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Last year, Google made history when its  DeepMind-based artificial intelligence  AlphaGo  unequivocally defeated  the second highest ranking Go player in the world, Lee Sedol – but now it seems the crafty AI is coming for the number one spot. In a curious turn of events, yesterday DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis confirmed AlphaGo has won over 50 games against numerous leading Go competitors, including number-one ranked Ke Joe.  The announcement came shortly after a mysterious user – under the moniker of ‘Master’ – made an unexpected splash in the online Go community, undisputedly dismantling every opponent in its way. As it turns out, ‘Master’ was actually  AlphaGo  in disguise. Rumors questioning the identity of ‘Master’ first started circulating when Western China Metropolis Daily  suggested  the anonymous player could be an updated version of AlphaGo. DeepMind engineer Aja Huang eventually revealed in a  public chatroom  (in Chinese) that the anonymous ‘Master’ is in fact

Samsung  had a bumpy 2016. Following  numerous   reports  of fire-catching Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, last October the company made an executive decision to cut its losses and  discontinue  its faulty flagship series. While initially its engineers  struggled  to decisively identify the source of the problem, South Korean news outlet JoongAng Ilbo  reports  Samsung has finally concluded its investigation and will reveal the probe results later in January. Following careful examination, the manufacturer previously suggested there may be a combination of factors causing the Note 7 to spontaneously combust, but ultimately refrained from detailing the issue at length. Earlier  reports speculated  Samsung failed to follow standard safety regulation practices while testing the battery of the now discontinued series. While the company claimed it found no apparent issues with the Note 7 during testing, we all know how things eventually  panned out . In an effort to curb negative rea

LAS VEGAS — If you've amassed a collection of cheap umbrellas due to a year's worth of unexpected downpours, Oombrella could come as a welcome relief. The smart umbrella from French start-up Wezzoo works in tandem with an app to tell you when it's going to rain via a smartphone notification. And if you've already left home but are still close by, the umbrella might shoot a notification telling you to come back and grab it. The product — whose Kickstarter launch we  covered back in March  — was on display at 2017 International CES.  Oombrella works with Wezzoo's  weather gathering app , a kind of crowdsourced app where users can share the weather in their area. That, in addition to other weather sources, determines when the app sends a notification reminding Oombrella owners to take theirs with them.  IMAGE: MASHABLE IMAGE: MASHABLE The Oombrella also has its own chip inside the handle, which senses temperature and humidity in the area. So wh

Taking a backseat to  iOS  and  Android ,  Windows 10 Mobile has struggled  to win over the trust of both manufacturers and consumers. But this is not to say that it doesn’t have some pretty nifty features – and it seems Samsung  might be stealing one of these and bringing it straight to the  Galaxy S8 . All About Windows Phone  has obtained an image from a purported Galaxy S8 presentation, which suggests the South Korean giant could be working on a new feature that will allow users to plug their handset into a monitor for a desktop-like experience – much like the  Continuum  functionality that Microsoft  introduced back in 2015. In addition to hooking up a monitor, the image indicates the desktop experience will also likely support multi-tasking as well as peripheral devices, such as a mouse and a keyboard (which appear to be connected wirelessly via Bluetooth). Credit: All About  Windows  Phone While details around the concept remain unclear, the mock-up slide evidently

As we slowly approach  Mobile World Congress , rumors about the release of the new Galaxy S8 handset continue to stack – and the latest allegedly gives us our first glimpse of Samsung’s upcoming flagship device. GSMArena  has obtained a  leaked photo  that purportedly shows the forthcoming Galaxy S8. In line with previous speculation, the phone appears to have  no home button  and a curved screen  with very little bezel . Perhaps less expected – and certainly more alarming – is the apparent lack of on-screen keys. Current Samsung  handsets already allow for the capacitive keys to remain hidden while the screen is active, which means there could be keys on both sides of the Samsung logo that simply aren’t lit up at the moment. Alternatively, Samsung might have opted to abandon the keys in favor of new gesture functionalities for options like ‘Back’ and ‘App Switching.’ The South Korean manufacturer has  reportedly  begun testing its upcoming flagship smartphone in China,

There’s a new buzzword in computer design circles every year. This year, the buzzword is without question   bots. As with anything we build, we give bots names. It’s something  most of us don’t even question. They come pre-personified and ready for us to start that human-computer relationship, just like  HAL 9000  or  Her : there’s Siri in our iPhones, Alexa in Amazon’s Echo and there’s even Facebook Messenger’s PSL (Pumpkin Spice Latte) Bot. A name can be  a way of expressing trust  in an object — or expressing control over it. In design terms, a name is a kind of affordance — a handle we can hold onto. As the resident language expert on our product design team, naming things is part of my job. When we began iterating on a bot within our messaging product, I was prepared to brainstorm hundreds of names. Gendered, non-gendered, functional, etc. But first, we did some testing with actual end users to understand their relationship with bots, language and names. We learned tha

Facebook and WhatsApp have both said they will not charge users  There doesn't seem to be any danger to those participating in the hoax If you have received one of these messages, delete it and ignore it instead of passing it on, experts say Hoax messages have been circulating recently, suggesting the free messaging apps WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger will soon start charging. WhatsApp itself has said, since the start of last year, it will not charge its customers, and Facebook relies on keeping its service free to users.  If you have received one of these messages, delete it and ignore it instead of passing it on, experts have warned. There doesn't seem to be any danger to those participating in the hoax, except for wasting their time. +5 Hoax messages have been circulating recently, suggesting the free messaging app WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger are going to start being charged for. If you have received one of these messages, delete it and igno

In case you were wondering, Apple  is still anti-touchscreen, or so it seems. While the  Windows  PC market seems to embrace the 2-in-1 or convertible, Apple seems hell-bent on the idea of legitimizing the  iPad  Pro as a PC-competitor. It’s not. It’s cool though,  AirBar  has you covered — at least if you’re a  MacBook  Air user. What is it? AirBar is a tiny strip that plugs into the USB port on your PC (now including the MacBook Air) and turns non-touch displays into touch-friendly devices. To accomplish this, the plug-in device uses magnets to attach to the bottom of your screen and emit an invisible light field over the monitor. This light field measures finger position to act as a sort of hacked touchscreen and gesture control center for non-touch friendly devices. It feels natural, and there wasn’t any discernible lag in the demo model at  CES . According to AirBar Senior Vice President Remo Behdasht: We believe the community of devoted MacBook Air users w