Technology news

This past Wednesday, I visited Coney Island with a drug-addled hacker as he mind-tripped through a neon dance party. Thursday I became Harley Quinn, working my way through an elaborate fight sequence with the rest of the Suicide Squad. Friday I was strapped to a gurney, wheeled down the hallways of an insane asylum, and then burned at the stake. Saturday I tried fought off an evil spirit with the help of two friends — one of which I’m pretty sure was a lycanthrope.
This year, virtual

Soaking for four days in pure, unadulterated fandom can take a lot out of you. But if you care enough, it’s worth it. That’s the feeling I got watching the doors close at the Convention Center on the last day of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. This annual epicenter of fan culture is changing, but for the people it matters most to, it’s exactly what it always needed to be.
Comic-Con doesn't exist for Hollywood's sake
Comic-Con 2016 was unquestionably a smaller show this y

Bernie Sanders is pleading with supporters not to disrupt the proceedings of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia tonight. "I ask you as a personal courtesy to me to not engage in any kind of protest on the floor. It's of utmost important you explain this to your delegates," Sanders wrote in a text message. The request is meant to mitigate the anger of Sanders supporters who feel the entire nomination process was biased against him.
Leaked DNC emails released by WikiLeaks last

Oculus Home was updated this past week to include support for up to four trackers on the Rift and Touch. This added functionality is likely a direct appeal to Steam game developers who haven't yet been able to develop motion-controlled games for the Oculus Rift, as the company prepares to release its Touch controllers later this year. Four trackers could ultimately improve accuracy and set a new standard for VR setups in the future, but still, it’s unclear how users are expected to set up

A man with a steamroller, a camera, a YouTube account, and 17 LCD monitors did what any person in his situation would do: slowly mashed the displays into a gritty pancake of glass, plastic, and presumably toxic fumes.
The Road Roller video is titled "Road Roller crush 17 LCD SCREENS! Total press!" and I have to assume "total press" is a jubilation shouted by crush enthusiasts whenever an object is squished into oblivion. The YouTube channel, dedicated entirely to a steamroller smashing things pe

There’s a lot that today’s VR systems can do to really make you feel like the virtual world you’re in is as close as possible to the world you inhabit. Together, the high-resolution screens, head tracking, room-mapping cameras, and motion controllers on high-end systems such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift really can make the digital world look real.
But the holy grail of virtual reality isn’t just seeing these fantastic worlds and experiences — it’s feeling t

 It’s been a busy week for the Google Maps team. As we reported earlier today, the Google Maps apps are getting a Wi-Fi-only mode and the team is also bringing more crowdsourcing tools to the mobile apps. The company kept the biggest announcement for today, though: Google Maps on iOS, Android and the web is getting a new and cleaner look with a more subtle color scheme. The idea… Read More

Sony's streaming TV service just became a lot more attractive with the addition of NFL Network and NFL RedZone channels, both of which will arrive on PlayStation Vue in time for the 2016 season opener in September. So Vue subscribers will now have direct channel access to games and pre- and post-game coverage, whereas previously you needed to own a cable subscription to watch football through the NFL's dedicated apps. Sony says customers will also get standard Vue features like simultaneous

Uber was banned from using information gathered by a secretive, CIA-linked research firm on the plaintiff who brought a price-fixing lawsuit, after a judge in the case reprimanded the firm for behavior that could “arguably” be called criminal conduct, according to Reuters.
Last December, Spencer Meyer filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, alleging a scheme to fix prices in violation of antitrust laws. The same day, Uber hired a research firm called E

Google has begun testing a new feature in its Maps app that would only allow data to be downloaded via a Wi-Fi connection, according to TechCrunch. The feature is meant to help users with limited data plans.
Select users can find the mode in the Maps settings menu in place of the "Offline areas" option. When enabled, the app warns that a small amount of cellular data may still be used, but significantly less than usual. The switch essentially cuts Maps off from cellular data, only loading new in

Pokémon Go has been one of the few positives of an otherwise grim July. Perhaps because of its status as the rare untainted beacon of joy, the smartphone game has pervaded popular culture, from the design of a neighborhood lemonade stand to the floor of the Republican Nation Convention. The game’s scope is so broad, spanning so many subcultures, that it’s become difficult to visualize.
We find that it helps to see these stories alongside one another, to better appreciate just

The gold version of the OnePlus 3 is finally being released, just over a month after the smartphone was released. The Soft Gold — as OnePlus is calling it — color is a softer take on the gold smartphone that we've become accustomed to after numerous handsets in the hue from Apple, Samsung, HTC, and others.Although the shade is closer to tan than yellow-gold, OnePlus expects the new handset to sell out quickly, so if you want one you'll need to move fast. The OnePlus 3 in Soft Go

Twitter came into our lives in 2006, and after a decade of existence, most people still have no idea what Twitter even is. Ninety percent of respondents to a Twitter-organized questionnaire say they recognize the brand, but most "didn’t know or simply misunderstood" what it was for. Most people also thought having an account meant they had to tweet every day. As Twitter said in a blog post about these findings: "We realized we had some explaining and clarifying to do!"
Yes, you do Twitter.

