Technology news

In a depressing sign of the times, in today’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing Judge Neil Gorsuch was asked whether he’d rather fight one hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck. The question came by way of Senator Jeff Flake, who said he was passing along the question for his son. The horse-sized duck inside joke is widely associated with Reddit, where it became a popular query on the site’s AMAs. Seeing it posed to a judge who may be days away from being one of th

Investors want into esports, and now they are betting on one of professional gaming’s biggest teams.
Cloud9 has closed out a Series A funding round for an undisclosed amount of money. The organization owns and operates some of the top pro teams in games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Hearthstone, and it wants to expand its presence in the esports market that analysts predict will grow 41 percent to $696 million this year. FunPlus Ventures led the funding. Cloud9 plans to use t

Apple is loosening its device restrictions around movie rentals in the iTunes Store. Today the company released iTunes 12.6 for the desktop, and the update mentions what Apple calls “rent once, watch anywhere.” No longer are you forced to watch a movie on the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or PC you initially rented it on.“Now you can enjoy your iTunes movie rentals across your devices with iOS 10.3 or tvOS 10.2,” Apple says. However, iOS 10.3 hasn’t been widely released t

Before every episode of The Vergecast I sit down, read through a bunch of news, and take a bunch of notes. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of my week, and I started thinking it might be fun to do every day on the site. So, every day this week I’m sitting down and writing some notes on the news as though I’ll be talking about it later. Are you into this? Am I into this? I don’t know. But it’s fun to do! Give me some feedback and we’ll keep mutating this in

Despite the dumpster fire that is Uber’s public image these days, the ride-hail company’s CEO Travis Kalanick isn’t going anywhere. That was the main takeaway from a 40-minute conference call today involving three of the company’s top female representatives: Arianna Huffington, media mogul and Uber board member; Liane Hornsey, chief human resources officer; and Rachel Holt, head of the company’s business in US and Canada.The idea of Kalanick stepping down has been f

Playing darts is tough. Reliably hitting a bull’s-eye requires practice, skill, and some serious hand-eye coordination to pull off, something that can take a lifetime to truly master. Or, you could do what former NASA-engineer-turned-popular-YouTuber Mark Rober did, and build a custom dartboard system that can track a dart through the air and perfectly position itself to let the dart hit a bull’s-eye no matter where it’s thrown, as spotted by Gizmodo. To paraphrase Francis Baco

GUEST: Amazon’s Echo products — including Echo, Tap, and Dot — are impressive, to say the least. There’s just something amazing about being able to talk to your technology and do your normal, everyday tasks literally without lifting a finger. “Alexa, turn on my lights!”
When it works as advertised and your lights really do turn on, it’s something to behold. You can also do a variety of things like change the color of your smart bulbs, raise or lower the

PRESS RELEASE: MIAMI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 21, 2017– Rokk3r Labs, the Miami-based venture builder, today announced the launch of Rokk3r Fuel, a dedicated investment fund designed to give investors access to Rokk3r Labs’ proprietary approach of identifying and co-building innovative, new companies. Rokk3r Fuel is led by founding partners Jeff Ransdell and Jonas Tempel in partnership with Rokk3r Labs managing founders Nabyl Charania and Germán Montoya. “We see

Uber today provided an update on its investigation into alleged sexual harassment and discriminatory practices at the company.
“No woman should ever have to choose between her career and sexual harassment,” said Arianna Huffington, a director of the company, on a conference call with reporters. Liane Hornsey, the chief human resources officer who has been at the company just 11 weeks, and Rachel Holt, head of U.S. and Canada, also participated in the call. Appointing three women

Nintendo created an incredible playground for you to explore and experiment in with its latest Zelda. And sometimes the best way to evade bullies on a playground is to get them to fight each other.
The easiest way to describe The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is “I didn’t know you could do that.” The open-world adventure debuted March 3 for Switch and Wii U, and players are still discovering new things that are possible, and these are appearing daily. For exampl

