Technology news

Huawei’s Honor phone brand had a big 2016 showing in the US. It launched its first couple devices stateside, including its high-end Honor 8 with dual cameras. Those dual cameras were designed with quality in mind. Both had 12-megapixel sensors, one of which captured an image in RGB (color) while the other captured it in monochrome. The photos were processed simultaneously. Now, Honor is bringing another dual-camera phone from China over to the US: the 6X. This time, Honor executives tell m

The race is on to build a really great gaming laptop around Nvidia's new GTX 1050. Nvidia's already greatly improved the headroom of gaming laptops by shipping basically unaltered 1080, 1070, and 1060 cards for laptops, instead of scaled down mobile versions. Now the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti are continuing that trend more or less, and making more portable designs possible.
Dell's new Inspiron 14 and 15 7000 series are just spec bumps of last year's models, but the new 1050 and 1050 Ti cards in t

Qualcomm is today announcing more details about its forthcoming Snapdragon 835 mobile processor, which is expected to be in devices launching in the first half of this year. The Snapdragon 835 is the successor to 2016’s Snapdragon 820 flagship and features improved performance, more efficient components, and new capabilities for virtual reality and taking photos. Qualcomm says the new processor consumes 25 percent less power than last year’s chip, which leads to a claimed 2.5 more ho

Osterhout Design Group thinks people are ready to start donning hologram glasses. The wearables company, which is known for its industrial and medical heads-up displays, is announcing two pairs of glasses that are geared toward a wider audience. The R-8 and R-9 won’t fool anyone into thinking you’re wearing Oakleys, but they’re relatively compact and cheap — and coming soon after a major fundraising round for ODG, plus a recent partnership with China Mobile’s Migu V

Tesla delivered 76,230 vehicles in 2016, falling slightly short of its goal of delivering 80,000 cars for the year. The electric carmaker claimed that “short-term production challenges” starting at the end of October were to blame for the shipment of fewer vehicles than anticipated.Tesla said the transition to new Autopilot hardware resulted in the company’s vehicle production being “weighted more heavily towards the end of the quarter than we had originally planned.&rdqu

We write a lot about the world’s biggest hard drives and solid state drives here at The Verge, but sometimes, you need to be able to carry a preposterously large amount of storage in a more portable form factor.Enter Kingston’s DataTraveler Ultimate GT, the “world's highest capacity USB flash drive.” Available in either a relatively diminutive 1TB size, or a more staggering 2TB behemoth, there is a very good chance that the DataTraveler Ultimate GT offers more storage spa

Blizzard announced today that Oasis, the latest map for its competitive team-based shooter Overwatch, is now available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, as well as on the primary servers for the PC version of the game.The map is for the Control gametype, and is set in a futuristic desert city, complete with soaring, glowing buildings and palm tree-lined avenues. In addition to the opposing team’s firepower, players will have to dodge Oasis’ busy vehicle traffic.Oasis was origin

The GeniCan is a smart accessory for converting your boring, analog garbage can into an internet-connected smart trash can of the future. Look, smart devices are going to enter every facet of your house anyway, and when you actually think about it, a smart garbage kind of makes sense.
GeniCan automatically adds things you throw out to a shared shopping list
The GeniCan automatically adds things you throw out to a shared shopping list, making it easy to figure out what you need to buy the next ti

Ford is investing $700 million to expand operations at its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan and build autonomous and electric vehicles, creating 700 new jobs over the next four years. The company also announced that it was canceling a new $1.6 billion plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in favor of the new Michigan plant expansion.
Even though Ford executives have emphasized that pressure from the incoming Trump administration didn’t impact their decisions, Ford CEO Mark Fields told CNN t

Whirlpool is showcasing new washers, dryers, refrigerators, and ovens at CES this week, and their most interesting feature is the ability to be controlled by Amazon’s Alexa.
Through the Echo, Echo Dot, or other Alexa-enabled devices, owners will be able to control some of the core functions of these new appliances. The most useful commands are for Whirlpool’s ovens, which will let owners set cooking times and temperatures by voice and ask for updates on how much time is remaining.
Wh

Apple’s steadfast refusal to outfit its MacBook line with a touchscreen option is a well-known industry holdout. We’d much sooner get a massive, 15-inch iPad Pro than the company go back on its years of anti-Microsoft marketing, and the awkward half measure of the new MacBook Pro Touch Bar.So for those eager to swipe their fingers on the display of an Apple notebook, there is one option. AirBar, a magnetic sensor that sits below the bottom edge of a laptop’s display, will grant

