Technology news

Airbnb guests staying in predominantly white neighborhoods are more likely to shop around at local businesses like restaurants than guests staying in neighborhoods that are mostly black or Hispanic, according to a new study from researchers at Purdue University.
People who use the home-renting platform to stay in a big city, like New York, for example, tend to eat at local neighborhood restaurants close to where they’re staying. But this effect doesn’t hold true when more than half

Today in news that sounds like the premise of a new action movie, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture announced that an archeological dig unearthed an ancient tomb in Alexandria. The black granite sarcophagus contained in the tomb dates back to the Ptolemaic period (sometime between 323 and 30 BC), and it’s the largest discovery of its kind in the area. We don’t know who or what is in it, and nobody has opened it before, which means humanity is facing a conundrum: do we open this thing

Fortnite: Battle Royale is indisputably the biggest game on the planet. Players in the World Cup are using its dances to celebrate goals; Drake and Marshmello, two of music’s biggest names, are both avid players; and Epic Games, the company that created Fortnite, is raking in somewhere between $200 and $300 million per month. While plenty of musicians love the game, most aren’t writing songs about playing it. Today, Pitchfork highlighted Murda Beatz, a Canadian rap producer who &ldq

YouTube is releasing a tool for creators that checks to see if their videos are being stolen. Now, every time a video is uploaded to YouTube, the service will scan and check if the content already exists or is very similar to other videos on the site. It will only identify complete videos, not clips.
The tool, which YouTube is calling the Copyright Match tool, will roll out to creators with more than 100,000 subscribers starting next week. It will roll out to more users over the next few months

India’s Department of Telecommunications has approved net neutrality rules that ban blocking, throttling, and zero-rating internet data, with some exceptions. The framework, published last year as a recommendation from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), is the culmination of a years-long campaign for net neutrality in India.
As The Wire reports, the new rules prevent “any form of discrimination or interference” with data, including “blocking, degrading, sl

TSA agents and security screeners can’t be sued for false arrests, abuse, or assault, according to a ruling from a federal appeals court in Pellegrino v. the United States of America Transportation Security Administration, reports travel news and advice site The Points Guy.
According to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, TSA officials have sovereign immunity while working in their official functions as screeners and security agents under the Federal Tort Claims Act. While that

Back in January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a vow to increase the “time well-spent” on the social media network, in part by increasing the quality of the news that appears on users’ feeds. Today, Facebook announced the first slate of news shows it will fund as part of its improvement effort, some of which debut on July 16th.In an effort to deliver “trustworthy, informative and local” news, Facebook will air daily briefings and deep coverage by outlets such a

Daimler and automotive parts supplier Bosch will pilot a free self-driving ride-share service in the San Francisco Bay area starting in the second half of 2019, the companies announced this week. Using a custom version of NVIDIA’s autonomous vehicle technology, the two companies will offer rides in modified Mercedes-Benz cars along preselected routes. No further details were given about the location or size of the trial, as the companies said contracts are still being worked out.Daimler i

YouTube TV experienced a service outage on Wednesday during the World Cup game between Croatia and England, marking the second time in recent months that the app has had problems during a high-profile live event. In May, YouTube TV had a similar service disruption during the NBA Eastern Conference Finals.Wednesday afternoon, YouTube said it was “working to be up and running again ASAP.” In the meantime, customers were able to stream the World Cup by authenticating with their YouTube

The web browser Opera is testing a built-in cryptocurrency wallet in a private beta of its browser on Android, the company announced today. The wallet will first support ethereum, with support for other coins likely to come later. Ether investors using Opera would potentially be able to more easily access their tokens if the feature were to go live.
The move comes months after the hype surrounding cryptocurrency has largely died down and is another instance of a smaller company trying to grow c

Google today announced that it is bringing Morse code as an input method to Gboard for iOS. The company first integrated Morse code into the Android version of Gboard (in beta form) shortly after its I/O 2018 keynote. Alongside the debut on iOS, Google says it has made numerous improvements to the Android experience, too.When activated, Morse code fills the keyboard area with two large dot and dash icons. As you tap the icons, word suggestions will appear at the top of the on-screen keyboard ju

RoboCop — the cyborg law man who cannot be killed by humans, the law, or Hollywood, apparently — is back. Today, Deadline reported that MGM is producing a new installment of the franchise, a reboot of the planned sequel written by the 1987 picture’s original writers, which never made it to theaters because of a writer’s strike the year after RoboCop’s premiere, and because Paul Verhoeven, who directed the original film, thought directing a sequel would be “d&

Magic Leap’s first “spatial computing” mixed reality headset, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, is shipping this summer. The company announced the news in a live stream today, narrowing down a previous statement that it would ship this year. It’s following up on an announcement from this morning, when AT&T revealed that it would be the exclusive US carrier partner for Magic Leap. However, Magic Leap still hasn’t confirmed an exact date or a price, although th

