Technology news

Because we're spoiled and don't appreciate amazing technology unless it's immediately convenient, some tech pundits are dismissing VR in favor of AR, but the fact is that we're still years away from easy to use AR glasses. For now, mainstream AR is limited to your smartphone, like most other apps. 
However, a team at Microsoft Research is looking to speed up the progress on wearable AR devices and have introduced a prototype as proof. 
SEE ALSO: HoloLens system uses augmented reality t

GUEST: Tesla cars get a lot of attention for their futuristic design, and not all of that is because of the company’s larger-than-life energy initiatives. The Model S, Model X, and upcoming Model 3 all incorporate levels of driver-focused technology previously unseen on almost any car, even luxury models. That’s about to change, though.
Drivers today are asking why they can’t expect the same level of technology from their infotainment systems as they get from devices like their

Get ready to feel a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings.
A 25-second trailer for the animated short film In A Heartbeat has social media users buzzing, particularly for its brief but beautiful portrayal of young love between two boys. 
SEE ALSO: How LGBTQ youth took over prom, one dance at a time
In the trailer, no words are spoken. Viewers just see a sweet redheaded boy try to control his heart (literally) when he sees his crush — another boy.
The super short animation left many social m

It is happening again.
A tiny snippet of dialogue from a long-ago Twin Peaks episode has become the tagline for Showtime's series revival from David Lynch, which world premiered Friday night at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
Diane, every little detail was eerily familiar, disorienting, dreamy, deeply unsettling. In other words, perfection. Peak Peaks. 
SEE ALSO: Why 'Twin Peaks' Isn't Just a TV Show — It's an Obsession
I can't say much, if anything, about the two episodes that

Uber has been charging some passengers differently based on the routes that they’re taking, according to a pair of reports in Bloomberg and Business Insider. The goal of the pricing scheme is to help entice drivers in those areas to help reduce wait times for passengers.Traditionally, Uber has charged riders based on the mileage, time on the road, and surrounding demand. Last year, the company has been testing a route-based pricing with its UberX service in 14 cities that also use UberPool

Let's be real: a lot of novelty foods are unnecessary, but kind of cool anywayGalaxy cakes, for example, are aesthetically stunningSushi shoes reflect time, vision, and painstaking attention to detail. And the spaghetti doughnut is just awesome. 
But this latte served inside an avocado? There is no reason for it to exist.
SEE ALSO: 'Avocado hand' is real and can turn your dream brunch into an ER nightmare
To be fair, it's probably not an actual menu itemTruman Cafe, an eatery in Melbourne,

The statistics are telling. In 2008, Electronic Arts published 60 games. In 2016, EA published just eight games. And that means that a lot fewer of those games are original titles.
Justin Bailey, the chief executive officer of equity crowfunding company Fig, pointed to this statistic as an example of “sequelitis,” or the risk aversion that is resulting in big bets on established intellectual properties. And he wasn’t just picking on EA. Square Enix, another huge company, is mak

Graffiti penises are "outdoor decor" you probably think you'd rather not encounter. But a safer sex advocate from the UK might just change your mind on that.
An anonymous 28-year-old Londoner is raising awareness of sexually transmitted infections and the importance of protection by spray painting condoms on graffiti penises. Yes, you heard that right. And it's damn genius.
SEE ALSO: Sex-positive YouTubers are giving kids the sex talks we wish we'd had
Sure, it's technically illegal. But it's al

Farewell, child actress Laura Parsons: Vanessa Bayer will exit Saturday Night Live after seven seasons with the show.
Bayer joined the cast as a featured player in 2010 and was promoted to the repertory cast two years later. She is the longest-serving current female cast member on SNL, and, per Deadline, this year's season finale will mark the end of her contract.
SEE ALSO: Melissa McCarthy's 'SNL' monologue was the cutest moment in the show's history
Bayer's announcement comes just two days aft

GUEST: Earlier this month, when Zillow announced a record high quarter, projecting to surpass a billion dollars in revenue by the end of this year, many wondered whether the company, with its 75 percent online real estate audience market share and 171 million monthly users, can “Uber-ize” real estate agents, cutting out traditional brick-and-mortar brokerage middlemen in the same way Uber bypassed taxi dispatchers.
The answer is perhaps yes, but it&rsquo

Buying a drone for fun just got a little less complicated. 
A court ruling has declared that civilians c no longer need to register their non-commercial drones with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 
SEE ALSO: Drone owners will now have to register with the government in China
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of drone user John Taylor, who filed an initial petition challenging the drone registration rule back in 2015, jus