On Friday, WikiLeaks published a stolen archive of emails from the Democratic National Committee — and Washington spent the weekend trying to figure out if the dump was a normal political scandal or something far more sinister. The dump revealed a number of embarrassing facts, including a number of indications that the nominally neutral DNC had favored Clinton during the primary election — but as the story has progressed, those facts have proved less interesting than where they came

Microsoft is overhauling its authenticator apps for Android and iOS next month, with new features and a refreshed user interface. While Microsoft has long supported two-factor authentication for multiple services on Android, the iOS app has always been restricted to Microsoft Azure. That's changing on August 15th, and the new apps for both iOS and Android will support two-factor codes from a variety of services. Continue reading…

Magic Leap CMO Brian Wallace showed off a video preview last week of what we might eventually see from his secretive company. The video, which Wallace played at a conference in Shanghai, shows how consumers will be able to shop through Magic Leap’s AR headset. They’ll be able to use voice controls to measure a space and then pick out items that'll fit in the room. I need something like this for an A/C unit in my room. Where ya at, Magic Leap?!
Previous videos showed more persona

It seems like just yesterday The Verge was at Randall's Island in New York City for Panorama, talking to artists, catching shows, and applying sunscreen like we were getting paid for it. That's because it was just yesterday — the final day of the festival. The artists who played Friday and Saturday set the bar pretty high, but Sunday's performers lived up to the hype gracefully (or, in the case of Run the Jewels, like their only order of business was to fuck shit up).Brooklyn's Flatbush Zo

Bespoke typefaces have become all the rage in Silicon Valley. Google has its Roboto font family that’s become a cornerstone of the identity of many of their Material Design applications. Apple has its custom-made San Fransisco, which recently became the default typeface across the entire Apple family of devices. And while Microsoft can’t take credit for developing Segoe, the company has made the font its own, using it as a core part of the Microsoft, Windows, and Office bra

The AG600, the world’s largest seaplane, was rolled out by a state-run Chinese company last week, which experts say is the country’s latest effort to bolster its nascent aviation industry.The plane is roughly the size of a Boeing 737, has a range of 2,800 miles, and will be used primarily to fight forest fires or conduct marine rescue missions, according to The Guardian.“very useful in developing and exploiting marine resources”The AG600 was unveiled by the state-owned Av

San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone, and we're left with sore feet, full pokédexes, and more trailers than one person could ever hope to keep track of. That's what The Verge is here for. We've sifted through the hours of footage shown off at this year's event to pick out the best trailers and teasersThis year saw reimagined horror classics in Blair Witch and the Exorcist TV series, as well as visits to King Kong's home on Skull Island, our first look at the long-awaited American Gods, a

Given that the general state of the world in 2016 could be classified as The Worst, it was only a matter of time before a tech company started selling gadgets to Make You Feel Safe Again. Enter RiskBand, a personal safety device from Whereable Technologies that can pinpoint your location anywhere in the world with the press of a button.
The company says once you press the button on your RiskBand for three seconds, it will pinpoint your location anywhere in the world using GPS and cell tower

Rihanna's ANTI world tour touched down in Lille, France over the weekend, and she took some time out of her jam-packed set to make sure fans were focusing on her. "I don't want to see you texting your boyfriends and your girlfriends," said the star. "I don't want to see you catching any pokémons up in this bitch!" All of the Pidgeys and Zubats lurking in the stadium's rafters cowered in fear; thousands of smartphones slipped back into pockets, their owners chastened.
I'm left with two que

How much would you pay for really good audio? Before you answer that question, consider that humanity as a whole spends more than $11 billion per year on headphones, $1 billion of which is spent on premium ($100+) cans in the US. So we clearly have a collective appetite for better sound, and it’s only going to grow bigger as human civilization becomes more urbanized and the privacy of headphones is prioritized over the sociability of speakers.Focal is a French loudspeaker manufacturer that

Apple is going back to its old hardware boss to run the biggest hardware project it has ever attempted. Bob Mansfield, Apple's former hardware engineering chief, has taken over the Apple Car project, known internally as "Project Titan," according to The Wall Street Journal.
Mansfield stepped down from his day-to-day role on the executive team at Apple in 2013 after 14 years with the company, with reports at the time stating that he would work on special projects. But according to the Journa

