“Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related,” Google co-founder Larry Page wrote in a blog post announcing the change. “Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence.”

Page will serve as the CEO of the new Alphabet corporation, and co-founder Sergey Brin will be the president. Page noted that they plan to have a CEO run each business that will essentially report back to him and Brin. Alphabet will eventually replace Google as the publicly traded company on the Nasdaq stock exchange, according to the company’s SEC filing.

What does this mean for the industry?
With the company restructuring, Google will be able to allocate resources and attention to its other projects without adversely affecting its primary Internet service offerings. The move means that the earnings of Google‘s core portfolio will be reported separately from the other projects. If the “moonshot” businesses, as Metz refers to them, turn out to be unprofitable, in other words, Google‘s primary functions will continue to show growth. As a business move, it seems fairly solid.

The creation of Alphabet may have other effects, as well. Some industry analysts and bloggers speculate that the fact that Alphabet’s domain name will end in .xyz signifies the beginning of the end of the .com era. According to Wired contributor Lexi Pandell, it can get expensive when trying to register a new top-level domain name, but the company called .XYZ managed to become the registry operator for the .xyz domain, hoping in the process to eliminate the .com popularity. Google‘s Alphabet, which will operate at abc.xyz, may be the first indication of that shift.

For more breaking tech news and information about the goings-on of industry giants like Google, be sure to visit our eBusiness Internet page!

Microsoft’s plan is to give users the option to download system updates through peer-to-peer connections. Traditionally, Windows Updates have been through a single source, which can cap the speed at which files are downloaded. By switching to a P2P framework, however, PC users can download updates simultaneously from different sources, drastically reducing the amount of time needed carry out this process. 

As Ars Technica’s Peter Bright noted, this move to P2P makes sense for Windows 10 in particular, as Microsoft intends to continually build out the OS’s functionality over time. If critical – and required – updates are going to become regular occurrences, then finding a way to make the whole process go faster seems like a no-brainer. So what’s the downside?

Could Windows Update turn into a data hog?
Some individuals have raised concerns that these same P2P connections could result in PC owners unwittingly uploading large volumes of data to other Windows users. The issue here isn’t really about security. It has to do with bandwidth usage and the effect that being perpetually plugged into a P2P connection could have on network performance. Once people have downloaded a fresh Windows Update, they may then serve as sources for other users to download that same file or series of files. Given the potential size and frequency of these updates, Windows 10 users could see their network performance plummet because they are uploading so much data for this one process. This could be problematic for consumers and businesses alike.

The concern has some merit: PCWorld’s Brad Chacos recently explained that Windows 10’s default status is to enable P2P sharing with computers outside of an individual’s network. This means that PC owners will need to go into their settings and disable the feature if they are concerned about Windows Update hogging all of their bandwidth. According to Chacos, this is thankfully a fairly painless process. After hunting around the advanced settings for Windows Update, users should have no trouble finding the subdirectory detailing how updates are downloaded. From there, it’s just a click of the mouse, and the P2P connection is disabled.

It’s possible that there’s nothing to fear here, and that Microsoft has proactively put measures in place to prevent system updates from putting a strain on bandwidth. For the time being, however, it may be wise for Windows 10 users to keep an eye on how much their uploading through any P2P connections, as well as any effect it may have on network performance.

For more updates regarding Windows 10 and other technology trends, visit our breaking tech news page!

The ride share company was previously valued at $40 billion when it raised financing earlier in the year, but now the company is worth over $50 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. Microsoft’s investment, along with financing from other key players in the tech industry, will allow Uber to expand operations in cities across the globe.

If you’ve been on the Internet or out on the town in the last few years, you know the general concept of Uber. Instead of hailing a cab, you can contact and make payment to a person to transport you from point A to point B over a handy smartphone app. Uber drivers aren’t taxi drivers – they’re regular people looking to make extra cash by using their own cars to ferry people around. In effect, Uber has successfully monetized carpooling.