Nintendo’s latest console, the hybrid home/handheld Switch, runs a custom operating-system, but it could’ve had a lot more in common with Android, according to a key figure from that scene.
Cyanogen Inc. executive chairman Kirt McMaster claimed in a now-deleted tweet that Nintendo approached his company to create an operating system for a “certain portable.” McMaster said he turned down that offer. While Cyanogen is now a major Android software company, it started as

Avere Systems, a hybrid cloud data storage company based in Pittsburgh, has closed a $14 million series E round of funding from new investor Google, in addition to existing investors Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tenaya Capital, and Western Digital Capital.
Founded in 2008, Avere Systems helps enterprises establish a system that blends on-premises and public cloud data storage, and offers a mix of software and hardware-based services. While

Artist David OReilly is tired of the argument over whether or not games can be art. That question, he says, was answered with Pong in 1972. The more interesting topics at hand: can games be therapy? Can they change your perception? What about your philosophy?
OReilly’s latest game, Everything, is his way of toying with those ideas. He calls it experiential philosophy. “Our relationship with philosophy is [that it’s] basically something that lives in text, something that's a com

We should talk about the Levitating X Kickstarter campaign, something its creators call “tech art.” The crowdfunding endeavor is trying to sell us on the idea of a levitating object future. Backers can choose and display four different bases, including a pillow, plate, plant, and random decor. These all float, of course, by relying on electromagnetic suspension. The idea is that they serve as cool decor that’ll impress your friends.GIF: Levitating Design LabsThe base object and

Google today announced that over the next few days it will be rolling out an update to its Google News & Weather app for Android and iOS that introduces a More Headlines section, giving users lots more news to explore — specifically, 200 additional articles.
The new area will be visible at the bottom of the home section of the app, Google News product manager Anand Paka wrote in a blog post. Once you tap on an article to check it out and return to the main home window of the app, you&r

The next big shift in Reddit’s evolution may look quite familiar. Last night, the company announced the introduction of what it’s calling profile pages. This is exactly what it sounds like: a personal page tied to a username, with a feed of posts and an avatar. The change is just in the testing phase, and it’s only been rolled to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, League of Legends game developer Riot Games, and prominent user Hector Janse van Rensburg, a British painter who goe

If the phrase “go go gadget car” conjures up warm memories, then you’ll probably get a kick out of Verizon’s latest PR stunt: the Hum Rider. With the flip of a switch, this modified SUV can shoot skyward on hydraulic lifts, allowing it to literally drive over other cars. It’s every frustrated-driver-stuck-in-a-gridlock’s dream come true.Here are the specs, according to Verizon:
Hum Rider widens to about eight feet and elevates five feet, so it can drive over a

Microsoft announced today that the first controller in its Wireless Controller Tech Series will start shipping worldwide on April 25th. The Recon Tech Special Edition will be available for $70, which is also the standard price for special color controllers.For the new controller series, Microsoft drew inspiration from military tech and sci-fi gear. While the other controllers in the series have yet to be announced, the Recon Tech controller features a laser-etched gray front with gold accents an

Today, the Department of Homeland Security published a new set of restrictions forcing laptops and other electronics to be checked as cargo rather than carried into the cabin on flights from eight Muslim-majority countries. The restrictions have already drawn criticism on political grounds, but ambiguities in the order could also cause more practical problems.
Smartphones are explicitly exempted from the restrictions, while any device “larger than a smartphone” is included. That expl

GUEST: Did you know there are over 3,874 companies offering marketing technology? That’s how many companies are featured on Scott Brinker’s behemoth 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic, which drives home the challenge of navigating the marketing industry.
Above: Image Credit: Scott Brinker
“Marketing has the unique challenge of not having a typical stack or process. If you look into any Fortune 500 company, they will have hundreds of products that they are stitchin

Twitter is expanding the ways to live stream video on Periscope with a new API announced today. Similar functionality was previously available as a part of a limited program started last October, but the new Periscope Producer API will let developers and companies create ways for everyday Twitter (and Periscope) users start live broadcasts from other apps and cameras. Interested developers can apply here.
Twitter named four partners who have already been using the beta version of the API, but th