Today, the sensor company Synaptics announced a new method for combining fingerprint readers and facial recognition on a single device. Referred to as a “multi-factor fusion engine” by Synaptics, the system would allow facial or fingerprint logins to be used interchangeably, or combined for an even more robust login. In September, the company announced a partnership to bring fingerprint sensors to Lenovo laptops.
Handling biometric logins is both sensitive and processor-intensive. As

NASA plans to resume preflight tests on the James Webb Space Telescope soon, after the spacecraft had a small hiccup during a test at the end of last year. The telescope had an “unexpected response” to a vibrational test in December, prompting NASA to put testing of the spacecraft on hold until the agency figured out what happened. Now, NASA says it is close to zeroing in on the source of the problem, and tests should pick back up again later this month.
NASA says it is close to zero

The lineup for the 2017 Coachella music festival has just been announced via Twitter, with Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, and Radiohead set to headline. None of these are surprising choices, though film fans were quick to pick up on one surprise: composer Hans Zimmer’s name.
Zimmer has been perhaps the most famous and prolific composer working in Hollywood for the last four decades. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score for Disney’s The Lion King, as well as his score

Intel is buying a 15 percent stake in Here, the mapping service started by Nokia that was sold last year to Audi, BMW, and Mercedes for over $3 billion.
Here is one of the hottest names in mapping — for companies in the auto business, at least — since it’s one of the few good options they can get ahold of that isn’t controlled by a competitor. It essentially offers them an out from relying on Google and gives these companies the ability to control a relatively mature mapp

Judging from the trailer we saw last month, Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien: Covenant is going to be a gory return to the franchise’s horror roots — and audiences will be able to step into its world with a new virtual reality experience, as well. 20th Century Fox has announced it is developing a VR experiences based around the film, following the pattern it established with its experience for Ridley Scott’s last film, The Martian.To be directed by David Karlak, the project

Nest’s smoke detector is picking up some abilities today that could actually help to prevent a fire. It’s gaining an integration with GE’s line of connected ovens, allowing the Nest Protect to disable them when it detects smoke. Since the Nest Protect can tell when no one’s home, it’ll also send the homeowner an alert if it sees that their oven has been left on, even when nothing’s gone wrong.
Nest has been integrating its smoke detector, thermostat, and secur

I'm proud to announce a new experiment we're trying at CES this year: a Facebook Messenger bot of marginal utility. If you hit up Circuit Breaker on Facebook Messenger, you'll be talking to a robot. Ask for "gadget" and you'll get a random Circuit Breaker post, a great way to cut through the noise of CES via arbitrary selection. You can also ask the bot for things like "review," "top story," and "drone." Need some tech support? Tell it "My Zune doesn't work" and get some great advice. Ask it "Sa

Last year at CES, Mio Global, a Vancouver-based startup best known for its heart rate tracking technology, said it was working on a new wearable and new method of activity tracking to go along with it. Now that wearable is finally shipping.
The Mio Slice is a wrist-worn activity tracker with optical heart rate sensors that gives wearables a score — called PAI, or Personal Activity Intelligence — instead of simply telling them how many steps they’ve taken or estimating how many

Nissan appears to be preparing to announce Microsoft’s Cortana integration for its cars. The motor company tweeted a short video with Cortana checking a schedule and teasing some “exciting announcements” for Nissan’s CES keynote on Thursday. It’s not clear exactly what Nissan will announce, but the company is holding its keynote at 4PM on January 5th, streaming live on Twitter or YouTube.
Microsoft has been experimenting with Cortana in cars for at least a year. The

IBM’s ThinkPad has always been my paragon for what a good laptop should be. Never mind the general perception of ThinkPads as boring and frumpy machines for office types; I’ve always loved the reliability and unrivaled durability of those IBM designs. But I’ve spent the past decade happily residing in Mac land, courtesy of some very good MacBooks, which had the added advantages of sleekness and long battery life. So now my ideal laptop is some hybrid of the two: a machine that

It seems like the era of every TV manufacturer needing its own custom and not-really-that-great operating system is over: we've entered The Age of Partnerships. Now you can get a TCL with Roku built in, a Vizio with Chromecast, or a Sony with Android TV. And, finally, Amazon's Fire TV OS is available in TV form. It's a great time to be alive and a consumer.
Westinghouse, Element, and Seiki — all brands built by Tong Fang Global, and typically available at retailers like Best Buy, Target, a

TCL, the Chinese company that now owns the exclusive rights to product BlackBerry branded phones, has put up a teaser video of a new smartphone. But it’s not so much a teaser of the smartphone as it a teaser for the keyboard. There are still humans who prefer a physical keyboard on their phone to a touchscreen — because they genuinely feel more comfort with them or because they simply suffer from an overdeveloped sense of tech nostalgia. (I suffer from this strange syndrome, FYI.)The

