Technology news

A handful of apps are no longer supported on the Apple Watch, according to a report by Apple Insider. Major apps like Google Maps, Amazon, and eBay appear to have quietly abandoned the Apple Watch App Store, without giving a heads-up or providing any explanation to users.
AI reports that Google pulled support for its Maps app on watchOS a few weeks ago, while recent updates to the Amazon and eBay apps no longer reference support for the Apple Watch. Other affected apps include Target (the main o

In creating the original Star Wars trilogy, filmmakers had to find clever solutions to a very specific problem: sound. YouTuber and former film student Kristian Williams, aka kaptainkristian, pinpoints this problem concisely. “With film, the goal of a traditional audio department is to reinterpret the visual environment into a complimentary aural environment, giving realistic contextual sound to images on screen,” Williams says in narration. “But what happens when none of those

A conservative group that wants to see the US government address climate change is trying to reach the president through his favorite medium: TV. The Partnership for Responsible Growth will air a series of five climate change ads in Washington, DC over the next five weeks, targeted at the networks and shows President Donald Trump is known to watch: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC’s Morning Joe. The group announced its troll today.
The ads don’t have a target audience of just one, of course.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch is almost an exact copy of the original Wii U version, but with a new platform comes a new control scheme: one that, in a heartwarming story, has allowed a four-year old girl named Molly who suffered a stroke to finally play, via Kotaku.As Keith, Molly’s father, explained in a Reddit post overt the weekend, his daughter was unable to hold the right side of the controller well enough to both steer and accelerate at the same time in past Mario Kart entries.

Walt Disney World’s World of Avatar isn’t scheduled to open to the public until May 27th, so the theme park-loving masses won’t be able to enjoy the new attraction until the end of the month. However, members of the press got a preview this weekend, and helpfully gave everyone a look at what to expect from Pandora and the lifeforms that live there.
These special looks come courtesy of InsideTheMagic.net, and help paint a clear picture of how ambitious the World of Avatar is. It

WhatsApp is testing a new feature that will let you pin three chats at the top of your conversation list in the beta version of its app, according to Android Police. If you’ve ever been chatting with a bunch of different people during the day and got tired of scrolling to find the person you want to respond to, this feature will definitely come in handy.
To pin a chat, simply tap and hold on the chat in the conversation list, and the option to pin will show up. Of course it may take a bit

Sundance Institute, the nonprofit behind the annual Sundance Film Festival, has come up with a new way to support young filmmakers who don’t want to sell the rights to their movies to major distributors.It’s a Kickstarter. That’s not a terrible idea; in fact it’s pretty noble to step up to the plate for filmmakers who don’t have the same name recognition that Sundance itself has, especially when they might find it impossible to host a fundraiser themselves.Sundance

It’s been a while since we heard news about the Gvido, an incredibly nice-looking double-screened E Ink tablet designed specifically for displaying sheet music. Originally announced back in June 2016, there were two big questions left unanswered: when (if ever) would the Gvido actually be released, and how much it would cost? Fortunately, we now have the answer to both of those questions: September 20th, for the eye-watering price of $1,600.
Price aside, the Gvido remains a really great id

Silicon Valley is Mike Judge and Alec Berg’s biting comedy about the American tech industry, now in its fourth season. Every week, we’ll be taking one idea, scene, or joke and explain how it ties to the real Silicon Valley and speaks to an issue at the heart of the industry and its ever-lasting goal to change the world — and make boatloads of money in the process.
Spoilers ahead for the second episode of season 4, “Terms Of Service.”
It was written last year, but la

E3 is right around the corner, and developers are already starting to tease new titles for the biggest video game conference of the year. Take Bethesda: its “Bethesdaland” E3 invite shows off some of the developer’s biggest franchises, including Dishonored, Doom, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Prey, and Quake.Of course, along with those already known titles are two areas marked as “Coming soon” and “Under construction,” which could be hinting at some new ti

Leaked photos of Fitbit’s upcoming smartwatch reveal that the device, which has been plagued by production issues, will look ... just like a Fitbit.Yahoo Finance first published the images of the not-yet-announced watch, along with a photo of a pair of unremarkable Bluetooth headphones. If the images are in fact legitimate, the new watch looks strikingly similar to Fitbit’s $150 Blaze fitness watch, which came out in early 2016. It has a square face, physical buttons, and a wristband

Samsung’s latest app, Marshmallow (not to be confused with Android Marshmallow, an outdated OS still being put on phones in 2017), looks to gamify parental controls for kids, in an attempt to get them to use their phones less.
The app features traditional parental control features like limiting app and device usage, and it can’t be deleted or disabled without the parent’s password. But unlike other parental control apps, Marshmallow will reward kids with points that can be rede

Hulu has just announced an agreement with NBCUniversal that will result in channels including NBC, Telemundo, USA, E!, Syfy, Bravo, and the MSBNC and CNBC news networks becoming part of Hulu’s soon-to-launch streaming TV service.“Hulu will soon provide an affordable, complete live TV package that includes all four major broadcast networks, the top-rated cable news channels, a massive sports offering, and our deep existing premium streaming library for under $40,” CEO Mike Hopki

American Gods, the new Starz series based on Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel of the same name, is unlike anything else on television. The series touches on ideas about worship and godhood, and is alternatingly abstract, meditative, and really, really bloody.It tells the story of ex-convict Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) who, thanks to the machinations of the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Deadwood’s Ian McShane), finds himself caught up in a war between the manifestations of Old Gods like Loki (Jon

