Technology news

Building Apple’s original Macintosh computer out of Lego isn’t exactly a new feat on the internet, with numerous versions of the famous computer floating around online (including this one from Chris McVeigh, featuring both accurate hardware internals and comprehensive instructions is probably the best of them.)
But programmer Jannis Hermanns has taken things a step further with a functional (ish) classic Macintosh built out of Lego, a Raspberry Pi Zero, and an e‑paper display.

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 chance I can, 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

More than 10 years after a new episode aired on TV, Invader Zim, Nickelodeon’s creepy yet lovable series about a wannabe alien menace, is ready for a comeback. Entertainment Weekly reports that a 90-minute film has gotten the greenlight from the network, and it will feature the core voice cast in their return to the cult hit.
The cult hit returns
The original series, which ran for two seasons between 2001 and 2002, starred Zim, a bumbling alien who is constantly concocting schemes to take

Nearly one year after Amazon was found guilty of illegally billing users for unauthorized in-app purchases, the company has dropped its appeal against the decision, paving way for refunds to finally commence.
The in-app charges stemmed from purchases made by kids when playing with freemium apps. In the 2016 decision, a US federal judge found that Amazon failed to clearly inform parents that free apps may still include in-app purchases, and did not provide enough notice and password requirements

Alcatel unveiled its Flash phone today. It has four cameras. You know about phones with rear-facing, dual-camera systems. Even the iPhone has one. Old news. You’ve maybe even heard of dual front-facing cameras, like the one on the Oppo F3 and the LG V10. Again, old news. Well, how ‘bout this, you who have seen it all: dual rear-facing cameras and dual front-facing cameras together on the same phone. Yes, that means four total cameras. What do you think? Too much camera for one device

Twitch is now a place where you can both watch and buy games. Earlier this year the streaming service announced plans to launch a digital PC games store, and today it’s open for business. Users will be able to purchase select games directly from Twitch channels and game pages, both on the site and the company’s newly launched desktop app. The company says there will be around 50 titles available this week, including For Honor, Telltale’s Walking Dead series, Firewatch, Psychona

This week, Tesla passed Ford and General Motors in market capitalization to become the most valuable American carmaker. Tesla’s stock price is on a tear, up nearly 42 percent since the beginning of the year to more than $300 per share, and the company is currently valued around $53 billion.
Tesla is still well behind huge foreign automakers like Daimler and Toyota, but the news of upstart Tesla (which also is making significant investments in non-automotive spaces like solar panels and ene

The first season of FX’s Legion ended last week. Created by Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, the show is set in Marvel’s X-Men universe, and it provided some closure to a handful of storylines while blowing things up just enough to lay the groundwork for a second season. Right until the end, it’s a tight, quirky, well-acted, visually arresting series that’s unlike just about anything on television, including its superhero show kin.
So why am I left wanting?
By the end of its

August introduced a version of its door lock today called the Smart Lock Pro. Like its name suggests, it’s only available to August Pro members, which is the portion of the company that sells to security dealers and integrators who do custom home installs. Sorry, you can’t buy this lock because it’s only for sale through August’s security distribution partners.
The Smart Lock Pro is the company’s first to support the Z-Wave standard, which might seem like a small st

The Life of Pablo, released in February of last year, has been streamed over 3 billion times worldwide, and has just hit 1.5 billion streams in the US — making it the first album to be RIAA-certified platinum from streaming alone. The album was also available for sale on West’s website, but downloads contributed only 0.7 percent of its first-week units, according to Billboard and TLOP meets the “platinum” condition without those numbers.
The certification was first report

Nearly seven months after Apple Music was revamped for iOS 10, the update has now arrived to the app’s Android counterpart. Version 2.0’s update brings features like on-screen lyrics and a more simplified navigation, reorganizing into four sections: Library, For You, Browse, and Radio.
As 9to5Google notes, other changes also include relocating “New” content under the Browse tab, and Downloaded Music that you can listen to offline. The new interface also features larger al

