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Every weekend, the partiers flood into a New Delhi restaurant and dance club called Social, a three-story destination on the edge of Hauz Khas Village, one of the city’s most popular nightlife neighborhoods. After nightfall, the bar is busy and the dance floor is full. The lines regularly stretch out into the street. The dancing goes on until 1 a.m. But just a few hours later, the watering hole will be clean, the tables will be cleared of silverware and plates and the nightclub will have been transformed into a cozy office where no one gets fired for drinking at work. Everyone shares desks at Social: photographers, designers, journalists, software programmers. They bounce ideas off one another, hire one another and collaborate to expand their businesses. Everyone is either a…

Samsung Electronics seemed to have its smartphone troubles under control - until authorities had to evacuate a Southwest Airlines flight in Kentucky last week for an incident that involved a replacement phone. The reason: Authorities said a Samsung smartphone started smoking and making “popping” noises, just moments after its owner had boarded the plane and turned off the device. Passenger Brian Green, 43, says the device was a Galaxy Note 7 he had picked up from an authorized AT&T retailer Sept. 21 as a replacement for another Note 7 phone he returned when Samsung announced a global recall a week earlier. The recall came after a series of incidents last month in which Note 7 batteries overheated or caught fire. But Samsung had promised that the replacement models were safe.…

Facebook says it’s working to make virtual reality more social as the industry gets more crowded. With a host of leading tech companies now selling VR products, Facebook’s Oculus division is hoping to distinguish its offerings with more interactive and social experiences. The company announced a long-awaited shipping date - Dec. 6 - for its Oculus Touch hand controllers, designed to let users make gestures and grasp virtual objects within the simulated worlds projected by Oculus Rift headsets. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, donned one of those headsets for an onstage demonstration in which he visited Mars, played virtual cards with two other people, then made a video call to his wife while standing in a digital simulation of his living room. Zuckerberg said his company has invested $250 million…

Sony isn’t the first to make virtual reality a reality, but in waiting, the company has delivered a worthy experience that’s cheaper, more comfortable and more convenient than the two high-end systems already out. That could help boost a technology that’s had a rocky start. After four years of anticipation, Facebook’s Oculus business finally shipped its high-fidelity Rift VR headset in March, only to encounter massive delays in fulfilling orders. And Oculus still hasn’t said when it will ship motion controllers to enable VR experiences that don’t require users to sit down. HTC and Valve, meanwhile, jointly came out with a more immersive system (with controllers) in April, but their Vive system requires users to free up an entire room and hang annoying sensors on walls. The goal of Sony’s…

Revolution Radio Green Day The 12th studio album from the seminal pop-punk act offers a long-awaited return to their roots, but will appeal to fans both old and new. FIVE FACTS: 1. Green Day have won five Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album for American Idiot and Record of the Year for Boulevard of Broken Dreams. 2. Vernon is also a member of the bands Volcano Choir, The Shouting Matches and Gayngs. 3.In 2010, a stage adaptation of American Idiot debuted on Broadway. 4. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year of eligibility in 2015. 5. The group was ranked 91st in VH1’s list  of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. Stay Together Kaiser Chiefs One of the most…

As Yahoo’s embattled email service suffers through a slew of bad news, some users are finding it hard to leave. Automatic email forwarding was disabled at the beginning of the month. While those who’ve set up forwarding in the past are unaffected, some who want to leave over recent hacking and surveillance revelations are struggling to switch to rival services. “This is all extremely suspicious timing,” said Jason Danner, who runs an information technology business in Auckland, New Zealand, and is trying to quit Yahoo after 18 years with the email provider. Yahoo Inc. declined to comment on the recent change beyond pointing to a three-line notice on Yahoo’s help site which says that that the company temporarily disabled the feature “while we work to improve it.” Like forwarding postal…

At first, the drone took some explaining. Anxious villagers buzzed with rumors of a new bloodsucking thing that would fly above their homes. Witchcraft, some said. The truth was more practical: A United Nations project would explore whether a small unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, could deliver HIV test samples more efficiently than land transport in rural Malawi. Once understanding dawned and work began, young students and their teachers would spill out of the nearby school, cheering, each time they heard the drone approaching. “It was very exciting,” UNICEF official Judith Sherman said. As drones quickly pick up momentum around the world in everything from military strikes to pizza delivery, Africa, the continent with some of the most entrenched humanitarian crises, hopes the technology will bring progress. This second-largest continent,…

President Barack Obama sought Tuesday to reinvigorate his six-year-old call for the U.S. to send humans to Mars by the 2030s, a mission NASA has been slowly and quietly trudging away at. The White House was calling attention to government contracts awarded to six companies to build prototypes for “habitats” that could sustain human life in deep space. One such privately developed habitat - an inflatable room -is already attached to the International Space Station. Obama also said that within two years, private companies like SpaceX and Boeing will taxi astronauts to the space station with NASA as a customer. “These missions will teach us how humans can live far from Earth, something we’ll need for the long journey to Mars,” Obama wrote in an op-ed on CNN’s website .…

