Technology news

Amazon is making an even bigger play for the television advertising market with a planned launch of an ad-supported video service specifically for Fire TV device owners, according to a report today from The Information. The service, which could be called Free Dive, is said to be very close in concept to the Roku Channel, an ad-supported free video service for Roku streaming devices and smart TVs that’s helped the device maker grow its platform business. These services tend to offer a rand

Electric cars are quiet, but they won’t be for long. To help keep pedestrians safe, the United States Department of Transportation recently mandated that, starting in 2020, all new hybrid and all-electric vehicles must emit a noise when traveling at under 19 miles per hour. In 2015, however, Ford wanted to know if it could partially exempt the law enforcement vehicles it makes, The Verge has learned.
In the text of the final rule issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio

Days after the Jacksonville shooting that left three dead and 10 wounded, the conversation surrounding the tragedy has shifted toward the question of security and whether better safety measures can help prevent future incidents within the gaming community. EA is investigating how it can implement better preventive measures at its sanctioned and hosted events going forward. Other events such as PAX have assured attendees that they will continue to enact proactive safety protocols. Increased secu

Tesla’s lifestyle products tend to cash in on the brand appeal of the electric carmaker and its very publicly engaged chief executive Elon Musk, and the new Tesla Wireless Charger is no exception. The device, which retails on Tesla’s website alongside hats and the company’s existing desktop and portable chargers, is a sleek, Apple-like device that costs $65. It has an integrated USB-C cable for when you want to plug it directly into your device, and a USB-A port for non-USB-C

Yahoo still scans users’ emails for data to sell to advertisers, a practice that many tech companies have moved away from, according to The Wall Street Journal.Yahoo’s owner, Oath, is in talks with advertisers to provide a service that would analyze over 200 million Yahoo Mail inboxes for consumer data, sources told WSJ. Oath did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Oath confirmed to the WSJ that it performs email scannings and said that it only scans promotional emails

After being one of the last airlines to let customers check a bag for free, JetBlue is now raising its prices for all checked baggage. The first checked bag is now $30, up from $25, making it one of the highest fees in the industry. A second checked bag fee has also been raised by $5 to $40, while a third checked back will cost $150, up from $100.The fee increase will go into effect for tickets booked after August 27th, as outlined on JetBlue’s website:Image: JetBlue
Airlines have been ra

IFA 2018 is here, and to go along with the wealth of new laptops that will presumably be announced over the next few days, Intel is taking the wraps off its latest 8th-Gen processors. There are three new Whiskey Lake U-series chips (Intel’s midrange line for laptops), and, for the first time, there are three 8th-Gen Amber Lake Y-series processors.While Intel is still using the same underlying architecture as its previous processors — making these new chips ostensibly an “8.5-G

Bees are good. Despite the fact that they are dying at an alarming rate, these buzzy, fuzzy girls are often unfairly maligned just because they have stingers. Bees also enjoy swarming — although “enjoy” might be the wrong word, as swarming is how hives naturally reproduce. That said, sometimes bees swarm in a place that is inconvenient for people. (I like to think they enjoy hanging out where people are, although that is almost certainly not the case.) Today, in Times Square,

President Donald Trump has made more veiled threats toward Google and other web platforms, after tweeting this morning that Google had “rigged” its search results to suppress positive news about him. Trump told reporters during an Oval Office press meeting that Google, Facebook, and Twitter were “treading on very, very troubled territory,” and that they had “better be careful, because you can’t do that to people.” Trump stopped short of describing any s

Nest’s security system has been having troubles all morning. The system’s control unit — the Nest Guard — has appeared offline since around 4AM ET. While offline, homeowners haven’t been able to remotely arm or disarm the system through Nest’s app. The system continued to monitor security sensors even through the connectivity problems. However, it’s unclear if the unit was still capable of calling for help after detecting an intrusion.
More than a dozen

Labor Day is right around the corner — and while we're technically supposed to be celebrating the American labor movement, we're mainly reminded about two things:Summer is basically over
Fall sales are just startingGood news: Tons of online retailers are having massive Labor Day sales, and they all seem to be devoted to relaxation.
SEE ALSO: 7 of the best laptops for students heading back to school
Whether your ultimate "me time" activity is spending a day in the great outdoors, bingi

Although virtual reality may be experiencing slow adoption in the consumer market, one area where it seems to have truly untapped potential is in the classroom where virtual worlds could help students visualize and learn about history, science, and culture in an unprecedented fashion. To capitalize on VR’s increasingly instrumental role in visual education, Facebook-owned Oculus VR announced today that it’s distributing a number of its tethered, high-powered Rift headsets and standa

J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX began shooting earlier this month, and today, Variety reports that a new actor has joined the cast: former Doctor Who star Matt Smith.
As usual with all things Star Wars, advanced details are light at the moment, but the report describes Smith’s character as a “key role” in the upcoming film. Science fiction fans are doubtless most familiar with Smith for his multiyear run as the Eleventh Doctor on the BBC program Doctor Who. He’s

Microsoft is adding automated transcription capabilities to OneDrive for Business for video and audio files. The software maker is using the same AI that’s available in Microsoft Stream (a corporate video-sharing service) to make OneDrive smarter. Later this year, OneDrive for Business will be able to generate a transcript of a video or audio file, which is particularly useful if you’re holding meetings or presenting and want to provide a transcript.
This new transcription service w

