— Valve (@valvesoftware) January 21, 2020 Half-Life: Source, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, as well as Opposing Force and Blue Shift are all listed as free for the next two months. The notification advertising the event went out yesterday by mistake before being officially announced today. Given how crowded the spring release bracket is, Valve needed something to remind us that Alyx was coming, and it succeeded....

This is according to PitchBook’s Mobility Tech Q1 2020 report which says that much of this uptick was driven by three key deals. These included: Go-Jek’s $3 billion Series F round in March, Waymo’s $2.3 billion VC round in March, and Grab’s $886 million later-stage VC round in February. If these three deals were excluded, the data shows that VC investing during Q1 reached $5.6 billion, down 23% YoY. [Read: How to write an email pitch VCs will actually read] At the same time, VC exit activity remained relatively healthy with 12 VC exits in the quarter, down from 16 in Q1 2019 and 15 in Q4 2019....

This morning, Walmart-owned Flipkart said that it’s temporarily suspending all its delivery services. The megastore’s site is also closed at the moment; the homepage displays a message letting users know about the company’s decision, and all products are labeled ‘out of stock.’ The company didn’t provide any clarity as to when its operations will resume: We’ve asked Flipkart for more details, and we’ll update the story if we hear back....

The report notes that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process as more people are ordering stuff online, and companies could increase efficiency if there’s one less logistical hassle to deal with. Target and Walmart both confirmed to the WSJ that they ask customers to keep or donate the items they don’t plan on reselling. The publication also notes that according to several shipping companies, returns in the past year have jumped significantly....

That’s obviously not the real Elon Musk. But, judging by those reactions, it might be convincing enough in the Zoom format due to common resolution and frame rate drops. And if the shocked looks on their faces (check out the one on the left when Fake Musk compliments their hair) aren’t the real thing, those are some pretty amazing actors. The technology’s called Avatarify. It was developed by Aliev using open-source AI code called “The First Order Motion Model For Image Animation,” which was developed by researchers at the University of Trento in Italy....

There was one genius who used parts from their washing machine, to turn their old mountain bike into a homemade ebike capable of traveling over 60 mph (110 kph). [Read: 3 new technologies ecommerce brands can use to connect better with customers] But this week, I want to show you what’s possible with dedicated components that are actually meant for this kind of thing. In fact, I’m not going to show you, the All Things Electric YouTube channel is going to do that....

Freelancers are a tremendous resource. They’re hired guns, ready to step in and do the job you need done with none of the extra expense of adding another body to your regular payroll. But what you save in long-term cost can often get gobbled up a lot quicker, because qualified freelance professionals don’t come cheap. Say you need a new landing page built. With freelance developers ranging in cost anywhere from $20 to $150 an hour or more, the hours start to stack up rapidly....

Zachary McCoy went for a bike ride on a Friday in March 2019. The avid biker would do loops around his Gainesville, Fla., neighborhood and track his rides with a fitness app on his Android phone. McCoy didn’t think anything unusual had happened that day. But months later, in January of this year, McCoy got an email from Google saying that his data was going to be released to local police....

Compared to gasoline cars, electric vehicles are cheaper to run. The main reason is that, per unit of energy, it costs less to power an EV than a gasoline car. In brutal, inelegant terms, electricity is cheaper than gasoline. How much cheaper though, depends on your energy supplier, where you live, the energy mix, and even what time of day you charge. So how are we supposed to figure out how much it costs to charge our EV?...

Earlier this year, I wrote an introductory article detailing the rate of lithium-ion battery fires. Today I want to look at New York as a cautionary tale in the struggle of dealing with battery fires as ebikes (and, to a lesser extent, escooters) become mainstream. I’ll follow up with a third article shortly exploring potential technological solutions to prevent battery fires. What causes battery fires? In the case of ebikes and escooter fires, there are numerous causes....

Strangely, I found a few articles that touched on this topic, but nothing that fully sated me. So, I vowed to right that wrong — and that’s what this article is all about. My goal is simple: to provide a useful guide on choosing the right size iPad Pro for you. This is a mission I’m so passionate about, that I’ve also put together a video all about the topic....

Reinforcement learning is a behavioral learning model where the algorithm provides data analysis feedback, directing the user to the best result. It differs from other forms of supervised learning because the sample data set does not train the machine. Instead, it learns by trial and error. Therefore, a series of right decisions would strengthen the method as it better solves the problem. Reinforced learning is similar to what we humans have when we are children....

“[With] the fully autonomous Waymo One ride-hailing service open to all in our launch area of Metro Phoenix, and with the fifth generation of the Waymo Driver being prepared for deployment in ride-hailing and goods delivery, it’s a wonderful opportunity for me to pass the baton to Tekedra and Dmitri as Waymo’s co-CEOs,” Krafcik wrote on LinkedIn as he declared his departure. The change in leadership can have significant implications for Waymo, which has seen many ups and downs as it continues to develop its driverless car business....

Artificial intelligence (AI) traces its history to the 1950s with Alan Turing and the Dartmouth Summer Research Project, and only in recent years has it emerged as a technology poised to impact society on par with the industrial revolution in terms of eliminating whole job segments such as truck drivers. The big question is will it create as many new jobs as it eliminates. You wouldn’t think one has much to do with the other, but as both an AI entrepreneur and an avid amateur winemaker, I sometimes find myself musing about how my two passions relate to each other....

Over the last few days, the Taliban has taken the control of Kabul, and threw off the Afghanistan government. This has caused severe unrest in the country with several people trying to flee the country. The group set up a helpline on WhatsApp for citizens to complain about violence, looting, and other law & order-related problems. As the Financial Times noted, it has used such helplines in the past. WhatsApp’s owner Facebook told the FT that it has blocked “official Taliban channels,” and is actively looking for group names and descriptions to identify new ones cropping up....

According to a report by reliable WABetaInfo, the chat app is testing this ability on Android. Here’s how it’ll work: you can opt-in to receive a call for verification instead of an SMS code. WhatsApp will call you for a brief moment and end the call; you don’t need to pick it up. Even when this feature is rolled out, it’ll be limited to Android, as iOS doesn’t allow apps to read call history....

In 2011, Netflix tried to steer customers away from mailed DVDs and dropped a 60% price increase in the midst of a recession. That year, the company lost 800,000 customers, its stock price tanked almost 80%, and their management team got turned into a Saturday Night Live sketch. Let’s use Netflix’s move as an example of what not to do. But what should we do then? A decade after the Netflix debacle comes an excellent example of smart product editing from GitLab, a hugely popular developer platform that is growing like crazy....

We’re all big fans of Elon at my company and we’ve even named one of our conference rooms Falcon 9, after the reusable SpaceX rocket that impressed the world by landing vertically following separation. So, when Elon speaks, we listen. But over the course of the past year, we’ve had the chance to learn more about using LiDAR for indoor applications than almost any other company on the planet, and we respectfully disagree....

Surprised? You’re not alone. Most people presume looking for a job early in the new year is futile, but that’s a myth. Hiring is a year-round process, and there’s never a bad time to apply for a job. What’s more, right now is actually one of the best times to apply. Here’s why: Hit the ground running For one, companies want to hit the ground running in the new year and employ the right people to take them through 2023 and beyond....

Will science ever be able to provide all the answers? Human brains are the product of blind and unguided evolution. They were designed to solve practical problems impinging on our survival and reproduction, not to unravel the fabric of the universe. This realization has led some philosophers to embrace a curious form of pessimism, arguing there are bound to be things we will never understand. Human science will therefore one day hit a hard limit – and may already have done so....