Technology news

Flying salt spray and hurricane-force winds changed the green islands of the Caribbean to brown in Hurricane Irma’s wake, new satellite photos reveal.The storm hit the Caribbean last week with the full force of its Category 5 winds. Irma devastated islands like Barbuda and St. Martin, and killed at least 33 people.
Now that the clouds are starting to part, it’s possible to see the damage from above with satellites. The contrast before and after the storm is stark, NASA’s Earth

Tabagotchi is like a Tamagotchi, one that lives as an adorable pixelated avatar in Google Chrome through an extension designed to help you cut down on how many tabs you have open (via Gizmodo). It took me less than five seconds to kill it.Designed by Breather (a company that provides meeting rooms on demand, which doesn’t feel super related to this, but whatever), Tabagotchi is pretty simple: each time you open a new tab, you get greeted by your virtual pet friend, who will slowly die in f

Qualcomm today published a somewhat self-congratulatory blog post that lauds the company and its Android partners for achieving a series of industry firsts that include wireless charging, dual-camera systems, OLED smartphone screens, edge-to-edge displays, and more.If you’ve been following recent Apple rumors and leaks, you know that those are all things we expect to see spread across the new iPhones that the company will unveil tomorrow. (Some of the features Qualcomm mentions have alread

Apple seems to be making it easier to trade in iPhones through the iPhone Upgrade Program with a new mail-in kit option, as spotted by John Angarano over at the MacRumors forums.
Apple launched the iPhone Upgrade Program two years ago alongside the iPhone 6S as an alternative for customers looking to upgrade their phone without being tied to any one carrier. But if you were looking to upgrade your phone to a new model, you had to schedule an appointment in an Apple Store to trade in the old phon

In the event that you happen to be in the market for an offensive piece of living room electronics, Microsoft has teamed up with DJ duo The Chainsmokers to design a one-of-a-kind Xbox One S console that turns sound into an “ever-changing dynamic light show.” In the true spirit of edgier-than-thou game industry accessorizing, the device is tackier than the most egregious light-up Razer peripheral.Microsoft used 60 miniature pixels to illuminate a multi-layered acrylic display, all pow

The first instant film camera in years to bear the famous Kodak name and branding was announced today. The Kodak Printomatic is a pocketable digital camera that combines a 10-megapixel sensor with the ability to instantly print 2 x 3-inch sticker photos on non-ink Zink paper.
Wait, haven’t we heard this before? Ah, yes: the Polaroid Snap, which was released in 2015, also shoots 10-megapixel images and prints them on 2 x 3 Zink Paper. The cameras also look cosmetically similar, if not ident

People who want to help sea turtle nests battered by Hurricane Irma should leave the eggs and hatchlings alone, wildlife officials say. Instead, call the experts, because good intentions don’t necessarily make for good results.Sea turtle nests on Florida’s beaches are facing dangerous coastal flooding in the wake of Hurricane Irma, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm as it whirls toward Georgia. But well-meaning humans are sometimes bigger threats than they realize. Remembe

China plans to shut down domestic Bitcoin exchanges, anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal today. The sources said that regulators weren’t giving a clear message on when the shutdown would occur. One regulator told an exchange that the decision had already been made, while another said the decision might take a few months. In response to the news, the Bitcoin prices have dipped to a low of $4,108, according to CoinDesk.China is home to vast and lucrative cryptocurrency mining oper

The enormous Volkswagen Group is going to make everything electric in some shape or form by 2030, and that involves a lot of cars.
That’s because the VW Group is made up of a hugely diverse set of brands sold around the world, such as Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, and yes, Volkswagen. Offering everything from a 911 to a Tiguan with some sort of electric motor will have a noticeable impact on the number of hybrids and full-EVs available over the next decade or so – about 300 di

