Technology news

Google may be on its way to solving one of the biggest problems with smart speakers: they only work with a single account.
Android Police spotted signs in the latest version of the Google Home app that suggest the company is working on multi-user support. The code also contains references to a device being able to “recognize your voice” and needing to be trained, which suggests that user switching could happen by Google’s device identifying who’s speaking.
Every company w

One in three working Americans might not be getting enough sleep, and it turns out that could be because of what they do for a living. Telephone switchboard operators, truckers, and people working on the railway, in health care, or the food business are more likely to be sleep deprived, a new study says. Airplane pilots and religious workers, on the other hand, tend to get plenty of shut-eye.Sleeping at least seven hours a day is key for staying in good health, experts say. Less than that can th

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has laid out the commission’s agenda for the coming month, and the big item on the list is a proposal to combat robocalls.
The FCC made a major update to its robocall rules back in 2015 that allowed phone service providers to start offering blocking tools to stop subscribers from receiving spammy calls. This month’s measure would explore ways to expand what companies can do, particularly by allowing them to block certain spoofed calls and calls from numbers that

Uber will apply for a permit in California to test its self-driving cars on public roads, after previously butting heads with the state’s DMV over whether the rules applied to the company’s fleet of autonomous Volvo SUVs. Last December, the DMV forced Uber to shut down its self-driving pilot after less than a week in operation because Uber refused to obtain the license.Uber’s reversal, which was first reported by The Mercury News, represents a rare case of Uber acquiescing to a

Spotify continues to cement its place as the leader in music streaming, and today the company announced that it just hit another milestone of 50 million paid subscribers.
Thank you to our 50 million subscribers. #Spotify50 pic.twitter.com/eXkOV71bwu— Spotify (@Spotify) March 2, 2017It’s impressive growth for the company, which went from 30 million subscribers last March to 40 million in September to 50 million as of today. And when you add in free users, that number jumps even higher

Burbank, California-based bike company Pure Cycles is funding its first electric bike, the Volta, on Kickstarter. By the looks of it, the Volta manages to cram in almost every single e-bike gizmo and feature you could think of. (Note: Not to be confused with the Volata 1c, which is a different electric bicycle brand.)
The Volta offers a rear wheel-based motor, which the company claims gets up to 40 miles on a single charge (in “Eco” mode) and can reach a top speed of 20 mph. The inte

Netflix wants to be the go-to destination for stand-up comedy specials. In the last couple of months, the company has inked deals with a number of high-profile performers such as Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Amy Schumer. The result? The streaming giant plans to stream a new special each week.Netflix confirmed its plans to The Verge in an email. The streaming company is making a major push to double its original content this year to help fuel its subscriber growth. Th

Vizio’s first TVs of 2017 are a refresh of the company’s E-Series line. They remain Vizio’s cheapest entry into 4K, and this year all models with a screen size of 55 inches and above are gaining HDR. Vizio supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10 in its more premium P- and M-Series TVs, but the new E-Series lineup only works with the latter. That’s not necessarily a problem, as most of the big streaming services — Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube — also support HDR10.

Apple has escalated its legal war against Qualcomm with a fourth lawsuit, this time in the UK. Apple says the lawsuit was actually filed back in January, alongside the other three, but it’s only now being noticed due to a refiling.
Details on the lawsuit are pretty vague at the moment, with Bloomberg reporting that the court has only said the case has something to do with patents and designs. But it seems safe to assume that it’s along the lines of the lawsuits Apple has filed agains

Nintendo Switch’s day one patch has arrived, ushering the return of the dreaded Friend Code system (or at least a softer variation of it). But Nintendo also promised the patch would include a way to connect to public hotspots, which seemed to run counter to the claim that the Switch won’t have a browser given so many public hotspots require you to log in to a captive portal. So how does Nintendo reconcile this paradox? Simply put, by having a browser that can only be used in very lim

 Upstart, a nearly five-year-old online lending company that prides itself on quickly identifying people who are less likely to default on money leant them, has raised $32.5 million in fresh funding that brings its total funding to date to around $85 million. Partly, the company plans to use the capital to further fuel its current growth trajectory. In fact, according to CEO… Read More

American Express is adding several new perks to its flagship Platinum Card, including $200 in yearly Uber credits, automatic Uber VIP status, and a new stainless steel (as in, actual metal) card design. But the Uber credit isn’t quite as useful as it could be.
Amex Platinum cardholders who have added their card as a method of payment in the Uber app will receive up to $15 in Uber credits per month (except in December, when it’s $35). But, those credits do not roll over from month to

