ARM's flagship Mali-T880 GPU and integrated LTE Cat 6 modem.
ICYMI: Magic robot fingers, borked Tesla Autopilots and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512653{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512653, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512653{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-512653").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It: A Korean startup is set to launch a crowdfunding campaign for its home smartening "robotic fingers" -- internet-connected gadgets that push analog buttons so you don't have to. The self-driving cars of the future could look like terrestrial BORG cubes if designer Tommaso Gecchelin has anything to say about it. And speaking of the future of self-driving cars, Tesla recently announced that it will dumb down its "Autopilot" feature to prevent customers from abusing the technology. And don't forget this awesome Judge Dredd-inspired short film from Corrior Digital and Parrot drones. If you come across any interesting videos, we'd love to see them. Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd.
Rare photos show NeXT-era Jobs doing his best to change the world
Yesterday we brought you news of a Wired photo gallery with a few great early Steve Jobs photos from Doug Menuez's book Fearless Genius. Today, we bring you some more glimpses into Silicon Valley's golden age that Menuez has decided to share with us, along with his own insights and recollections from the moments the photos were taken. It's a fantastic look back in time and a ride well worth taking. You can pick up Fearless Genius via Amazon, and keep an eye on his Storehouse page this week as he'll be sharing additional photos from the book online for the very first time. Steve Jobs Explaining Ten Year Technology Development Cycles. Sonoma, California, 1986. Steve giving a history lesson about how technology evolves in ten year wave cycles to his new NeXT team at an off-site meeting. Every few months, Steve and the fledgling company's employees would travel to a retreat in the country with their families to grapple with myriad technical issues. There he would regularly hold talks to explain his vision for the company and to encourage his brilliant cofounders and employees to participate fully in its realization. Steve planned to ride the next wave by putting the power of a refrigerator-size mainframe computer into a one foot cube at a price affordable to universities, thus "transforming education." When I asked him what he meant by this, he said he wanted "some kid at Stanford to be able to cure cancer in his dorm room." Because he absolutely believed this was possible, his whole team did. Behind this noble goal, Steve was also on a quest for redemption and revenge after being forced out at Apple in a humiliating boardroom coup after alienating key board members and his handpicked CEO, John Sculley. Most industry pundits believed NeXT would be a huge and rapid success, as did Steve. Instead, it was the start of a decade of difficult, often bitter struggle. The Day Ross Perot Gave Steve Jobs $20 Million. Fremont, California, 1986. Steve was a consummate showman who understood the power of a compelling setting. This was never more apparent than at this incongruously formal lunch he hosted for Ross Perot and the NeXT board of directors in the middle of the abandoned warehouse he planned to turn into the NeXT factory. He told Perot that they were building the most advanced robotic assembly line in the world and that "no human hands" would be assembling hardware. He predicted that NeXT would be the last billion dollar a year company in Silicon Valley and that they would ship ten thousand computers a month. Perot, who was then championing a movement to reform education in the United States, was blown away by the presentation and invested $20 million, becoming a key board member and giving NeXT a crucial lifeline. Steve Jobs Returning from a Visit to the New Factory. Fremont, California, 1987. Although Steve could be extremely rude, critical, and occasionally even vindictive, he also was incredibly joyful, with an infectious grin and energy that was irresistible. In the early days at NeXT he would often come bounding in, hungry to get to work. Still, there were not too many unrestrained moments of hilarity such as this one, when Steve was riding back from a visit to the newly chosen factory site with the company employees in an old, rented yellow school bus. Geek Sex. Mountain View, California, 1991. Real-life boyfriend and girlfriend act out a rudimentary electrical metaphor at an Adobe Halloween party. Technology workers were notoriously socially inept and often shy, especially male engineers. Fantasy games and role playing were popular, and any opportunity to dress in costumes was welcomed. This couple repeated the ritual all over the company to the delight of fellow workers. The Painter David Hockney Rests during the First Photoshop Invitational. Mountain View, California, 1990. As digital technology grew more powerful, Silicon Valley became an unexpected crossroads of culture. Artists arrived from all over the world, eager to experiment and hang out at happenings such as the TED conference, creating a freeway and office park version of what Paris in the twenties must have felt like. Producer Quincy Jones and musicians Peter Gabriel and Herbie Hancock were early adopters. Graham Nash was so taken he started his own fine art digital printing business. Tom Wolfe had been out to write about Bob Noyce, the coinventor of the integrated circuit, and lots of writers followed, including Steve Jobs's half sister Mona Simpson. George Lucas was a pioneer in digital film, as was Francis Ford Coppola. The cultural ground was shifting, with the avantgarde gathering to push new digital ideas into the zeitgeist. Here, painter David Hockney, holding one of his beloved dachshunds, attends Russell Brown's first Adobe Photoshop Invitational, where he learned how to use the first release version of Photoshop, happily smoking in the computer room and playing with his dogs on breaks. Excerpted from the book Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000 by Doug Menuez, Atria Books. Foreword by Elliott Erwitt, Introduction by Kurt Andersen. All photographs ©Doug Menuez
Be the hippest hipster at your local Starbucks with a NeXT sticker for your MacBook
Want to show all the other MacBook-toting latte drinkers at your local coffee shop that you liked Apple before it was cool? There's no better way than boldly displaying your affection for the company that, by being acquired, brought co-founder Steve Jobs back into the Apple fold. For US$24.50, you can do just that. Say goodbye to that flashy, iconic glowing Apple on the lid of your MacBook and bury it under the goofy 3D cube and gaudy pastel colors of the NeXT logo. Only the coolest of the cool will get the reference, and the rest will just have to look it up on Wikipedia like the plebes they are. Ok, in all seriousness, I know that slapping one of these on my MacBook Air would be the most obnoxious thing in the world... but I can't shake the itch to do it. Maybe I'll just get a NeXT coffee mug instead. That's probably the less cringe-worthy option, right?