Whenever I have a cold, I like to watch The Sandlot. The 1993 comedy about the baseball-bonded boys of San Fernando is not the greatest movie. The plot is episodic, chasing new conflicts from scene to scene, and the film’s period, the summer of 1962, is more naively constructed than Main Street in Disneyland. You won’t find it on many top 100 lists. But whenever I’m prone on the couch and would rather not think or be challenged or even keep my eyes open, The Sandlot is my first

When James Murphy and the rest of LCD Soundsystem finished ripping through the opening one-two punch of "Us V Them" and "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House," they took a breath to offer up a sort of apology. "We're trying to get through as many songs as we can tonight," said Murphy. "Excuse us if it's fast and we don't talk a lot." The dance-punk veterans may have been closing out the Panorama festival as hometown heroes, but no amount of civic goodwill can overpower a noise curfew, so they kept t

Starting in 2019, the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City will be completely shut down for 18 months in order to repair the extensive damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy. It is the longest and most painful service disruption in the history of America’s largest subway system.An estimated 225,000 people ride the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn every day, which is more people than the daily ridership of Baltimore, LA, and Miami’s systems combined. The decision c

The Super Nintendo is about to go wireless. Analogue, the company behind the recently launched Retro Receiver for the NES, is now launching a new version designed for Nintendo’s 16-bit home console. As with the previous version, the Retro Receiver for the SNES is a simple wireless adapter that plugs into the controller port of any Super Nintendo — including the Japanese Super Famicom, along with other aftermarket versions of the hardware — letting you play games on it using a v

Comic-Con is expensive. There's the cost of the ticket — $245 for the whole event, pretax — then there's the cost of transportation, parking, lodging, and food. And once you're finally inside, there's the countless number of con-exclusive props, artwork, and toys staring you down, begging for you to make a purchase. For a serious geek, it can really add up — to more than $1,000 for five days.
But a lot of collectors have figured out a way to offset their costs and make some ext

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is holding an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit the night that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are set to speak at the Democratic National Convention. The AMA, which was announced this morning, will be held on July 27th at 7PM ET on Trump subreddit r/The_Donald.
Reddit has become a significant platform for campaigning over the past few years. Obama became one of the first major political figures to hold an AMA during the 2

Over a year after its initial launch in Japan, SoftBank is bringing its Pepper robot to Taiwanese businesses. This is the first time it’s available outside Japan. A subsidiary of Foxconn called Perobot is handling orders in Taiwan, which will likely be similarly priced to the bot in Japan. Pepper costs around $16,000 for three years of use.
Softbank said developer models of Pepper would be available for preorder in the US this month, although that hasn’t happened yet.The humanoid now

 A mass migration of IT services to the cloud, coupled with a huge growth of connected devices, has created a perfect storm for security breaches with some 400 million malware attacks identified last year alone according to IDC. Now, a new hopeful called StackPath believes it might have the key (and size) to fighting malicious hackers once and for all. The company is emerging out of… Read More

Netflix just nabbed the global rights to the first season of FX's popular American Crime Story series, The People v. O.J. Simpson. The 10-episode season, structured like a standalone mini-series, follows the 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
The People v. O.J. Simpson was widely well-received by critics for its intimate, complex look at the main players in the O.J. trial, including Robert Kardashian (Dav

Twitter is going to start live-steaming games from Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League, in addition to a new nightly show called The Rally in conjunction with 120 Sports.
The games will be available once a week to viewers in the United States and to some select international markets. There’s no schedule or announced timeline for the rollout of this new feature.
The Rally will be available live each night, and will be produced by 120 Sports in a "distinct format designed to

In just a few short days, Microsoft will be celebrating Windows 10’s first birthday. It has been a busy year that has seen a number of Windows 10 updates with new features and improvements, but the biggest one is arriving on August 2nd. Microsoft’s free Anniversary Update to Windows 10 includes some highly requested features, but overall it’s full of minor additions that really make the OS feel a lot more polished. I’ve been testing Windows 10’s Anniversary Update f

Verizon today announced that it plans to acquire Yahoo for $4.83 billion, confirming a deal that was first reported last week. In a press release, the internet service provider said that Yahoo will be integrated with Aol, which Verizon acquired last year for $4.4 billion.
Under the deal, Verizon will acquire Yahoo's online brands and email service, which has around 225 million monthly active users worldwide. In addition to Yahoo's than 1 billion users, Verizon will gain the web giant's Brig