Technology news

Everyday internet wisdom tells us that if you can dream it, it exists online. I’ve used this technique with great success to find everything from knickknacks for my apartment to deeply unfortunate photos.
Speaking of which! In light of recent news that we may be getting a Sonic the Hedgehog movie directed by the guy who directed Deadpool, I thought I’d share this great technique. First, open your browser to Google. Then, enter your name followed by the search term “the hedgehog

China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) plans to build the world’s fastest train. At speeds of 373 mph, it’d obliterate the previous record held by Shanghai Maglev at 267 mph. The firm is working on a modest proof of concept that would travel 124 mph over a three-mile test track. If successful, the plan is to utilize the country’s 12,000-plus miles of track already built to establish ‘domestic technology and standard systems for new-generation medium- and high-spe

Microsoft Flow, the company’s own take on IFTTT, is officially available to the general public after being released in beta back in April. The tool lets you connect cloud services like Slack, G Suite, Twitter, Office 365, and Dynamics 365 to create action “Flows” for the workplace.
A Flow is an action that takes place after something else happens — like having a photo uploaded to Dropbox after emailing it to yourself. Unlike IFTTT, which lets you link two single actions w

Nomad is a company that sells ultra-rugged charging cables, made out of ballistic nylon, extra thick wire, and kevlar to make sure that your charging cable doesn’t fall apart. Its latest cable takes it a step further by adding a small integrated battery pack into the Lighting cable itself to charge up your phone even without an outlet.It costs $39.95, which isn’t cheap for a 2350 mAh battery pack
It works similarly to Apple’s own iPhone 7 battery case, where the cable charges t

What if you could make decent music without knowing how to play an instrument? And what if you could take your whole production system with you anywhere, without spending an arm and a leg? That’s what the music start-up Roli wants to help you achieve with Blocks, its new modular instrument that costs just $179 in its basic form. I got to spend some hands-on time with the luminescent little squares, and left my session thinking they might just change the way w

The China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), one of the world’s largest train manufacturers, recently announced that it had begun work on a new type of magnetic levitation train that will able to achieve a top speed of 373 mph, which is faster than any other train currently in operation.
According to Smart Rail World (citing a report by the Chinese press agency Xinhua), the state-owned company has started building a three-mile track on which to test out this maglev train. The firm i

Most people, in my experience, like music. Many people, in my experience, would like to make music. But have you ever tried to make music? It's kind of difficult! There are so many different notes, and you get one note wrong and blam now it just sounds like the cat got into the music room.
I think maybe Roli's all-new Blocks can help. Blocks are wireless, modular, mobile music accessories that snap together and form a little impromptu loop studio when gathered all together. But that's not the re

The PowerBulb is a lightbulb that doubles as a charger. It can charge two devices at once, and it just launched on Kickstarter. Crowdfunding is awful because anyone can put their gadget idea out into the world and maybe make it a reality. Apparently the team behind the PowerBulb at Mega Tiny Corp discovered that people struggled to find places to charge their devices, especially if they shared a room with someone. So the company thought an LED lightbulb with two built-in USB charging ports would

Six months after its launch, startup Talkshow is shutting down. The mobile app, from former Twitter executive Michael Sippey, let users group text in public, so any number of users could drop in and view the conversation. It was a little bit like Twitter in that respect, but it gave users a lot more control over who could join the chat. This had the effect of making Talkshow a more intimidate and personal place to exchange ideas or just goof off with friends and other personalities in your socia

Instagram influencers have long tried to hack the app to make money by putting "purchase link in bio" when they photograph something you can buy. The company has noticed, so now it's making it easier for users to make purchases from within the app — but only for certain brands.
Starting next week, select iOS users will see shoppable photos with a white icon displayed on the lower left corner. Tapping it reveals the items in the photo that are available for purchase, and clicking it takes y

Roku TV sets are getting an exclusive feature that’s not available on the company’s streaming set-top boxes: the ability to pause live, over-the-air TV. Today, Roku TVs from TCL, Sharp, and others are being updated with version 7.5 of Roku OS. If you’ve got an antenna running into your TV, you can now pause content for up to 90 minutes. A USB drive (with at least 16GB of free storage) must also be plugged in for this feature to work, since Roku needs somewhere to store the part

Originally slated to launch in late October, Apple has again pushed the timetable for the launch of its wireless earbud, the ‘AirPod.’ For reasons unknown, the new timetable has Apple missing the holiday season completely, and instead opting for a January 2017 launch. The AirPod is Apple’s premium headphone solution touted as the replacement to its corded predecessor. With a second delay, Apple now finds itself without a native solution to its flagship device; you kn

Microsoft wants kids playing Minecraft in class, and it’s hoping that schools will not just let them, but support them. It’s launching a version of Minecraft today called Minecraft: Education Edition that includes some classroom tools and a way to roll out accounts to every student in a class or district.
The app has been in development since last January, when Microsoft purchased a mod working toward the same goal. The educational tools went into a beta period this summer, with Micr