RAVPower is offering discounts for Verge readers on two useful tech products: its 26,800mAh power bank and its fast wireless charger.
The 26,800mAh battery pack is a solid option for those who want to maintain a steady charge on their phone, laptop with USB-C charging (like the Pixelbook, MacBook, and others), and Nintendo Switch. Regularly sold for $81.99, readers of The Verge can enjoy $30 off at Amazon with offer code VERGE058 through September 4th.The large capacity of this power bank means

Instagram is letting more people apply for verification starting today, and it’s also rolling out general security improvements.
Accounts that have large audiences can now directly ask for verification through a form, instead of hoping that Instagram will one day grant them the status or by paying on the black market.To apply, just go to your profile, head to Settings, and tap “request verification.” Then, you’ll need to give Instagram your account name, full name, and l

In traditional American media, Asian characters are frequently stereotyped as meek, corner-dwelling folks with little to say. They’re rarely more than a shorthand: bully victims, the romantically inept, people who are good at uncool stuff like math or piano. (Occasionally, they know kung-fu or they dispense ancient wisdom.) Nuanced Asian representation is hard to come by in Hollywood. That’s why so many people seem to be hoping that the strong critical and box office success of the

Today, Nintendo announced yet another deluge of cool indie games that are coming to the Switch. Chief among the reveals is the news that Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP — which first launched on the iPad in 2011 — is bringing its Zelda-inspired pixels to the platform in October. It’ll be the first time the game is available on a console. Similarly big is the announcement that mech vs. kaiju strategy game Into the Breach will be out on the Switch, and it’s availabl

One of the underlying trends of VR/AR investment in 2018 is that money has become harder to come by for startups which may have had no trouble pulling together a round in 2016. Who better to chat with about why this is happening than a partner at one of the leading early stage venture capital firms.
Catherine Ulrich of FirstMark Capital will be joining us onstage at TechCrunch Sessions: AR/VR in LA on October 18th where we’ll get a chance to chat with her about investor perceptions su

A few weeks ago, we posted the five top reasons why anyone in the startup scene — from new entrants to seasoned founders and investors — would be glad they attended Disrupt SF next Wednesday through Friday at San Francisco’s Moscone West.Among other great features, we mentioned the 107 interviews and Q&As on the stages at Disrupt, guided networking thanks to CrunchMatch, the peerless Startup Battlefield competition and deep, deep Startup Alley exhibit area.And there is so m

To say Juul Labs has had a meteoric rise would be an understatement.
The company, which spun out of Pax Labs in 2017, now accounts for a staggering 72 percent of the e-cigarette market. And the product only came to market in 2015. Let that sink in.
But the company’s wild success hasn’t come easily. Regulatory hurdles like FDA approval and an ongoing investigation by the FDA to determine why teens and minors are so enthusiastic about the Juul vaporizer are but a few.
Cofounder and Chi

Nnamdi Okike,a first generation American whose parents immigrated from Nigeria, and Aaron Holiday, whose mother worked in the collections department of Sears and whose father was a substance abuse counselor in New Orleans, are not typical venture investors. And their firm, 645 Ventures, which just closed on $40.6 million for its second fund, is certainly not a typical venture fund.
Both men are firm believers in the power of data to help make better investment decisions, and both men are using t

When E-Ink first unveiled its Advanced Color ePaper (ACeP) in 2016, we were optimistically hopeful for the possibilities of comics, magazines, and textbooks in color on our Kindles. That appears to still be a distant dream. The company announced today that it’s just starting to deliver its ACeP products to clients for digital signage.E-Ink has launched three color displays before ACeP: Spectra, Prism, and Triton. You may have seen them in retail settings on electronic shelf tag labels. Bu

GoogleCloud’s Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text APIs are getting a bunch of updates today that introduce support for more languages, make it easier to hear auto-generated voices on different speakers and that promise better transcripts thanks to improved tools for speaker recognition, among other things.
With this update, the Cloud Text-to-Speech API is now also generally available.
Let’s look at the details. The highlight of the release for many developers is probably the launch of

Back in March, Nestand Yale teamed up to release a smart door lock to complement Nest’s then brand-new video doorbell. It’s a solid piece of hardware, but it had a curious quirk for something made under Google’s watch: it didn’t work with GoogleHome or Google Assistant.
That’ll change later this week.
On August 29th, the lock will be getting an update that adds Google Assistant and Home support to bring a handful of voice-powered tricks into the mix. Things like:Loc

In a wide-ranging interview on The Vergecast this week, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith expanded on why the company nearly shut down Gab.ai, the “free-speech” absolutist platform that’s become an alt-right favorite.Earlier this month, Microsoft sent a notice to Gab threatening to end the company’s Azure cloud service if it did not remove two anti-Semitic hate speech posts within 48 hours. The notice, which Gab said would cause the social network to

In a wide-ranging interview on The Vergecast this week, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith expanded on why the company nearly shut down Gab.ai, the “free-speech” absolutist platform that’s become an alt-right favorite.Earlier this month, Microsoft sent a notice to Gab threatening to end the company’s Azure cloud service if it did not remove two anti-Semitic hate speech posts within 48 hours. The notice, which Gab said would cause the social network to

NASA officials presented their latest goals yesterday for human space exploration over the next decade, detailing the agency’s plans to build a space station in orbit around the Moon and then send humans to and from the lunar surface. Based on its timeline, NASA is aiming for the first astronauts to visit this lunar station — called the Gateway — as early as 2024, with human landings on the Moon happening sometime after 2026.This timeline matches what Vice President Mike Pence