Nikon hasn’t found much success with its efforts to expand from DSLRs into the mirrorless camera market. The company made a halfhearted attempt to chip away at Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, and other mirrorless specialists a few years ago with the Nikon 1 line, but as reported by NikonRumors, the whole series has now been discontinued.Nikon last updated the line with the J5 in 2015, which seemed like the most appealing product in the Nikon 1 series to that point. But the cameras were foiled b

Ant Man and the Wasp has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, including a fight that weaponizes a human-sized Hello Kitty Pez dispenser, and a sequence that turns Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), into a kind of adult toddler. In that sequence, he has to visit his daughter’s elementary school to pick up an important bit of tech. He tries to shrink to insect-size to sneak into the building, but the regulator on his costume that lets him change sizes is malfunctioning, and he ends up about

Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities has published his research note of predictions for Apple’s fall lineup — and it’s a doozy, via 9to5Mac.It has been 1,364 days since Apple updated the Mac Mini
Kuo’s note claims that in addition to the three new iPhone models already rumored to launch, Apple will also update almost all of its Mac and MacBook lineup (including the long-suffering Mac mini). He also says that Apple will introduce new beze

Uber’s human resources chief Liane Hornsey resigned from the company following an internal investigation into her handling of allegations of racial discrimination at the ride-hailing giant, including some claims of discrimination against Hornsey herself, Reuters reports.The resignation came after an anonymous group claiming to be Uber employees of color got in touch with the news service to allege that Hornsey made derogatory comments about the company’s head of diversity Bernard Co

One of the big questions surrounding AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner has been about how the telecom giant will handle its new flagship entertainment brands. Earlier this week, a story from The New York Times raised some concerns about the future prospects of HBO. The story recounted a June 19th town hall with new Warner Media chief executive John Stankey, HBO CEO Richard Plepler, and 150 HBO employees, during which Stankey made it clear that he expected HBO to ramp up content produc

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The only thing more important to runners than their sneakers is a quality pair of headphones and a killer playlist. Running without music is like some form of medieval tor

Researchers will soon have a chance to study every link shared on Facebook, thanks to a new data set released through a research partnership with Social Science One. Announced earlier this year, the partnership brings together independent academics with data from Facebook and funding from independent foundations, hoping to provide new insight into the impact of social media on elections.
The first data set shared under the new initiative will be a massive and continuously updated database of al

Twitter will stop including accounts that have been locked for bad behavior in publicly posted follower counts, the company said today. Accounts that are locked for violating the company’s standards remain frozen unless the owner logs back in and resets their password. From now on, those locked accounts won’t be counted as followers of any account they had followed.
Most people will lose four followers or fewer because of the change, Twitter said. But large accounts could lose hundr

Timehop’s July 4th data breach was even worse than the company originally reported. More personal user data — including users’ dates of birth and genders — was compromised, according to a report from TechCrunch.An update to Timehop’s report confirms the additional breach. However, the company points out that while 21 million accounts were affected, not all accounts were compromised equally. For example, only 3.3 million accounts had the entirety of their name, emai

How do you teach computers to understand language — not just transcribe human speech, but actually comprehend what someone is saying? It’s one of the grand challenges of AI, and we still don’t really know the best way to tackle the problem. Facebook’s AI research lab, FAIR, has one idea: teach AIs to understand language by getting them to guide virtual tourists around New York City.FAIR is releasing what it calls Talk the Walk, a dataset designed to be used by other rese

There’s a new food truck parked under the Brooklyn Bridge: it’s big, it’s bright yellow, it’s... disturbingly bulbous, and it’s giving out hot dogs — with your choice of ketchup or mustard — for free.
Designed to resemble a curvaceous Volkswagen microbus, Hot Dog Bus is a piece of mobile art that was commissioned by the New York City Public Art Fund from Austrian artist Erwin Wurm. Through the end of summer, visitors are invited to approach this bloated

Hinge’s newest feature — Most Compatible — attempts to use all your cumulative data to find the perfect match for you. The company’s been testing this feature, which occasionally recommends a possible match to users, for at least month now. Those recommendations were only offered once a week during testing but will now come every day. Justin McLeod, Hinge’s CEO, tells me the company spent the testing time honing its backend algorithm and getting Most Compatible to

A lot of retailers are seizing the opportunity to challenge Amazon and its nonstop hype around Prime Day. They’re likely hoping that if your wallet is already open for a purchase, maybe some of their own deals could sway you away from sticking to Amazon for everything.While you wait for Prime Day, follow along below as we take you through the best of the rest and deals that have caught our eyes from retailers like eBay, Massdrop, GameStop, and more.We’ll be adding to this collection

Within the next few days, the European Space Agency plans to fire up the current largest solid rocket motor built in one segment for the first time. The motor, called the P120C, is a key piece of hardware that ESA plans to use in its two next-generation rockets: the Vega-C and Ariane 6. This test-fire is a crucial step to see if the motor will be ready for spaceflight in the next couple of years.
The test is scheduled to take place at ESA’s South American spaceport, located in Kourou, Fre