The company continues to grow at a fast rate. In the five years since it was founded, Uber has begun operations in more than 300 cities in 57 countries across the world, according to Computer Weekly contributor Warwick Ashford.

Some difficulties, but still strong
The popular ride share company has garnered some negative attention in recent months from multiple fronts. Some have criticized Uber because the drivers employed by the company are not licensed to operate taxis, which creates an unsafe situation for commuters. To this end, in August 2014 the app was banned in Berlin, according to Ashford, though it continues to operate in other German cities. However, the company continues to post strong profits and heavy growth, as shown by the fact that Microsoft finds it important enough for such a large investment.

What does this news mean for businesses?
Microsoft’s investment in Uber could have far-reaching impacts on businesses across the country. According to FierceCIO contributor Nancy Gohring, workers are already using Uber for business purposes, but ties to Microsoft could mean the app gets new capabilities and uses for business travelers.

These sorts of apps are already being developed by the two companies. For example, Gohring mentioned an Uber add-in for Outlook’s Cortana voice assistant that will notify users of a meeting in advance so that they have time to order a ride, with a link to open the Uber app so they can do so. In the future, with Microsoft’s involvement, more apps like this could be coming that may further streamline business travel and operations by allowing employees to jump right to ordering their ride on the way to the airport or to a meeting elsewhere in the city.

Other implications for this investment are possible as well. Microsoft transferred part of its mapping operation to Uber in late June, FierceCIO contributor David Weldon reported. This move may have been an indication of changes happening within the company, as mere weeks beforehand a leaked memo from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated that “tough choices” were ahead for the company. This included the transference of its map imaging operations to Uber – perhaps a precursor of the $100 million investment.

Only time will tell what’s in the future for these two companies. To stay up to date on breaking tech news and information on companies like Uber and Microsoft, be sure to visit our industry tech page!

In the midst of such a devastating situation, it’s no wonder the state is turning to technology to provide some answers. According to CNN contributor Heather Kelly, many of the current innovation efforts are focused on agriculture, since this industry is responsible for 70 percent of our water use. The governor’s April mandate doesn’t apply to food producers, but lack of water resources has made growing and harvesting high-water plants like almonds difficult for California farmers.

Desalination and reclamation
Two basic kinds of technologies based on helping us utilize the water that we do have are reclamation tech and desalination tech, which both involve creating fresh water from either the sea or by separating it from environments that make it unsuitable for human consumption. Innovations in these areas are becoming more common. For example, WaterFX is a company that desalinates agricultural wastewater, according to Boing Boing contributor Kiki Sanford. Instead of reverse osmosis, which is the normal purification method, WaterFX uses a unique solar thermal distillation technology that uses the sun’s heat to evaporate fresh water from the source.

The big data factor
As the drought continues, a lot of the tech surrounding water conservation in the agriculture industry seeks to collect and analyze big data in order to strategize and minimize consumption. By some estimates, the state’s economy has lost $2.7 billion as a result of the drought’s affect on the agriculture industry, according to Climate Central contributor Andrea Thompson. Startups like WatrHub focus efforts on reducing water use in agriculture by using big data sets to gather information about water and wastewater systems in the U.S.

In-home tech for water conservation
Water-saving technology isn’t just relegated for use on a large scale. In our homes, we can use tools like water efficient shower heads and high-efficiency faucet aerators, according to Clean Technica. No doubt more of these kinds of tools will be developed as the drought continues – but we can hope that the drought won’t last for much longer.

For more breaking tech news and information about cool new tools that make our lives better, visit our Emerging Technology page!

What’s making the tech giant post such significant gains? The company’s first-quarter success may be attributed to a number of things. Here are a few of them:

1. Sony absolutely killed it at E3
The Electronics Entertainment Expo is held annually to showcase the latest video games and technologies that are being developed by top players in the industry. During the week-long event, companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft give presentations to media and gamer populations alike. This year’s E3 presentation for Sony gave gamers a glimpse of a few old friends and several new ones, but the show-stealers included the announcement of a Final Fantasy VII remake and a release date for “The Last Guardian,” the long-awaited final installment of the trilogy that began with the games “Ico” and “Shadow of the Colossus.” The Final Fantasy remake especially gave fans reason to shout with happiness, as it’s something they have been asking to see for a long time.

