The annual SXSW festival in Austin brings together the best in the arts from various media, including music, TV, and film. There are few finales as anticipated as that of "Game of Thrones", which will come to an end for HBO in the coming months with anticipation already building for the return of the show on April 14, 2019, in the U.S. To continue the buzz around the world's biggest TV show, HBO has been developing a number of brand partnerships including a continuation of the partnership with Snapchat. In the past, Snapchat has developed various augmented reality options usually using its AR Marker Tool to bring images to life. The development of the partnership with Snapchat has given HBO the opportunity to bring its marketing for "GoT" to life on many levels at SXSW. The City of Austin has been submerged in "Game of Thrones" marketing materials including a...

Microsoft's Marketing Chief Has Spoken Out Against April Fools' Day Pranks-and He's Not Joking If you're a fan of Microsoft's products and/or intellectual property—think Xbox, top-notch PCs, and Minecraft, specifically—you're probably assuming that the company's employees and software developers, because their work is so difficult and centers on helping others to relax and have fun, will pull a prank or two during April Fools' Day, which, as always, is scheduled for the first day of April. Unfortunately, you couldn't be more wrong. As a matter of fact, Microsoft's corporate division has taken a decidedly anti-April Fools' Day stance. Chris Caposella, Microsoft's chief marketing executive, stated via memo (and in more words) that April Fools' Day pranks—particularly those that aim to entertain customers and the public generally—should be abstained from, as he believes that they can create negative news and unwanted media attention. An employee or group of employees recently leaked...

This week, Apple temporarily blocked Facebook and Google from creating and running Enterprise iOS apps meant for internal use. Apple has since restored both of the iOS enterprise certificates. Facebook found itself in the crosshairs of Apple because of an app called Facebook Research, which tracked the phone usage of the company's users in a manner Apple said violated its policies. The app was able to do this because it was created through the Apple Developer Enterprise Program. A program that lets certain approved developers distribute apps within their own organizations. Unlike with normal iOS apps, which Apple individually tests and approves prior to their release on the App Store, Apple does not test or approve apps created through its Enterprise program. This is because companies officially cannot distribute these apps outside of employees, contractors and partners, who in turn are meant to use the apps only internally or for...

The core developers of Ethereum recently announced that they decided to delay a highly anticipated network upgrade — also known as a hard fork — which is code-named Constantinople. They did this after researchers discovered a serious vulnerability in the upgrade. What is Constantinople? Constantinople is a collection of 5 separate proposals to improve Ethereum's software. It is called a hard fork because once the software has been upgraded it will not be backwardly compatible with older versions of the software. This means that all full-node operators of Ethereum must upgrade their software to the new version. These nodes are what validates transactions that come across the network. Often hard forks of cryptocurrencies can be controversial. This happens because different factions of a cryptocurrency community disagree over a proposed upgrade. Sometimes this can lead to the formation of new currencies. This happened to Bitcoin, which is the most popular cryptocurrency...