Facebook Live is about to get livelier. The social network on Wednesday introduced new features for its live-streaming service, which lets people broadcast live video feeds over the Internet using a phone’s camera. The video streams can be watched by other people on Facebook. Among the new features: Viewers can click on Facebook’s gamut of …

Google wants everyone to wear cardboard boxes on their faces. It wants that so much that it’s just announced a plan to make it easier for Apple iPhone developers to write VR apps. That’s a big deal because, first, the iPhone is the biggest rival to phones powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system, and second, until now there hasn’t …

Snapchat is making its chat features snappier. The maker of the popular app said on Tuesday it updated its disappearing photo and video service to give people more ways to talk and respond to each other within the same conversation. Among the choices: voice, video and text. Oh yeah, and stickers. Snapchat introduced more than a hundred stickers, like emoji …

Apple’s new strategy for grabbing business customers: go small. That doesn’t seem like the obvious choice when dealing with giant corporations and other groups who might want a tablet focused on productivity. But Apple has shrunk its hulking 12.9-inch iPad Pro, released in November, to 9.7 inches to appeal to more people. The device will start at $600 for a …

Virtual reality can make you think you’re racing down a speedway in a zooming car. But if you can see the scene all around you, why can’t you feel it as well, taking in the motion as you hug the turns? That’s what Entrim 4D headphones, unveiled this week at the South by Southwest tech, film and music festival in …

Long before Tinder made swiping a thing for matchmaking apps, there was a little-known video site trying to play cupid to the Internet generation: YouTube. That’s not exactly what comes to mind when you think of the world’s largest video site, which welcomes a billion visitors a month. But that’s how the YouTube, which Google bought in 2006 for $1.6 …

Google is hoping it can make the newest flavor of its mobile software sweeter than Apple’s. The search giant on Wednesday launched the next generation of its Android software, which powers more than 80 percent of the world’s smartphones and tablets. The software release, though, is an unfinished version specifically meant for software developers to tool around with. For now, …

What a difference a year makes. When the live-streaming app Meerkat launched last February, just before the popular tech, music and film festival called South by Southwest (SXSW), it captured the imaginations of Silicon Valley. Suddenly, people could easily use their smartphones to broadcast live video over the Internet. And it was everywhere. While at the festival last year, I …

The supermarket checkout line: A prime place to catch up on the news by reading through an article on your smartphone. But not if the story hasn’t finished loading by the time you get to the cashier. Yes, it’s a trivial problem. But it’s still annoying, and it’s something Google thinks it can fix. Starting Wednesday, whenever you search for …

Walking through Google’s campus on a warm February afternoon, Hiroshi Lockheimer pauses and points to two tourists smiling at their outstretched selfie stick. The world-famous Googleplex is always filled with tourists, who come to gawk and admire the sprawling headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley. “Ten years ago, I would have never imagined that,” he says laughing, as we …