Gun violence is the least-researched cause of death in America, researchers say. It’s badly understudied and underfunded compared to research on other ways US citizens die.
Gun violence had only 1.6 percent of the funding predicted based on how common gun deaths are — in other words, $1.4 billion should go toward funding gun violence research, but the actual number is only $22 million, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It only ha

Toshiba announced its newest convertible laptop, the Portégé X20W, at CES 2017. And while it may seem like a run-of-the-mill two-in-one computer, Toshiba is claiming an extremely impressive 16 hours of battery life. That distinction obviously will depend on how well it holds up in real-world use, but it’s certainly something that would help Portégé X20W stand out among the crowd. Otherwise, the Portégé X20W tries to offer the best of both worlds when it

Chinese conglomerate LeEco just announced two smart bikes here at CES, both which run the company’s customized BikeOS flavor of Android. They’ll be available in the US during the second quarter of 2017, though there’s no word on pricing just yet.
The company’s two new bikes — the Smart Road Bike and the Smart Mountain Bike — each have the sorts of things you need for those respective types of biking: seats, wheels, and carbon fiber frames. They’re both 1

This might sound familiar: Dell's newest PC is a tablet with a built-in kickstand, that's meant to be used with a soft keyboard cover, and supports input from a stylus.
Yeah, it's the exact formula behind Microsoft's Surface. It even looks just like Microsoft's Surface. But in this case, it's Dell's Latitude 5285.
The Latitude 5285 is beat for beat a shot at the Surface Pro. It has a 12.3-inch display with a 3:2 aspect ratio (same as the Surface), supports up to a 1TB SSD (same as the Surface),

Asus announced the Chromebook Flip C302 at CES today, and like most major laptops this year, it’s going all in on USB-C, completely removing USB 3.0 ports in favor of the newer standard. Asus also is highlighting the Flip C302’s 360-degree hinge, allowing the Chromebook to convert over to a tablet form factor.Hardware wise, the specs more or less match up with the leak from last week. The Chromebook Flip C302 comes with a 12.5-inch 1080p display, a sixth-generation Intel Core m3 proc

Asus today announced updates to most of its major laptop, 2-in-1, and desktop product lines, incorporating Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processor for better performance, battery life, and efficiency gains. The product refresh, revealed today at CES 2017, includes new Asus ZenBook models, a new Transformer Pro 2-in-1, and three new versions of its Zen AiO all-in-one desktop. Also included in the update is Asus’ GT51CH gaming desktop, which now comes with the seventh-generation Intel chip.

Acer is announcing three new Predator gaming monitors at CES 2017. The most interesting is the Z301CT, a curved ultrawide with built-in Tobii eye-tracking that works with games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Watch Dogs 2. The monitor works at up to 200Hz and supports Nvidia G-Sync for smooth performance at any frame rate, but the downside is the resolution — it’s 2560 x 1080, which is a little low for a panel of this size. It’ll ship next month for $899.99.
Acer is also intr

Toymaker Mattel has built a digital home assistant designed to look after young children and babies. According to reports from Fast Company and Bloomberg, the product, named Aristotle, is a $300 Wi-Fi Bluetooth speaker that looks and functions just like Amazon’s Echo and is scheduled to hit stores this June.There are two AI “personalities” inside Aristotle. The first is an eponymous female assistant who claims to be descended from the Greek philosopher himself, and will read be

In the wake of Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death at age 60, her new memoir, The Princess Diarist, is an unexpectedly emotional read. But the emotions aren’t grief and nostalgia so much as alarm and sympathy. Early in the book, she tells a thoroughly appalling story that she presents as a cheery little romp. In London for the filming of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, Fisher attends George Lucas’ birthday party, where she’s “essentially the only girl” in a r

If you own a Hopper DVR and an Amazon Echo, your TV-watching experience is about to get a lot more fun. Dish has announced that its Hopper DVR will be fully compatible with Amazon Alexa in the next few months, allowing users to control their DVR entirely with their voice.
Dish says the new feature will be available on every generation of the Hopper DVR, and will allow users to navigate, search, and play TV content without the need for a remote. Alexa will be able to answer a number of queries in

One of the big drawbacks of VR is having to set up a headset close to a big and powerful gaming PC. Asus is trying to address that with a compact desktop PC that’s designed to be VR ready and can be easily moved around and connected to a monitor or TV. The new VivoPC X is not much bigger than the current gaming consoles on the market, but it includes Intel’s latest Core i5 Kaby Lake processor, an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage.
All of that power