Samsung Electronics said Tuesday that it is stopping production of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones permanently, a day after stopping global sales of the ill-fated devices amid reports that batteries were catching fire. The South Korean company said in a regulatory filing that it decided to stop manufacturing Note 7s for the sake of consumer safety. Samsung is struggling to regain consumer trust after a first round of recalls that prompted criticism both for the faulty devices and for the company’s handling of the problem. After the earlier recall, the company said it had identified a manufacturing defect in the batteries of its top-of-the-line smartphone. It started shipping new Note 7 phones that were supposed to be safer. But reports that even the replacements were catching fire led Samsung to announce…

You probably already use Facebook at work. Now, Facebook is creating a separate version aimed at helping you do actual work instead of catching up on baby photos and campaign chatter. Facebook is launching a communications tool on Monday for businesses, nonprofits and other organizations. Called Workplace, the platform is ad-free and not connected to users’ existing Facebook accounts. Instead, businesses sign up as an organization and pay a monthly fee based on the number of users. It’s free for nonprofits and educational institutions. Julien Codorniou, head of Workplace at Facebook, said in an interview that the tool’s aim is to “connect everyone” in all sorts of workplaces - from desk-bound professionals to on-the-go employees who don’t have email or a computer. Think baristas at a coffee shop, field workers…

THE DEVICE THAT WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR It seems that virtual reality has been spoken about in hushed terms for years, with such questions as “What will it look like?”, “What will we be able to do with it?” and “How much will it cost?” having been frequently asked. Well, 2016 has been the year in which we have had firm answers to many of these questions, with VR having finally taken off in a big way in the US market. The Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive have both landed on the market, but many critics are already tipping Sony’s effort, the PlayStation VR, to be the device that truly pushes the market forward. It’s a lot cheaper than the models mentioned above and crucially, it’s compatible with the PlayStation…

As more people watch TV over the internet, the entertainment industry has “to get on board with it,” said Roger Lynch, the CEO of Sling TV. Sling, which is owned by satellite TV company Dish Network, was one of the first services to offer packages of popular cable channels over the internet, threatening cable’s dominance. Prices start at $20 a month for a core group of channels including ESPN and AMC; packages with other channels cost extra. By comparison, the average cable bill is $100, according to research from Leichtman Research Group. Even as fewer households pay for traditional TV services, new internet-TV options could help major TV networks add back some lost subscribers. DirecTV is expected to launch a service this year and Hulu has one coming in 2017.…

The film adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ bestselling psychological thriller “The Girl on the Train” easily topped the box office this weekend, outpacing the embattled slavery drama “The Birth of a Nation” by a long stretch. Starring Emily Blunt, “The Girl on the Train” took in $24.5 million for a first-place finish, while Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation,” a Sundance sensation that’s been overshadowed by a rape case in Parker’s past, netted only $7 million for a sixth-place bow. The film, about Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion was acquired by Fox Searchlight for a record $17.5 million. Audiences were instead largely drawn to films that came out last weekend, like “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children,” which took in $15.1 million to take second place, and “Deepwater Horizon,” which…

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center reopened for business Tuesday, relying on industrial air conditioners rushed in from around the country in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. Director Robert Cabana said the damage - mostly ripped-off roofs - is still being tallied, but is in the millions of dollars. He said it would have been much worse had Matthew not weakened and veered slightly offshore Friday as it swept up the Florida coast. “We were definitely blessed,”Cabana, a former space shuttle commander, told reporters. Among the buildings with roof and water damage: the 1960s-era beach house once used by astronauts for parties and barbecues before launches. Cabana hopes to get it repaired for conferences. The portable air conditioning units were brought in after the roof came off the building that serves as…

General Electric is ramping up its presence at its new corporate headquarters in Boston and unveiling a new digital hub in Rhode Island as it prepares to leave its Connecticut home of the last 42 years. The company now has more than 200 workers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, many of whom are transplants from Connecticut. They include CEO Jeff Immelt, who has worked from a temporary office in Boston since late August. GE plans to empty its headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut, by the end of the month after occupying it since 1974. Many of those not migrating to Boston are shifting to another Connecticut office in Norwalk. Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo on Tuesday plans to welcome the first employees opening a Providence office for software division GE Digital.…