Rogers lets Canadians upgrade phones with no money down, plus a few catches
Where American carriers go, so goeth their Canadian counterparts. Rogers has revealed an upcoming Next program that, like its AT&T parallel, will let early adopters get new phones every 12 months for less cash than it would take using the standard upgrade path. As long as the contract price for a phone is $250 or less, you won't have to pay anything for it up front; you'll just shell out a flat $25 per month ($30 with insurance) and trade in your older Rogers hardware. The math potentially makes sense if you just have to get a new device every year. However, there are some big caveats you'll want to consider. You'll still be signing a two-year agreement when starting out, and you'll have to subscribe to "select" plans. We'll learn more about Next's true value when it's available in the near future, but those who despise contracts (or prefer their grandfathered plans) aren't likely to change their minds.
Your carrier wants you to buy into early upgrades, but should you take the bait?
We get it. It's been a year since you got a new phone, and it doesn't have a Super Ultra HD screen, 80MP camera or fancy pants 50-core processor. You pine for the latest and greatest mobile toy, but it's probably going to cost you a lot, right? Well, yes. But in the past year, every major US network has eased the pain by introducing device installment plans, many of which allow you to trade in your current phone for a newer, hipper model. Most of these plans, which are designed to let you pay off your device over several months, are still more expensive than the average two-year contract, regardless of who you sign it with. But whether you like it or not, they're here to stay. T-Mobile gets credit for starting the movement: Shortly after it announced its installment and early upgrade plans, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all followed with options of their own. Ever since, the new plans have led to a massive pricing war, and the resulting price drops (most recently from AT&T and Verizon) have made them more tempting. But what does it all mean for you?
New AT&T plan makes it cheaper to share smartphone data off-contract
AT&T's current Mobile Share plans can be quite expensive for families and small offices that don't want to be tied to a contract. However, service is potentially more affordable through a new plan launching Sunday. The tier starts at $130 per month with two off-contract lines for new customers (existing contract customers can also sign up) and 10GB of shared data, but it costs a more modest $15 per extra line instead of the regular $25; the carrier reckons that a family of four could save anywhere from $40 to $100 per month over the regular rates. You can go for more than 10GB of data if your clan craves extra bandwidth, too. It's not clear if AT&T's deal will be enough to lure families away from low-cost carriers like T-Mobile, but it's certainly a better offer than before.
AT&T is veering away from subsidized phones, and it's paying off
The wireless industry in the United States is in the midst of some rather significant changes. Ever since T-Mobile implemented its Jump program early last year, the carrier has turned subscriber loss into massive gains. The company's success is rubbing off, too. AT&T's Next program is very similar to Jump, which lets customers pay off their phones in monthly installments and become eligible for upgrades earlier, and is just one example of a major transformation taking place throughout the industry. According to AT&T's earnings report, the company saw more than 1 million Next sales, which accounted for 15 percent of all smartphones sold in the quarter. AT&T CFO John Stephens elaborated in today's investor call, saying that Next accounted for 20 percent of total sales in December alone. This doesn't sound like much right now, but the big picture shows a different story. Next is actually growing at an incredibly fast pace, and it's unlikely that AT&T will change course anytime soon.