AT&T will provide mobile data service for Magic Leap’s augmented reality glasses, the company has announced. The carrier is getting an exclusive partnership with the startup. In addition to selling the Magic Leap One glasses, it will let customers demo them at some stores in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — at least, once Magic Leap releases a still-unannounced consumer version of its product.
Magic Leap’s glasses have been hyped for years. The co

The fourth annual Amazon Prime Day doesn’t officially begin until Monday, July 16th at 3PM ET / 12PM PT, but the company is trickling out some worthwhile Prime-exclusive deals in the lead-up to the big event — particularly if you’ve been on the hunt for a discounted robot vacuum cleaner. Amazon is offering 30-day free trials of Prime here in case you somehow haven't signed up yet or if you let a previous subscription lapse over higher prices.A few of today’s best deals i

What is John Giannandrea, Google’s former head of search and AI, going to do at Apple? The short answer is “a lot.” The more pressing answer is “fix Siri.” Luckily, Giannandrea seems to be the right person for the job.
The 53-year-old Scottish engineer was poached by Apple in April, but his new title and position were only announced yesterday. He is now “chief of machine learning and AI strategy,” which means he will be overseeing a team that combines t

Tomorrow, Epic Games plans to retire Fortnite’s Playground mode, a limited time event that was designed to offer a more creative tool for the game’s millions of players. The move will coincide with the much-anticipated launch of the game’s fifth season. Although the free-for-all playlist was only with us for a short time, it had a huge impact. Casual players were able to practice with their friends and better understand the game, while die-hard Fortnite aficionados created mem

Lots of companies seem to think their phones are the best for content consumption, and that’s a fine way to market a device. A phone that can offer the best viewing, gaming, and scrolling experiences makes for an enticing purchase. Today, Sony is taking literal approach as it introduced its Xperia XA2 Plus, a phone “designed to entertain.”What does Sony consider specs worthy of entertainment, and how do we feel about them? Primarily, the phone features a 6-inch Full HD+ displa

Sonos is bringing AirPlay 2 support to its modern speakers today through a new software update. AirPlay 2 will work on the new Sonos Beam, Sonos One, Playbase, and second-generation Play:5 speakers, but if you have older speakers then you can group them with one of the compatible speakers to make AirPlay 2 work with them. AirPlay 2 is designed to allow iOS users to select the speakers they want to play music through thanks to its new multi-room audio support.
Siri is also more closely integrate

For many, Pinterest is the go-to tool to plan out ideas for parties, weddings, and other events. Now, Pinterest is trying to make its platform even more useful for group planning.
In an update today, Pinterest is adding an activity feed for group boards, which acts as a timeline of recent activity like pinned items, likes, and comments. That should be helpful; before, no one was notified when a new comment was added. But the most useful addition may be the added ability to simply leave a commen

Alphabet has announced that Loon and Wing — two of its X moonshot projects — are “graduating” today to become full companies underneath the Alphabet corporate umbrella. The two companies will be classified as “Other Bets” within Alphabet, alongside former X projects like Waymo, Chronicle, and Verily.While the official designation of the companies has changed, their work remains largely the same. Loon will continue to work on using balloons to bring internet t

Researchers at McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team have discovered that credentials for systems at a major international airport are being sold on the dark web for just $10. Airport admins verified the authenticity of the credentials, which would have allowed control of “systems linked to security and building automation systems.” They resolved the issue after being informed by McAfee. Researchers withheld the name of the airport for confidentiality reasons.
The stolen cred

Next Insurance, the Israeli digital insurance startup that helps small businesses get coverage, has raised a significant new funding round, adding another $83 million to its balance sheet.
The Series B round is led by Silicon Valley’s Redpoint Ventures, and will be used by the company to continue expanding across the U.S., where it now operates as a full service insurance carrier. It will also increase headcount in both its Israel and U.S. offices.
Founded in 2016 with the aim of becoming

Xara is on a mission to help businesses create better looking content, and in turn save us all from having to consume visually unappealing marketing and comms material. The German startup has developed XaraCloud, a design tool that resides in the cloud and attempts to bridge the gap between professional design and business content created by non-design professionals.
Specifically, Xara Cloud consists of a drag and drop browser-based editor that lets you create designs using text, shapes, icons,

A music festival took place in London’s Finsbury Park this weekend, and the organizers, perhaps confusing me for a writer for Verge Magazine, sent me photos from the event. One of those images has stuck with me, haunted me, since I first saw it. The photo shows one half of the Rae Sremmurd duo mingling with excited fans... none of whom appear to be looking directly at him. A couple of faces in the crowd are looking at the camera taking the photo, and everyone else’s gaze seems fixed

Now that we have had a few years to live with smart speakers in our kitchens, the next place for them to go is the living room. That’s not an especially hard thing to do: just buy an Echo Dot or a Google Home Mini (or a more expensive speaker), put it on your end table, and you’re done.
Except... not really. The living room is also the place where you usually find what used to be the two most important gadgets in your home: the television and the sound system. Getting Alexa or Googl