According to the quarterly report, video game hardware and software sales increased by 12.1 percent year-over-year to $2.365 billion. Most of this increase was due to Playstation 4 software sales and PS4 peripheral device unit sales. Reuters reported that operating income increased by 351 percent for similar reasons. Sony‘s announcements at E3 no doubt served to spur sales and generate increasing excitement about the company’s future.

2. Investment in drones
The Guardian reported late in July that Sony is getting ready to heavily invest in camera drones in a partnership with the autonomous driving company ZMP. With this venture, Sony‘s new company, Aerosense, will produce drones for aerial surveillance and reconnaissance for industrial use.

Drones are becoming more popular as the technology is better understood. Amazon, for example, wants to use drones to deliver products and recently announced that it is willing to go so far as to create its own highway in the sky for those machines. Facebook has also launched a solar-powered drone that will provide roaming Internet access for people in remote parts of the world. Sony‘s investment in this burgeoning area of technology demonstrates a desire to infiltrate a growing market. The company hopes that Aerosense will provide advanced drone solutions to the industrial sector and solidify Sony‘s place in the automated technology industry.

3. Image sensors
Financial Times contributor Kana Inagaki reported that Sony‘s second-quarter profits had a lot to do with skyrocketing demand for image sensors, which the company now counts among its strongest-selling products. During this quarter, sales of camera sensors increased 62 percent over the same period from 2014. These sensors are used in devices like the latest iPhone 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6, two of the most popular phones on the market right now. The company has said it would use capital gains funds to increase the production of these sensors.

Sony and other big industry players announce breaking tech news on a regular basis. Be sure to check out our emerging tech and industry news pages to keep up with everything happening in the technology industry!

But the centrality of cyberspace in everyday life has changed the ways movies are marketed – decidedly for the better. And now, thanks to the relative cost efficiency of Internet marketing, there’s the potential for small films, not just the massive ones, to have expertly crafted promotional strategies. Whereas film marketing used to be all about following a prescribed formula, the cyber generation of selling movies has made marketing all about finding a way to abandon conventions in favor of a unique approach.

A New Age Of Selling Movies
Just like the Internet can make stars of people who haven’t “broken into” the business, so too can it lead to success for films that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten much airtime. Here are some examples of viral marketing campaigns that helped lead small movies to big success:

• District 9 (2009): In terms of science fiction films, “District 9” was a relatively low budget affair. At a cost of $30 million, the effects-heavy movie didn’t come close in terms of budget to other sci-fi films made around that time, including “Star Trek” ($150 million) and “X Men Origins: Wolverine” (another $150 million). With a first-time director and no major stars, “District 9” was not on the radar of many. Yet the film, which is about aliens who land on earth and are then kept in punishing confinement, benefited from a viral marketing campaign that included the launching of websites related to the film’s fictional Multi-National United organization, the group responsible in the film for overseeing the aliens’ segregation from the rest of society.
• Sound of My Voice (2011): If “District 9’s” budget was small, then that of “Sound of My Voice” was positively miniscule. The film – which was directed by young indie filmmaker Zal Batmanglij and stars Brit Marling – was produced at such a low budget that, when asked how much it had cost to make, Batmanglij simply said, “ultralow budget.” The budget was so low they had to use a borrowed camera. And when it came time to shoot a scene on a plane, they couldn’t rent out a plane and so instead the director bought three round trip-tickets and shot on the commercial flight. In terms of resources at the filmmakers’ disposal, this movie was only a step above that of a student film.

  And yet what the filmmakers lacked in money they made up for in clever strategizing, which came in handy for the film’s promotional round. Unsurprisingly, “Voice” did not have a large marketing budget. But the team selling the movie didn’t let that get in their way. Instead, they mounted a campaign based around some mysterious YouTube clips that came off as pretty real. The ads, coupled with word of mouth and a strong festival showing, made the film a relative success, and it ended up pulling in over $400,000 in theaters – which is pretty great considering it was made for next to nothing.

