Technology news

Waymo and Uber have reached a settlement in their self-driving car case. The announcement came as a big shock, even though I wrote yesterday that Waymo’s case was looking oddly weak. Parties are free to settle in the middle of trial (heck, they can settle while the jury is considering a verdict, and they can settle even after the verdict is out) but it’s pretty rare.For one thing, it’s hard to think about negotiating when you’re busy prepping for trial the next day. For

Huawei may be one of the top phone manufacturers in the world (second or third, depending on the when you count), but the company has struggled to make a dent in the US market. The fact that AT&T and Verizon bailed on it this year – reportedly due to federal concerns over Chinese espionage – certainly didn’t help. But after spending several months with the Mate 10 Pro, I hope Huawei can get on the good side of carriers and regulators. It’s a really good phone, even a

GUEST: Folks who have a finger on the pulse of innovation know that the Internet of Things will likely change the way we live and work. Sensors embedded in Wi-Fi-enabled products can transmit data that helps users make decisions, detect problems, and streamline their routines. A combination of IoT and AI can form a particularly helpful technology called ambient intelligence. This smart home solution shows a lot of promise to make life a little easier for everyone, but one demographic g

Earlier this week, a portion of iOS source code was posted online to GitHub, and in an interesting twist, a new report from Motherboard reveals that the code was originally leaked by a former Apple intern.According to Motherboard, the intern who stole the code took it and distributed it to a small group of five friends in the iOS jailbreaking community in order to help them with their ongoing efforts to circumvent Apple’s locked down mobile operating system. The former employee apparently

NBC isn’t even streaming the Winter Olympics opening ceremony until 8pm ET tonight, but in the time since the event happened live yesterday in Pyeongchang, Korean netizens have made enough fan art and memes out of the ceremony’s man-faced bird that it’s trending nationally on Twitter, and hitting #1 on Yahoo! Japan trending search results.
“인면조,” or Inmyeonjo, literally translates to “human-faced bird.” The trending tag “Ǿ

VLC is one of those open-source gifts to humankind that we certainly don’t deserve. A lightweight, bloat-resistant, stable, and endlessly compatible piece of software that we mostly use to play back pirated movies.
The brand-new 3.0 “Vetinari” update to VLC adds an incredible number of features. It has HDR10 support. It does HD audio passthrough. It’s hardware accelerated on all platforms, which gives it enough horsepower to do 4K and 8K playback on regular phones and co

It was less than a week after Logan Paul’s post-scandal return to regular vlogging that YouTube ”temporarily” suspended ads on his channel. The company’s decision reflects its promise to investigate further consequences for Paul specifically, as well as policies that would punish creators who do harm to the YouTube community. In a statement to The Verge, a spokesperson said the decision was not made lightly: “We believe he has exhibited a pattern of behavior in his

Apple’s new $349 smart speaker HomePod officially hit stores today, and you’re probably already aware that the initial reviews have been mixed: Generally positive on the sonic performance, neutral to positive on the industrial design, and disappointed to downright negative on Siri.
If you’re on the fence about HomePod and wondering whether to audition it at an Apple Store or your own home this weekend, here are a handful of helpful details that will put this new speaker in some

VB LIVE: AI is changing the customer service and engagement game, offering up unprecedented ways to connect with customers where and when they need you. Learn how major companies are leveraging AI to serve up hyper-personalized, emotionally resonant experiences when you join this VB Live event!
Register here for free.Chat and text messaging is increasingly the way consumers prefer to communicate with brands, says Brian Gross, VP of Digital Innovation at airline Aeromexico. And that’s why t

VB LIVE: AI is changing the customer service and engagement game, offering up unprecedented ways to connect with customers where and when they need you. Learn how major companies are leveraging AI to serve up hyper-personalized, emotionally resonant experiences when you join this VB Live event!
Register here for free.Chat and text messaging is increasingly the way consumers prefer to communicate with brands, says Brian Gross, VP of Digital Innovation at airline Aeromexico. And that’s why t

As confidence continues to wane in the traditional college experience, coding bootcamps are picking up steam. It’s easy to see the appeal. Rather than graduating with untold thousands of dollars in debt, students can instead elect to spend as little as $5,000 and attend class for just six weeks. As of last year, 95 full-time coding bootcamps grossed some $266 million in revenue and graduated an estimated 22,000 new developers — up from just 2,000 in 2003, according to Course Report.

Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, proposed a settlement of $500 million to Uber earlier this week, but the ride-hailing company’s board of directors rejected the deal, according to a report from Reuters, which was confirmed by sources familiar with the case. On Friday, the two companies settled their acrimonious lawsuit over stolen self-driving car secrets. The price tag: a much more reasonable $245 million in Uber stock, and a promise not to use Waymo’s trade

Amazon is building a full-fledged delivery service for businesses that could rival UPS and FedEx. The company plans to roll out its “Shipping with Amazon” service in Los Angeles over the next few weeks, with further expansion planned this year. The company will send Amazon’s drivers to pick up shipments from a company’s office or warehouse and then deliver them to customers or clients, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. What this means for customers will

Today, Getty Images and Google announced the forming of a multiyear global licensing partnership, nearly two years after Getty filed a competition law complaint against Google with the European Commission. As part of the partnership, Google will be modifying its image search to improve attribution of contributors’ work. The changes will also include making copyright disclaimers more prominent and removing view image links to the image URL.
The April 2016 complaint, which Getty has since f

It’s no secret that Apple is cooking up some type of augmented reality hardware at its Cupertino headquarters. CEO Tim Cook has broadly hinted at the company’s ambitions to deliver a head-mounted display or smart glasses device at some point in the future. More recently, Cook said that the “the technology itself doesn’t exist” to make augmented reality goggles at the level of quality Apple desires, suggesting the company may at hard at work rethinking conventional

Facebook is expanding its roster of original video content. The social media site has ordered a dramedy series starring Avengers: Infinity War star Elizabeth Olsen, according to Deadline. The 10-episode series is the latest in a string of acquisitions for the social media site, which has been working to develop its own content for its Watch platform.The half-hour show is reportedly about a young widow (Olsen) who is dealing with the loss of her spouse, while at the same time reconnecting with p

With Final Fantasy XII’s launch on Steam, Square Enix has released one of its best games on the PC. The publisher has done some work to ensure this is the best-looking version of the role-playing game — especially when it comes to framerate. After rolling out Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro at 30 frames per second, you can now finally experience this gorgeous classic at a full 60 FPS … if you have the hardware.
I’ve been playing F

Last month, many major airlines enacted a ban on “smart luggage” with non-removable lithium-ion batteries. However, according to Steph Korey, the CEO of luggage company Away, airlines have been prohibiting smart luggage even if it has a removable battery and should be allowed under the new policy.
In an internal email sent the Away team, Korey says there has been confusion with airlines as to which bags are and are not allowed. “Some airline employees have prohibited passenger

Praying mantises willing to wear 3D glasses and sit through bizarre, abstract movies have revealed a new way of seeing the world in three dimensions. The findings could help improve machine vision for robots that need to judge distance, like drones. But most of all, thanks to this research, we now know what bug-eyed mantises look like in glasses: adorable.These carnivorous — frequently, cannibalistic — insects are well known for their pious posture, and the female’s habit of d

In a quest to make electronic devices more environmentally friendly, researchers have created an electronic skin that can be completely recycled. The e-skin can also heal itself if it’s torn apart.
The device, described today in the journal Science Advances, is basically a thin film equipped with sensors that can measure pressure, temperature, humidity, and air flow. The film is made ofthree commercially available compounds mixed together in a matrix and laced with silver nanoparticles: w

(Bloomberg) — It may seem like everyone from Grandma to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has piled into Bitcoin in the past year, but there’s at least one group that’s looking for a way out: Criminals. In the next six to 12 months, the most widely used digital coin is poised to lose its spot as a dominant payment method on the dark web, according to a study by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Its biggest competitors? Litecoin and Dash. Transacting with Bitcoin has become

Police have arrested a man named Andy Mai in connection with a string of Venmo scams against LA-area resellers, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records. Andy Mai faces six charges of grand theft, filed on January 25th. On Wednesday, Mai posted a $145,000 bond, pleading not guilty to all charges. He is next scheduled to appear in court on February 26th. Detectives on the case said the investigation was still ongoing, and declined to comment further.
In November, The Verge traced m

Warning: major spoilers ahead for Ash Tyler’s plotlines in Star Trek: Discovery.
Shazad Latif can freakin’ cry.
Fans of Star Trek: Discovery know that already. In the first season alone, his character, tormented Lieutenant Ash Tyler, has suffered torture (and effectively, rape), been paralyzed by PTSD flashbacks, and had his body and mind overridden by a Klingon sleeper agent via an agonizing, obliterating “reassignment” surgery. At the same time, he’s been the sen

Car companies might want to spend more time thinking about building features for dogs and cats into their new vehicles: dog hammocks and other pet-friendly accessories are among the top searches consumers make for their vehicles in the US, according to findings released today in Google’s 2018 Auto Trends Report.
“When it comes to the US, pets are a huge market: Starbucks is offering “Puppuccinos.” There’s farm-to-table pet food,” says Yarden Horwitz, the tren

As part of the Question and Answer section of Nintendo’s investor call following its fiscal results briefing on February 1, someone asked Shigeru Miyamoto about his involvement with the recently announced Super Mario Bros. movie.
Miyamoto, one of gaming’s legendary designers, created Mario for the arcade game Donkey Kong in 1981. The plucky plumber has since appeared in dozens of games and has become the industry’s most recognizable star. Hollywood created a live-action Mario m

For the majority of The X-Files’ run, the opening credits end with the show’s tagline, “The truth is out there.” Throughout the series, the message occasionally changed to something relevant to a specific episode, but in the show’s newest season, tailored versions became the norm, with the traditional tagline only appearing in front of two episodes out of the initial six-installment run. The truth has lost its prominence in the credits, just as it seems to have los