Productivity app Todoist drops the price and adds collaboration features
The latest version of the app Todoist, referred to simply as "Next," hopes to capture the attention of the busy bees among us by offering small-scale project management features at a new, affordable cost of... zero dollars. Alongside a streamlined iOS 7-esque design, Todoist added a new visual scheduling interface that makes it easier to chronologically view and delegate tasks. Most significantly, the app is finally following in the footsteps of competitors like Wunderlist by bringing real-time collaboration on 13 different platforms. Users can work alongside five of their friends without shelling out any cash, but for $30 a year, said colleague cap is bumped to 25 (26 in total). Premium users also get features like task labels, notes and filters. So if you're handling more than your fair share getting that startup off the ground (duh), it might just be worth the investment. To download it yourself check the source links below.
AT&T now offering Next upgrades within six months for existing contracted customers
AT&T is looking to make its Next smartphone payment plan a little more prominent. You'll be eligible to hop on-board the Next bandwagon in a mere six months and start swapping handsets sooner, if you were already under a two-year service agreement before January 18th. If you walked out of an AT&T store this morning with the carrier's typical contract, well, you're stuck with your handset for the next 20 months. We imagine that somewhere, surrounded by magenta, John Legere is smiling.
Here are all of Valve's Steam Machines from CES 2014, in specs
Remember those Steam Machine partners we heard about? Gabe Newell just took the stage at Valve's CES 2014 event and made them official, doling out specs for gaming rigs from Alienware, CyberPower, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, Falcon Northwest, and more. There are thirteen machines in all, varying from $500 to $6000 a piece. Not all of them revealed their full hardware specifications, but skip past the break, and we'll give you a rundown of what we know.
Valve's Steam Machine partners include Alienware, Gigabyte, more
Valve is working with partners to bring Steam Machines into living rooms this year, and our Engadget pals learned of some of those partners at this year's CES trade show in Vegas. Dell subsidiary Alienware and Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte are two of the stand-out names among the 12 third-parties in Engadget's list. The dozen comprises Alienware, Alternate, CyberPower PC, Digital Storm Falcon Northwest, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, Materiel.net, Next, Scan Computers, Webhallen, and Zotac, although Engadget notes Valve may unveil other partners at CES, particularly at its press conference later today. Valve revealed the Steam Machines program last year as part of a three-headed march on the living room, along with SteamOS, its customized Linux operating system, and its Steam-optimized controller. Valve's aim is to provide a variety of Steam-centric gaming machines to suit a variety of homes. So far the number of homes is restricted to 300, where the same number of first-party Steam Machines reside as part of beta testing.
Here are Valve's 14 Steam Machines partners (so far)
Valve's Steam Machines initiative is supported by a first-party box that 300 beta users have right now, but 2014 is all about third-party Steam Machines taking that reference box and running with it. Thus far, the only third parties we know of that're making Steam Machines are iBuyPower and Digital Storm -- today, that all changes. Alienware, Falcon Northwest, iBuyPower, CyberPowerPC, Origin PC, Gigabyte, Materiel.net, Webhallen, Alternate, Next, Zotac and Scan Computers are among the first companies signed on to support Valve's initiative, Engadget learned this afternoon. The entire lineup will be on display this week at CES 2014, and we'll have many more details in the coming days. Beyond the dozen companies above, it's totally possible that there are other third parties signed on for Steam Machines -- we'll have to wait and see when Valve unveils everything at its press conference tomorrow afternoon. Update: As seen in the image above, live from Valve's CES 2014 presser, those third-party manufacturers are double confirmed. Maingear is the final addition that makes 14 in total.
AT&T's lower off-contract pricing and revamped Mobile Share plans launch next week
Whether or not you buy into T-Mobile CEO John Legere's UnCarrier strategy, we can't dispute the fact that it's at least making waves in the US wireless industry. Some of the network's biggest competitors are responding with new strategies of their own, and AT&T is one of them. Starting next Sunday, the GSM giant will make a few noticeable tweaks to its Mobile Share and Next plans. What's on the menu for December 8th? Quite a bit, so let's break it down. Under the current plans, your per-smartphone cost goes down as your data plan goes up; for instance, you pay $50 per smartphone on the 300MB plan, but only $30 if you're on any plan that's 10GB or higher. And as it stands right now, you still pay that same amount after your contract expires. With the new changes, you can tack smartphones onto your plan at a flat rate of $40 a pop, but you get a $15 discount on each one if you aren't in a contract. (AT&T informed us that as soon as your commitment expires, the rate is automatically taken off, so you don't need to call in to make the adjustment.) Basic phones are lower too, seeing a drop from $30 per handset to $20. Along with this change, the base cost for each data tier has moved as well; we'll add a table after the break to show what's different. The higher tiers get a significant drop to make up for the additional per-device charge, so keep that in mind if you have a lot of smartphones on your plan. On the other hand, the lower tiers become more advantageous when you add more lines. There's also a new 8GB plan that fits right in between the 6GB and 10GB options.