Film advertising is just one of many enterprise sectors that are changing in the connected age. For up-to-date news about the meeting of industry and technology, check out our Industry Tech page!

We live in a world where there’s an app for practically any function we can think of. And if one doesn’t exist yet, it probably will soon. For the tech up-and-comers of Silicon Valley and beyond, the prospect of creating the next big app is the force that gets them plugging in every day, and as a result new apps are appearing on various app platforms all the time. In fact, apps crop up with such extraordinary frequency that the huge majority simply get lost somewhere in the mix. Yet for the app developers that made them, that’s usually not too discouraging – it just means it’s time to build another application. For the inventors of the hugely popular Snapchat, for instance, the ephemeral messaging app only materialized after a long period of trial and error with other projects. Now, a recent valuation put Snapchat at around $16 billion. That’s the kind of number that keeps app developers experimenting, releasing apps, and going back to the drawing board.

What to choose?
But for consumers, what the frequency of app releases does is create app stores that are overwhelming, to say the least. With 1.6 million options to choose from, smartphone and tablet users are put in a position where they have to be very discerning about which apps they choose to upload to their devices. After all, no mobile user wants to have to sift through hundreds of apps to get to the ones he or she uses frequently. What successful and happy mobile users discover is that it’s better to have a small, well-selected and frequently used batch of apps than having 93 apps you never use. 

Of course, there’s always going to be a big demographic that snags every single app that sounds cool, regardless of its utility or whether or not it even belongs on a phone in the first place. Thus, we get gems like iJiggly, an app whose sole function is to make things in your photos jiggle (and it costs $1.99!). You might think we’re being too harsh. Hey, what’s the harm in downloading a pointless app? It’ll provide a few minutes of entertainment, at least. But the issue is that apps don’t just function to keep you entertained, however fleetingly. They also keep your phone’s memory and functional capacities thoroughly occupied. And when a user has too many apps on his or her device, the background functionality of these apps can quickly eat into the phone’s computing power as well as – gasp! – your monthly phone bills.

So yeah: When it comes to apps, it pays to consolidate. To help with that, we’ve decided to highlight two apps that we think are definitely worth your time (and your phone’s memory). Far from being apps that cause things to jiggle, these are programs that can actually improve life:

The app: Beme
What it does: It’s a video sharing app that’s aimed at providing users with the means to “instantly capture real moments from the world around you with a simple gesture and without interruption.”
Who made it: Casey Neistat (vlogger, YouTuber and noted social media master) and Matt Hackett (once a VP of engineering at Tumblr)
Target users: People who find video to be the best way to communicate with others, as well as those who love selfies.
Why it deserves your attention: People who follow Casey Neistat’s exploits know that he’s a dude who’s learned how to live life to the fullest – and share it with the world. A professional videographer who’s shot commercials and had his own HBO show, Neistat’s true passion is YouTube, where he shares occasionally irreverent, occasionally profound, always entertaining videos with his 900,000 subscribers. Neistat has a knack for tapping into the zeitgeist and making the kinds of films that people will enjoy. In his public call for better bike lanes, for instance, he filmed segments of it with him atop a bike in New York City, leading to some pretty gnarly collisions. Over the years, Neistat has often turned his lens onto himself, giving viewers a glimpse into his colorful life and how he sees the world. 

Scroll through any of Neistat’s videos and you’re bound to find many comments to the effect of, “Man, I want to live this guy’s life.” With Beme, Neistat isn’t exactly giving users the formula to live his life of excitement, but he is giving them a way of documenting their own lives as they actually live them. The central conceit of Beme is that it takes the artifice and performative element away from users’ social media offerings.