This morning, a bizarre video went viral on Twitter: it showed over a dozen turkeys endlessly circling a dead cat in the middle of the road. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” says the guy who posted the video, @TheReal_JDavis, who’s from Boston.These turkeys trying to give this cat its 10th life pic.twitter.com/VBM7t4MZYr— J... (@TheReal_JDavis) March 2, 2017Why in the world are the birds doing this? They might be performing what’s called a “p

Amazon is likely working on a home security camera in the same vein as Nest, Canary, Ring, Blink, and other products, according to a newly-discovered product photo that’s sitting on the company’s own web servers. AFTVnews found the image of some sort of easily-positionable camera, with a blue light circling the lens. Very Alexa-like. It’s got a white exterior design — the central camera area is black — and a pivoting base.There are two mics at the top, and at each c

This morning, a researcher reported a previously unknown vulnerability in Slack, which could be used to take over accounts and read archived messages by compromising a user’s authentication token. First reported Tuesday evening, the vulnerability has already been patched by Slack shortly. The company claims there were no successful exploitations of the bug, based on an examination of the past two years of logs.
The vulnerability was discovered by Detectify’s Frans Rosen, who created

President Trump has pulled the Obama administration’s final FCC nominee, former commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. The action suggests it’ll be even longer before the agency is restored to its typical five-leader status, and it opens up the possibility that Trump will break with long-running norms and stack the commission with conservatives.
The FCC is supposed to be led by five people: a chairperson and four commissioners, all nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. T

Earlier this week, much of the internet ground to a halt when the servers that power them suddenly vanished. The servers were part of S3, Amazon’s popular web hosting service, and when they went down they took several big services with them. Quora, Trello, and IFTTT were among the sites affected by the disruption. The servers came back online more than four hours later, but not before totally ruining the UK celebration of AWSome Day.
Now we know how it happened. In a note posted to custome

Overwatch’s hero roster just got a bit bigger with the addition of Orisa, who Blizzard announced today as the latest character to join its popular team-based competitive shooter. Orisa marks the third character to be added to the game post-launch, following the release of Ana last summer and Sombra in the fall.The character comes after a mercifully short teaser campaign (compared to the months-long Sombra ARG) which introduced fans to 11-year-old scientist Efi Oladele. In the Overwatch wor

Kids are known for eating all sorts of gross things — from pet food to poop. And that’s normal — it’s their way of exploring and learning about the world. But sometimes, what they put in their mouth can be dangerous: for example, hand sanitizer.There were over 70,000 cases of children who were exposed to hand sanitizer from 2011 to 2014, and most of them swallowed it, according to a new study by the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most kids, especially tho

Kids are known for eating all sorts of gross things — from pet food to poop. And that’s normal — it’s their way of exploring and learning about the world. But sometimes, what they put in their mouth can be dangerous: for example, hand sanitizer.There were over 70,000 cases of children who were exposed to hand sanitizer from 2011 to 2014, and most of them ate it, according to a new study by the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most kids, especially those bel

In this first look at the upcoming DuckTales reboot, it’s pretty clear that the new show is going to lean harder on the adventures and mayhem that made the original series so memorable. Here, as in the first run, Huey, Dewey, and Louie are left in the care of their obscenely rich great-uncle Scrooge McDuck by Donald Duck. But they soon learn that Scrooge is not only a wealthy businessman, but also a great explorer, while Donald is “one of the most daring adventurers of all time.&rdqu

Google has announced via a YouTube video that the major expansion of its Google Assistant across “eligible” Android Marshmallow and Nougat devices is kicking off today. The company first revealed plans to widely roll out Assistant during Mobile World Congress earlier this week. Android users in the United States will receive the update first, with Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany to follow.There’s no Google Assistant app to download or anything like that. Inst

Sight and sound are a given in virtual reality, but other senses are still getting left out of the loop, including touch. Most VR “touch” is a gentle rumble from a controller, standing in for every possible tactile sensation. But at the Game Developers Conference, a company called AxonVR is showing off a haptic system that’s frankly pretty awesome — even if it reminds me a bit of the pain box from Dune.
The box below is part of what AxonVR calls the HaptX platform, which

For the past two years, adult coloring books have been big business. Walk into a bookstore, and you’d likely see a rack of them featured prominently by the door. That craze might be coming to an end, however. Barnes & Noble reported its third quarter profits today, which slipped from expectations. The reason? Coloring book and art supply sales have begun to slip.That’s potentially bad news for physical bookstores. Beginning in late 2015, sales of gimmicky books full of complicate

For the past couple of years, HTC and Valve’s virtual reality efforts — which produced the HTC Vive in 2015 — have seemed largely interchangeable. But Valve’s SteamVR platform isn’t limited to one manufacturer. Earlier this week, LG and Valve introduced a competing headset with many of the Vive’s features — but a few serious design tweaks.
Currently, LG’s headset is a development kit, which the company says will be going out to developers in the ne

