Technology news

Sarah Jessica Parker — America’s sweetheart, New York City’s mascot, relatable queen of cold-hearted romantic comedies, human vessel of Sex and the City’s omniscient tulle-loving narrator, mother of three, and guiding light to all — is an excellent Instagram artist.She hates filters, and loves piles of outdated technology (malfunctioning BlackBerrys, Reagan-era radio alarm clocks, and mangled piles of power strips being her favorite subjects). As often as she chroni

All 13,000 taxis in New York City could be replaced by a fleet of 3,000 ride-sharing cars if used exclusively for carpooling, according to research published today by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Instead of hailing taxis, passengers that use ride-sharing services for carpooling may lead to reduced traffic congestion, pollution, and fuel use.
The CSAIL researchers used public data from NYC taxi rides published by the University of Illinois to develo

Love is a spectator sport where the players are also spectating. We gather friends around the Apple TV while we swipe through potential lovers on Tinder. We consider everyone we swap spit with fair game for public dissection, so long as they do something strange and compelling enough for a viral tweet. Dating app disasters have a place on Tumblr, Instagram, and the shelf at your local Barnes & Noble. (That book, not coincidentally, was written by a former producer of The Bachelor.)
When it c

Every company tries to be the first with the biggest CES announcement, but Asus has been preempted today by hardware partner Qualcomm, which has revealed the upcoming ZenFone AR smartphone with Google Tango support. At the same, prolific leaker @evleaks has provided an image of both the front and back of the new phone.
Spotted by GSM Arena and others, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Blog today disclosed the news about the Asus ZenFone AR, which will follow in the footsteps of the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro,

Microsoft is tentatively planning to release its next major Windows 10 update in April. MSPoweruser reports that the software giant is planning to finalize the feature set of the Creators Update by the end of the month, before starting to crush bugs and ready the update for general availability. Microsoft had originally planned to release the Creators Update in March, but an April timing is still close to the company’s target.
Windows 10 Creators Update will include a number of new feature

Hello! I see you, too, are recovering nicely from all the New Year-ing. Good riddance to 2016 is what I say.
Hmm?
Ah yes, you’re here about the new Verge shirts. Of course, of course. They just arrived today, in fact! As I’m sure your discerning eye could tell, these are very special shirts.What makes them so special?
Well aside from their unique CES 2017 design, you can now get them in a unisex cut or a fitted one. Depending on what one such as yourself would prefer.
Also…I&r

Hundreds of thousands of people are gathering in Las Vegas this week for the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but what will get everyone buzzing this year? Undoubtedly, there will be talk about the latest smart television, connected devices for the home, autonomous vehicles and technology, gadgets and cameras, drones, and virtual reality. And while CES is a gathering of industry buyers and sellers, it has also become a beacon for those interested in assessing upcoming trends, such as startu

Samsung has announced the latest iterations of its Galaxy A smartphone series — midrange devices that offer similar looks to the company’s premium Galaxy S range, while saving costs with slower specs. The new Galaxy A3, A5, and A7 (which are differentiated from last year’s models only by their “2017”) follow this playbook without any deviation. Each model has the curved metal frame, oval home-button-and-fingerprint-scanner, and glass back familiar from the Galaxy S7

Wonder is lifting the veil a little bit about its ambitions to create hardware and software that will disrupt the mobile business. The company’s products have a relationship to virtual reality, and the company wants to build an experience to enrich the way people play games, watch movies, listen to music, communicate with friends, and discover and share content.
And the company plans to do that all with one device — which it isn’t ready to completely reveal yet. But the company

Google and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) have worked together to build a new infotainment system on top of Android, the companies announced ahead of the beginning of CES today. The project combines FCA’s UConnect infotainment system with Android 7.0 Nougat. It keeps the carmaker’s user interface while integrating a number of apps like Google Assistant and Maps, as well as other Android apps like Pandora, Spotify, and others.
It’s an expansion of a partnership between the two companies th

SpaceX is aiming to return to flight on January 8th, as the company has officially determined what caused one of its Falcon 9 rockets to explode on a Florida launch pad this past September. In an online update this morning, SpaceX detailed the source of the rocket failure — a complex process that involved broken carbon fibers causing super cold oxygen to ignite. The company says it has identified all of the “credible causes” that may have been responsible for this combustible i

TrackR has expanded its lineup of devices designed to help you locate lost or misplaced items. The company today introduced two new products, one featuring lights and the other a new, thinner tracker that fits right into your wallet, along with a Bluetooth-enabled Wi-Fi wall plug that functions like a hub to locate all tracked items. The company also announced an update to its Amazon Alexa skill that will pinpoint exactly where your phone is.
We are all prone to losing items — if not you p

TrackR — a startup that makes small devices for tracking your lost things through a combination of Bluetooth and “crowd GPS” — announced some new ways to avoid losing your stuff at CES 2017.
The TrackR wallet 2.0 is the new version of the original TrackR wallet, and offers an improved, credit card-shaped form factor for easily storing in your wallet. The company claims that it's the "thinnest item-finder on the market" at just 2mm thick, but still offers all the features

In conjunction with the CES conference in Las Vegas this week, Dell today is officially introducing a new 2-in-1 version of its highly regarded XPS 13 laptop. This follows a leak of the device yesterday on Dell’s own website. Now that a convertible XPS model is coming out, the XPS line may more directly compete with HP’s Spectre x360 and Lenovo’s ThinkPad Yoga.
The machine features a 7th generation Kaby Lake Intel Core i chip (i5 and i7 options are available), Intel HD Graphics

Dell is unveiling a convertible version of its popular XPS 13 laptop today at the Consumer Electronics Show. While the CES surprise leaked out a little early yesterday, the new Dell XPS 2-in-1 still has some surprises in store for fans of the original. Just like the regular XPS 13, Dell’s 2-in-1 version uses an InfinityEdge display with just a 5.2mm border. Dell is claiming this makes its 2-in-1 the smallest 13-inch model in the world, as everything is squeezed into an 11-inch form factor.