Amazon could be looking to expand its cashier-free grocery stores to the UK and Europe in the future. The company recently filed several trademark applications related to its Go stores with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office and its European Union equivalent.The company filed applications to trademark four slogans: “No Lines, No Checkout. (No, Seriously),” “No Queue, No Checkout. (No, Seriously),” “Every Queue is a Defect,” and “Every Line is a

Transgender Twitter users aren't here for the platform's gendered assumptions. And they sure aren't hesitating to make that known.
Here's the deal: Twitter released a new set of tools on May 17 which allow users to see and control the data advertisers use to target ads on the social media platform. While the move was a clear effort to increase transparency and trust between users and the social media machine, the actual data Twitter has collected is giving many users pause. 
SEE ALSO: Watch

 SoftBank’s huge $100 billion investment fund — the largest tech fund in history — announced its first close today… and it’s huge. The Japanese telecom giant revealed that its VisionFund has closed an initial commitment of $93 billion from a bevy of high profile backers. They include Apple, Qualcomm, UAE-based Mubadala Investment Company, Saudi Arabia’s… Read More

The Internet of Things is expected to grow quickly to tens of billions of connected devices, from smart refrigerators to smart showers to smart cruise ships. Pretty soon, it’s going to extend to smart cars, as Intel demonstrated at its recent autonomous cars event in San Jose, Calif.
But Intel knows that we’ll have to get data in and out of those cars at rates that are much faster than today’s LTE mobile networks can handle. And that’s why Rob Topol, general manager

GUEST: People often ask me, “Why did you move from San Francisco to, uh, Detroit?” The answer is easy. In 10 years, San Francisco will be as good as it is today, but Detroit will be a roaring city once again, defining a new technology hub at the intersection of steel and bits.
When choosing to move to Detroit, a city that has been in a recent state of rebuild, many do so to roll up their sleeves, get to work, and make a difference. These attributes are what’s needed in an entre

If you've only gathered Pantone swatches to test out paints, you might want to take things up a notch and learn a thing or two about the versatility of the swatch from Andrea Antoni. 
The Italian designer's Instagram is filled with beautiful photographs in which he cleverly uses Pantone swatches to match the colors in his images, creating a soothing and visually appealing collection of awesome photos. 
SEE ALSO: Pantone announces nature-inspired 2017 color of the yearEsiste l'acqua su

Maybe I’m a little late to the hashtag-mindfulness movement, but I just recently started trying out a meditation app. There are plenty of articles touting the supposed benefits of meditation practices — ranging from from “charting new pathways in the brain” to remaining in a zen-like state when having a conversation about politics; and in recent years the market for mental wellness and meditation services has grown to more than $1 billion. But for me the impetus was conve

Quick q: how the hell is this video happening?
Kevin Parry, a stop-motion animator who's worked on films like Kubo and The Boxtrolls, has confounded Instagrammers with his most recent optical illusion video, "Walk in the Woods."
SEE ALSO: Couple sitting on a boat created a very NSFW optical illusion
In the clip, Parry approaches a mirror, then suddenly appears to ... walk through it? And to make matters more eerie, it's all filmed at Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon — also known as a spo

Sony has released a new video for Star Wars Battlefront II, in which the game’s creators talk about how the story came together, and how it’ll provide new insight into the Star Wars universe.Battlefront II will hit stores later this year, and once it does, players will take the perspective of an elite Imperial unit known as Inferno Squad. In the video, game director Mark Thompson says that Motive Studios wanted to tell a “soldier’s story,” from the perspective of th

Bruh. There are beatdowns, and then are epic humiliations that will live on for the rest of sports history. 
That's what we witnessed on Friday night as LeBron James and the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers handed the Boston Celtics an old school, backyard woodshed ass whuppin' that seems simultaneously effortless yet packed with the unrelenting intensity of someone taking out all their revenge fantasies on a hapless victim of circumstance. 
SEE ALSO: The 17 NBA teams participating in the 'NB

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams wants you to know he's super sorry for any role the social media platform played in the election of President Donald Trump.
The sort-of apology was made in an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday. Williams' remorse for possibly helping to create a political monster comes after Trump's claims that Twitter was key in helping him clinch the election. 
“I think that maybe I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Twitter, because I get such a

Earlier this week, the National Press Club alleged that security guards ‘manhandled’ a journalist after attempting to ask FCC commissioners a question following a press conference. Now, two senators have written a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, asking for a formal explanation.In the letter, Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) point out that the FCC sets an example when it comes to supporting the first amendment, and that they were disturbed by reports of the incident

