Technology news

Chicago is the first major American city to take a strong stance on keeping its sidewalks open and accessible instead of littered with discarded bicycles.
The city begins a six-month pilot program next week in an aim to keep litter from bicycle-share programs off city streets. Any service renting out bikes that don't have bike stations — also known as "dockless" bikes — must make sure their vehicles have "lock-to" technology, which allows users to lock the bikes to a physical object,

The internet has connected us in ways we never thought possible, allowing people who would've never met to create long-lasting friendships. Unfortunately, distance is a bitter reality and often those internet friendships are screen-only. 
SEE ALSO: Delightful water-filled glove is the internet's best son
Redditor core330 and his best friend have daughters the same age. The two introduced them on FaceTime four years ago, and since then, they've been best friend. Unfortunately, the two  

Never underestimate the power of a kid's imagination, especially one who loves dogs.
Emma Saccá Marcano asked her mom for a computer for one reason only: to watch dog videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, Yubiry Marcano didn't have money to buy her one, so her daughter improvised and created her own computer instead. 
The little girl may have blown her chances, because this invention seems pretty great. 
Marcano posted the image of her 7-year-old daughter's creation on Reddit and th

It looks like a potential merger deal between T-Mobileand Sprint,two of the major telecom companies in the U.S., is getting closer and now has set valuation terms, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The deal could be announced as soon as Sunday, according to a report by CNBC. The proposed tie-up of the two companies was called off in November last year, but now that deal appears to be coming closer, with T-Mobile’s backer valuing Sprint at around $24 billion, according to Bloomberg. As pa

Imagine becoming one of the most celebrated athletes in the world. Now imagine that the reward for your hard work is being asked to sit down with a man who mostly seems to want to scream conspiracy theories at the television and talk about how hot his daughter is.
It's only logical that Adam Rippon and many other members of Team USA decided not to attend their scheduled White House meeting with the president today and to instead do, uh, anything else.
SEE ALSO: Why does Michael Phelps brush his

Shiba Inus are one of the internet's favorite dog breeds, ever since the infamous doge meme that surged to popularity in late 2012. 
But just what is it like to own one of these majestic breeds?
SEE ALSO: Looking different doesn't stop this Instagram pup from inspiring others
Twitter user @Amanda_d1234 had an answer to that question. And it may not be what you expect. She posted a video of her Shiba, Major, receiving a new toy. 
We think Major is excited about it. But it's honestly har

Getting cinematic aerial footage used to require expensive gear such as cranes or helicopters to get the job done, usually totaling thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of production costs.
But that's no longer the case thanks to myriad affordable consumer drones capable of taking off into the sky with a twist or flick of a control stick on a remote or connected smartphone or tablet. Some drones even let you control them with Jedi-like hand gestures.
Picking a drone comes down to price and

We need to talk about Kanye Omari West. 
In anticipation of any new project of his, Kanye does what he does best — he hops online to ruffle up feathers and cause headlines to scream nothing but his name for weeks (remember the Taylor Swift/Kim Kardashian phone leaks before The Life of Pablo rolled out?). 
This time, though, things are a bit different. Kanye's wading in treacherous waters with his recent alignment with Donald Trump. While he claims that all he does is out of "love

Your MacBook Pro has probably served you well, but its screen is only so big. 
If you want to beef up your display real estate, a quick Google search brings up dozens upon dozens of external monitors, which can broadcast your MacBook Pro screen in dimensions and qualities of every shape and size. But which one is right for you?
SEE ALSO: An honest review of the most boring version of the new MacBook Pro
No need to scour the reviews: We've scoured them for you, and picked out the best ones.&

A film camera is fun and all, but who wants to wait for film to get developed? *YAWN*
While most of us have a smartphone glued to our hands for random shots on the go, more and more people are returning to a style of photography our parents and grandparents grew up with: instant cameras. 
We are the instant gratification generation, after all.
SEE ALSO: Best cameras for vlogging: Which features matter most
Yes, instant cameras are totally making a resurgence and if you don't believe us, jus

We might be getting an Instagram mute button and a bunch of other features, I hope. Twitter user @wongmjane posted about various tests Instagram has conducted or is currently testing. Jane Wong is apparently a computer science student who appears to be looking through the app’s code.
Instagram told The Verge it didn’t “have anything to share on this right now,” regarding the apparent tests. While they’re unconfirmed for now, it’s at least fun to imagine that

Reddit pulled through for this couple just trying to get married.
Dan and Gill McCauley decided to get married in New York City Hall. The couple, originally from the UK, told NBC New York they decided on a small ceremony "just for us." 
SEE ALSO: The best royal wedding merchandise available right nowAfter booking a date at the New York City Marriage Bureau, they realized they were missing a witness. Under New York law, a marriage is only valid if there's a witness present while exchanging v

I’ve had MoviePass since September, right after the company dropped the price of its one-movie-per-day subscription to the too-good-to-be-true cost of $10 a month. Since then, dozens of friends, colleagues, and even random strangers I’ve run into at movie theaters have asked if it’s really a good deal, and if they should sign up. My answer has always been yes, because for the right kind of moviegoer, the service offers a tremendous value.I’ve always known that the free r

For some food stamp recipients, 2018 could shape up to be a particularly aggravating year, including for one of the only startups trying to find ways to innovate on the ways that food stamps are delivered and managed.
It’s not something that’s talked about much in tech circles, but perhaps it should be, given that 42 million Americans rely on the more than 50-year-old, anti-hunger program behind the stamps — called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP &md

Apple is making a VR and AR headset that would combine both technologies and use the company’s proprietary chips, according to a report from CNET, citing a person familiar with the plans. The headset will reportedly arrive in 2020.
There’s very limited information about the headset and CNET is only citing a single source in its report. It describes a dream headset with technology that doesn’t exist so far on the market. CNET says there will be an 8K display for each eye, which

