Valentine’s Day is less than two weeks away, so the time to make reservations and hotel bookings is now.
Our advice: Let these local TikTok creators do the heavy lifting for you as you plan the perfect activities for yourself, your friends, or your significant other.
Sony's recent acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie is just one part of a bigger plan to dive into the live game services space with more than 10 project launches set for the next several years.
Driving the news: Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki delivered the news and an outline of the company's plans during the company's investor call today.
Shares for Meta, Facebook's parent company were down roughly 20% in after-hours trading on Wednesday in response to weak earnings and growth forecasts. Most notably, the daily active user count for Facebook declined by roughly 1 million compared to last quarter.
Why it matters: The earnings miss proves the vulnerability of its business model being tied to advertising against social networking, as opposed to search.
The FBI tested Israeli technology firm NSO Group's Pegasus spyware for possible use in criminal investigations, the agency confirmed to Axios Wednesday.
Why it matters: The FBI and DOJ were at the time probing Pegasus to assess whether it was used to illegally hack into phones in the U.S., per Reuters. The software has come under fire for its role in hacking smartphones belonging to human rights activists, political dissidents and reporters around the world, per investigations by the international journalism consortium Forbidden Stories.
Biden administration officials say they will cut Russia off from its vital supply of semiconductors if it invades Ukraine — a broad sanction without precedent.
Why it matters: Stemming the flow of microchips to Russia would be a blow to the country's economy, but the novel move could have long-term repercussions for U.S. companies.
The FBI is launching roughly two China-related counterintelligence investigations about every 12 hours, Bureau director Christopher Wray told NBC News in an interview published Tuesday.
Why it matters: Wray is increasingly sounding the alarm on the threat posed by China's government even as Russian troops amass at Ukraine's border, indicating that he believes the Chinese Communist Party is the biggest threat to the economic security of the U.S. in the long term.
Google parent company Alphabet posted better-than-expected Q4 2021 earnings, with revenues leaping 32% year-over-year, and YouTube advertising revenue beating out Netflix during the same quarter, at $8.6 billion compared with $7.7 billion.
Why it matters: Alphabet is doing better and better in most parts of its business, including in advertising, where there had been a COVID-related slump, even as the world continues to struggle with other disruptions to commerce due to the Omicron variant.
Game industry veterans at upstart publisher The 4 Winds Entertainment are tired of how the mainstream video game industry treats players in the Middle East and nearby countries, and they’re doing something about it.
Driving the news: 4 Winds is lending development support to the upcoming multiplayer military-themed shooter World War 3 to address chronic cultural and technical issues for gamers in a part of the world where the player population is rapidly growing.
The FBI is warning people and businesses to remain vigilant against malicious actors who could interfere with the Beijing Olympic Games through a "broad range" of cyber activities, including theft of sensitive data.
Why it matters: High-profile events like the Olympics give cyber actors the opportunity to "make money, sow confusion, increase their notoriety, discredit adversaries, and advance ideological goals," the FBI said in a statement Tuesday.
Ta-da! The most common letters used in Wordle are E R A O T, according to an analysis of 221 games from Christopher Ingraham, a former Washington Post reporter.
Context: Invented byJosh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, to amuse his friends and partner, Wordle has become a daily obsession for many ( 🙋). The New York Times just paid in the "low-seven figures" to acquire the game.
AT&T on Tuesday said it would spin off WarnerMedia in a $43 billion deal that would combine the media asset with Discovery, rather than split it off.
How it works: A spin-off will give AT&T shareholders a proportionate number of shares in the new WarnerMedia/Discovery company, rather than giving shareholders the option to trade their AT&T shares for discounted stock in the new venture.
Launch House, which runs mostly in-person month-long programs for entrepreneurs and other techies, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with several angel investors also participating.
Why it matters: Launch House is betting that the pandemic driven dispersion of techies across the country has created opportunities to create local communities for entrepreneurs and others looking for peers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that Tesla is recalling and updating the software for 53,822 of its cars using the Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta program because it may allow some models to conduct "rolling stops" at intersections, posing a safety risk.
Driving the news: The company said the update would disable the controversial feature, which allowed some cars to roll through intersections with stop signs instead of braking completely.
Spotify's weekend of boycott threats may have made headlines, but recent history suggests the controversy won't dent Spotify's business.
Why it matters: Boycotts of tech services have become more frequent amid growing political polarization and frustration over misinformation. But data shows that boycotts and the press attention around them are typically fleeting.
Zipline, a leading drone operator, will begin delivering prescription medicines to patients' homes in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, this year, helping usher in the long-anticipated era of routine drone drops.
Why it matters: Battery-operated drones could satisfy our demand for "instant delivery" in less than 15 minutes, while easing traffic congestion, improving safety and helping the environment.
An online news outlet in Mexico announced Monday its reporter had been fatally shot — the fourth journalist to have been killed in Mexico this month, per AP.
Sony’s plan to buy Destiny developer Bungie is the latest move in an escalating arms race by video game industry leaders to outspend the competition for studios, franchises and players’ time.
The big picture: The games industry has grown immensely over the past decade, and so has competition for that revenue. Gaming’s heavy hitters are investing in popular developers and well-known titles to keep players on their side.
