Technology news

Step aside Apple (San Francisco), Samsung (SamsungOne), Google (Roboto and Product Sans), Microsoft (sort of with Segoe), Netflix (Netflix Sans), Airbnb (Cereal), Intel (Intel Clear), and every other big tech company with its own bespoke custom font: Arby’s is getting in on the custom font game with its new font, “Saucy_AF™,” as spotted by FastCo Design.Described as “the ink of the sandwich world,” Arby’s is positioning Saucy_AF™ as an alternative

Netflix released a trailer today for The Magic Order, the first comic spearheaded by the streaming platform — or as Netflix’s US Twitter account called it, “baby’s first comic book.” The six-issue miniseries, which will be published by Image Comics, is written by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, Civil War) and illustrated by Olivier Coipel (Thor, Avengers).
The comic, about five families of magicians who secretly protect the world from evil forces,

A new feature has been added to Google Calendar that allows you to leave a note when changing an event, as reported by TechCrunch.Starting today, if you change or delete an event, a dialog box appears where you can leave a note to say why the change occurred. If you choose to write something and send it to participants, the message will then appear not just on the event page within Google Calendar, but also in the email sent out alerting everyone to the updated event information.
This feature i

Consumer Reports has reversed its position and now recommends the Tesla Model 3, after the car company shipped an over-the-air update this week that improved the vehicle’s braking distance by nearly 20 feet. The outlet had previously said the Model 3’s braking “was far worse than any contemporary car we’ve tested” in a review that was published on May 22nd.
While the publication still takes issue with some aspects of the Model 3, like the car’s ride comfort a

The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL will debut in October and retain Verizon as the exclusive US carrier, according to Bloomberg. That’s the same sales strategy that was in place for the prior two generations of Google’s smartphones; you’ll again be able to purchase the new phones unlocked direct from Google.
The XL-sized Pixel 3 will reportedly have a notch at the top of its display. That shouldn’t come as a surprise when you consider all the changes Google has made to make Andr

The fifth try might finally do the trick for Joe Hill’s acclaimed comic series, Locke & Key. The Hollywood Reporter says that Netflix is close to a season order for a show, although the deal isn’t quite finalized yet. If it happens, it’ll be the end of a long road of failed adaptations for the story.There have been numerous attempts to adapt the series over the years. The first came in 2008 when Dimension Films picked up the rights, only to lose them to 20th Century Fox Te

Best Buy has announced that its Toshiba 4K Ultra HD Smart TV Fire TV Edition — the result of a partnership with Amazon — is now available for preorder both through BestBuy.com and Amazon.com.
The Fire TV Edition Toshiba TVs will come in three sizes — 43-inch, 50-inch, and 55-inch — and offer 4K Ultra HD resolution. They all will have Fire TV built in, so you can take advantage of all the regular Fire TV features, like access to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu

Five years after California governor Jerry Brown signed legislation authorizing digital license plates to be sold in his state, the new-fangled digital display boards are finally hitting the streets. According to The Sacramento Bee, the new plates began rolling out this week, and unsurprisingly, they don’t come cheap.Motorists who choose to buy the digital plates can register their vehicles electronically and eliminate the need to physically stick tags on their license plates each year, w

Google just released Chrome 67 for desktop, as spotted by ZDNet. This version of Chrome will allow password-free sign-ins for most websites, meaning you can avoid hunting through a password manager for specific credentials.
Password-free sign-ins come from the Web Authentication standard, which was launched in March by the FIDO Alliance and the W3C. It lets you sign in to any virtually any online service through unique credentials that you don’t have to memorize, such as fingerprint reade

There’s a scene in the sixth episode of Marvel and Stitcher’s radio drama podcast Wolverine: The Long Night where special agent Tad Marshall is interviewing a boy whose home was attacked by… something. The agent is searching for Logan, aka the mutant hero Wolverine, who the agent thinks might be behind the attack. But the boy swears it wasn’t a man; it was a beast — and a huge one at that. This is the first time Marshall believes Logan might not be the cause of al

A beta version of iOS 11.3 hinted that Apple would have a special pride face for the Apple Watch, and the release of iOS 11.4 and watchOS 4.3.1 has confirmed it, as reported by 9to5Mac.
According to code found in iOS by 9to5Mac, the watch face was inspired by the rainbow flag and will move if you tap the display. 9to5Mac also found video assets within watchOS which show the bands of color moving as the watch itself is moved, and the movements should be different every time.
The new pride face w

