Aftermath
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After Math: Liar, liar, pants on fire
Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you this week a broken man. My childhood dream of seeing a speedy video game rodent hero break the fourth wall and go on a road trip with a middling white male actor I only sort of recognize has been shattered. Not because he doesn't do exactly that, but because of those teeth. Those human, human teeth.
After Math: No Spoilers!
As the moviegoing public anxiously awaited this weekend's release of Avengers: Endgame, the rest of the tech world moved ahead as if nobody had been snapped. Here are some of the week's top headlines you may have missed while scouring Fandango for open Endgame seats.
After Math: Move fast and break laws
While the world held its collective breath this week ahead of Special Counsel Mueller's damning report on the current administration's conduct, the tech industry went ahead and let out all the bad news it had been holding onto for just such a moment. Facebook had another data breach -- shocking, I know -- Car2Go got hit with a massive fraud scheme, the Galaxy Fold is just as janky as you thought it'd be and of course everybody was GoT pirating.
After Math: Eat your heart out, Soundgarden
From the first direct images of a black hole and a nearly-successful private moon landing to self-healing exosuits and self-retrieving rockets, read on for the top stories from what's been a stellar week for space science!
After Math: It's big ball chunky time
Baseball season is the best season, regardless of what summer tells you. So take a cue from the MLB's Korea marketing team, grab your glove and get ready for 162 games, that's 486 hours, of Great American Pastime. Of course, not everybody is into sportsball -- and that's fine -- we've got plenty of news of companies playing games of their own too.
After Math: To all the games we loved before
Now that GDC 2019 has wrapped, it's time to take a quick look back at all the week's gaming news you might have missed.
After Math: It's the circle of tech
While most of us now need Buzzfeed quizzes about "things only '90s kids would recognize" to remember what a Blockbuster is, the franchise's inevitable demise is still something to be commemorated -- if only by finally returning that VHS copy of Batman Forever you've been holding onto. But even as some companies fade into oblivion, others flourish in the market spaces left over. Here are a few from this week.
After Math: Now let's just wait a Momo
The only thing more popular on the internet than racism is a good hoax. The more batshit, the better. Every wacky conspiracy imaginable, from vaccines causing autism to the world being flat, can be found on the interwebs. But even more popular are the near-mythical hoaxes which have convinced folks that the Slender Man is real and Momo (pictured below) is anything other than a well-photoshopped screencap. And while the following news is in no way fake, it will give you pause -- if even for a Momo.
After Math: Mobile World Mayhem
Mobile World Congress is kicking off this weekend in Barcelona, Spain and Engadget's crack team of reporters will be coming to you live from the show floor! But the trade show isn't the only thing making mobile news this week: Chevy's finally adding a "Find my Car" feature to its app, Intel's pumping the brakes on rumors of its 5G modem availability, and Facebook is (unsurprisingly) once again in trouble for scraping sensitive data from its mobile users. In less disturbing news, BMW and Daimler are looking to invest a billion dollars into a different sort of "mobile" project.
After Math: Love is in the AR
While most of us are still recovering from the frenzied orgy of capitalist affection that is Valentine's Day, companies from all over the industry continue to fly forth like arrows fired from Cupid's bow. Google announced it will be spreading some of its "computer love" to nearly half the US by year's end, while Activision isn't showing its now ex-employees any. Oh yeah, and Benedict Cumberbatch is Satan.
After Math: Get outta my dreams, get into my rocket ship
Jeff Bezos has been trying to get biz-ay. And failing spectacularly at it. The Amazon CEO is accusing the National Enquirer of "extortion and blackmail" after pictures of his dink somehow ended up in the tabloid's hands. But he wasn't the only one this week wishing to hop on the fastest transport available and make a run for it.
After Math: Gamer, set, match
Gaming enthusiasts had a lot to cheer for this week. Google revealed the results of a competition between its Starcraft II AI and a pair of pro players, though there wasn't much "competition" in the 10-1 bloodbath. GDC's State of the Industry survey revealed broad support for unionization initiatives among respondents. And of course Farming Simulator now has its own eSports league.
After Math: Watch out now!
You'd think that the week after CES would bring at least a brief lull in the firehose that is tech news, but you'd be wrong. Google's paying $40 million for Fossil's smartwatch tech; LG's holding a huge sale for last year's most expensive sets ahead of the Super Bowl; and for some reason, Aaron Sorkin doesn't think we've had enough onscreen Zuckerberg (he too is wrong).
After Math: How we survived CES 2019
As cleanup crews descend on the Las Vegas Convention Center and the events attendees reluctantly make their ways home, it's hard to believe that the weeklong technology expo is already over. We saw autonomous bread machines, self-driving semis, and even self-heating razors amidst the gaggle of cutting edge gadgets. Here are some of the coolest tech toys that we got to play with at CES 2019.
After Math: Hope for the Holidays
While Christmas decorations have already been festooned throughout big box retailers since the start of November, the holiday season is finally in full swing now that Thanksgiving is over. As such, industry and government both are gearing up to celebrate the reason for the season: capitalism.
'Aftermath' is a 360-degree walkthrough of the Camp Fire devastation
Camp Fire, the tragedy that killed at least 85 victims and destroyed around 14,000 homes across Paradise, California, continues to torment as residents start returning to the ruin as of yesterday. News channels around the world have been offering a sober look at what little is left behind the walls of fire, but not long after disaster struck, former Lytro exec Steve Cooper already sensed the need to capture a proper first-hand account of this unprecedented catastrophic event. With help from his firefighter friend at the scene plus CAL FIRE's media team, the filmmaker eventually arrived in Paradise on November 13th -- day five of Camp Fire -- with his SUV and 360 camera to commence his two-day shoot. The result was the aptly named Aftermath, a seven-minute 8K 360 video documentary now available on YouTube.
After Math: Let's shake things up
As Anchorage, Alaska was being rocked by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake this week (which, as of the writing of this post, had thankfully only resulted in infrastructure damage and not any actual injuries), the tech industry was making major rumblings of its own. Tesco is teaming with VW to change how shoppers charge their cars, Lyft plans to triple the number of available CitiBikes, Fortnite continues to curbstomp its battle royale competition, and Microsoft (ever so briefly) stole the crown for "world's most valuable business" from Apple.
After Math: To all the turkeys I loved before
The holiday season has officially kicked into high gear, which means it's time to gather around the hearth, count your blessings and quietly roll your eyes as uncle Jerry launches once again into why smoke wouldn't rise straight up if the Earth weren't flat. While he's blowing smoke about thermodynamic theory, here are some examples of tech institutions finding the holiday spirit and giving back to their fans.
After Math: The anti-social network
It's not been a great week for the world's most expansive and invasive social site. Besides being temporarily knocked offline on Monday, the platform is hemorrhaging morale, struggling to address its ubiquitous disinformation issues (going so far as to appoint an "independent" content moderation oversight committee), and was the subject of a scathing exposé by the New York Times.
After Math: They're on the move
With the president's made up migrant caravan crisis having mysteriously vanished now that the midterms are over, it's time to take a look at the other movers and shakers from the industry this week. Volkswagen announced the development of a $23k Tesla rival, China has developed security cameras can now ID people by their gait, and Google's built a computer model to guess which restaurants will give you the runs.
