Technology news

Google Lens is expanding to more devices’ native camera apps, including the Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact, as spotted by AndroidPolice. To activate the integration, users will only need to update their Google app in the Play Store.The upgraded Google Lens, which is the company’s artificial intelligence platform for parsing the real world, was first announced back in 2017. Google then announced at its annual I/O developer conference earlier this month that Lens would be integrated

Have you ever used New York City’s decrepit subway system and marveled that its speeds that are slower now than they were in the 1950s? Or how a commute of a few miles can easily stretch into hours, making a trip between Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan turn into a nightmare? It’s gotten so bad and outdated compared to other modern cities that Google’s in-house startup incubator Area 120 is proposing to intervene with a new app.
The app, called Pigeon, is live on Apple’s

Alibaba has just announced a couple of tech innovations that hint at a future with even more delivery conveniences. The company showed off a driverless delivery robot that will help ship goods purchased online to customers more conveniently and a storage locker with facial recognition that promises to keep food warm.The robot is called the G Plus, and it’s currently being road-tested at Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, a major city located in eastern China. The G Plus robot can c

Microsoft announced a significant reorganization of its Windows business back in March. Windows chief Terry Myerson is departing the company in the summer, and Microsoft is slicing Windows into two teams. The new division that’s responsible for “Experiences & Devices,” is now being refined even further in more changes at Microsoft this week. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that Joe Belfiore will now be responsible for the Windows Insider tester

Lawmakers in Russia want Mark Zuckerberg to testify before them, as well. The Moscow Times reports that during Wednesday’s session of the upper house of the Russian Parliament, a senator proposed summoning Zuckerberg. In response, Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said that she would “issue an order,” and that they would “organize his arrival.”
Zuckerberg testified before the European Parliament two weeks ago, and before two separate Congressional committees in the US l

Events ticketing company Ticketfly has been compromised by a digital attack, according to an announcement today on Twitter. “Following recent site issues,” the statement reads, “we determined that Ticketfly has been the target of a cyber incident. To protect our clients and fans, and to secure the website and related data, we have temporarily taken all Ticketfly systems offline.”
Billboard says users began noticing site defacement yesterday around 9PM PST. The hacker, wh

If you’ve ever been in a pointless meeting at work, odds are you’ve spent part of the time responding to messages or just putzing around on the Internet — but Klaxoon hopes to convert that into something a bit more productive with more interactive meetings.
The French startup today said it’s raised $50 million in a new financing round led by Idinvest Partners,with early round investors BPI, Sofiouest, Arkea and White Star Capital Fund also participating. The company

Almost three months after launching into space, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest weather satellite, called GOES-17, sent us its first official images of our planet. The incredible views, which were captured on May 20th and made public today, were taken even as the satellite is having some issues with one of its instruments.
GOES-17 went up to work with GOES-16, another NOAA weather satellite that was launched in 2016. The two probes, which are part of

At the end of 2017, and the height of the cryptocurrency craze, Noah Katz decided to start a mining rig company called Artesian Future Technology. His plan was simple: he would make custom computers for people who didn’t have the time or know-how to do so on their own, but wanted to enter the wildly volatile field of cryptocurrency mining. However Katz’s offering quickly reached stratospheric prices: the basic computer he sold cost $1,899, but customers could fill it with GPUs somet

Kayak has introduced a new tool intended to take away some of the frustration of planning group travel. Called Kayak Trip Huddle, the feature allows people to collaboratively decide on major decisions of a group trip, such as where to stay and what destinations to hit up.
A group leader will have to start the process in order to start planning via Trip Huddle, which simply involves logging in and giving the trip a name. Once created, they can invite other members via a shareable link or email,

Every time a rocket launches, it produces a plume of exhaust in its wake that leaves a mark on the environment. These plumes are filled with materials that can collect in the air over time, potentially altering the atmosphere in dangerous ways. It’s a phenomenon that’s not well-understood, and some scientists say we need to start studying these emissions now before the number of rocket launches increases significantly.
It’s not the gas in these plumes that’s most concern