In the first few minutes of Reverie, a new episodic science fiction thriller premiering Wednesday, May 30th on NBC, the protagonist starts ranting about smartphones. Mara Kint (Person of Interest’s Sarah Shahi) is a former hostage negotiator turned college professor, and she complains that her students are living with their nose to their screens. “They get the whole world in their pocket. Is that such a bad thing?” asks her former boss, who’s recruiting her for a mysteri

The Skydio R1 is not a perfect drone. It shoots 4K footage, but the image quality pales in comparison to what you get from DJI’s drones. It is relatively big, it doesn’t fold up, and at $2,500, it’s far too expensive for... basically anyone. But today, the small California startup is adding an update to the R1’s flagship feature — autonomous flight capabilities — that will make that price tag hurt a tiny bit less.Most notably, Skydio’s first big softwar

There’s been an explosion of medical startups centering their tools around machine learning to help doctors with predictive tools — and now Netflix’s former chief product officer Neil Huntwants to enter the fray with one that hopes to get the right information from patients themselves.
That’s the hope for Curai, a machine learning-driven startup that helps patients deliver the right information to doctors to help medical professionals figure out the best diagnosis —

Roseanne was canceled by ABC yesterday following a racist remark star Roseanne Barr tweeted about Valerie Jarrett, who was a senior adviser to President Obama. Following the cancellation, Barr tweeted out a long-winded apology, which included a claim that the damning tweet had been influenced by a dose of Ambien.
"I have had odd ambien experiences tweeting late at night"
This is just a whole handful of chef's kisses pic.twitter.com/8KtPLktGQj— Hanif Abdurraqib (@NifMuhammad) May 30, 2018B

The brain is soft and squishy, like “a swollen network of gooey gel.” Electronics, on the other hand, tend to be rigid. So designing a brain implant can be tricky, like sticking a plastic fork into a bowl of Jell-O and hoping the fork doesn’t move too much.The first sensor was implanted into the brain of a paralyzed patient in 1998. The past 20 years have seen growing interest in brain-machine interfaces, which are brain implants that can record information from our neurons an

Oculus VR’s new platform for live entertainment experiences is launching today for the new, standalone Oculus Go headset and Samsung’s Gear VR. The platform, called Oculus Venues, was first announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference at the beginning of May. It’s centered on delivering live events like sporting matches, concerts, and comedy shows in the style of a streaming TV service — but in VR. That means viewers effectively get front-row seats to live shows

Google announced today that Project Fi users will soon have a few more device choices. Three new phones will work with Google’s wireless service: the LG G7 ThinQ, the just-announced LG V35 ThinQ, and the Moto G6.Up until now, customers could only choose between Pixel phones, Nexus phones, and the Moto X4. The Moto G6 costs $199 through Project Fi and is currently available to preorder through the Fi website, while the G7 ThinQ and the V35 ThinQ will come to Project Fi next month with a $5

Owners of the wireless home security camera Arlo have noticed issues with the app over the past few days. Problems range from not being able to log in to the app completely crashing.
Arlo’s message boards have been flooded since the issues started on May 27th, with users urging parent company Netgear to find solutions. Arlo owners report that the app is displaying error messages pointing the problem to “internet connectivity issues,” “internal error,” “curren

For almost 24 hours, eager Fallout fans showed up online in droves to watch... well, basically nothing. On its Twitch channel yesterday morning, developer Bethesda streamed a continuous shot of a Vault Boy statue, placed against the background of a monitor displaying the message “Please stand by.” (Its official Twitter and Facebook accounts posted the same message around the same time.) Occasionally, something weird would happen — like a strange sort-of puppet show or someone

I spend a lot of time thinking about how words work. It’s a big part of my job, after all, but it’s also what I was studying years ago in grad school. And while I don’t want to give you an exegesis (there’s a word for you) on it, I think the collective vocabulary we use to talk about technology is a little limited. We shouldn’t be too judgmental about that, though. In the broad sweep of history, consumer tech as we usually think of it is a very new medium, and it t

Asus announced the H370 Mining Master motherboard today, which is specifically designed for cryptocurrency mining. It supports up to 20 graphics cards — yes, 20 — along with streamlined connectivity by allowing USB riser cables to plug directly into the PCB over PCIe.
Asus’ approach here is going to make maintenance easier, ensure fewer PCIe disconnects, and more accurate diagnostics. This is a better format than just plugging in graphics cards to the motherboard via PCIe, lik