Of all the technology crammed into our cars today, few things feel or look as futuristic as a heads-up display. Even though they’ve been around for decades and can be found in countless cars ranging from Corvettes and Audis to Volvos and BMWs, they are still both useful and cool to look at. You can even find them in lower-cost vehicles like the Mazda3.All of the heads-up display systems in use by car manufacturers come from the factory and are integrated into the dashboard – if your

Please help me! Everyone in the world (pretty much) is trying to convince me that Disney is releasing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as the fifth feature-length film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. In May! Of this year!
This can’t possibly be true, and I don’t know why everyone is rallying around this bizarre and ultimately pointless conspiracy. Do you just want me to go insane? Buddies, there are easier ways, such as letting me read the news.
The movie, as

SNAP starts trading.
Snap, the company that runs Snapchat, opened on the New York Stock Exchange this morning at $24 per share. It raised $3.4 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) at a $24 billion valuation.
Last night Snap set its stock price at $17 per share.
For the NYSE, Snap’s IPO represents a rare moment; social networks scarcely go public.
Snapchat has grown considerably since 2011, when the service first gained fame as a purporte

On February 24th, Jordan Peele’s Get Out debuted in theaters with an impressive $30 million box office take, making it one of the early hits of 2017. A terrifying thriller shot through with razor-sharp social satire about the state of race in the United States, it’s the directorial debut for the actor-turned-filmmaker, who up until now has been best known as half the duo behind the sketch comedy series Key & Peele. For five seasons, that show used satire to examine social issues,

In his column yesterday, Walt deliberates the needs of the PC consumer in 2017. In a world where your primary computer is your phone, the personal computer needs to be redefined. This week Walt and Nilay discuss how they use their tablets, laptops, and phones, and how there’s something missing linking those gadgets.We love your feedback on the topics of the show and suggestions on how to make our podcasts better and more fun for the new year — you can tweet at Walt at @waltmossberg a

After 25 years in the games business, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards last night.
John Carmack, another peer of Sweeney’s in graphics wizardry, handed the award to Sweeney at the event at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The award recognized the work that Epic and Sweeney did in launching games like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, but also the enabling technology of the industry, the Unreal Engi

Ever is releasing a new tool that promises to make it easier to share photos with friends and family. Called Friends, it leverages image recognition to identify who’s in a photo and then automatically share with them. What the company has done is incorporate technology from Facebook’s Photo Magic and extend it across the multiple services Ever pulls from, such as Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, iMessage, SMS, WeChat, Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
Formerly known as Everalbum,

SPONSORED: Presented by mParticle
Elite professional athletes know the importance of mastering the fundamentals. Even the greatest football teams spend the majority of their time practicing blocking, tackling, and ball handling way before they start thinking about running trick plays.
Digital marketers, on the other hand, are notorious for their fondness for quick hacks, silver bullets, and shiny objects. One might argue that it’s been a useful evolutionary trait, as it encourages frequent

PRESS RELEASE:Oak HC/FT investment to drive international expansion and launch of new data applications for financial services organizationsATLANTA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 2, 2017– Urjanet, the world-wide leader for utility data, today announced $20 million of new funding in a Series C round led by Oak HC/FT. Urjanet offers a data-as-a-service (DaaS) solution that provides line-item detail of cost and usage information from approximately 4,000 utilities in 30 countries. The data

Today is the second day of the third month of the year of our lord two thousand and seventeen, and Nintendo just rolled out the day one update for the Switch, which confirmed that the console will return to using Friend Codes to connect friends online. Yes, Friend Codes. The 12-digit codes used by the original Wii and 3DS for online services are rearing their ugly head again for the Switch.The entire decision is really just baffling. The Wii U moved away from Friend Codes, and let players use th

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the next iPhone would feature a “USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company’s original Lightning connector.” The poorly worded report made it seem like Apple was planning to replace its Lightning connector with USB-C, but reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo disagrees.
“We believe all three new iPhones launching in 2H17 will support fast charging by the adoption of Type-

Virgin Galactic may be best known for its space tourism ventures, but the organization is also aiming to become a dedicated satellite launch provider, as well. Today, the VirginGroup announced a new spinoff company that will be focused on launching satellites. Called Virgin Orbit, the new company will include the LauncherOne program, an initiative that involves launching small satellites from under the wing of a 747 airplane.
Launching small satellites from under the wing of a 747 airplane
Virgi

Advance Micro Devices released the first three models of its highly anticipated, high-performance AMD Ryzen desktop processor. The early reviews suggest that the chips are the chip makers most competitive in a decade.
AMD said that strong demand for these new desktop central processing units (CPUs) drove record preorders from more than 180 global retailers and boutique original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) throughout the week prior to launch.
AMD said that Ryzen chips can process 52 perce