If ever there were a franchise rife for exploring in the immersive world of virtual reality, it’s Wraith: The Oblivion. For those unfamiliar, the World of Darkness is a vast gaming universe created in the early 1990s for use in table-top and live-action roleplaying games. Its most popular franchise is “Vampire: The Masquerade,” but there are other creature-centric properties in the universe that focus on monsters ranging from werewolves to mummies....

A Change.org user going by the name of Crypto Bitlord started a petition earlier this month asking Ripple to stop dumping its XRP holdings. So far it’s been signed nearly 2,500 times. “Ripple continue dumping billions of XRP on us, crashing the price!” the petition reads. It seems Crypto Bitlord genuinely believes in XRP as a ‘cryptocurrency,’ calling it “a solid coin with major potential.” They later go on to refer to the XRP as a “quality coin....

That blast of realization that a file you wanted to keep is gone from your system is a soul-crushing moment. And while it’s easy to accidentally throw something away absent-mindedly, it isn’t always operator error at fault. Over 140,000 hard drives crashed across America this week, taking loads of vital documents and irreplaceable pictures and videos with them. Considering most drives only survive a decade anyway, it’s more a matter of when your external or internal drive will fail than if....

Honey is a browser extension that purportedly helps you find the best price for your items by automatically price-matching items and automatically applying coupon codes. It’s garnered quite a following, and was purchased in November by PayPal. It’s pretty nifty — my colleague Yessi listed it as her favorite thing on the internet last year. — Jason Del Rey (@DelRey) January 22, 2020 So, knowing all of that, here’s how to install Honey on your browser if you’re curious....

No, I don’t mean one of those Start Menu tiles that hardly anyone ever uses, but rather an entirely new icon and menu that lives towards the bottom right of your taskbar. The new taskbar button shows the weather by default; click on it and you’ll get a personalized feed of news, traffic, weather, sports, and finance. You can customize which content shows up in the menu based on your interests and the news publishers you prefer....

In an announcement on the Google Support Forums, a company spokesperson said the feature failed to generate enough traction — and was often used for nefarious reasons. The feature is slated to be discontinued across all channels on September 28, 2020. “Both creators and viewers have reported problems with the community contributions feature, including spam, abuse, and low quality submissions,” the message read. “As a result, the feature is rarely used with less than 0....

Tomorrow I’m hosting the 15th edition of our yearly flagship event, TNW2020. For every previous edition we’ve done, hosting meant being there in person, opening the conference with a show and welcome talk, and then walking around to shake hands with as many guests as possible. This year is different, but I’ll still be doing all of that — only now it’s online and virtual. And the good thing about being online is you can still sign up for a free ticket and join me tomorrow — no need to book a last minute flight to Amsterdam....

However, for the significant majority of founders, who have little to no hiring experience, it’s easy to fall into several traps — not least, underestimating the time and effort the hiring process demands. Last year some 71% of tech startup founders in the UK and Ireland reported experiencing difficulties hiring staff over the past year. In my experience advising founders on their recruitment strategy, as well as in my own experience of hiring, there are four common pitfalls I’ve come across....

Will a performance marketer waste lots of the budget on inefficient social media channels? What is the probability that a content manager will post something detrimental to a company’s reputation, causing a PR nightmare? Does a company need a glorious CMO from a large corporation, or can it get help from external consultants? To reduce the level of uncertainty, I believe founders need to have a clear sense of their marketing strategy first, then define what kind of a marketing team they need — and only after that should they start to hire....

The fundraising process is, without question, daunting. What if you don’t get the valuation you expected? What is the secret to the perfect pitch deck? And how can you be sure you’ve found your match? Last year I went through this exact same thought process. The company was growing exceedingly quickly, but our leadership team knew that in order to capitalize on the market we needed an infusion of capital to scale as quickly as possible....

Recently, I was reading Rolf Dobell’’s The Art of Thinking Clearly, which made me think about cognitive biases in a way I never had before. I realized how deeply seated some cognitive biases are. In fact, we often don’t even consciously realize when our thinking is being affected by one. For data scientists, these biases can really change the way we work with data and make our day-to-day decisions, and generally not for the better....

Three autonomous bus prototypes are to be evaluated in real-life conditions on the roads of five European cities. The trials mark the field-testing phase of the FABULOS (Future Automated Bus Urban Level Operation System) project, which aims to accelerate the introduction of new types of automated last-mile solutions in Europe. It focuses on the management of autonomous fleets as part of public transportation systems. The pilots have already started in Helsinki, Finland, and are due to begin this month in Gjesdal (Norway) and Tallinn (Estonia), depending on COVID-19 restrictions....

While the technology to enable a car to complete a journey without human input (what the industry calls “level 5 autonomy”) might be advancing rapidly, producing a vehicle that can do so safely and legally is another matter. There are indeed still fundamental challenges to the safe introduction of fully autonomous cars, and we have to overcome them before we see these vehicles on our roads. Here are five of the biggest remaining obstacles....

Even in other countries, few streaming services had robust mobile apps with state-of-the-art AI to suggest a long list of songs, one after another. So, 8tracks was the cool kid on the block with ‘DJs’ trying to create their own playlists with whacky names and sub-genres. But as Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music started gaining prominence, 8tracks faded into a distant memory. The service shut down last year, but it was revived by new owners this year, and they’re looking to bring it to prominence again....

The attacker, Thomas Scully-Powers, has since been arrested and charged with murder after several people on the call reported the crime to police, according to The New York Times. Suffolk County police said some of the callers may have witnessed part of the stabbing on screen. They later provided visual descriptions of the son. “They just noticed him fall off the screen and then they heard heavy breathing,” Detective Lt Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County police homicide squad told Newsday....

I enjoy exercise, but I’ve always hated gyms. I loathe them for many reasons: the pugnacious meatheads always hogging the bench; the vacuous EDM pounding my brain into mush; the putrid blend of BO dripping off the walls; the eye-watering fees; the fear of being judged. Gyms are ghastly places frequented by some of the most unpleasant people on Earth. After years of enduring these assaults on my senses, I decided enough was enough....

The AI skipper uses cameras, edge computing, and AI to identify and avoid any ships, buoys, and other dangers lurking in the water. The system is the latest addition to the Mayflower Autonomous Ship being developed by IBM and marine research organization Promare. To teach it how to sail, the team spent two years training the AI on over a million nautical images, which were processed using the same tech found in some of the world’s fastest supercomputers....

Yesterday, Alphabet’s board of directors launched an investigation into how Google’s executives handle claims of sexual harassment and other misconduct. As first reported by CNBC, the board has formed an independent subcommittee to look into the tech giant’s issues. It also hired an external law firm to assist with the investigation. “As has already been confirmed in public court filings, in early 2019, Alphabet’s Board of Directors formed a special litigation committee to consider claims made by shareholders in various lawsuits relating to past workplace conduct,” an Alphabet spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC....

I’m stoked about this, because it means I can finally get into a bunch of critically acclaimed Prime Video shows I’ve been sleeping on, simply because I don’t have a Fire TV dongle. There’s plenty to look forward to, including The Man in the High Castle, Mozart in the Jungle, and The Dark Tower – oh, and of course, my 65th rewatch of The Office (it’s on Prime Video here in India, instead of on Netflix)....

Pretty smart, wouldn’t you say? We agreed, but my colleague Callum Booth had an even better idea: Why not chuck one of these in your bathroom, or wherever you stash your toilet paper? That would solve the age-old problem of running out of TP when you need it most. The Dash Smart Shelf could automatically place an order when you have only a couple of rolls left, and you’ll never have to remember to pick up more when you’re at the store....