Insomniac Games issued a downloadable update to its hit PlayStation 5 game, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, that replaces Cuban flags for Puerto Rican flags. And it promised to "do better."
Driving the news: The hit game, which sold 2.5 million copies in its first day of release, had displayed Cuban flags in the home and neighborhood of Spider-Man Miles Morales, who is of Puerto Rican descent.
Mergers and acquisitions in the games industry are picking up after "an extended quiet period," according to a new third-quarter report from Drake Star Partners.
Why it matters: Consolidation will make gaming's giants even bigger.
A milestone in electric aviation took place Thursday afternoon, when Beta Technologies landed its ALIA eVTOL aircraft at Duke Field, at Eglin Air Force Base, for a deployment period with the U.S. Air Force.
The big picture: During its 2,000-mile journey from Burlington, Vermont, to Florida, the plane completed multiple short and long distance legs.
Friday is the one-year anniversary of Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter, which he subsequently renamed X.
The big picture: Musk gets to benefit from the long-term nature of private equity. Which is good for him because, in the short term, this deal has been a steaming pile of blue bird poop.
With its daily champagne toasts and plush perks, San Francisco's Expensify Lounge co-working space always felt too good to be true — and now we know that it was.
What's happening: In a blog post late Wednesday, Expensify CEO David Barrett revealed that the lounge was actually "a little experiment around a very simple question: Can anything bring workers back to the office voluntarily?"
Oxide Computer Co., a San Francisco-based developer of on-premise cloud computers, has raised $44 million in Series A funding led by Eclipse.
Why it matters: The vast majority of IT infrastructure still lives outside the public cloud, despite the popularity of services like Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure, for reasons ranging from regulation to security to latency.
As AI photo editing apps become more accessible and pervasive, software and hardware makers are building tools to help consumers verify the authenticity of an image starting from the moment of capture.
Driving the news: Leica announced Wednesday that its new M 11-P camera will be the first with the ability to apply Content Credentials from the moment an image is captured.
The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to harden defenses around the U.S. health care infrastructure, releasing an updated cyber "toolkit" to help the sector better defend against hackers.
Why it matters: Health care is a high-value, target-rich industry facing increasing attacks, and the problem is increasingly being recognized as a threat to patient safety when providers are forced to divert or shut down care.
As pharmacists attempt to pivot from pill-dispensing and administrative tasks to patient care, robots and AI software are starting to shoulder more of the back-end work — albeit slowly.
Why it matters: Recent pharmacist walkouts — which could go nationwide next week — point to the profession's high level of burnout and overwork, which automation and "smarter" computer systems could help offset.
Wall Street is now laser-focused on how companies like Google and Microsoft will make money from AI.
Why it matters: After nearly a year of hyping up AI, tech giants are facing greater scrutiny of their plans to launch expensive generative AI products and services.
Shares in Meta rose more than 4% in extended trading Wednesday after the tech giant said it beat Wall Street estimates on top and bottom lines and forecast strong growth in the fourth quarter.
Why it matters: The earnings beat underscores how well Meta's ad business has been able to recover from of a major slowdown in 2022.
Chinese authorities have launched tax and land-use investigations into Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, in what some experts say may be a warning to U.S. companies and the Biden administration.
Why it matters: Foxconn factories assemble about 70% of Apple iPhones. COVID lockdowns and a huge protest at a major Foxconn factory in November last year resulted in significant delays in iPhone deliveries.
A new analysis findsa"strong and enduring correlation" between political ideology and U.S. electric vehicle adoption.
Driving the news: The working paper, from UC Berkeley's Energy Institute at Haas, explores county-level new car registrations from 2012-2022 and compares them to voting records in presidential races.
ChatGPT and most other generative AI relies on the power of the cloud and a strong connection to the internet, but now some big names in tech are pushing hard to run generative AI directly on smartphones and laptops.
Why it matters: Running AI models on device could make them cheaper, faster and more private.
Shares in Snap Inc. soared briefly Tuesday after the tech giant said it not only beat Wall Street estimates on its top and bottom lines, but it expects continued momentum in the fourth quarter.
Why it matters: It’s a much-needed win for Snap, which has struggled to regain its momentum following an industry-wide advertising slowdown in 2022.
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