Technology news

In addition to the big news that a new Smash Bros. is on the way, today Nintendo also revealed a solid slate of new games coming to the Switch in the coming months. It’s a pretty eclectic selection, too. Among the new games are an updated version of the fantastic Wii U puzzle game Captain Toad, launching on July 13th; the remastered Crash Bandicoot trilogy coming on July 10th; and the Zelda-like adventure Okami, which will be available some time in the summer.
The colorful multiplayer sho

Nintendo has announced that Super Smash Bros. is coming to the Nintendo Switch this year, bringing the popular fighting game franchise to Nintendo’s newest console.The teaser came at the end of the company’s Nintendo Direct presentation today. There is virtually no information on the upcoming release other than the 2018 release window, but it seems that popular characters like Mario and Link will once again be returning to the franchise, along with newcomers from Splatoon (making th

The Nintendo 3DS library will continue to grow with a new WarioWare game, the first to hit the 3DS. Nintendo announced the news today, along with several other titles, during one of its Direct presentations. WarioWare Gold will launch August 3rd and will include 300 mini-games.
Also headed to the Nintendo 3DS is an updated version of Luigi’s Mansion, which originally launched on GameCube, as well as a remake of Mario & Luigi adventure Bowser’s Inside Story. The game will also in

A new study done by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) says that Android users have higher brand loyalty than iOS users, as reported by TechCrunch. The report says that not only has Android loyalty been rising since early 2016, but it’s currently the highest it’s ever been.
To measure current loyalty to each platform, the study looked at the percentage of US customers who stayed with their operating system after upgrading their phones in 2017. Ninety-one percent stayed w

The last few iPhones have been water resistant — but if you drop one in water while it’s charging or connected to some other accessory, you might still have a problem because the Lightning connector itself can still get wet and cause a short.
Apple seems to have looked at ways to prevent this, as detailed in a series of patent applications published today. One pair of applications, first spotted by Patently Apple, handle this in a simple way: they propose changing the shape of Apple

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge in Manhattan in a hearing today suggested that the president should maybe mute instead of blocking his critics on Twitter. The judge in Knight v. Trump encouraged the parties to reach a settlement, otherwise they ran the risk of establishing legal precedent they might not like.Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute sued the president in July of last year on behalf of seven Twitter users that were blocked by the president. T

During a cabinet meeting today, President Donald Trump remarked briefly on the success of the private industry — and that NASA seems to be increasingly using vehicles from commercial companies. The only problem: the Trump administration’s budget requests don’t make significant strides to partner with the private sector.
Trump pointed to last month’s launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy as a good example of what the commercial sector can accomplish. He marveled at how th

Over a year ago, when Hulu first previewed its live TV service, the company’s video teaser revealed a feature that still hasn’t arrived: mobile notifications. In that demo, a user got an alert about a basketball game with a tight score heading into the final minute of play. But months later, Hulu has yet to actually build mobile alerts — something that could help it stand out against Sling TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Now, and PlayStation Vue — into the live TV service. That&

California has become the latest state to propose the Right to Repair Act, which would require electronics manufacturers to make repair information and parts available to product owners and to third-party repair shops and services.The bill was proposed earlier this week by California Assemblymember Susan Talamantes Eggman, and would require companies like Apple to make it possible for customers to repair their devices on their own or at places other than Apple Stores or approved Apple retailers

Hours before a scheduled announcement about tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted a series of tweets directed at President Trump asking for “equal & fair rules for cars” when it comes to the US and China.Musk spoke out against two things that he says have made things “very difficult” for Tesla. First, he explained to the president how the US places a 2.5 percent tariff on cars imported to the US from China, while China places a 25 percent

Spotify has launched Amplify, a new online hub that will serve to highlight and bring attention to various communities throughout the year. Different causes Amplify plans to focus on include mental health, LGBTQ rights, immigration, and gender equality.
For its debut, Amplify is focusing on women to celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. The hub is divided into several sections with titles like “Icons & influencers,” “Movements on the ri