“You start recording by placing the phone up against your chest, forehead or any other location (a finger also works) that would cover the sensor,” TechCrunch explained in its coverage of the app. “While you are capturing video the screen goes completely black, and users have no way of previewing their content before it is automatically shared. Viewing others’ videos is done via a Snapchat-like interface where you hold your finger down to play, and when the video’s over, it’s gone forever.”

In this way, users’ content is hypothetically unfiltered, in stark contrast to, say, the many filters that Instagram offers. As a concept, Beme is quickly gaining traction, and its users had shared a total of 1.1 million videos within a week of its release. While the goal of Instagram often seems to be to proliferate perfection – Look at this perfect meal I made! Look at my well-manicured dog! – Beme lets its users reveal what 15-year-old Natasha Serrano (and Beme user) called “the raw.”

The app: SkyView Free
What it does: Turns users’ iPhones into a sky reader – by pointing your phone at the starry night sky, the app is able to identify constellations, stars and other wonders of the universe.
Who made it: Terminal Eleven LLC
Target users: Really anybody who’s ever had even a fleeting interest in the cosmos – or anyone who found their college astronomy class to be marginally interesting
Why it deserves your attention: All too often, apps turn us inward, guiding our heads to our device screens and away from the world in front of us. Some of the best apps out there, however, are the ones that encourage us to look back out at the world – or, in the case of SkyView, up at it. The great thing about SkyView is that it’s not one of those apps that has any sort of money-making angle to it. It doesn’t try to hook you into its own world, or sell you a product. Instead, it simply provides a means of enhancing the sky that exists outside of your phone’s screen. 

The app’s origin story illustrates its earnest intentions. Unlike so many apps out there, SkyView was not founded to rake in the big bucks – instead, it was started by some engineers who were doing what they loved.  The engineers comprise an app developer group called Terminal Eleven, and the group has been the recipient of various awards, including Apple’s App Store Best of 2012. 

“If you’ve ever been looking for a stargazing app for your iPhone,” CNET stated, “then this [is] definitely the one to get.”

The app functions by leveraging your phone’s camera technology, and pairs that with its recognition technology to illuminate stars, constellations, or other things you may be looking for in the sky. Thanks to little informative tags, you also have the opportunity to learn about the things you’re looking at. Also, because everything’s programmed into the app already, you don’t need Wi-Fi to have it function, which means it’s the kind of tool you can use in a remote patch of grass, when you simply want to look up at the stars and learn more about them. In this way, the app succeeds as a resource that opens up the world, instead of limiting it to your phone screen.

Whether you choose to download these apps or not, there are millions of others to choose from – though that doesn’t mean you should go out and download iJiggly. For the kind of news that can help you to make informed app choices, follow our mobile apps page.

Here are a few interesting uses of telehealth tools that we will be seeing more of in the future:

1. Remote care
Patients who would normally not have access to specialized care are now able to receive prescriptions and consult physicians thanks to advances in telemedicine. For instance, in Mississippi, health care is faced with many challenges, one of which is a severe shortage of doctors, according to Politico contributor David Pittman. The state’s only medical hospital has connections to 165 remote sites so that doctors can give care to underserved communities. This has catapulted Mississippi to the top of telemedicine charts in the U.S. and has been invaluable to keeping patients healthy.

2. Elder care
The aging baby boomer generation will eventually begin to put more strain on health care providers as they need care. According to Bank Rate contributor Donna Fuscaldo, technology will change the way the elderly are cared for in a number of ways. Wearable tech, for instance, helps monitor heart rate and sleep patterns. In the future, they may be able to send important data about cardiac conditions and blood sugar levels to the hospital, where doctors can monitor conditions and react accordingly.

3. Counseling
The use of telemedicine to provide care for seniors isn’t relegated just to physical maladies. Video conferences can help veterans get mental health care as well, according to a study reported by Reuters. The study offered remote counseling to people suffering from depression. Researchers found that 19 percent of the mental health patients surveyed responded to video-facilitated counseling, as opposed to the 22 percent of patients who reported a decrease in depression symptoms – nearly equal percentages. The implications of this kind of research are far-reaching for people who exhibit symptoms of depression but maybe don’t have access to in-person counseling.