Microsoft retired its Groove Music streaming service last year, but promised to keep investing in the app for Windows 10 users. That investment won’t continue for iOS and Android users, though. “Tomorrow we’re notifying customers that on December 1, 2018, the Groove Music iOS and Android apps will also be retired and, effective June 1, are no longer available for download,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge.The app removal means you’ll no lo

James Marsden will star in the film adaptation of Sonic The Hedgehog, Variety reports. It’s unclear what role the Westworld actor will play, and whether he’ll voice the iconic character or act as one of those ill-advised humans from later Sonic games.A hybrid live-action / animated Sonic film has been on the books since 2014 with little forward progress. It’s the first time Sonic will get his own film, though he’s made appearances on-screen in movies like Wreck-It Ralph.

James Marsden will star in the film adaptation of Sonic The Hedgehog, Variety reports. It’s unclear what role the Westworld actor will play, and whether he’ll voice the iconic character or act as one of those ill-advised humans from later Sonic games.A hybrid live-action / animated Sonic film has been on the books since 2014 with little forward progress. It’s the first time Sonic will get his own film, though he’s made appearances on-screen in movies like Wreck-It Ralph.

Google is taking another shot at social apps with the beta release of Neighbourly, a new, hyperlocal-focused app designed to answer your questions, via The Next Web.The company envisions Neighbourly as a sort of crowdsourced city guide. The residents who know your city best can use the app to share tips, tricks, shortcuts, and recommendations with less in-the-know residents.Users will be able to ask questions, submit answers, and follow other people’s questions if they’re interested

Rockstar is bringing three of its biggest games to the Xbox One through the console’s backwards compatibility feature. Today, the developer revealed that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis will all be available on the console starting on June 7th. For those who own the original discs, both the original Xbox and Xbox 360 versions of the games will be supported on Microsoft’s latest console.It’s an eclectic lineup

At Montpellier Medical University in France, researchers are using 3D scanners to create “virtual cadavers” in hopes of solving the worldwide shortage of dead bodies.Cadavers have long been in high demand, but in recent years, the shortage has worsened. The number of medical programs is growing, so demand is going up, according to The Economist. At the same time, supply is going down because better communication means fewer unclaimed bodies. Donating is still taboo in some parts of

General Motors has announced that its self-driving unit is getting a $2.25 billion investment from the SoftBank Vision Fund, a major venture investment effort that was started by the Japanese tech giant in 2016. Cruise Automation, which GM bought in 2016 for $1 billion to jump-start its self-driving efforts, will get $900 million when the transaction closes and $1.35 billion when GM is ready to deploy its autonomous cars for commercial use (which is currently slated for 2019).GM also announced

The size of Waymo’s fleet of self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans just got radically bigger. The Alphabet unit announced today that it struck a deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, for an additional 62,000 minivans to be deployed as robot taxis. Moreover, the two companies have also begun discussions about how to eventually sell self-driving cars to customers as personally owned vehicles.Selling cars with Waymo’s self-driving tec

Scout.fm wants to change the way people listen to podcasts. Instead of scouring through the over 500,000 shows in your current podcast app, this startup’s new curated podcast service will just ask you a few questions to find out what you like, then create a podcast station customized to you. The experience is primarily designed for use on smart speakers, like Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo devices, but is also available as iOS and Android applications.
The company was founded just over

Apple, Microsoft and the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) have announced a human interface device (HID) standard for braille displays. This collaboration is huge news for people who are blind or suffering with low vision, as it will make using a braille display across different hardware far, far easier. The idea is that it removes the need for braille devices to have specially designed software or drivers. This will substantially reduce development time and, hopefully, open up the market. You ca

Uganda’s parliament has passed a law to tax those who use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Viber, and WhatsApp, as reported by BBC. The controversial tax was first introduced in April after the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, wrote a letter to the treasury stating that social media encouraged gossip that was costing Uganda time and income.
The tax will come into effect on June 1st, imposing a 200 shilling ($0.05) levy per day on those who use social media platfor

Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted on May 24th, delivering an origin story for one of the franchise’s best-known heroes. The film has underperformed at the box office, setting off a wave of questions about the future of the film franchise. But fans might be interested in a different future entirely — the future of the now non-canon expanded universe, which lives on in a new form in Solo.
Some spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story ahead.
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the compan