Today Blink is announcing a complete DIY home security ecosystem in support of its Blink and Blink XT cameras. The new products fit under Blink's new “Seecurity” brand that's way too cutesy for any self-respecting burglar to mess with. Products include a water sensor to warn of flooding, a keypad to arm and disarm the system, a 105-decibel siren with manual and motion triggers, and entry sensors for doors or windows. There's even a battery-powered, hub-like Sync Module to connect it

(By Sankalp Phartiyal, Reuters) – Smartphone component maker Wistron Corp, which counts Apple Inc among its customers, has applied for permission to expand its plant in the Indian city of Bengaluru, a high-ranking regional government official said on Monday.The Taiwanese contract manufacturer has also requested that its application be fast-tracked, the official at the state government of Karnataka in southern India told Reuters.
The move comes less than two weeks after the Wall Street

Amazon’s 2016 has been record breaking on many fronts. The company recorded its sixth consecutive quarterly profit (previously, it mostly hemorrhaged cash). Meanwhile, this year marked Amazon’s growing strength in hardware with its hit Echo home automation hub Amazon Echo, and its companion voice assistant Alexa. The company has also become force in entertainment, debuting a line of hit original shows through its Amazon Video Prime service.
It’s hard to imagine how Amazon could

Donald Trump's presidential campaign was marked by verbal attacks on his opponents, with the candidate aiming public criticism at everyone from Ted Cruz to Hillary Clinton, from Megyn Kelly to Gold Star father Khizr Khan. But now he's got a new target for his complaints: the humble computer.Speaking to reporters during his New Year's Eve party at the exclusive Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump addressed the thorny problem of cybersecurity. "I'll tell you what: no computer is safe," he said. "I d

Samsung has announced an upgrade to its Galaxy A series of smartphones, bringing many features from its S7 lineup to its 5.7-inch A7, 5.2-inch A5, and 4.7-inch A3 mid-range devices. The 2017 editions contain 16 megapixel front and rear-facing cameras, water and dust resistance, support for microSD cards, and more.
Customers can purchase the Galaxy A phones in Russia early this month, with an expansion to other markets soon after.
It’s been nearly a year since Samsung introduced the Galaxy

Belgian biotech company Univercells has received a grant for $12 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Founded in 2013 by CEO Hugues Bultot, Univercells brings biology, manufacturing, and technology together to provide clients with solutions to the rising costs of vaccine production. The company does so by developing platforms for the creation of local bioproduction facilities.
The company intends to use the grant to develop a vaccine manufacturing platform that will make vaccines

When Google Play introduced carrier billing for users in India last year, it only became available for Idea subscribers. That’s about to change as the feature expands to two of the country’s largest mobile networks. Android users on postpaid plans with Airtel and Vodafone will soon be able to pay for apps and in-app purchases on the same bill as their monthly mobile usage. According to Medianama, the new feature will reach roughly 182.6 million subscribers across these three ca

We already know what HTC won’t be showing at CES: the next iteration of the Vive. So, what is it showing?
Apps. And lots of them.
HTC revealed 23 of the more than 30 apps that the company is showing on the Vive in Las Vegas next week. We’ll see plenty of upcoming games like new Vive Studios projects in Arcade Saga, Front Defense and Knockout League, along with much anticipated projects like Star Trek: Bridge Crew. There’s also already available apps like ROM

Since it launched, there’s been a lot to love about Dell’s XPS 13 laptop: A slim bezel for a nearly edge-to-edge display, a beautifully styled thin and light body and powerful new hardware specs, thanks to an overhaul last September. The company told TNW last October that it was working on 2-in-1 version that would fold into a tablet, and we’ve now got our first look at it from a product page on Dell’s site, first spotted by Windows Central. Combine a convertible design

Warner Bros. boss Kevin Tsujihara confirmed last year that Ben Affleck would be directing DC Comics’ next standalone Batman film, but the actor’s apparently not so sure. In an interview published in the Guardian this weekend, Affleck said that it was “the idea” that he would be directing, but that it wasn’t as concrete a deal as previously reported. “It’s not a set thing and there’s no script,” Affleck said. “If it doesn’t come to

In 2016, a bunch of tech companies went public, including Coupa, Line, Nutanix, Talend, and Twilio. Now a new batch is in the running for an initial public offering (IPO).
Many of these companies get their money by selling to other companies, typically the largest companies in the world. But there are also a few IPO contenders that are already household names because they have millions and millions of end users. Should even one or two of these go public in 2017, this will be remembered as a big

When it comes to VR sales data, most companies aren’t playing their cards close to their chest so much as taping the cards to themselves. We’ve had to rely on software sales to get some inkling of an idea at how headsets and their software are performing.
Thanks to Android’s built-in statistics for apps, we can now do that for Daydream.
Many of Daydream’s apps, some made by notable developers and publishers, don’t appear to have been installed many times. In fact, l

As a rule, hardware is hard. But looking back on 2016, it’s surprising that so many of the world’s major technology companies had trouble getting their products to customers on time.
It’s almost like there was something in the water in Cupertino, Kyoto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, and Seattle that somehow screwed up demand forecasting. But it’s more likely that in each of those places, different things went wrong.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find out the real re