Slack may be the current darling of the workplace messaging space, but it’s by no means dominant. Lots of offices and teams depend on Atlassian’s HipChat, which today received an update that brings Amazon Alexa support, via Soft Serve’s VoiceMyBot. Thanks to this tool, it’s now possible to start a conversation, just by speaking to your Amazon Echo device. Alexa can even respond on your behalf, notify you when new messages are posted, and show you summaries

It’s been a long-running trend that Black Friday starts earlier each year, and now we’ve reached the apex of that: it’s November 1st, Halloween is over, and Amazon is kicking things off with its “Countdown to Black Friday” sales event. Are they technically early Black Friday sales? Are they just some decent deals? Does it even matter anymore since you now have permission to put up your Christmas tree anyway?
It’s honestly a bit hard to tell the difference betw

Instagram is currently down for many users. Down Detector showed a strong spike in outage reports starting at approximates 1:04 PM ET, and indeed the company itself sent out a reassuring tweet. Instagram may currently be down for some people. We're working to get things back up and running as soon as possible. — Instagram (@instagram) November 1, 2016 The company just rolled out an update that introduced a shopping feature – we wouldn’t be surprised if the outage is related. N

People who are well liked on Facebook may also be healthier, according to a study that linked people’s activity on the social network to their lifespans. This could be another blow against the increasingly unstable position that digital media is inherently dangerous.The study looked at the association between the Facebook use of 12 million people between the ages of 27 and 71 and their longevity, using records from the California Department of Public Health. Led by William Hobbs — wh

The Verge just turned five today, and to help kick things off we’re introducing a reimagined daily newsletter called Command Line. Think of it as a terminal with direct access to the wetware of the highly advanced sentient machines who run The Verge on a daily basis.
Command Line is inspired both by the classic look-and-feel of crazy '90s computer terminals, and also by a cool new feature on our homepage: a tagline in our beautiful new dynamic header that expresses our outlook each day. Th

The Daydream View, Google’s new virtual reality headset, is officially coming November 10th. Google announced the news in a blog post today, and opened a Google Store page for the $79 headset, which can now be preordered. Verizon and Best Buy are also selling the Daydream View in the US, and other retailers and mobile companies will carry it in Canada, the UK, Germany, and Australia.
The View is the first of what Google hopes will be many headsets to support its upcoming Daydream VR platfo

Pretty much everyone who grew up watching Harry Potter wanted to be a wizard at some point. Sadly, magic isn’t real, and no parent in their right mind would send their kid to a school with a Basilisk infestation problem. That said, Google’s got the next best thing. It just updated the Google app with some magical incantations. Now, when you say “OK Google, lumos,” it’ll switch on your flashlight. To turn it off, the magic word is “nox.” To turn off your

Apple’s shiny new MacBook Pros are making the switch to USB-C ports for everything, which means that unless you’re looking to live your best #donglelife, it’s probably time to start looking into a USB-C monitor.#donglelife pic.twitter.com/qt5FI2gQxW— nilay patel (@reckless) October 31, 2016And EIZO’s newly announced USB-C monitor, the FlexScan EV2780, looks like exactly the sort of friend a modern Mac laptop needs right now.
The FlexScan EV2780 is a 27-inch monitor

The days of cute peach butts are dead.Apple’s 10.2 update will gift us a much needed shrugging emoji, but that which gives can also take away. As the first images of emoji circulate on Twitter, people are mourning the death of the second-best sexting emoji. You can spot the difference by locating the peach near the bottom left corner.Dang. The ancient Apple emoji — which were never really meant to be seen bigger than 32 × 32 — are redrawn quite well in iOS 10.2! Good job!

Two big partners have signed onto Hulu’s internet TV service: The Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox, whose support means that Hulu will be able to offer channels including ESPN, ABC, and Fox.
Hulu announced its intention to launch a streaming TV service, which would let subscribers watch broadcast and cable channels live over the internet, earlier this year, saying it was aiming for a 2017 launch. Before that can happen, Hulu needs to ink deals with all of the major networks it want

Instagram is a great way for brands to get exposure and grow their following. But converting followers into paying customers has always been hard, as the only place links are clickable is in the profile’s bio. But it’s soon changing this approach with the introduction of shoppable product tags. Brands will be able to tag any items in their pictures, which take the user to a seperate product page with more information and a ‘shop now’ link that goes straigh

Today in D.C. District Court, Airbnb successfully blocked a proposed class action alleging racial discrimination on the company’s platform. The lawsuit alleged systematic discrimination by Airbnb hosts, enabled by various design choices made by the company.
But after today’s decision, there won’t be a public ruling on the discrimination itself. The proposed class-action will be moved into individual arbitration, in accordance with a crucial clause in Airbnb’s Terms of Ser

Twitter is rolling out bot-like features inside its direct messaging feature in an effort to lure more brands into using it as a customer service platform. The company today introduced automated “welcome” messages for customers who send a DM to a brand, along with “quick replies” that let customers choose from pre-written messages to complete common tasks. (“What’s the status of my order?”) You can try it now by messaging beloved brands Pizza Hut and Eve