Patty Jenkins has officially signed on to direct the Wonder Woman sequel, Variety reports.
Warner Bros. first announced Wonder Woman 2 earlier this summer at San Diego Comic-Con, and confirmed soon after that Gal Gadot would return to play Diana Prince / Wonder Woman. At the time, Jenkins had only signed on to direct the first film, and since then she’s reportedly been negotiating with the studio over her pay. The delay came down to Jenkins’ expectation that she be paid “substa

Japanese company COTODAMA recently made its visual lyric speaker available in the US, and the device features translucent screens that display a song’s lyrics as it plays. Cotodama says it’s “the first lyrical listening speaker available to the public.”
First released in Japan last year, the COTODAMA Lyric Speaker features slick, minimal-looking housing made of translucent TFT LCD panels sandwiched between acrylic. There are two speakers on the front with a volume knob, a

Alongside the Mi Mix 2 and Mi Notebook Pro, Xiaomi also announced the Mi Note 3 in Beijing today. But while it sounds like part of an entirely separate line, the Mi Note 3 is extremely similar to the Mi 6 announced earlier this year — it just has a bigger screen.
This runs in contrast to the Mi Note 2, whose Galaxy Note-inspired design was notably different to last year’s Mi 5 flagship. And the Mi Note 3 isn’t that much bigger — the screen is 5.5 inches versus the Mi 6&rs

Hurricane Harvey has been called an “unprecedented” storm, and in its wake companies have been stepping up to offer relief in a myriad of ways. Now, Google and phone repair company uBreakiFix have joined up to help as well.
The companies are offering free repairs on all Pixels at seven Houston area uBreakiFix locations until September 30th. uBreakiFix’s blog post doesn’t specify if water damage is covered, but that’s likely a given. Google’s flagship isn&rsquo

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is making its way out into the world, and iFixit has done its customary teardown to answer two key questions: what’s actually inside the Note 8, and how repairable is Samsung’s newest flagship? Unsurprisingly, the answers to those questions are “lots of techy stuff” and “almost impossible,” respectively. (That’s pretty much the case with any modern smartphone.)Those two things actually go hand in hand. Today’s smartphones

After 13 years of zooming around Saturn and its many moons, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has less than four days left at the planetary system before the probe is lost forever. Early Friday morning, Cassini will dive into Saturn’s atmosphere, eventually melting and breaking apart. The death plunge will put an end to the spacecraft’s mission, one that has taught us more about Saturn and its moons than we ever thought possible.
This final step has long been planned by the Cassini mis

Amazon is planning to release two new Fire TV models later this year, according to a report from AFTVNews. The first will be a mid-tier dongle that will plug directly into a HDMI port like the Fire TV streaming stick, while the second will be a new flagship device with built-in Alexa functionality.Both new models will support 4K and HDR content, and will slot in to the Fire TV lineup above the cheaper Fire TV Stick (which supports neither). The new dongle, which looks like a square-version of Go

Tesla has set up nearly 1,000 fast-charging Supercharger stations around North America, but people who own its cars in big cities are still hard-pressed for convenient charging solutions. That’s hopefully about to change. Tesla announced today that it’s developed a smaller Supercharger that’s more suited for cramped city life, and it will start rolling them out soon in Chicago and Boston.
In order to make these new Superchargers smaller, they aren’t quite as powerful as t

Google has just announced its plans to appeal the €2.4 billion fine it received from the EU, according to Reuters. The European Commission, EU’s executive arm, fined Google on June 27 for breaching EU antitrust rules. The Commission found Google guilty of favoring its shopping service in internet searches and thereby abusing its market dominance in Europe. #Google brings appeal against @EC 27th June decision before #GC (T-612/17) — EU Court of Justice (@EUCourtPress) September

“And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.” – Hans Gruber, Die Hard. Ten years ago, Steve Jobs strutted onto a stage in California to deliver a keynote address. By the time he finished talking, he’d changed the world forever. No matter where you sit on the iPhone/Android partisan divide, you have to accept that the iPhone was a genre-defining device. Almost instantly, it became the standard for how we stay connect