Zynga has announced it is partnering with Chinese game publisher NetEase to publish Dawn of Titans in China on iOS and Android.
The free-to-play mobile game is one of Zynga’s highest profile titles. Zynga bought NaturalMotion for $527 million in 2014 partly because of the potential of Dawn of Titans and CSR Racing.
Since that time, NaturalMotion worked hard on Dawn of Titans and, after delays, launched the title last fall. I’ve been playing the game ever since, and I’

Well, Game of Thrones fans, it's official: there are FIVE spinoffs currently in development at HBO. George R.R. Martin confirmed this the other day on his blog, but sadly none of them will cover the most popular spinoff idea, Robert's Rebellion. "By the time I finish writing A SONG OF ICE & FIRE, you will know every important thing that happened in Robert's Rebellion," he wrote. Bummer!
SEE ALSO: HBO promos give us a peek at new 'Game of Thrones' costumes
So what are the five ideas then? It'

Image: Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty ImagesIn 1903, Benjamin and Mary Purnell founded the Israelite House of David, a religious society in Benton Harbor, MichiganThe House of David had many of the characteristics of a typical cult: a charismatic leader, apocalyptic beliefs, communal living, and strict prohibitions on sex, alcohol, and cutting one’s hair.But they also allowed women members to vote and hold office, ran an amusement park, sent traveling bands on the vaudeville ci

The Hollywood Reporter published an oral history of Saturday Night Live’s “yuuuge year” this week, filling in the backstory of its most popular sketches, monologues, casting choices, and brushes with controversy. The piece is a celebration, accompanied by an elaborate photo spread: glamour shots of each major player in costume, and a group shot with Alec Baldwin seated at the center, chowing down on that “beautiful” chocolate cake Trump recalls so vividly from the m

Washington in the middle of a crisis of historic proportions, and our brave leaders are responding the best way they know how: by hiding in the bushes.
The past few months have produced story after story of elected officials trying to run from the people they're supposed to have relationships with. Constituents can't find their senators, senators can't find other senators, and no one wants to find President Trump.
SEE ALSO: Neoliberals are trying to do the impossible: Make their memes cool
Every

If you’re going to market a business, an event, or an initiative online, you need to know how the game is played in the age of digital media. From social networks to SEO challenges to hyper-specialized Internet marketing campaigns, you need to be fully versed in how and where your prospective customers are making their buying decisions. With the double-barreled Digital Media and Public Relations course bundle (available now for only $19 — over 90 percent off — from TNW Deals),

Alien: Covenant is now in theaters, and it helps steer the franchise right back into the space-horror territory that captivated audiences when the first Alien film hit back in 1979. While 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars showed filmgoers that science fiction could go beyond cheap B-movies, Ridley Scott’s film was a separate revelation, proof that screen science fiction could also produce quality horror-dramas. His creepy, Freudian Alien captivated audiences, and became an instant horror

Harry Styles, who once gave Stevie Nicks a personalized carrot cake at a Fleetwood Mac concert, had "the best night of [his] life" performing with her at his small Los Angeles show on Saturday.
Styles first welcomed Nicks as a surprise guest on his new song "Two Ghosts." The two then teamed up for the Fleetwood Mac classic "Landslide" as well as Nicks' own "Leather and Lace."
As "Landslide" ended, a visibly emotional Styles even teared up — but, you know, in a chill celebrity way.
We do n

In a report published by The New York Times today, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams says that “the internet is broken,” and that if Twitter is responsible for President Trump’s election in November, he’s “sorry.”
The report takes a look at Ev’s career, his current work with Medium, and his efforts to fix what he sees as an internet that is going off the rails. He notes he had initially believed that developing platforms such as Blogger and Twitter would im

Fat girls dance.
That three word statement may seem simple and declarative. Yet, the assertion that fat girls do dance challenges a ton of assumptions and stigma around what plus-size people can and can't do.
Cathleen Meredith, a self-proclaimed "fat girl," knows the importance of dancing while people are watching. Meredith is the subject of the first video in an anticipated partnership between acclaimed producer Shonda Rhimes and Dove, called Dove Real Beauty Productions. The series spotlights

So Uber officially launched its not-so-secret trucking business, Uber Freight, on Thursday, as the Silicon Valley tech titan looks to infiltrate another lucrative industry: long-distance road freight.
Uber first announced the service back in September, but the program had remained in stealth mode ever since. In a nutshell, Uber Freight wants to do for the trucking and logistics industries what Uber has been doing for the personal mobility sphere for years — match supply with dema

This week was all about Google I/O including the announcement of Google Assistant for iOS, standalone VR headsets, and more — but when it comes to deals, the biggest highlights of the week are great discounts on laptops.
You may remember when we featured the Dell XPS 15 deal back in March, which was popular among The Verge readers. For $650 off, you can now get a fantastic deal on the same laptop with 16GB of RAM instead of 32GB. Our other favorite deal, exclusive to The Verge, is an addit