Fred Newman is the voice actor responsible for most of the sound effects in Nickelodeon’s Doug, including the theme song, and he’s also the subject of Great Big Story’s most recent great big story. In the video interview above, Newman discusses how he soundtracked the world of Doug Funnie using only his mouth.
Throughout the series, Newman also voiced characters like Doug’s friend Skeeter, the frontman of The Beets, whose vocals were apparently inspired by Sting, and even

Microsoft is suffering from a second outage affecting its account services this month. Services like Xbox Live, Outlook.com, Skype, OneDrive, and Microsoft’s Windows Store are currently not allowing users to sign into accounts. The Verge has tested a number of accounts, and can confirm that services are experiencing widespread issues.
Microsoft recovered from an hour-long outage earlier this month which affected Microsoft Accounts. The software giant never revealed the root cause of the is

Remember the Coolest Cooler? The $13 million Kickstarter project that promised a portable cooler with built-in speakers and charging that turned into one of the biggest crowdfunded disasters of all time? Good. Hold that thought.The Sobro is a crowdfunded cooler / coffee table hybrid that offers a built-in speaker, chargers (two USB, two wall plugs), LED lights, and a minifridge that’s available on Indiegogo for crowdfunding. Obviously, this is a completely different product from a complete

You may have trouble playing games or signing onto Xbox Live.
Microsoft’s online gaming service is down across Xbox One, Xbox 360, and other devices, according to the Xbox Live Status site. On social media, dozens of people are complaining that they cannot access certain games, apps, and other content on their Xbox devices. While some people are encountering errors attempting to get logged in at all, others are having issues specifically booting up games. This downtime is also preventing v

It’s been a few weeks since Blizzard announced Orisa, the latest character to join the ranks of Overwatch’s heroes, and starting today she’ll finally be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and the primary PC servers.
Orisa is a tank-class hero, meant to help soak up damage and defend softer and squishier allies. Her Ultimate ability, Supercharger, also allows her to dish out a temporary damage boost for her teammates, which can help save a late-minute attack or repel a final

Last night, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a decision to ban carry-on laptops and tablets on direct flights from eight Muslim-majority countries: Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Passengers traveling to the US from 10 airports in these countries will be barred from bringing laptops, tablets, or any devices “larger than a cellphone” as carry-on items; they will instead have to take them in checked luggage. It w

Federal protections for the first bee species to be listed as “endangered” in the continental US are now in effect, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The news comes a little over a month after an executive order by President Donald Trump delayed the listing of the rusty patched bumblebee.
The Fish and Wildlife Service first announced that it was placing the bumblebee on the endangered species list in January. The bumblebee, which is native to the Midwest and East Coast,

Google just announced Android O and revealed a preliminary list of features and changes that consumers should start seeing on phones this fall. The update doesn’t sound earth shattering at this (very) early stage, but among the surprising tidbits is just how much work Android partners are putting in to help improve the overall OS. The standout, according to Google, is Sony Mobile. Sony has so far “contributed more than 30 feature enhancements and 250 bug fixes,” a Google spokes

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) made a historic move this week: It nominated Navid Negahban for his acting performance in the video game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. It makes the first time a Middle Eastern and Muslim actor has been nominated for the prestigious award.
Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Ink Stories studio developed and published the PC and mobile narrative game about the Iranian Revolution in April 2016. It earned a number of kudos for director Navid Khonsari, w

Part of Google’s upcoming Android O release is a new and improved model for keyboard navigation, which will make using Android apps on a Chromebook a little less frustrating. As it stands today, a majority of Android apps are designed with only touchscreen navigation in mind. That makes them hard to use on larger screens, and pretty much unusable on devices that rely solely on keyboard and mouse inputs. So with Android O, Google wants to give developers an opportunity to integrate better k

This morning, President Donald Trump signed into law the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 — a bill that essentially authorizes the space agency to keep doing what it’s been doing for the past seven years. But during the signing of the bill, which maintains many of NASA’s big budget programs, Trump placed a lot of emphasis on the commercial space industry and noted that the bill will allow NASA to continue working with the private sector. It’s the most Trump has s