Google is drawing up a set of guidelines that will steer its involvement in developing AI tools for the military, according to a report from The New York Times. What exactly these guidelines will stipulate isn’t clear, but Google says they will include a ban on the use of artificial intelligence in weaponry. The principles are expected to be announced in full in the coming weeks. They are a response to the controversy over the company’s decision to develop AI tools for the Pentagon

LG has officially announced the V35 ThinQ today. From a design perspective, it’s largely identical to its V30S and V30 predecessors. As for internal specs, it borrows pretty much everything from the $750 G7 ThinQ. The main differences between the V35 and the G7 are the screen, battery capacity, and amount of RAM. Another significant difference is price: AT&T is selling the V35 ThinQ for an eye-popping $900 (or $30 monthly over 30 months). Preorders start Friday, and the V35 will be in

As Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano keeps regurgitating molten rock, the US Geological Service continues to post amazingly terrifying photos and videos of lava spewing up in the air and taking over land. The lava is scorching hot, it glows bright orange, and it has the power to gobble up anything that crosses its path. So, what would happen if you touched it?
The lava coming out of Kīlauea is over 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,170 degrees Celsius). “It’s much hotter than

Bethesda is returning to the wasteland. Ahead of E3 next month, the developer officially announced Fallout 76 — though we don’t know much about the game aside from the name. A brief teaser showed the inside of a fallout shelter, but that’s about it. We expect to hear more about the game at Bethesda’s E3 press conference on June 10th. It’s slated for release on Xbox One, PS4, and PC when it does eventually launch, and it’s being developed by Bethesda Game Stud

Earlier this month, buried in some exciting new details about the Switch’s upcoming online service, Nintendo revealed that it was killing the virtual console as a concept. “There are currently no plans to bring classic games together under the virtual console banner as has been done on other Nintendo systems,” a company rep explained. This careful wording led to many upset fans. Since the original Wii, the virtual console has been a Nintendo staple, a place where you could buy

Today Plex is releasing an entirely redesigned mobile experience on iOS and Android. The new apps offer improved navigation, and full control over how your movies, TV shows, music, photos, and, now, podcasts(!) are organized on the most personal of personal devices that you own. I’ve been testing a pre-release version of the iOS app and podcast service for a few days and let me tell you, these changes are welcome.
First, podcasts. Plex podcast support is basic right now. You can do all th

Over the last few years, the Pokémon series has gingerly offered the mostly Pikachu-occupied spotlight to a handful of other characters. Slowpoke and Magnemite got their own theme songs; Magikarp was granted not only a track, but a mobile game. With Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, a new pair of Switch games coming from Game Freak, the series’s creators are giving another old face, Eevee, a fresh chance to impress. And according t

Atari is now letting fans preorder the retro-style VCS console. The Atari VCS includes a design inspired by the Atari 2600 Video Computer System, and two models will be available for preorder today. A “collector’s edition” with a wood-front finish is available priced at $299, and a black Onyx edition is priced at $199. Both models and classic joysticks or modern controllers are all available exclusively on Indiegogo, and Atari says it plans to ship the consoles in mid-2019.
At

Microsoft has passed Google (Alphabet) in market valuation for the first time in three years. Microsoft is now valued at $753 billion, while Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is valued at $739 billion. It makes Microsoft the third most valuable company in the world, behind Apple and Amazon. This will likely only be temporary, though. Google originally passed Microsoft back in 2012, and the pair have traded positions a number of times in recent years. Still, it shows how much Microsoft ha

On the second episode of Converge, Zola co-founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma comes on to tell us why she’s building her company in New York. Zola runs a popular online wedding registry that couples have saved more than $1 billion worth of merchandise to, and days after I spoke to her, Ma announced a new $100 million round of funding that puts the startup among New York’s tech elite.
But why did she start the company in New York? Ma attended school at Stanford and later worked at Yahoo. Bu

SQream CEO and co-founder Ami Gal
SQream, the GPU database developer, will deepen its focus on China after raising a $26.4 million Series B led by Alibaba Group. The round also included investors Hanaco Venture Capital, Sistema.vc, World Trade Ventures, Paradiso Ventures, Glory Ventures and Silvertech Ventures.
The startup describes the funding, which brings its total raised to a little over $40 million, as a strategic investment from Alibaba. Earlier this year, SQream and Alibaba Cloud announce