You see it everywhere, people staring at their smartphones without seemingly ever looking up. They’re glued to their screens, multitasking, while walking, driving, waiting in line, watching TV, studying, sitting on a train/plane, etc. While some of us may not agree with the amount of screen-time people endure, it is their time and it is creating a new genre of connected consumerism. This always-on, mobile customer isn’t just connected, they’re empowered. And, these empowered c

TNW Conference 2018 has come and gone and only the glorious memories of brilliant speakers and inspiring talks remain – unless you weren’t there. In that case, we’ve got you too. Those glorious memories and inspiring talks have been immortalized in video and text for perusal at your (b)leisure. There were over 150 speakers, which might be somewhat overwhelming, so we went ahead and picked some of our favorites: Danielle Woods: Space tech enabling sustainable development P

Australian shoppers will find themselves limited to a much smaller Amazon item selection beginning on July 1st. Instead of being able to visit and make purchases from international versions of Amazon’s web store — as most of us can do — they’ll be redirected to the local Australian site. Geoblocking isn’t the only strategy Amazon is taking; Amazon.com and the company’s other sites will no longer ship to Australian addresses as of the same date.When I say &ldq

Neighborhood Goods, a startup rethinking the traditional department store experience, is announcing that it has raised $5.75 million in seed funding.
CEO Matt Alexander (who co-founded the company with Mark Masinter) told me via email that while the largely static layout and offerings of a department store provide a degree of “consistency and reliability,” they’re also “dull and unchanging,” as well as “fairly transactional with little more to provide.”

Teenagers are more interested than ever in YouTube, home to the world’s growing influencer and vlogger base. According to a recent study conducted by Pew Research Center, 85 percent of teenagers (ages 13–17) say they use the platform. Closely behind are Instagram (72 percent) and Snapchat (69 percent).Pew’s findings indicate an ongoing trend of teenagers moving away from platforms like Facebook in recent years. (It’s worth noting that Pew’s report in 2015 did not i

For a series that’s sold a gazillion copies (actually, just over 35 million, to be exact) and is currently chugging toward its 30th anniversary, it’s the complexity and intricacy of how you actually achieve that world mastery that truly matters. You can find out by plunging head-first into the latest installment, Civilization VI with this cool game multi-pack deal for only $48.45, a savings of almost 40 percent, from TNW Deals with the use of coupon code: SAVE15NOW.

Canon has announced that it is officially discontinuing the EOS-1v, its last film camera, as reported by PetaPixel.
Production of the EOS-1v — which was launched in 2000 — actually ceased back in 2010, but Canon continued to sell the remaining stock. A professional 35mm SLR, the EOS-1v introduced Canon’s fifth generation of professional SLRs, and its body design became the basis for future cameras from the company, including the EOS-1D. The translated page from Canon’s w

Spotify’s recent controversial decision to apply a conduct code to artists’ personal conduct was handled poorly, according to CEO Daniel Ek. Speaking to Recode’s Peter Kafka and Kara Swisher at Code Conference, Ek says that the goal was never to act as “moral police” toward artists. “I think we rolled this out wrong, and we could have done a much better job,” he said.
Earlier this month, Spotify announced a new policy on “hate content and hateful

Xiaomi’s just-announced Mi 8 flagship has a special “Explorer Edition” that, along with an in-display fingerprint sensor and iPhone X-esque 3D face recognition technology, features a cool transparent back panel to show off the inside of the phone. There’s just one slight problem with that see-through back: it might not be real.
The allegedly false back was spotted by Chengming Alpert, who offers a few reasons why the Mi 8 Explorer Edition may not be real. In a series of

I’ve been a big fan of Botnik Studios, the comedy group responsible for internet gems like the neural network-generated Coachella lineup poster containing bands like “Billions of Mario.” They’ve been putting out consistently great parodies of Scrubs scripts, ads for beef, and handsome names for boats, each of them made using a predictive text keyboard. I was curious about what exactly this meant and how I, too, could utilize AI to create viral hits, so I called up Botnik