Two weeks ago, I excitedly wrote the news that the Tap keyboard is now shipping. It’s a $149.99 Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which slides onto your hand like brass knuckles and gives you typing powers if you can master its arcane system of “chords” to make letters. You can pair Tap with your phone, tablet, or computer, and it just works like any Bluetooth keyboard would.
I got a review unit last Friday, and I’ve been simultaneously thrilled by Tap, and strongly disappoi

Untruthful news is 70 percent more likely to be retweeted on Twitter than true news, according to new research — and bots may not be to blame.In a paper published today in the journal Science, researchers analyzed the spread of all the stories verified (as either true or false) by six fact-checking organizations from 2006 to 2017. The analysis shows that false political news spreads more quickly than any other kind, like news about natural disasters or terrorism, and predictably, it spike

Michael B. Jordan posted on Instagram last night that his film production company, Outlier Society Productions, will adopt inclusion riders for all their forthcoming projects. An inclusion rider is a clause in an actor’s contract where they can set out baseline diversity requirements for the cast and crew before the actor commits to a project. The concept was mentioned by Best Actress award-winner Frances McDormand during her acceptance speech and quickly went viral.
“I’ve bee

Snap will lay off “just over” 120 employees from its engineering team over the next few days, the company confirmed today. The layoffs, first reported by Cheddar, were announced in an email to Snap employees by Jerry Hunter, the company’s engineering chief. Cheddar’s Alex Heath published a copy of the email on Twitter.
Hunter said the layoffs are meant to streamline and unify Snap’s engineering team. He said the changes will allow the company to “[address] th

Hulu has released a new teaser for the next season of its dystopian show, The Handmaid’s Tale, listing off all of the things that that the Handmaids have to contend with in their day-to-day lives in the oppressive country of Gilead.The list essentially boils down to obeying and submitting to men: “wear the red dress, wear the wings, shut your mouth, be a good girl.” It feels entirely appropriate for the teaser to land today, on International Women’s Day: a pointed remind

MoviePass has updated its iOS app today, with the changelog noting that the company has removed “unused app location capability,” as spotted by Engadget.The update comes after CEO Mitch Lowe made comments at the Entertainment Finance Forum in Los Angeles last week, claiming that the company was tracking users’ locations. “We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards,” commented Lowe, according to a report from Media Play News.Mov

In a blog post today, Google is announcing that it’s formally embarking on a project to convince the group in charge of web standards to adopt technology inspired by its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) framework. In theory, it would mean that virtually any webpage could gain the same benefits as AMP: near-instantaneous loading, distribution on multiple platforms, and (critically) more prominent placement on Google properties.
This sounds impenetrably dense and boring, but please don’

Today, Ubisoft announced a surprise sequel to its 2016 online shooter The Division. The sequel, dubbed The Division 2, will once again be developed primarily by Swedish studio Massive Entertainment, which Ubisoft acquired in 2008. “We’ve always envisioned the story in the game we launched in 2016 as the beginning chapter in a larger saga, and today we’re excited to share more info about what’s next for The Division universe,” Massive creative director Julian Gerigh

Twitter is taking steps to reduce the amount of cryptocurrency scams on its platform. In recent weeks, a number of scammers on Twitter have impersonated Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Elon Musk, or John McAfee. They’ll use deceptive tactics like a slight misspelling of a username or use the same or similar avatar of the verified account, and tell followers to send them a small amount of currency to receive a bigger amount back.
In a statement to The Verge, Twitter says it will begin

Leica is introducing a limited edition version of its Monochrom camera that better speaks to its black-and-white-only sensor by dressing the camera almost entirely in black — and it looks fantastic.
The new “stealth edition” of the Monochrom (Typ 246) will sell for $15,750, around twice as much as the standard version, but you do get something for that increased cost. Most importantly, the stealth edition is bundled with a lens — the Summicron-M 35mm f/2 ASPH — tha

Lyft announced today that it would soon begin testing its autonomous vehicles at GoMentum Station, a 5,000-acre proving ground in Concord, California. The vehicles it plans to test are being designed and developed by Lyft’s own in-house engineering team. It’s a major shift for the ride-hailing company that has typically relied on partners with more advanced technology.Lyft didn’t provide an update on the progress of its self-driving cars, aside from two photos that tell us lit

