Technology news

I’ll get to the very simple reason why the trailer for Rings, a reboot of 2002’s The Ring, itself a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring, loses the plot in its first few seconds. But first, take a moment to watch the trailer for the 2002 film, above.
The Ring was excellent for a number of reasons, but I’d start with director Gore Verbinski, who, at his best, is not just a good horror director, but a talented storyteller regardless of genre. Where other filmmakers rely o

LG's V20 is set to debut on September 6th, but mobile leaker Evan Blass has already got his hands on a high-resolution image of the Android flagship and posted it to Twitter. The image shows off a rather bland-looking smartphone with an uncluttered home screen devoid of any duplicate apps and unnecessary bloatware. What we can see from this image is LG's commitment to the second screen concept it debuted with last year's V10.
The second screen is just what it sounds like: a separate, always

The latest addition to a growing menagerie of octopus-robots has a lot going for it: It’s small, completely squishy, it doesn’t need a battery — and it farts.
The adorable palm-sized robot is the work of a team of engineers from Harvard University. They created our flatulent friend by pouring liquid silicone into an octopus-shaped mold and 3D printing legs. A soft, central controller in the bot’s body shunts hydrogen peroxide fuel through reaction chambers that convert th

Fox’s Marvel film franchise has suffered a new setback. Gambit director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow) has departed the project and has signed on to direct DC’s supernatural ensemble film Justice League Dark.DC started publishing the supernatural team-up in November 2011 with Justice League Dark #1. The original lineup featured John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Shade, the Changing Man, and Zatanna, while others, such as Swamp Thing have joined the lineup a

 David Lortscher was one of a few dozen people practicing dermatology in New Mexico when he realized a huge problem in the field: There weren’t enough dermatologists, and people were skipping out on visits because they thought it was for more affluent people or took too long. So Lortscher decided to start Curology, which provides acne and anti-aging treatment and prescriptions through… Read More

Hillary Clinton has asked the maker of the the EpiPen to voluntarily lower the price of the lifesaving allergy treatment, which has jumped by over 400 percent in the past few years. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Claire McCaskill of Missouri also requested pricing information from the manufacturer, Mylan NV, within two weeks.
Clinton called the price hit "outrageous" and "the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers" in a statement. She’s not alone. Seve

Uber is rolling out self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, which is cool — but it means that the way we think about maps and addresses is about to get really complicated. For example, here is something that happens to me several times a week: I call an Uber to my apartment building, and the driver gets lost because they can’t find the door.
See, the address of my building is on a main street, but the actual entrances are on the sides of the building — and when I drop a pin at th

Apple wants you to know it’s been working on AI for years now — you just didn’t know it. In a new feature by Stephen Levy in Backchannel, some of the company’s top execs and machine learning experts hammer home this message, pointing out all the ways in which AI is used in Apple’s products today. But, they also point out that artificial intelligence isn’t the "final frontier" for tech products "despite what other companies say."
Apple has cause to push th

SpaceX plans to lease one building and construct a newer second building at Port Canaveral, just two miles from where it launches its Falcon 9 rockets from the Cape Canaveral space pad, port chief John Murray tells Flordia Today. The company plans on leasing the former 52,000 square foot Spacehab building, which used to belong to the aerospace company now called Astrotech Corporation. The new building will be constructed nearby.
SpaceX plans on both processing and refurbishing its Falcon ro

Back in May we saw possible backplates for Lenovo’s modular Moto Z. All of them, including a projector and speaker, ultimately turned out to be real, but the rumored camera module that looked to come complete with a grip, sensor, lens, and flash never showed up. Lenovo instead focused on the phone’s default 13-megapixel camera. But now, months later, we might be getting that camera, and Hasselblad might be making it...or at least affixing its brand to it.
Newly leaked photos show a H

Uber is now offering drivers in select cities free financial planning through a partnership with a robo-advisor called Betterment. This announcement is coming on the heels of two huge headlines in Uber-land: the imminent rollout of the ride-hail startup’s first self-driving car, and a federal judge’s rejection of a proposed $100 million settlement with drivers in California in a worker misclassification lawsuit.
Uber mentions neither in its announcement about teaming up with Betterme

Starting in the coming weeks, Google is adding a new data-saving perk for owners of its Nexus smartphones. Called Wi-Fi Assistant, the feature lets your device automatically connect to millions of open and free Wi-Fi hotspots in an effort to cut down on data use and optimize mobile data speeds. Prior to today, the feature was exclusive to Google’s Project Fi cell service. It is now broadly available to any Nexus phone owner in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, and Nordic countries, Google sa

Starting in the coming weeks, Google is adding a new data-saving perk for owners of its Nexus smartphones. Called Wi-Fi Assistant, the feature lets your device automatically connect to millions of open and free Wi-Fi hotspots in an effort to cut down on data use and optimize mobile data speeds. Prior to today, the feature was exclusive to Google’s Project Fi cell service. It will now be broadly available to any Nexus phone owner in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, and Nordic countries, Goog

Advanced virtual reality haptics — technology that lets you realistically feel like you’re touching digital objects — lags behind headsets and motion controllers, in terms of both mainstream development and consumer adoption. This may be partly because delivering these subtle sensations requires an intimate connection with our bodies, and the one-size-fits-all nature of wearable technology sometimes makes that difficult. It may also be because one of our best options currently

Some of Leslie Jones' personal info and photos were leaked this afternoon, causing the Ghostbusters actress and SNL alum to take her website, JustLeslie.com, down, Variety reports. Included in the leak were Jones's passport and driver's license, along with nude photos reportedly obtained from her iCloud account. The hackers posted the photos to Jones' website, which prompted her team to take it offline.
Jones is no stranger to online harassment. Just last month, the actress asked Twitter to

Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it hoped to have its new mobile, high-tech fare payment system for the New York City subway installed by 2020. But e-ticketing may be coming to the nation’s largest rapid transit system sooner than we thought. That’s because two companies, Mastercard and Boston-based Masabi, are currently in talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to expand their recently launched e-ticketing app for the agency’s com

Now that The Angry Birds Movie is the second-highest grossing video game movie of all time, it makes perfect sense that a sequel is on the way. The Wall Street Journal reports that Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish company behind the popular mobile series, is developing a follow-up.
Without giving much in the way of specifics, Rovio CEO Kati Levoranta told the Journal, "We have started planning the sequel to The Angry Birds Movie."
'The Angry Birds Movie’ made $346.9 million globally
It mak

Earlier this week, Redditor bcassalino uploaded a gif of two pokémon, Dragonite and Charizard, performing a surprisingly elaborate dance routine. Titled "No time to explain, let’s dance," the post received thousands of upvotes, and eventually spilled onto Twitter, where people set the clip to song that aligned perfectly with the choreography.
Some personal favorites include Ariana Grande’s "Into You," and Juvenile’s "Back that Ass Up."
This fit perfectly! #IntoYou @

Convergence is the ultimate goal of most technological developments, but there are some areas of life that don’t benefit from it. A good example: valuable items that you might keep about your person. Don’t converge those. As a seasoned traveler, I know to keep my passport in one pocket, my money in another, my phone in a third spot, and my keys in a fourth. That way if I lose one thing, I don’t lose them all.
I diversify my risk portfolio.
Well, the Intrepid Travel Wallet is th

Often adults, particularly the nerdiest amongst us, possess an unflagging love for an entertainment franchise that defined their childhood. Star Wars. The Lord of the Rings. Jem and the Holograms. My heart, for example, belongs to ToeJam and Earl, an all but forgotten roguelike for the Sega Genesis that starred the two aliens with a love for hip-hop and funk.
For better and worse, movie studios and retailers haven’t spent the last two decades rebooting, retooling, and reincarnating my

Bachelor in Paradise is a television show in which the discarded men and women from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette come to a place called "Paradise" (technically a resort in Mexico) for a second (or sometimes third, and occasionally fourth) shot at love. Each week, they pair off in a game of sexy musical chairs. Throughout the season, the surplus human beings are granted blissful reentry to the real world, and two more men or women are added to the cast as tribute. Who knows how long this cou

Airlander 10, the butt-shaped airship that just flew for the first time last week, crashed earlier this morning on its second test flight, damaging the cockpit.
Nicknamed "The Flying Bum," the helium-filled aircraft took off from its central-England airfield last week to begin its initial testing, and was flying this morning for a second round of test flights. The aircraft completed its tasks for the day during its hour and a half flight before coming in for a landing.
Video posted to YouTube fr

If you’ve ever used the Leap Motion hand tracker, you’ll know that it’s a magical experience punctuated by moments so frustrating it makes you want to throw things — except that you can’t pick them up, which is why you’re frustrated in the first place. Leap Motion is well aware of this problem, and the company has just announced a beta of what it calls the Interaction Engine, which is meant to fix it.
The Interaction Engine is an add-on for the larger Uni

You probably already know that Facebook shows you ads based on what it thinks you like and dislike, but you might not be aware that it also labels your political preferences — even if you don't state them yourself. Earlier this month, the social network made this information easier to find with a new ad preference tool. This lets you see what the company's algorithms have determined as your interests (covering art, music, and hobbies, as well as politics) and edit them to your liking.

French artist Kévin Gemin analyzes the mysterious ways in which birds move — less "ah, the majesty of nature," more "that is a peculiar way for a creature to contort itself." Naturally, his talent is perfect for distilling a good bird GIF into a tiny, soul-inflating animation.
The best part? These little masterpieces are made with a Nintendo 3DS.
https://k-eke.tumblr.com/post/140034044061/i-love-the-birds-gifs-on-the-internet-sooo-muchGemin got his start animating in 2009 with a pro

The Verge is hosting the official Mr. Robot Digital After Show in partnership with USA Network, and we hope you'll join us tonight directly after the show, and each week, as we discuss the exploits of sophisticated hackers and corporate overlords. Tonight we're pleased to bring back Mr. Robot writer and Technology Producer Kor Adana, who gives the show many of its impressive details. We'll be discussing the latest episode, which comes with a preview more cryptic than usual: Fsociety re

As a general rule, anyone who posts pictures of money and talks about investment opportunities is probably trouble. Those are the hallmarks of the "money flipper" scam, a criminal scheme that’s been troubling Instagram for years. The accounts boast of a mysterious investment system, posting cash and other luxury goods as proof that it works. Then, in a direct message, they’ll offer to cut followers in on the deal. Sometimes the offer is to split a money order, other times it’s

The National Park System is turning 100, and The Verge is celebrating with Wilderness Week: a look at the natural world, its freaky critters, and its future.This year is already on pace to be the warmest on record, setting off another season of heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires around the world. But it would only be the latest record to fall, as 15 of the 16 hottest years have occurred since 2001. In turn, the ice sheets are melting, oceans are rising, hurricanes are increasing in number and in

It’s Wilderness Week at The Verge as we celebrate the centennial anniversary of the US National Park Service. It’s a good time to reflect upon your own relationship with nature, the mother of all inventions.Being outdoors has always been an escape for me, a respite from the aggressive pace and mind-numbing din of the big international cities I’ve called home. When I was younger, I’d get away to the mountains, spending weekends backpacking or bombing the asphalt switchback