When Gorden Wagener, the Mercedes-Benz design chief, enters one of his design studios, he fast-forwards into the future.In December, The Verge spoke with Wagener about the way car design is evolving. “Every car is finished up to 2020 and then we have platforms that go up to 2035 or so,” he said. “As creative people we can imagine what the future can be and we can drive it. You see how the complexity of design and the details of digitization has increased in the last 10 years.&r

Amazon’s alternative history series Man in the High Castle has been greenlit for a third season, Variety reports. The show is based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel which imagines that World War II resulted in totalitarian rule of the United States by Germany and Japan.
As Variety points out, Man in the High Castle will have a new showrunner this season, Eric Overmyer (The Affair). Frank Spotnitz, who also developed the series, stepped down as showrunner in the middle of last season. H

There’s plenty to hate about Nick Viall.
The latest star of The Bachelor — ABC’s 21-seasons-and-counting (not including spinoffs) competitive dating show — has the smile of a smug startup founder, the unsettlingly intimate murmur of a close-talker, and the wardrobe of a J.Crew outlet that only stocks V-neck tees. There’s the heavier stuff, too: compared to the women who will compete for Viall’s love on network television, he has the discomfiting advantage of s

The rumors of a set-top box designed to combine Dish’s Sling TV service, Netflix, and over-the-air television were true. Today, Dish officially announced the AirTV Player, an Android TV streaming device that the company is pitching as “a single platform” for on-demand streaming, internet TV, and over-the-air local channels.Since it’s an Android TV box, you can install whatever apps you want, but the preinstalled options are Sling TV, Netflix, and YouTube. The AirTV Player

For professional athletes (and overly-zealous amateurs), measuring your core body temperature or CBT can offer useful information about workout performance and recovery from injury. Usually, though, tracking this bit of diagnostic data can be a bit tricky, relying on intrusive methods like ingestible pills. Bodytrak, a UK startup, has a neater solution: a wearable gadget that uses an in-ear thermometer to measure CBT as well as handling a range of other fitness-tracking tasks.The gizmo, also nam

Road bike startup SpeedX is returning to the crowdfunding well to get the company’s second smart bicycle off the ground. It’s called the SpeedX Unicorn, and it’s a computer-equipped bike that is built for a super smooth ride and costs $3,199.
How do you ensure a smooth ride? You build a frame that does this: The Unicorn isn’t just about eliminating bumps, though. It’s got a 2.2-inch touchscreen that pulls data from an integrated power meter, allowing riders to accur

Mayfield Robotics, a Bosch start-up, is trying to make the home robot more personality-driven and lovable with the introduction of its Kuri robot today, a project that’s been in the works for nearly two years.We’re all likely familiar with the home robots that hit the press circuit hard, like Pepper and Jibo. But we haven’t seen any of them break into mainstream use. At this point, the Amazon Echo and Google Home are our primary home robots. They play music on command, answer o

When you’re a kid, your pop culture reality is shaped for you by the people in your life who have what you don’t — money!When my three sisters and I were young, the movies we saw were the ones my mother picked out to plop us in front of while she ran on the treadmill in the basement. Or they were carefully curated by other moms, hosting birthday-party sleepovers, or my aunt set us up with them in the back room of a vacation rental in Cape Cod the summer all the girl cousins got

The Internet of Things is a security problem. The Mirai botnet attacks drove the point home in October, but security experts have been warning about these weaknesses for years, providing endless demos about how a hacker might break into your baby monitor or seize control of your thermostat. There are more and less secure devices, but they all share the same basic weaknesses: they’re underpowered, making it hard to implement serious security systems, and their basic functions require them t

Soraa, a lighting company that typically sells to corporate clients, plans to release its first smart LED light for general humans. Instead of relying on Wi-Fi and a hub, like other smart lights, the company’s Helia bulbs communicate with one another over a home’s existing electrical wiring. The technology, called HomePlug Green Phy, essentially turns your existing electrical lines into Ethernet. The technology has been used in various gadgets, like Wi-Fi extenders, security cameras,

It's CES time again, which means that the week's news will be dominated by a dizzying maelstrom of press conferences, product reveals, and other announcements timed to coincide with the happenings in Las Vegas.It is, as you might expect, pretty hard to keep up with. But with this handy list, you'll be able to get a handle on when all the biggest news is likely to drop. Where possible, we've included links to live streams.Tuesday, January 3rd
FIAT CHRYSLER
When: Tuesday, January 3rd at 1PM PT / 4