Iron Man and Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau has been tapped to write and produce an upcoming live-action Star Wars show, which will debut on Disney’s still-unnamed streaming video platform, Lucasfilm announced today.
In November, Disney announced two projects: a new trilogy of films written by The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, and a live-action show for the company’s upcoming streaming service, which is expected to launch sometime next year. Disney also announced last month that

Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company Blue Origin is inching ever closer to launching tourists into sub-orbital space. But before that happens, the venture wants to hire someone to make future trips to the vacuum a very high-class experience.Blue Origin recently posted a job ad for an “Astronaut Experience Manager” on its website, a gig that’s unlike most you’ll find in the aerospace industry. Whoever is hired for the position will be less focused on the minutiae of engi

The end of February wasn’t kind to Snapchat-maker Snap: it rolled out a redesign that users decided they hated, and a single Kylie Jenner tweet about the app sent the company’s stock into a spiral. But, really, Snap’s struggles preceded all of that, due in no small part to rival Instagram.
Facebook-owned Instagram has “borrowed” plenty of features from Snapchat. And in doing so it has managed, in a relatively short period of time, to build what feels like its own s

Good news if you’re worried about a robot taking your job: it turns out even mechanical laborers need a break.
Only a single shift into its career at the CaliBurger restaurant in Pasadena, California, this week, Flippy the robot burger-flipper is going on hiatus, reports USA Today. The bot, created by startup Miso Robotics, made its debut earlier this week assisting in CaliBurger’s kitchen by flipping patties on the grill. According to reports, the robot did its job well but was suc

After leaks of each individual device, VentureBeat reporter Evan Blass has tweeted a photo of all three rumored versions of the Huawei P20: the regular P20, the P20 Lite, and the P20 Pro. We can now clearly see what will likely be the front and back of each phone. They’re about what we expected.
Huawei P20, P20 Lite, and P20 Pro (top to bottom) pic.twitter.com/FK8iyxyQND— Evan Blass (@evleaks) March 7, 2018The P20 and P20 Pro both feature a front-mounted fingerprint sensor, whereas

The Verge is headed back to Austin for another week of brand activations, breakfast tacos, and bold prognostications about the future of technology and culture. That’s right — it’s SXSW, when industries as disparate as artificial intelligence, social media marketing, virtual reality, film, TV, and music collide in the heart of Texas’ cultural mecca.For the uninitiated, SXSW is a kind of conference conglomerate. It mixes high-minded tech and entertainment industry speakin

August is now giving Doorbell Cam and Doorbell Cam Pro users 24 hours of free stored video recording as part of its new Basic August Video Recording subscription.
Users can now watch and access any video recorded on an August device from the last 24 hours using the activity feed on the August app. August suggests that it could help users identify visitors at their door who they’ve missed earlier in the day or review suspicious activity. “Now if you miss a motion notification or expe

Amazon’s been rolling out a series of incremental but still useful Alexa features over the past several months, particularly around Amazon Music — the service Amazon would love for you to use as the default on your Echo devices. Today’s update includes a couple new features that let users request music using more natural or vague language.People will now be able to ask Alexa for music tracks or playlists based on time passed, like “Play that playlist I played last Sunday

Over the past couple of months, Europeans have noticed time slipping away from them. It’s not just their imaginations: all across the continent, clocks built into home appliances like ovens, microwaves, and coffee makers have been running up to six minutes slow. The unlikely cause? A dispute between Kosovo and Serbia over who pays the electricity bill.
To make sense of all this, you need to know that the clocks in many household devices use the frequency of electricity to keep time. Elect

Microsoft is planning to reuse its “Creators Update” naming for a third Windows 10 update. The software giant has strangely not yet officially named its next Windows 10 update, due next month, but it has been testing a future update that appears to reveal the spring update name. “Windows 10 Spring Creators Update” has been spotted in the latest test builds of the Redstone 5 update expected to be released later this fall.
Microsoft first launched Windows 10 Creators Updat