The Supreme Court will rule in a seven year battle over claims the iOS App Store is an illegal monopoly. The case was originally based on two facts: that iOS users can’t (officially) download apps from any other source, and that Apple takes a cut of the app revenues. The plaintiffs say the former point […]
Blizzard has revealed more details of the World of Warcraft classic edition. It will combine the 2006 state of the game with 2018 technology. The idea is to blend nostalgia for the classic version of the game (before the first Burning Crusade expansion) with the benefits of modern editions, including measures to prevent cheating The […]
Google is changing the way users can install Chrome extensions. You’ll now only be able to do so by visiting the Chrome Web Store itself. Sites will no longer be able to have a one-click button that directly installs the extension, known as an inline installation. Instead such buttons will have to lead to the […]
Police will find it harder to read a suspect’s iPhone without permission thanks to a security change. They’ll have to be much quicker to access the data on the phone. The change means that the data connection in the Lightning port will be disabled after a set period if the phone is locked, a feature known […]
A woman is suing Nasa over fears it will seize what she says is a vial of moon dust. The pre-emptive lawsuit seeks to prevent Nasa from claiming ownership of the vial. If it is indeed from the moon as claimed, the legal status would be in question. The BBC notes a 2012 law that […]
Fortnite is to run a world championship tournament with $100 million in prize money. It will be largely based on solo and duos play rather than professional league teams. The tournament will be known as the Fortnite World Cup, with qualifiers beginning this fall and the ‘World Cup’ itself coming in late 2019. It’s far […]
Uber has applied for a patent to spot would-be passengers who are drunk. Even if granted and used, the patent wouldn’t necessarily mean such passengers would be denied access to the service. The patent – filed in 2016 but only just made public – uses the euphemism “predicting user state” but the detail and context […]
A US supercomputer has become the first to pass the 100 petaflops barrier… and in fact doubled it. ‘Summit’, housed at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, isn’t yet ‘officially’ the world’s fastest computer, but will almost certainly take the crown in the next bi-annual list from the TOP500 project. The current […]
Ikea is to team up with Lego, saying the resulting products will cover both adults and children. It’s playing catch-up on several fronts however. The news emerged at a press event when Ikea said it will be partnering with several brands for next year, with confirmed products including a Sonos speaker that fits with some […]
Valve says it will stop making editorial judgments about what games can be in the Steam Store. However, two exceptions mean that Active Shooter – which put the content issue in focus – would likely still be banned. The company’s Eric Johnson says that the new guiding principle is that Valve shouldn’t decide what games […]