Author: Lucas Matney

Facebook spent million last year on Zuckerberg’s personal protection 2018 was by all means a very rough year for Facebook . The company, which spent the year reeling from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a general bubbling-up of public anger, also had to deal with animosity towards the company’s founder and gave the executive a lot of cash to handle a full security detail for himself and his family. While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a $1 annual salary and does not earn an annual bonus, he gets millions in…

Facebook accidentally shipped VR hardware with conspiratorial messages hidden inside In the almost weekly tradition of Facebook talking about something embarrassing they did on a Friday, the company is now fessing up to the fact that thousands of their next-gen virtual reality headset controllers have “easter-egg” messages inscribed on internal components that weren’t meant to be on non-prototype editions. “Tens of thousands” of unreleased consumer units have the phrases “This Space For Rent” and “The Masons Were Here.” written while some of the developer units have “Hi iFixit! We See…

Uber is dishing out ‘appreciation awards’ up to K to let prolific drivers buy stock As Uber gears up for its highly-anticipated public debut, the company is setting aside some dough for drivers that have logged some serious rides on the platform as a reward for sticking with the service. The company follows Lyft which also rewarded drivers with one-time cash bonuses during its public offering. The company is setting aside a number of shares of common stock at the initial IPO price that drivers who earn this “appreciation award”…

Hulu orders Theranos miniseries starring Kate McKinnon as Elizabeth Holmes Silicon Valley may have dealt with some rough hubris throughout the saga of Theranos, but Hollywood is basking in its downfall. Weeks after the premiere of an HBO documentary chronicling Elizabeth Holmes’s grand blood-testing charade and in the midst of development of a film starring Jennifer Lawrence, Hulu has ordered its own Theranos limited series starring Kate McKinnon based on ABC Radio’s hit podcast series on Theranos, The Dropout. The podcast followed the rise and fall of Stanford dropout Elizabeth…

YouTube TV gets some new channels and a hefty price hike Cord-cutting services are starting to look a lot more like the services they replaced when it comes to price. After price bumps in the past couple months hit Hulu Live and DirecTV NOW, YouTube TV is now also seeing a pretty substantial $10-$15 monthly price hike for users, though the new pricing will come with some new content thanks to a Google partnership with Discovery. Early subscribers paying $35 per month and more recent subscribers $40 per month will…

EU goes after Valve for ‘geo-blocking’ Steam activation codes Seemingly the sole government body policing tech platforms, the ole’ European Union, is now taking aim at desktop gaming’s biggest storefront, Steam, and its creator Valve. The commission sent a “Statements of Objections” to Valve and five other video game publishers, raising a fuss over the companies’ habits of “geo-blocking” purchases, i.e. prohibiting users from using game activation codes purchased outside their country of residence. Furthermore, the suit takes aim at Bandai Namco, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax for coming…

Nintendo is bringing Zelda and Mario into virtual reality Nintendo’s Labo VR kit may just be a little cardboard experiment, but Nintendo is taking a chance on throwing its most beloved titles into the headset. Today, the company announced that they will be adding support to play two of the Switch’s flagship titles. Though Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild seems to just be gaining VR viewer support, Super Mario Odyssey is actually getting some new content alongside the updates which adds a trio of new mini-games. Both games…

Valve Index VR headset is launching on June 15 Well, on Friday we thought we’d have to wait another few weeks to hear about Valve’s plans for its first virtual reality headset, but the company (accidentally?) seems to have let a few details and images slip regarding its high-powered contender to consumer VR headsets built by Oculus and HTC. A product page for the Valve Index went live this morning and was discovered by Twitter user @Wario64. We’ve learned that while we’ll hear full details and pre-order the headset on…

Valve is building its own high-end VR headset called ‘Index’ Valve is ready to sell its own full VR hardware getup. The gaming giant behind some classic titles and the ubiquitous Steam store has revealed a teaser image on its site of a VR headset called the Valve Index. Alongside the photo, text reads “Upgrade your experience. May 2019” suggesting a near-term full announcement or release date of what is likely a high-end VR system. Valve has long been a present name in virtual reality circles but it hasn’t shipped…