In the premiere of American Gods, a woman named Bilquis (Yetide Badaki) is out for drinks with a man she met online. They’re an odd couple. She’s young, beautiful, and exquisitely dressed. He’s a frumpy, awkward dad. As the date progresses to the bedroom, something begins to feel a little off.American Gods has that name for a reason, and Bilquis is hardly your average woman. Shortly into their oddball sex session, it becomes clear that this unlucky man is literally losing himse

Bridj, the Boston-based on-demand bus service, is closing up shop after failing to close a “major deal” with an unnamed car company, the founder explained in a Medium post yesterday.“After three years and millions of passenger miles as the largest operation of our kind in the country, Bridj is winding down,” wrote Matt George, the CEO of the pop-up transit service. He went on to describe the details of how his company collapsed:
We made the strategic choice to pursue a de

Nintendo has announced that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for its Switch console is the fastest-selling title in the history of the entire series. The company says it recorded a total of 459,000 combined sales — both digital and physical retail copies — in the US on the game's April 28th launch day.The numbers result in an attach rate of 45 percent, so “nearly one in two Nintendo Switch owners in the U.S. purchased a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the first day it was available.” P

Netflix just released the first trailer for the upcoming season of House of Cards. In the clip, Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood campaigns against Joel Kinnaman's Will Conway for a spot in the White House, and it looks like Underwood takes it. “One nation Underwood,” Spacey says.
It’s been more than a year since season 4 premiered back in March 2016, so fans have had a long time to reflect on an Underwood presidency. The US also got a new president in the interim between se

Elon Musk is the head of a spaceflight company, an electric car manufacturer / solar energy effort, and a brain-computer interface project. Recently, though, he added a tunnel boring company to that already crowded plate. This past weekend he spoke about The Boring Company, as he’s calling it, for the first time in public with Chris Anderson, the curator for TED Talks.It wasn’t a hard-hitting interview — while Anderson got Musk to share some details about the tunneling project,

After two high-profile episodes of violence on its platform, Facebook is facing a crisis with no clear prospect for change.It started last month in Cleveland, when a 37-year-old man named Steve Stephens used Facebook for a series of immensely disturbing videos, including one where he was seen shooting 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr. in the head. The brutality of the crime, and the video’s spread across Facebook, led to massive media coverage. Then, last week, another gruesome tragedy unfolde

When the Galaxy S8 launched a little over a week ago, it was missing a critical feature: the voice command support for Samsung’s new Bixby digital assistant, which the company promised would be coming at a later date. That date seems to today, at least for S8 and S8 Plus owners in South Korea, who now can access the feature, according to a report from ZDNet.S8 owners have been able to use the Bixby Vision augmented reality, Bixby Home, and Reminders features since launch. But the full voic

This morning, SpaceX pulled off yet another successful Falcon 9 rocket landing after launching a spy satellite into space for the National Reconnaissance Office. Since it was a national security launch, we weren’t treated to very many shots of the rocket in space. But in lieu of that footage, we did get to see multiple angles of the Falcon 9 rocket on its descent back to Earth — including one long shot we’ve never quite seen before.
During the online webcast, there was a ground

We’re expecting this to be a busy week at The Verge. In addition to our usual coverage, we’ve got a big Microsoft event followed by earnings from Apple, Facebook, Tesla, and others.
Microsoft's holding a hardware and software event on Tuesday. The promotional #MicrosoftEDU hashtag suggests an education focus that might see Joe Belfiore take the stage in his new role. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley and our own Tom Warren think that Windows 10 Cloud — Microsoft's rumored answer to C

This morning, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket on solid ground again, after launching the vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The vehicle’s first stage — the 14-story core of the rocket that contains the main engines — touched down at the company’s landing pad called Landing Zone 1, located just off the coast of the Cape. It’s the fourth time SpaceX has landed one of its rockets on land, and the 10th time the company has successfully recovered a rock

Tiny food is a blessing in this world, managing to be both calming and exciting at the same time. (Because it’s just! So! Small!) But if you’re going to have a plate of tiny bacon and eggs to start your week (or maybe even some tiny donuts), you need one thing to go with it: a very tiny cup of coffee.The video above from artist and designer Lucas Zonatto shows a cup being made from just a single coffee bean. The bean is ground up using a nail file; the water is boiled with a tealight

There are two new Samsung products in the pipeline that seem rote, but are worth paying attention to. The first is Tizen 3.0, the latest version of the company’s multi-purpose OS; and the second is the Samsung Z4, which will be the first phone to run that new OS.The Z4 we know about through various leaks, including, most recently, the phone’s entire user manual. Don’t expect any exciting hardware, as the “Z” range is solely about providing Tizen with a cheap mobile

On Monday, SpaceX is slated to do its very first national security mission for the US military — sending a spy satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office. Dubbed NROL-76, the secretive payload is scheduled to go up on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket early Monday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. After launch, SpaceX will attempt to land the Falcon 9’s first stage — the 14-story high core of the rocket that contains the main engin

 Australia-based cross-border payments startup Airwallex has closed a $13 million Series A round to expand its reach across Asia Pacific and into Europe. The deal was led by Chinese internet giant Tencent — marking its first investment in an Australian startup — with participation from Sequoia China, Mastercard and other undisclosed investors. Airwallex was founded last year… Read More

Twitter will partner with Bloomberg as part of its plans to stream live video 24 hours a day, The Wall Street Journal reports. The deal will see Bloomberg producing news programming specifically for Twitter, mixing live news reported from Bloomberg’s global bureaus with videos posted by verified Twitter users, and streaming around the clock.
The news service has yet to be named, but according to the WSJ, will be officially announced on Monday by Michael Bloomberg and Jack Dorsey. Terms of