It will be interesting to watch health care technology evolve in the coming years. For more emerging tech news and technology trends, please visit our page here.

The Robot Question
When we make robots that can act on their own, will they help us, or hurt us? This is a question that’s been asked countless times, and it is, of course, a huge preoccupation of science fiction novels. But there’s nothing sci-fi about the prospect of autonomous weapons, which, experts suggest, could come into military use within years – which is a lot sooner than many had originally thought. The development of these types of weapons has elicited a polarized response. If machines go to battle, proponents of the technology argue, that will limit human losses.

Yet opponents counter that argument with the question: If countries have autonomous weapons at their disposal, won’t that inevitably enhance the frequency and intensity of armed conflict? Among the leading voices of dissent in the discussion of such weaponry is a high-powered group of signatories to an open letter read at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires. Among those who’ve signed the letter are Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky, Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. So yeah, nothing shabby about this group. Oh, and for fans of “Inception,” actress Talulah Riley also signed it, which is an awesome bonus. In terms of the contents of the letter, it’s put together with the kind of urgency that’s bound to raise eyebrows.

“The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting,” the letter states. “If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable.”

With this arms race, the signers of the letter argue, will come a dangerous and destructive future: “It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc.”

Risk Versus Reward
When it comes to most decisions we make, we evaluate them – consciously or not – on the basis of risk versus reward. Should I take all of my vacation days this year – or will that put me in lower standing when it comes time for end-of-the-year promotions? Should I enjoy seven hours of Netflix on a Saturday, or will I then risk falling into a prolonged period of apathy? These are the kinds of benefits and consequences we weigh in everyday life. This process happens before we make a decision and influences its outcome. 

But historically, technological development doesn’t tend to be preceded by weighing risk versus reward. Sure, tech developers throughout history have confronted moral dilemmas, but usually these haven’t prevented them from inventing whatever they’ve set out to invent. For instance, when physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was heading up The Manhattan Project during World War II – the research effort that saw the world’s first nuclear weapons be developed – he was immediately emboldened by the apparent political import of his task.

“To me [the task at hand] is primarily the development in time of war of a military weapon of some consequence,” Oppenheimer said. He was intrigued by the challenges inherent in the project, and encouraged by the potential for real glory that would inevitably follow leading the effort to successful completion. But in the midst of his highly concentrated work, what Oppenheimer hadn’t prepared for was the literal magnitude of his creation. When he and his cohort conducted the first atomic explosion test, Trinity, in the New Mexico desert, the moral weight of the project became all too apparent. Walking away from the test, Oppenheimer began to grasp what an awesome instrument of death he’d had a hand in making. 

In the case of Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, there wasn’t a moment to contemplate risk versus reward. Or rather, when that moment arrived, it was already too late – the technology had been invented, and so its use was inevitable. The question is: Will autonomous weapons follow the same destructive trajectory as the Manhattan Project? And if so, is it possible to stop the development of such technology, while we’re still – hypothetically, at least – in the pre-development “risk versus reward” phase?

For their part, people like Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky and Steve Wozniak – all extraordinary innovators in their own right, and not people known to stifle creation – are hoping that the tech push toward autonomous weapons can be halted in its tracks, while we still have the ability to weight the consequences – and before it’s too late. One key reason these experts are so adamant in their opposition is because to them, the entire notion of self-guided weapons runs counter to the idea of AI progress. 

“Just as most chemists and biologists have no interest in building chemical or biological weapons, most AI researchers have no interest in building AI weapons,” the open letter stated. Thus, the signatories aren’t taking a stance against AI – which they say “has great potential to benefit humanity in many ways” – but are instead specifically opposed to the weaponizing of it. 

In terms of whether or not the predictions outlined in the open letter will come true, perhaps only time will tell. But with so many credible names behind such a letter, it should definitely be taken seriously.

For more on emerging technologies and technology trends, be sure to check out our specially designated page!