While there is no shortage of online projects that curate and package YouTube’s infinite depths into more snackable bites, most of them force you to passively watch while the algorithm makes viewing decisions for you. Enter WWWWWWWWWWWWW.XYZ, a new project from the design collective Point in Passing. The interactive web application allows users to choose a theme and then jump between specific moments in preselected, thematically similar videos.
Here’s how it works: the application re

LeEco’s acquisition of US television maker Vizio has taken months longer than the companies initially projected and may be in jeopardy, according to recent reports. Last week, Chinese news service Caixin reported that the deal was being held up because of two problems: tighter currency restrictions inside China and LeEco’s well-publicized cash crunch. Today, Bloomberg followed up by revealing that LeEco may be looking into potential contingency plans if the original goal — a fu

Terrace House, a reality TV series picked up by Netflix, follows six strangers who live together, without forcing the high-intensity, over-produced drama that plagues reality TV. People get along, mostly, and they can leave when they want. It’s often praised for how it makes mundane moments of everyday life a fascinating watch. But PBS Idea Channel has a brilliant alternate take on the reason why Terrace House is so appealing: it’s sort of like a Let’s Play.Host Mike Rugnetta f

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that would make border agents get a warrant before searching Americans’ phones, and affirm that they can cross the border without handing over account passwords. The Protecting Data at the Border Act is sponsored by Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) in the Senate; in the House, it’s backed by Jared Polis (D-CO), Adam Smith (D-WA), Don Beyer (D-VA), and Blake Farenthold (R-TX).
The proposal would prohibit law enforcement office

Yik Yak, the once high-flying anonymous social network based on college campuses, appears to be heading toward its end. Payments company Square is in talks to acquire the company, sources tell The Verge. If a deal is reached, sources said, it’s likely to be structured as a so-called “acquihire,” in which Square acquires Yik Yak’s employees but does not continue to develop its technology. News that the company was seeking a buyer was first reported Tuesday by Fortune.
Yik

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has long opposed the commission’s 2015 net neutrality order, but he hasn’t been very explicit on what he plans to do about it. Pai has largely dodged the question with answers like, “We have not made any determinations at this time.” But lately, he’s been dropping hints that he intends to end the Title II classification that was used to apply tough net neutrality rules.“We need to end the uncertainty and confusion.”
It’s Pai&r

Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out passed the $150 million mark at the box office this weekend, making it the highest-grossing debut ever for a writer-director working from an original screenplay, breaking the 1999 record held by The Blair Witch Project.This makes Get Out a unicorn. The movie-theater industry is bleeding, thanks to streaming services, rising ticket prices, and studios’ dwindling interest in original pitches. In 2015, the box-office take reached its lowest point

Google is currently in a bit of hot water with with some of the world’s most powerful companies, who are peeved that their ads have been appearing next to racist, anti-semitic, and terrorist videos on YouTube. Recent reports brought the issue to light and in response, brands have been pulling ad campaigns while Google piles more AI resources into verifying videos’ content. But the problem is, the search giant’s current algorithms might just not be up to the task.A recent resear

Even before you start playing, Persona 5 makes sure you know that it is just so effortlessly cool. A jazzy tune kicks off the opening credit sequence, where the names of directors and artists appear as street signs and graffiti on billboards. A top hat-wearing angel flies through the air, while a masked burglar rides on top of a rushing train. One character dances on an empty overpass, sliding across the asphalt as if they were figure skating; another grinds down a railing playing air guitar. Th

Netflix’s Iron Fist may have landed to lackluster reviews, but the streaming service is already looking toward its next big superhero show with a new teaser video for Marvel’s The Defenders, according to our friends at Polygon. The drama will have Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand — each of whom have standalone Netflix shows — band together to battle an unknown foe played by Sigourney Weaver.
The brief clips see the four Defenders together in an elevator

