Author: Deep

Twitter just added two handy new features to its network, and both are about the miracle of the moving image. The company is currently rolling out the ability to send videos via direct message (DM) in Twitter for mobile, as well as a searchable GIF library to spice up your tweets on most platforms. Why this matters: The addition of GIF search is a nice bonus, but video capture and sharing is the bigger deal for Twitter. In recent months, the company has added new features to make direct messages work more like a typical messaging platform. The company let…

Lately, it seemed to Jim Cramer that the crazy linkage between oil and stocks would last forever. Whenever oil would go up, the market would rally; whenever oil went down, stocks were crushed. “That is lunacy, as I’ve said repeatedly, because the vast, vast majority of companies in the S&P actually benefit from cheaper crude,” the “Mad Money” host said. Many investors believe that since the oil industry has become a lot larger than it used to be, the weak demand for oil could be a sign that the U.S. is headed into a recession. However, Cramer does not agree.…

Different views of Skype’s group video call functionality. Credit: Skype 1COMMENT Blair Hanley Frank IDG News Service Feb 18, 2016 6:34 AM Skype announced Thursday that iOS and Android users in the U.S. and Western Europe can expect to start making group video calls from their smartphones and tablets in the coming week. The feature will allow users to hold conversations with up to 25 friends at once. Skype designed two new views for group video conferences: the first allows users to see one another in a grid, and it’s designed for calls with a handful of people. A second…

Jim Cramer knows that the U.S. central bank is supposed to be separate from politics. But on the night of the Iowa caucus, where two extremist candidates are poised to do well, he had to acknowledge the connection between these two subjects. The fact is that the Fedreally matters. Not just in terms of monetary policies and the economy but also in terms of America’s political stability. “Second, right now, the Fed seems to be doing a pretty terrible job,” the “Mad Money” host said. If the Fed continues on its slated course of raising interest rates four times this…

When it comes to dealmaking among big, integrated oil companies, it’s not a question of who will do deals this year, but when, according to top-rated energy analyst Doug Terreson of Evercore ISI. Mergers and acquisitions activity in the U.S. energy patch fell to a five-year low in the final quarter of 2015 as oil and gas companies preserved cash and entered “survival mode,” PricewaterhouseCoopers reported last week. But by the end of the first half of this year, big oil firms likeExxonMobil, Chevron, and Royal Dutch Shell could start buying smaller companies that have been beaten up during a…

Here in California, seismologists and other researchers have been hard at work developing an earthquake warning system that would give residents a brief heads-up to prepare for an impending quake. It’s similar in nature to a warning system Japan has had in place since 2007. Systems like these require specialized equipment to detect earthquakes, but what if yoursmartphone could help improve these early warning systems? That’s the hope behindMyShake, a new Android app from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. MyShake effectively turns your smartphone into a pocket-sized seismometer. It runs in the background and uses your phone’s built-in accelerometer to…

Well, it had a good run. On Friday, Google announced that it would discontinue the popular Picasa photo management tool in order to put all its efforts toward its newer Google Photos service. “After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos,”  Anil Sabharwal, the head of the Google Photos team, said in a blog post. “We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than…

Dell is bringing the advantages of its enterprise-level hyperscale rack servers to a wider range of customers. At Mobile World Congress next week, Dell will show off its new DSS 9000 hyperscale rack architecture, a server technology that allows computing and storage resources to be decoupled. The new rack design, aimed at mid-sized to large businesses, is based on Intel’s Rack Scale Architecture, which is meant to bring configuration flexibility and power efficiency to Web-scale tasks. The DSS 9000 will ship in the second half this year, Dell said. The hyperscale architecture is already available to Dell’s largest customers through the…

Apple may have taken on the fight of its life in standing up to the FBI, which is demanding that it help break into an iPhone used by one of the perpetrators in December’s San Bernardino mass shooting. Apple has promised to fight a U.S. magistrate judge’s order Tuesday requiring it to assist the FBI, and legal experts say the case could go all the way up to the Supreme Court. Apple needs to tread carefully, however. A divisive presidential election has further polarized the country around issues including how to respond to terrorists, and Appleneeds to be careful the…

Perhaps you’ve, sometime in the last ten years, uttered the words, “Who cares about Call of Duty’s singleplayer campaign? I’m only here for the multiplayer.” Well in answer to your question, I care about the campaign. It’s a guilty pleasure. But perhaps I’m in the minority, and I guess it was only a matter of time before Activision tried to cater to the 360-no-scope crowd. From now until February 29, you’ll find the Call of Duty: Black Ops III – Multiplayer Starter Pack listed on Steam. There’s your multiplayer-only Call of Duty. Sort of. The pack is more like a…