I’m starting to get the weird feeling that Rockstar Games isn’t going to port Red Dead Redemption to PC. Guess it’s up to the fans to do so.
Grand Theft Auto V is one of the best-selling games ever made, and its popularity — especially on PC — means that modders and community creators will try to do some wacky things with it. One group is modding in all of Red Dead Redemption into Rockstar’s open-world crime game. Red Dead Redemption, the Xbox 360 an

Mass Effect: Andromeda is about humanity’s most daring act: an attempt to colonize another galaxy by sending 100,000 people in cryo sleep for 600 years. But the beginning of the new game from Electronic Arts’ BioWare division isn’t all that dramatic. These are my impressions so far, and you can see videos of my gameplay below.
It starts out kind of slow as you awaken from cryogenic sleep. You choose whether you want to be Scott Ryder or Sarah, who are twin siblings. I chose Sar

Google today launched the first Android O developer preview, available for download now at developer.android.com. The preview includes an updated SDK with system images for the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, and the official Android Emulator, and there’s even an emulator for testing Android Wear 2.0 on Android O.
In the past, Google has unveiled the next Android version and released the accompanying developer preview at its I/O developer conference. That change

In this week’s episode, Stewart and Travis discover that AI and chatbots are a roller coaster. On the ride to the top, a new bot marketing company promises to close the loop and help chatbots pay their way, while on the rapid drop Facebook is pulling back from chatbots after news of massive failure rates.
Our interview this week is with the irrepressible Olga Kay, one of the original YouTube stars and founder of MooshWalks, who teaches us a thing or two about how to find your niche and lev

Twitter is making its Periscope Producer service more accessible with the launch of an API. Available in private beta, this tool enables developers and broadcasters to stream live video through their computer, camera, Xbox, virtual reality headset, or any non-phone device without needing to connect directly through the Periscope app.
Early partners already signed up to use the Periscope Producer API include Telestream, Livestream, Switchboard Cloud, and Teradek. Broadcasters interested in using

PRESS RELEASE:Reason, a startup that promotes adoption of exciting technological advances, is launching a new platform to gamify discovery in a team-based sci-fi adventureSAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 21, 2017– Reason, the startup that builds physical sci-fi adventure for teams to experience difficult-to-access technologies – drones, holograms, Virtual Reality, robotics, 3D printing and more – is announcing its official launch. The company gives people access

Apple has dragged this out long enough.
For a company that prides itself on forcing users into the future by abandoning sub par storage formats (the compact disc, the floppy drive, the optical drive), Apple kept the 16GB iPhone alive for a hell of a long time.
The 16GB iPhone was inconvenient in 2015 — let alone 2017, as apps perpetually grow in size, and video taking and watching increasingly eats up more of the time we spend on mobile devices. But Apple

Microsoft provided Apple CEO Tim Cook with a toaster and a refrigerator recently, neatly packaged into a Surface tablet. The software giant supplied 300 Surface Pro 4 devices for the latest China Development Forum, and Tim Cook was in attendance. Microsoft appears to have placed its tablets on the desk areas for attendees, providing the ability to ask questions electronically and use Office apps from the machines.
Most attendees appear to have moved, or thrown, the Surface Pro 4 once the confere

The Philips VoiceTracer DVT7500 is a new audio recorder that the company claims is specifically designed for recording music (as opposed to, say, interviews or lectures). While Philip’s other audio recorders have long been a favorite tool of lawyers in depositions and doctors reciting notes, the DVT7500 is different in a couple of ways, focusing on music recording instead. It’s a move that puts the DVT7500 up against the industry standard Zoom H4N, which has long been a mainstay for

Marvel’s Iron Fist premiered on Netflix on March 17th, giving fans the chance to finally join the conversation critics have already been having for weeks. A weekend of binge-watching later, the consensus on the show could not be more divided. Critics are still tearing into the show, while many Marvel devotees are singing the series’s praises.
As a critic and fan of Marvel’s work (because it’s still possible to be both), I can tell you that the show does improve relative t