Britain split from mainland Europe to become an island thanks to catastrophe — that might sound political, but in fact it’s geographic. Thousands of years before the UK opted to leave the European Union, a process called Brexit, a different separation occurred. Unlike the political one, it was relatively simple, and probably composed of just two stages.
First, a review of geography: England is separated from the rest of Europe by a body of water called the English Channel; the bit of

Part 2 of Terrace House: Aloha State, a reality TV show about six strangers living under one roof, is now available for your binging pleasure. You can stream all eight episodes on Netflix.Terrace House has a similar premise to series like MTV’s Real World — throw a group of strangers into one house and see what happens — but it offers a tamer look at how real humans interact with each other. The drama is kept to a minimum, as everyone handles their disagreements like adults and

Apple hasn’t been paying much attention to its pro users lately, and the company finally seems to be owning up to it.
Speaking to a small gathering of news outlets yesterday, including BuzzFeed, TechCrunch, and Daring Fireball, Apple acknowledged that it had been a while since the company put a focus on pro desktops, announced minor spec updates to the existing Mac Pro, and said that a new Mac Pro model is in the works.
But perhaps most importantly, Apple admitted that its flashy 2013 Mac

Spotify has agreed to a new licensing agreement with Universal Music Group, the companies announced today. As part of the deal, Spotify has agreed to allow new albums from Universal artists to be restricted to its premium service for up to two weeks moving forward, confirming our report from last month. Spotify will also pay slightly less to UMG per stream, according to sources close to the situation.In a statement, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek admitted that Spotify understands that its policy of relea

Persona 5 is a role-playing game about breaking into physical manifestations of people’s darkest desires. It’s also a game about getting good grades, making friends, working part-time jobs, improving yourself, and taking care of your plants over the course of a year in the life of a Japanese teenager.To call the game sweeping is an understatement; even if you sink dozens of hours into the story, you’ll still be scratching its surface. It can feel overwhelming to start — l

Apple has shared some fresh figures on its Mac user base today, as part of a broader effort to make it known the company isn’t giving up on the Mac. In a briefing with TechCrunch, Apple revealed that there are now nearly 100 million active Mac users. Microsoft has traditionally dominated the desktop and laptop market so the small Mac numbers aren’t entirely surprising. Apple’s market share strength is on the mobile side with the iPhone iPad.
Apple’s figures do reinforce M

Yesterday, Imagination Technologies, the company responsible for designing the graphics chips inside Apple's iPhone, notified the world that it would be losing that job at some point within the next two years. Swiftly, the stock market reacted by scything a full two-thirds off Imagination's stock price.
Live by the iPhone, die by the iPhone. https://t.co/lv0wpOtKn1 pic.twitter.com/0b3caAinI3— Vlad Savov (@vladsavov) April 3, 2017My initial reaction was to feel sick on behalf of Imagination

When Sony announced the Xperia XZs at MWC this year, it described the phone as a “super mid-range” device. This moniker supposedly refers to the phone’s specs, but now it’s safe to say the price-tag on the XZ is also super mid-range. As in, not mid-range at all. The phone goes on sale tomorrow, April 5th, costing $700 unlocked from retailers including Amazon and Best Buy.In terms of specs, the XZs shares a number of features with its high-end sibling, the museum-piece-in-

If you’re waiting to buy a foldable Samsung phone this year, you might need to hold onto your wallet for a little while longer. Samsung Display’s principal engineer, Kim Tae-woong, says the company is currently focused on bezel-free displays. “Because the bezel-free display currently sells well, we still have enough time to develop foldable display,” said Kim at a Display TechSalon event recently. Samsung now believes it will commercialize foldable phones in 2019, despite

Norway’s famous doomsday seed vault is getting a new neighbor. It’s called the Arctic World Archive, and aims to do for data what the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has done for crop samples — provide a remote, impregnable home in the Arctic permafrost, safe from threats like natural disaster and global conflicts.But while the Global Seed Vault is (partially) funded by charities who want to preserve global crop diversity, the World Archive is a for-profit business, created by Norwe