Apple has open-sourced FoundationDB, the NoSQL database it bought back in 2015. The goal? Building an open community that will allow FoundationDB to become “the foundation of the next generation of distributed databases.”

There’s no more famous name in computer icon design than Susan Kare, who remains best known for creating the famous icons for the original Macintosh.

Having spent three decades working in the tech space, Kare is now being honored with an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) medal, whose previous winners have included the likes of Paul Rand, and Charles and Ray Eames.

The point of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is to throw you into a battle and see if you survive. But that can be a bit intimidating for those who’ve never played before, so Tencent just added two practice modes to the mobile version. One of these involves playing in a smaller area, and can become its own challenge with the right settings.

Sadly, the iOS version doesn’t have these new modes yet, but an upgrade is expected soon.

Verizon’s new service lets parents limit their children’s’ screen time, monitor who they’re texting (and how often), and track their location. 

The Smart Family program also includes content filters, and can even tell a parent how much battery life their child’s phone has left.

Drafts 5 has launched, the sequel to Drafts 4, and you may be a little confused as too what it actually new. Should you upgrade, for example? After all, it’s just the same old note-creating app with a lick of paint, right? Well, the definitive answer to that is “Hmmm, kinda…” While Drafts 5 doesn’t get many big new features, it has been completely redesigned. It looks better, works better, and the settings are way less confusing.

Oh, and you can finally use it as your only notes app, without feeling like you’re doing something dirty.

Apple’s loveable robot Liam has been fired.

As part of Apple’s Earth Day 2018 initiative, the company unveiled Liam’s replacement today named Daisy. The new robot borrows some of the technology from Liam to make an even more efficient iPhone disassembly machine.

Take a look:

Creating a spiritual successor to 2014’s lovable platformer Leo’s Fortune was a labor of love for its developers. Now, four years later the Norse-themed platformer Oddmar finally debuts on iOS. (Check out our review here.)

“The story is set in a Viking universe and is our take on Norse mythology,” designer and director Ozgur Taskin told Cult of Mac. “Developing this game gave us a great opportunity to imagine the environments of the North through art and animation.”

Cult of Mac got a look behind the scenes of a future gaming classic.

Tim Cook generally stays quiet about Apple’s plans, but there’s one thing he’s open about: his company’s laptops and tablets aren’t going to merge together.

It’s a question that comes up every couple of years. Which is understandable, given the recent rumors that macOS is migrating to the same type of processors as iOS, allegedly to enable apps to run on both Mac and iPad.

A big chunk of the internet runs on WordPress. In fact, it accounts for a full 30 percent of all websites. So this is a platform that every online publisher needs to know.

Do you ever find yourself staring at a web page, unable to understand a word? All the letters look familiar, only they’re arranged into some weird order? That’s called “foreign,” and it’s how people from outside America talk to each other. Some of them don’t even write their websites in English.

Fortunately, a good old American company has done something about this terrible habit. Microsoft Translator can fix up a web page and turn all that foreign gibberish into a language we can all feel comfortable with. You may already use Google’s translate bookmarklet for this, but Microsoft’s version is so much better it’s in a different league.

Huawei was developing smartphones with notches in their displays years before iPhone X made them cool, it claims.

The Chinese company ultimately decided not to release one because it was “too conservative and cautious” at the time — but now that Apple uses notches, it’s okay.

Enjoy a free medium fries when you use Apple Pay at McDonald’s on a Friday. Apple’s latest promotion runs throughout the rest of April, which gives you just two more Fridays to take advantage of it.

For activity tracking, fitness and notifications, Apple Watch is pretty awesome, and these days, that’s all most people use it for. Which is a shame.

When it launched back in 2015, Apple had a much bigger vision: a wearable computing platform supporting a rich and varied ecosystem of apps. Like an iPhone strapped to your wrist. But the reality has turned out to be rather different. Instagram is just the latest of a series of high profile apps to desert the platform. So what’s up?

I believe Apple Watch’s dependence on iPhone is holding it back, and the time has come for Cupertino to set its smartwatch free. In this, the third and final part of my wish list of watchOS 5 features, I’ll focus on how I hope Apple will improve setup, apps and iCloud to create a badass stand-alone device.

Apple shares fell 3 percent this morning after iPhone chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) cut its revenue forecast for the second quarter of 2018.

The company and industry analysts point to weak demand for high-end smartphones as the main reason for the poor guidance. This likely has something to do with the fact that iPhone X sales have been in the gutter since early hype quickly died out late last year.

The Magic Mouse is one of the best mice Apple has ever built, but it doesn’t suit everyone. Some users complain that it has a high level of friction on certain surfaces, while also making an annoying scratching noise when it moves.

If you’re one of those folks, you may be interested in a new Kickstarter campaign — offering a new mousepad and simple add-on for the Magic Mouse which promises to make it glide across your desk as though it’s floating.

The makers of superb 2014 game Leo’s Fortune are back with a new action platform game for iOS. Trading Leo for a cartoony world based on Norse mythology, Viking-themed platformer Oddmar lands in the App Store today.

Can this new iOS platformer repeat the success of its spiritual predecessor?

Netflix has added a new feature to its iOS app, allowing users to watch a 30-second video trailer of content they are interested in.

The company began testing the feature in early March, but is now rolling it out to all users. The video previews are viewable in portrait mode, which ensures that they do not interrupt your browsing experience by having to constantly change the orientation of your device.

Chipmaker Qualcomm is reportedly cutting around 1,500 jobs in an effort to reduce its costs by $1 billion. Most of these jobs will be in California, although some will be in other locations.

Qualcomm has been engaged in an ongoing legal battle with Apple since early 2017.

Epic today rolled out its latest content update for Fortnite, adding its first light machine gun and a new limited-time game mode. You can enjoy it all across all platforms — including iOS — right now!

The end is nigh for a free VPN service for iOS and Android. Opera VPN will close at the end of this month. No reason has been given.

A Virtual Private Network protects users by hiding their IP address, making it much harder to be tracked. Opera Software’s version would even let you appear to be in another country.

Speculation about the 2018 iPhone is running hot and heavy. It seems there are new reports on these unannounced devices almost every day. But not all of these carry the gravitas of Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with a long track record of being right about Apple.

So when Kuo says a 2018 iPhone with a 6.2-inch display could cost between $550 and $650, people take notice. Previous reports had pointed to a price range $100 higher

The latest version of Dropbox allows iPad users to move files around with a fingertip. It also works better with long file names.

Even though iPad was designed to be controlled with touches, drag-and-drop file management has been slow to come to this tablet. Still, Dropbox is on board.

Microsoft Translator has been around for a while, but this app is getting a huge improvement: artificial intelligence-powered translations even when the iPhone is offline.

Using translation apps in a foreign country can be nerve wracking.  Such software almost always depends on remote servers to do the hard work. Microsoft, however, has squeezed the necessary AI into a mobile app.

You might want to think twice before plugging your iPhone into a friends laptop for a quick charge.

Security researchers have discovered an all-new type of iOS hack called “trustjacking” that uses one of a little-known WiFi feature to access a device’s data, even when the targeted device isn’t in the same location anymore.

One lesser known ability of the Photos app on your iPhone is that is can use third-party filter packs. If you install a photo-editing app that supports them, then you can apply that apps filters without ever leaving the Photos app. This makes it super quick to add sophisticated effects to your pictures, and you can revert to the original photo at any time in the future.

Today we’ll see how to use these filter packs, and look at a couple of great apps that have them.