“You need to look no further than Apple’s iPhone to see how fast brilliantly written software presented on a beautifully designed device with a spectacular user interface will throw all the accepted notions about pricing, billing platforms and brand loyalty right out the window.” –  Edgar Bronfman, Jr. The iPhone rumor mill 2017 is the tenth anniversary of the iPhone; therefore, pundits are expecting significant changes to the existing design. The original iPhone wa

After WIRED offered us all a peek into Apple’s new headquarters, one notable fact emerged: there’s no daycare center. Whooooopsie. 
Except this was no mistake. It was a big fat message to anyone who might be contemplating trying to balance family life with their obsessive devotion to their job. And that message reads, in the sleekest font imaginable, “nope.”
The 150-acre campus contains a huge fitness and wellness center and every other amenity you can possibly imagi

On Saturday, Pippa Middleton married hedge fund manager James Matthews. Now, of course, the internet is thirsty for photos of the lovely affair.
Some fast facts: The wedding took place at St. Mark's Church in Englefield, Berkshire. Pippa's dress was made by British designer Giles Deacon. And yes, yes, Prince George and Princess Charlotte were in attendance.
Now let's get to the good stuff.
SEE ALSO: Why Prince Harry and Prince William are truly the millennial royals
Here's Prince George peeking

An alien-infested space station isn’t the best place to question your life’s purpose. As Morgan Yu learns in Prey, the existential struggle is just as real as the deadly creatures lurking in the shadows.
Arkane Studios faced similar questions about identity (but with much less bloodshed) while making its sci-fi thriller. Out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Prey is an action role-playing game where you have to fight an alien species known as the Typhon. It’s a premi

"Teenage boy on a bench in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962"Image: © The Estate of Diane ArbusDiane Arbus received her first camera as a honeymoon gift from her husband, with whom she ran a successful fashion photography business for almost a decade.In 1956, restless and unfulfilled, she fled the confines of the commercial studio and took to the streets, first with a 35mm Nikon and later with a medium format twin-lens reflex camera.Some of the richest grounds for photographic encounters were the c

When Bungie revealed the first gameplay trailer for Destiny 2 on Thursday, fans made a lot of noise about the new superpowers available and the CGI trailers setting up the new “Red War Campaign” story mode. There was even a comically loud cheering section when Bungie execs announced that, at long last, players wouldn’t be kicked to the game’s waiting zone every time they wanted to do a new activity. But a lot of the nuts-and-bolts changes to Destiny 2 went unmentioned ons

Though we got out first peek at Android O back in March, Google finally revealed  more details this week at its I/O developers conference about the soon-to-drop version of Android.
Though we're still quite a ways away from the official release, we now a lot more about the update. At first glance, many of the new changes are subtle, building on updates Google introduced last year with Nougat. (Yes, it's another boring year for Android.)
SEE ALSO: Google is boring now, and that's bad news for

President Donald Trump is traveling abroad for the first time in his presidency for an international tour with stops in Saudi Ararbia, Israel, Italy, and Belgium, where I'm sure absolutely nothing at all will go wrong. 
But something about Donald's first stop on this tour struck me as odd. According to a report, Saudi Arabia is preparing to welcome Donald Trump with his favorite, very Not Insane meal: well-done steak and ketchup. 
Folks, this leads me to believe that Trump has a tour r

Reading all the news from Google I/O may have kept you too busy to keep up with this week's app news. We've kept up for you.
SEE ALSO: Google imagines an app-less future with Android Instant Apps
Each week we round up the most important app news along with some of the coolest new and updated apps to help you stay in the loop with everything you need on your phone.Here's what caught our eye this week. If you're looking for more, make sure to check out last week's roundup of top apps.
Google Assis

It was early Thursday morning when astronomer Matt Muterspaugh noticed something strange with the star he had been observing for the last year and a half. Telescope datataken from the night before showed that the brightness of the star had dipped significantly. He contacted other astronomers who had also been observing the same star, to let them know what he had seen and to keep an eye on it for any more changes. Then by the following morning, the star had dimmed even more.
That’s when he

Donald Trump is a man whose behavior follows the whim of his impulses and tantrums, much like a toddler, and the world is scrambling to accommodate it. 
Officials in the White House and from governments around the globe have tailored aspects of governance to the new president to fit his notoriously short attention span and need for praise. 
SEE ALSO: Trump's fave vacation spots like Mar-A-Lago are reportedly very easy to hack into
While most toddlers don't have access to the nuclear co