Stefanie Fogel

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Stories By Stefanie Fogel

  • Classic Zombies maps are coming to 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 3'

    I'm not a big Call of Duty fan, admittedly, but I have fond memories of Black Ops 2's Zombies mode. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. The shambling undead have been a popular part of the franchise for many years. Now, Treyarch is tapping into that nostalgia with its next DLC for Black Ops 3. Zombies Chronicles will feature eight remastered versions of classic Zombies mode maps, co-studio head Jason Blundell announced today in an interview with YouTuber JCbackfire.

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  • An AI can recognize musical genres better than humans

    Can you tell the difference between big band and boogie woogie? An algorithm can. Product design and development firm Cambridge Consultants says it's created a machine learning AI that can identify different musical styles better than humans. It's basically Jack Black in High Fidelity without the douchey elitism.

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  • Would you pay $1,600 to replace your sheet music with a tablet?

    Last year, we told you about the Gvido, a lovely double-screened tablet designed to organize and display sheet music. Created by Japanese company Terrada Music, it allows musicians to turn pages with the tap of a finger. Now, it looks like the Gvido is finally getting ready to ship. It'll be available on September 20th for a measly $1,600.

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  • 3D audio will make the next 'Doctor Who' episode even scarier

    This Saturday's episode of Doctor Who is a spooky affair called "Knock Knock," and it's getting a special binaural edition online immediately after the episode's premiere. Anyone wearing headphones (it's best experienced with headphones) can enjoy the 3D "surround sound" effect as they follow the Doctor and Bill on their latest adventure.

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  • Airbnb makes it easier for road warriors to find a room

    Airbnb is becoming a more popular option for business travelers. Employees from more than 250,000 companies around the world have signed up to use it for work, the company says. So, Airbnb caters to these road warriors with a new search tool that shows only listings suited for business travel.

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  • Nerdcore artist Mega Ran takes us on a Gameboy nostalgia trip

    Nerdcore artist Mega Ran has a new video out today and it's full of Nintendo nostalgia. Church ft. KadeshFlow is a fun homage to the 8-bit visual style popularized by the GameBoy in the late 1980s. In the video, Mega Ran and KadeshFlow make their way through a green dot-matrix world full of retro gaming references to battle ghosts at Alex Trebek's house (Trebek has been a favored target of the nerdcore community ever since he called them "losers" on an episode of Jeopardy!).

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  • Google Trips is now more helpful for anyone afraid to fly

    Last year, Google released Trips, an app for iOS and Android that helps you keep track of your itinerary while traveling. It automatically collects information from your Gmail inbox, organizes it and makes it available offline. It even offers suggestions on things to see and do. Now, it's getting some new features that will make it an even better vacation guide.

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  • KeyMe aims to replace locksmiths with kiosks in more cities

    If you lock yourself out of your home or car, you typically have only one option -- call a locksmith and hope they can get to you quickly. But you'll pay a small fortune for their time and expertise. New York-based startup KeyMe wants to change all that. The company, whose iOS and Android apps digitally scan images of your keys and store them in the cloud, today announced it plans to aggressively expand to more cities around the country, opening over 2,000 self-serve kiosks by the end of this year.

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  • Disney's projection tech turns actors' faces into nightmare fuel

    Disney is taking scary clown makeup to the next level. It's using a new projection system to transform the appearance of actors during live performances, tracking facial expressions and "painting" them with light, rather than physical makeup. Called Makeup Lamps, the system was developed by a team at Disney Research, and it could potentially change the way stage makeup is used in future theater productions.

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  • HTC realizes most people don't have a VR-ready PC

    HTC is making it easier for you to buy a Vive. The company just rolled out three new bundles for the virtual reality headset that include PCs and graphics cards for the first time. If you already have a decent rig but need a new graphics card, you can now get the Vive and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition for $999.99. That's $200 cheaper than the suggested retail price, HTC says. You can also finance the bundle for as low as $49 per month for 24 months (estimated shipping plus tax), but these are temporary offers that run through April 24th.

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  • Telltale's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' game arrives tomorrow

    The first episode of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, Tangled Up in Blue, arrives tomorrow, and you can get a sneak peek at all the action and space snark in the official launch trailer. The series is a brand-new Guardians story not connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After an epic battle, Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot find a powerful artifact that they all covet for their own reasons, as does a mysterious enemy who is the last of her kind.

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  • People really like to watch a giraffe give birth

    For weeks, animal lovers have been holding their breath in anticipation waiting for April, a 15-year-old giraffe at Animal Adventure Park in New York, to give birth. Well, the moment finally arrived last Saturday. April had a healthy baby boy, and millions of people turned to YouTube to watch.

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  • GOP rep. on ISP privacy rules: 'Nobody's got to use the internet'

    The internet is a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. It's where many of us turn when we need to file our taxes, apply for jobs or search for housing. But one Republican lawmaker who voted to roll back FCC privacy regulations last month said, "Nobody's got to use the internet" when asked about his decision at a town hall meeting, displaying a staggering amount of ignorance about how the internet affects the modern world.

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  • This experimental e-book gets edited every time it changes hands

    A Universe Explodes is an unusual e-book in a variety of ways. Best viewed on a mobile device, it's about 20 pages long and has 128 words per page. Only 100 people "own" the original version, though the book itself is free and can be read by anyone at any time. Each copy can be shared with up to 100 others, but first each owner must personalize it by removing two words and adding one to every page. Since each copy is subtly different, they are all considered "limited editions." Owners are required to share the book with a friend once they're done editing it -- and each time the e-book is passed on, more and more words disappear until there's only one left per page.

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  • Stream your favorite animated classics for $5 a month

    If you're itching to return to the days where you watched Saturday morning cartoons in your pajamas while eating cold cereal straight from the box (I can't be the only one, right?), Boomerang is now live. Turner has turned the digital TV channel into a standalone streaming service where subscribers can watch over 1,000 episodes -- and over a dozen movies -- of classics like Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes and more.

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  • Google's AutoDraw turns your clumsy scribbles into art

    Google wants to help you get in touch with your inner Picasso. Today, it's launching AutoDraw, a web-based tool that uses machine learning to turn your hamfisted doodling into art. It's similar to, but clearly far more advanced than, Android Wear's ability to recognize a crudely drawn smiley face and replace it with an emoji.

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  • Relive 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II' on Xbox One starting today

    Ask a Xbox One fan what game they'd most like to see added to the console's backwards compability list and you'll probably get Call of Duty: Black Ops II as an answer. It was the most-requested title on the Xbox Feedback site. Even Xbox boss Phil Spencer once told a fan on Twitter he really wanted to see it come to the Xbox One.

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  • AMD is spending money to 'solve' the wireless VR problem

    AMD is a company best-known for its computer processors and graphics cards. Now, it wants to help build the next generation of virtual reality headsets. Today, it announced it's acquired intellectual property and key engineering talent from Austin-based startup Nitero, a company that builds 60GHz wireless chips for VR and AR.

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  • Play 'The Elder Scrolls Online' for free this week

    Bethesda is trying to boost The Elder Scrolls Online's player base less than two months before the launch of its big Morrowind expansion. Starting tomorrow at 10 am EST, anyone can download and play the game on PC, Xbox One or PlayStation 4 for free for an entire week.

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