Belkin’s new Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD is probably what you’ll want for your new MacBook Pro, at least once you’re already using all four of your available Thunderbolt 3 ports. The new laptops ship with only those four ports, which are replacing prior generations’ power, Thunderbolt, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA ports. You should have mourned the loss of those ports by now, but I understand grieving is a slow process. Maybe this dock will help you get over it? It s

FilmStruck, the streaming service for “die-hard movie enthusiasts,” launched today. The service is a joint venture between Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection meant to fill in classic film gaps left by Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. FilmStruck’s collection will include “art house, indie, foreign, and cult films,” and the entire Criterion Collection, Business Insider reports.
The service was announced back in April, almost instantly drawing comparisons to

NASA wants ideas from private companies and the science community about instruments that can be used to explore and study the surface of the Moon. This morning, the space agency put out a formal Request for Information, asking for concepts of small science payloads that can be sent to the lunar surface relatively soon — between 2017 and 2020. The instruments would potentially be transported to the Moon on lunar landers that are currently being developed by private companies in the US. Cont

You interact with computers all the time, but often it’s no longer through a keyboard. You might be tapping on your phone’s screen or yelling at a virtual assistant or swinging your arms in VR. But even though the tried-and-true keyboard may not be as important as it once was, it’s still beloved — and there’s a new slapstick game to prove it.
Called Keyboard Sports: The Final Tribute, the game isn’t actually a sports title; instead, it’s more of an adven

Since the moment Barry Jenkins’ feature film Moonlight debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in November, it’s been a critical darling, with rave reviews following it from film festivals in Toronto, New York, and Rome to its current wide release in theaters. Currently showing a 99 percent rating on both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, the film has met with universal acclaim for its unusually formal yet daring approach to the familiar ground of the coming-of-age story. Writer-directo

If you’re a Spotify user on Android, starting today you can use the popular streaming music app to control Sonos speakers directly. The partnership between both companies, announced in late August, cuts out the requirement of using Sonos’ Controller app on a smartphone. Instead, you can choose what’s playing throughout your home right inside the Spotify app — and even group and ungroup rooms. Anyone on your Wi-Fi network can also take control of Sonos hardware within Spot

It’s November, which means it’s getting colder outside: the perfect excuse to curl up with a good book. Fortunately, there’s a whole pile of new books coming out this month for you to check out and add to your to-read list.Here's what you should load up your bookshelves with this November:November 1stWhat the #@&% Is That?: The Saga Anthology of the Monstrous and the Macabre by John Joseph Adams by Douglas Cohen
While Halloween might be behind us, the fall is the perfect ti

What if a major presidential candidate were in secret communication with Russia, through a secret internet channel kept hidden from the rest of the web? That’s the scenario laid out last night in a Slate report by Franklin Foer. Drawing on DNS (or domain name system) records, the report lays out months of communications between a mail server owned by the Trump Organization and another owned by Russia’s Alfa Bank. We don’t know what data passed between the servers, but given Tru

Adults aren’t the only ones being hurt by the opioid crisis. The number of children and teens hospitalized after being poisoned by opioids has more than doubled in the past 16 years, researchers say.Opioids refer to both prescription painkillers like oxycodone and illegal drugs like heroin. Politicians have paid a lot of attention to opioid abuse, and raised concerns about prescription drugs being too available, but we didn’t how the opioid epidemic has affected children until now. F

Tradition dictates that Christmas festivities begin the day after Thanksgiving, not the day after Halloween, but traditions are more malleable than you’d think. Generations ago, kids would celebrate Saint Nicholas on his actual feast day — December 6th — by leaving their shoes outdoors overnight, hoping to find them filled with little presents in the morning. Leaving your children’s shoes outside in December is a terrible idea. Change is good.
So if you feel like decorati

Last year, Tag Heuer debuted the Connected Watch, its first Android Wear smartwatch. Now, the Swedish watchmaker is taking that old design and making it luxurious. The company’s new solid rose gold Connected Watch goes on sale this month for $9,900, as first noted by Hodinkee. Given the hefty price tag, it’ll only be available in retail stores.
The new fancy watch isn’t any different from the original Connected Watch features-wise. There’s still the same Intel chip inside

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new Harry Potter movie coming out. We’re only a few weeks away now from the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Google is teaming up with Warner Bros. to help showcase the film with a series of Google service-based tie-ins.Turn on the flashlight with a Lumos spell
The best of the Harry Potter integrations is that Google will allow you to turn your Android phones into a bona-fide magic wands. Using “OK Google”

Keita Takahashi has a new game, and it’s just as weird as you’d expect. The designer best known for the seminal PS2 ball-roller Katamari just announced his latest project, an augmented reality game called Woorld that, according to studio Funomena, is being built "for Tango technology."
Just what exactly Woorld is isn’t entirely clear, but it looks cute and whimsical in a way that Takahashi’s games are known for. The debut trailer shows a living room transformed into a col