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is gearing up to present its proposal for electric scooter permitting. This comes after the SF Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance for the SFMTA to create a permitting process to better regulate the plethora of electric scooters from Bird, Lime and Spin.
The SFMTA’s proposal lays out a 24-month pilot program, which would grant up to five permits and 500 scooters per permit. As part of the program, electric scooter companies would nee

Amazon has introduced a new portal offering home security services, as reported by TechCrunch. The portal offers an array of smart security packages that include items like entryway sensors, sirens, and a video doorbell, all installed by Amazon employees and offered with no monthly contract.
There are five different tiers to choose from. The cheapest sells for $240 and is designed to create the illusion that you’re home, coming with various motion-detecting lights, smart indoor lighting,

EcoFlow, a Chinese hardware firm developed by former JDI engineers that sells portable power stations, has pulled in a Series A round of over $4 million ahead of the imminent launch of new products and an international sales expansion.
The Shenzhen-based company has taken an interesting route. Founded in 2016, the startup burst on to the scene when it launched its River product in an Indiegogo campaign that pulled in $1 million. Today, River is available in the U.S. where it is sold via&nbs

Most dating apps are aimed at a general population, but people of color and immigrants are rarely well-represented. CultureCrush wants to fix that. This app, created by a team led by former attorney Amanda Spann, lets you search the dating pool by nationality, ethnicity and tribe in an effort to help fish out of water find a match.
“We have 24,000 users, 5% of which are premium paid users, and the app has generated revenue every month since its existence. Upon our relaunch, we anticipate t

Ahead of Tesla’sannual shareholder meeting in June, stockholder Jing Zhao has submitted a proposal to replace the board’s chairman, Elon Musk, with an independent director. Musk, the chief executive officer at Tesla, has been chairman of the board since 2004.
“Although the current leadership structure, in which the positions of Chairman and CEO are held by one person, could provide an effective leadership for Tesla at the early stage, now in this much more highly competitive an

Intel is once again delaying the release of its next-generation 10nm Cannon Lake processors, with mass production on the chips now expected for 2019 instead of the end of 2018 as originally planned, via Engadget. For those who haven’t been keeping up with Intel’s internal code names, Cannon Lake is Intel’s upcoming 10nm chip architecture, and the next step from the company toward creating smaller and faster processors.Last year, when Intel first launched its eighth-generation

Fortnite Battle Royale has transcended your average video game to become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. In fact, the third-person shooter saw a peak 3.4 million concurrent players in March, with the servers buckling under the pressure. Fortnite Battle Royale also holds the record for individual streamer numbers on Twitch with Ninja’s stream featuring Drake.
Part of that has to do with the popularity of Battle Royale games in general, and part of it has to do with the Epic Games’

Facebook’s Messenger Kids, the social network’s new chat app for the under-13 crowd, has been designed to give parents more control over their kids’ contact list. Today, the app is gaining a new feature, “sleep mode,” aimed at giving parents the ability to turn the app off at designated times. The idea is that parents and children will talk about when it’s appropriate to send messages to friends and family, and when it’s time for other activities –

It’s almost becoming boring reporting that the Amazoncloud had a monster quarter. It’s not news at this point, because of course they did. Yesterday, it once again blew away analyst expectations with 49 percent revenue growth for the quarter. Oh ya, and that revenue? Well that was $5.44B for the quarter, a ways above the projected $5.26B. Ho hum. Another day in paradise for the Amazon cloud.
That’s a $21.76 billion run rate for a business that is but one piece of Amazon’s

Enterprise tech IPOscontinue to roar in 2018. Today, not one but two enterprise tech companies, DocuSignand Smartsheet, saw their share prices pop as they made their debuts on to the public markets.
As of 12:53 New York time, DocuSign is trading higher at $39.39, up 36 percent from its IPO price and giving the company a market cap of $6 billion. Smartsheetis at $18.55, giving it a market cap of $1.8 billion. We’ll continue to update these numbers during the day.
Smartsheet was first out of

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services, and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.
What to watch
The DC’s Legends of Tomorrow episode “Here I Go Again.”
In the 11

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda is a documentary as composed and improvisational as its subject. A film five years in the making, it follows the Oscar-winning composer and activist as he visits the Fukushima nuclear reactor following the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, then through his 2014 diagnosis with stage three throat cancer, which initially left the direction of the documentary in uncertainty.
But Sakamoto responds to the various crises in his life with a swift matter-of-factness —

Messenger Kids, Facebook’s chat app for children ages six to 12, is getting a sleep mode so parents can have more control over how much time a child spends using the app.
With the new sleep mode, parents can set predetermined times when the app can’t be used on a child’s device, such as at night, or during homework time. Sleep mode can be accessed from the parental control panel, where weekdays or weekends can be selected, followed by the sleep mode’s start and stop time

The buzz or chime of a push notification on your phone is, at best, a distraction, and at worst, a source of stress and anxiety. A new app called Aloe Bud wants to make those push notifications into something more welcome: gentle reminders to take care of yourself and your own needs. With its configurable reminders, Aloe Bud will encourage you to take a break, drink water, move your body, rest, breathe, and more.
The app is the latest to enter the booming “self-care” market, which ca

Real estate-focused MetaProp NYC has been adding new programs on top of its core accelerator. The latest: The MetaProp Bridge at Columbia University.
It’s an international accelerator designed specifically for real estate and property tech-related startups from Europe, the Middle East and Africa that are looking to expand into North America. Participants get access to MetaProp mentors, advisory services and up to $250,000 in financing.
The 14-week program begins with eight weeks in London