The Verge

Ford launches GoDrive car-sharing service in London

Ford had already been testing a very small car-sharing operation in London called City Driving On-Demand, but now it's getting substantially larger with the launch of GoDrive, a one-way service (meaning you don't need to return cars to their original spots like Zipcar) with guaranteed parking at your destination that charges by the minute. Overall, GoDrive sounds a little but like Car2Go, the car-sharing subsidiary of Daimler that deploys fleets of pay-per-minute Smart cars to major urban centers.

Ford launches GoDrive car-sharing service in London

Microsoft announces Cortana for iOS and Android

Microsoft is officially confirming today that it’s bringing Cortana to iOS and Android. The software giant is planning to release separate apps for each mobile operating system to enable its digital assistant to run outside of Windows. Microsoft is only providing an early look at those apps today, but the company notes that you’ll be able to make the same queries and ask the same questions using Cortana across Windows, iOS, or Android.

While Cortana on iOS or Android won’t be as powerful as the Windows variant, due to various integrations, Microsoft is still providing notification support. You’ll get notifications for sports results, flights, and most of the Cortana features that currently exist in the Windows Phone and Windows 10...

Microsoft announces Cortana for iOS and Android

UK porn laws might mean ID checks with the post office

The UK's plans to introduce mandatory age checks for viewing pornography online could involve verifying users' identities via third parties such as banks, mobile operators, credit agencies, or even the post office. The country's Conservative party pledged to introduce such age checks earlier this year, and following their recent re-election, discussions have reportedly begun between the technology industry and the government over ways to implement the checks.

UK porn laws might mean ID checks with the post office

The first production car with Android Auto is a Hyundai

Announced almost exactly one year ago, Android Auto is Google's attempt to bring the smartphone's capabilities to a car while minimizing driver distraction. The system has been available on third-party navigation systems since earlier this year, but starting today, it is available for the first time in a production vehicle, the 2015 Hyundai Sonata. Dealers will be able to update Sonatas equipped with the optional navigation and tech package with Android Auto starting today, while owners will be able to perform the update themselves later this summer.

Android Auto acts as an interface on top of Hyundai's existing in-car navigation system, offering Google Maps navigation, Google Voice Search, sending and receiving of text messages, phone...

The first production car with Android Auto is a Hyundai

First Click: This French painting from 1884 predicted today’s tech zombies

In preparation for Google I/O later this week I spent Memorial Day reviewing last year’s event. I spotted one of my favorite paintings during the Backdrop demo, a Chromecast feature that turns your TV into a digital picture frame. I hadn’t thought deeply about Georges Seurat’s A Sunday afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Un dimanche après-midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte) in years. What’s remarkable is how prescient the painting remains more than 100 years later.

Seurat's masterpiece addresses working-class relaxation made possible by technology, which, at the time meant the great whirling factories of the industrial revolution. The scene is rendered via a highly systematic and “scientific” technique known as Pointillism, whereby...

First Click: This French painting from 1884 predicted today’s tech zombies

Watch a pro racer do real-world drifting wearing an Oculus Rift

As publicity stunts go, Virtual Drift is a pretty complicated one. Here’s how it works: start with a driver from Formula D, a professional drift racing league. Build him an absurdly heavy custom helmet with an Oculus Rift instead of a visor. Wire his car up with a directional sensor and a server. On that server, load a racing game built with custom-designed, hyper-realistic physics. Instead of a mouse and keyboard, feed all the car’s controls — steering, gas, brake — out to the game. Send your driver into the middle of a parking lot where a surveyor has spent days mapping GPS coordinates. Ask him to drive, wearing the virtual reality headset, until the sensor is too confused to know where he’s going. Stop him, realign the car, and do it...

Watch a pro racer do real-world drifting wearing an Oculus Rift

Charter buys Time Warner Cable to create America's second biggest cable provider

Charter Communications is buying Time Warner Cable in a deal that values the latter, larger company at $78.7 billion. The two firms will merge together under the newly created parent company New Charter, which will become the second biggest cable provider in the US after Comcast. A separate acquisition by Charter of the smaller cable company Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion means that the new company will now have 23.9 million customers in 41 states. The merging of this trio of companies was only made possible after Comcast abandoned its own $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable after it met with resistance from regulators.

Developing...

Charter buys Time Warner Cable to create America's second biggest cable provider

mardi 26 mai 2015