Auto cancellation issues affecting some Vive pre-orders; HTC working on fix

HTC received a lot of pre-orders for its Vive virtual reality headset, but the company is facing issues while processing them. In a blog post on the matter, the company revealed that some of the pre-orders have been affected by auto cancellations, something which happened “due to processing issues with financial institutions.”

“We’re actively working to resolve this, and have already reinstated orders for some customers,” HTC said. “We want to assure our customers that we’ll work with them to process their payment so they can receive their Vive when they were expecting it.”

The…

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Auto cancellation issues affecting some Vive pre-orders; HTC working on fix

Hollywood vs. VR

Let us all take a moment to celebrate the remarkable resilience of Hollywood. As “the music industry finds itself fighting over pennies while waving goodbye to dollars,” to quote the New York Times; as the publishing industry finds itself increasingly eclipsed by Amazon; as “the number of people watching TV is falling off a cliff,” as Business Insider puts it —… Read More

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Hollywood vs. VR

This British website is training med students to become doctors in Syria

OXFORD, London — Kinan and Louwai Muhammed never imagined that war would break out in Syria. Born in Britain to Syrian parents, the two brothers travelled back to Syria almost every year to visit friends and family.

“It was such a stable, beautiful place,” says Kinan, 31. “An amazing place for us to go and visit.”

Then, in 2011, everything changed and their yearly visits stopped. “We felt so detached from it,” says Louwai, 26. “All we could do was watch.”

SEE ALSO: They escaped war. They made it to Turkey. Now, refugees are going back to Syria.

Now into its sixth year, the civil war in Syria has forced some 11 million people to leave their homes, while approximately 220,000 have been killed. Despite Russia’s promised …

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This British website is training med students to become doctors in Syria

Siri's response to "I was raped" has been changed to a more helpful response

Last month, we told you how Siri, S Voice, Google Now and Cortana were woefully lacking when it came to their responses during a medical crisis. For example, when Siri was told in a test run for a JAMA article that “I was raped,” the virtual voice-activated personal assistant responded by suggesting an online search. That was also the response from Google Now and S Voice. Only Cortana provided a phone number to a sexual abuse hotline.

Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and Google were contacted by the authors of the study. The tech titans were given suggestions on how to improve the responses … – Source

Siri's response to "I was raped" has been changed to a more helpful response

The gig economy as a driver of innovation

If you are reading this article, chances are you have taken an Uber, are familiar with Upwork and maybe even sold something on Etsy. Business models that fall under the “gig economy” umbrella have been proven for business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer markets because they make it possible to crowdsource products and services from huge communities of people. Read More

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The gig economy as a driver of innovation

Cortana celebrates her second birthday with some new features

Blow out the candles on the cake, Cortana is now two-years old. Microsoft’s virtual voice-activated personal assistant was introduced on April 2nd, 2014 at the BUILD developer conference. Cortana first appeared on Windows Phone 8.1, handling search requests and certain operations via voice. Since then, she has branched out to Windows 10, Android and iOS, and can now handle cross-platform tasks.

Recently, it was announced that Cortana will be able to keep Android users up-to-date about their notifications across various devices. The personal assistant will also help you to send texts from … – Source

Cortana celebrates her second birthday with some new features

NASA rover snaps photo of a dust devil swirling on Mars

More than 4,000 Martian days after NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity began exploring the surface of the red planet, the little robot caught sight some something truly stunning.

Opportunity snapped a photo of a dust devil swirling in the Meridiani Planun, the rover’s home since it landed on the planet in 2004.

SEE ALSO: Mile-high mountains on Mars sculpted by wind, climate change

“This is one of the best dust devils that we have seen in Meridiani Planum,” Ray Arvidson, Opportunity’s deputy principal investigator, confirmed to Mashable via email.

“We are lucky to have captured this one in an image!” …

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NASA rover snaps photo of a dust devil swirling on Mars

Report says Samsung will start selling foldable smartphones in 2017

We already know that Samsung is working on a foldable phone (internally dubbed Project Valley), and we’ve also seen some possible designs. Last we heard, there were rumors of it launching in January this year – that obviously didn’t happen. Now, it looks like the device won’t be coming this year.

A new report from Samsung’s home country of South Korea is claiming that the company will start mass-producing foldable displays by end of this year, with foldable smartphones arriving next year.

The report notes that Samsung’s foldable device would be a 5-inch smartphone in folded form,…

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Report says Samsung will start selling foldable smartphones in 2017