A&T will stop giving consumers replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones because of reports that some of the replacement phones are catching fire, just as the original phones did before they were recalled last month. “We’re no longer exchanging new Note 7s at this time, pending further investigation of these reported incidents,” A&T said. AT&T, a major phone retailer, encouraged customers with Note 7 phones to exchange them for other products. Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Samsung announced a global recall of the phone in mid-September after incidents in which the batteries overheated or caught fire. It said its replacements were safe, but several people have said those phones caught fire. Last week, a Southwest Airlines flight was evacuated because of a phone that was…

THE ISSUE: Energy independence has been a goal of every president since Richard Nixon. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have very different ways to achieve it. How energy is produced and where it comes from affect jobs, the economy and the environment. WHERE THEY STAND Clinton pledges that under her leadership, the U.S. will be able to generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America within 10 years, with 500 million solar panels installed by the end of her first term. She also vows to reduce U.S. oil consumption by one-third through cleaner fuels such as biodiesel and natural gas and more fuel-efficient cars, boilers, ships and trucks. Clinton generally supports oil and gas drilling on federal lands, but would bar drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.…

A RAPIDLY INCREASING NUMBER OF GAMES You might imagine that the PSVR would fall way short in terms of games offered when compared to its console counterpart. While this may be the case for now, the number of games on the platform is expected to rise. No fewer than 31 games are being released with the kit at launch, including Batman: Arkham VR and EVE: Gunjack. 25 more games are set to be released shortly afterwards, and games like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Golem are expected to become available in the early stages of 2017. Although you may have to wait for some of the bigger titles to come onto the headset, you will still have a huge range of options to throw yourself into. In fact, the earlier games, including…

Germany is auctioning off a maglev trainthat officials once hoped would speed up transport at home and become a major export success. The Transrapid train is on show Tuesday and Wednesday to would-be buyers at a former test track in northwestern Germany, near the Dutch border. Bidding closes on Oct. 25. The government hasn’t set a minimum bid price for the train, a prototype built in 2007 for an abandoned high-speed maglev link project that would have linked Munich with its airport. A Transrapid line went into operation between Shanghai and its airport, but various proposals for links in Germany flopped. In 2006, 23 people were killed when a maglev train crashed with a maintenance vehicle on the German test track. The track hasn’t been used since 2011.…

Our Kind of Traitor A couple’s holiday takes a turn for the worse after they find themselves mixing with members of the Russian Mafia. FIVE FACTS: 1. This is the third time the production  house Potboiler Productions has made a film adaptation of a John le Carré novel, with the first being The Constant Gardener (2005) and the second A Most Wanted Man (2014). 2. Le Carré’s real name is David Cornwell, with two of the film’s producers - Simon and Stephen Cornwell - being his sons. 3. About 50 different filming locations were used, along with around 90 different film sets. 4. Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgård both appeared together previously in Angels & Demons (2009). 5. McGregor has also starred in Trainspotting (1996), Big Fish (2003) and…

Government regulators are fining Comcast $2.3 million, saying the cable giant has charged customers for stuff they never ordered, like premium channels or extra cable boxes. The Federal Communications Commission said the Philadelphia company must clearly ask customers before charging them for new services or equipment and make it easier for customers to fight charges they think are wrong. “It is basic that a cable bill should include charges only for services and equipment ordered by the customer - nothing more and nothing less,” said Travis LeBlanc, head of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. “We expect all cable and phone companies to take responsibility for the accuracy of their bills and to ensure their customers have authorized any charges.” Comcast said Tuesday that it’s been working to improve customer service -…

When Christa Savva returned to the Sandy Shoes Beach Resort a day after Hurricane Matthew brushed by Melbourne Beach, Florida, she looked at the beach in front of the pink-flamingo-colored hotel and noticed half the sand dunes had disappeared. Savva guesses three-quarters of the missing dunes washed into the ocean and the remaining quarter scattered onto the resort’s beachfront property, which was undamaged by the hurricane. “I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness!’” Savva, a property manager for the Space-Age-era hotel, said Sunday. “It’s crazy to have the dunes gone and all you see is empty space.” The sand on Florida’s beaches is the equivalent of tourism gold, and its disappearance over time threatens the state’s No. 1 industry. While Hurricane Matthew didn’t ravage Florida’s coast as a series of storms…

Some police and fire departments are turning off their radio encryption and allowing the public to listen in again to their emergency dispatch communications. Other agencies are opting not to use encryption. Police officials say their officers can’t communicate over encrypted radios with some neighboring law enforcement agencies with radio systems that either don’t have access to their encrypted channels or aren’t advanced enough to have encryption capability. Some officials also say they’ve received complaints about encryption from the media and transparent government advocates. The departments are bucking a slow trend toward encryption, which blocks people using scanners and cellphone apps from listening to emergency dispatch communications. Police in New Orleans; Spokane, Washington; and other cities have vowed not to encrypt their main dispatch channels. Others have turned it off.…