The first teaser trailer for Fifty Shades Freed, the final installment in Universal’s wildly profitable adaptation of E.L. James’ pulp romance series, is here. Thank goodness! The film was shot at the same time as last year’s Fifty Shades Darker (which The Verge’s scientific analysis found was actually 94 shades darker). These two films were directed by James Foley, following Sam Taylor-Johnson’s resignation from the franchise after the first installment.Fifty Shade

Information from the huge leak in the iOS 11 Golden Master build continues to trickle in, and developer Steve Troughton-Smith has just revealed detailed specs about the upcoming Apple TV, via AppleInsider.According to Troughton-Smith, Apple’s new set-top box will be called the Apple TV 4K, and it will offer a three-core A10X Fusion processor (similar to the one currently found on Apple’s 2017 iPad Pro models), and 3GB of RAM. It’s a pretty big jump from the existing fourth-gene

I need to get this out there before the new iPhones and, especially, the new Google Pixels shake my confidence: the HTC U11 is my phone of the year. The red U11, in particular. I‘ve been using that device for over a month now, and having relied on it to get through the rigors of the IFA tech exhibition in Berlin, I can confirm my initial feelings about it. The U11 is the phone with the most good things about it.
Here’s what the U11 gave me during my time in Germany, in ascending orde

Irma has passed over Florida causing at least four deaths, and leaving 5.8 million people — or more than half those in the state — without electricity. On Monday, the Category 5 hurricane, which broke several records, was downgraded to Category 1 and is now a tropical storm after spending the weekend blowing over Florida. It hit the Florida Keys early Sunday morning with winds of 130 minds per hour. Two hours later, it made landfall at Cudjoe Key, an island in the Lower Keys.
Accordi

The biggest and most obvious trend in smartphones right now is the effort to eliminate the bezel, or frame, that surrounds a phone’s display. The goal is to create a feeling that you’re only holding a screen in your hand, and there’s nothing else to distract you from what’s being displayed on that screen. Established players (Samsung and LG) and newcomers (Essential) alike are all trying to reach that goal. Even Apple is expected to announce new iPhone that largely elimin

Xiaomi wasn’t shy about calling out Apple when announcing the new Mi Notebook Pro here in Beijing today, and on paper the company has a point. Xiaomi’s 15.6-inch laptop has a similar design, allegedly superior performance, and a more practical array of ports — two USB-A, two USB-C, full-size HDMI, and an SD card slot. Most impressively, it comes in at well under half the price for a comparably specced model.
Well, mostly comparably specced.
In person, the build quality seems to

Spain’s data protection watchdog has fined Facebook €1.2 million euros (roughly $1.44 million), after it found three instances when it collected personal data on its Spanish users without informing them of how it was to be used. The judgement is the latest in a series of legal issues that have befallen the social media giant. According to Mark Scott, Politico’s Chief Politics correspondent, the French, German, and Dutch governments are also looking into how Facebook holds and u

The State of California has long been a pioneer when it comes to an individual’s right to blaze trees. It introduced medical marijuana in 1996, and last year, voters passed a referendum legalizing recreational use. But as spotted by Ars Technica, California is a little more stringent with how it’s delivered, with the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (that’s a thing) explicitly forbidding dispensaries from using drones to reach customers. Here’s the exact wording fro

Apple is gearing up to launch the next iPhone and celebrate the iconic device’s 10th anniversary at its upcoming event tomorrow. We’re expecting to see a whole new bezel-less design, a face recognition system for unlocking the phone, augmented reality capabilities, and many improvements to iOS with version 11. The unveiling will take place on September 12 at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park premises, which is the company’s brand new campus in Cupertino. The best place

Microsoft is launching a special Office 365 toolbar for macOS, providing quick ways to access documents, calendar items, and more. My Workspace is the result of Microsoft’s Garage program that encourages employees to create apps in their spare time. The latest macOS app is designed to sit in the toolbar area and includes a quick overview of calendar items to let you join Skype meetings or RSVP to events.
Just like Dropbox or OneNote, My Workspace also includes a list of recently used files