Technology news

If you’re a Mastercard holder in the US, Google has reportedly been tracking whether you are influenced by online ads in your offline purchases for the past year. That’s thanks to a private deal between the two companies brokered after four years of negotiation, according to a Bloomberg report published today.
Neither Google nor Mastercard have publicly announced the partnership, and neither company let its customers know that their offline purchases are being tracked through Master

Hello Kitty is a lot of things: a British schoolgirl, definitely not a cat, Japan’s tourism ambassador, and now, YouTube vlogger. She put out her first video yesterday, and in it, she speaks honestly from the heart. It’s actually the only place she can speak from because she has no mouth.Hello Kitty starts off by saying how she Googles herself sometimes and sees haters commenting that “she’ll do anything,” when actually, she just has a wide variety of interests. Vl

Well, it was bound to happen. After several consecutive weeks of leaks spilled nearly every detail about its larger Pixel 3 XL counterpart, the first real-world photos of Google’s Pixel 3 have been published by 9to5Google. And just as we’d anticipated, the front of the phone looks just like a mini Pixel 2 XL; there’s no notch to be seen on this one. The photos also confirm stereo front-facing speakers, dual selfie cameras, and the same rear, all-glass design as the 3 XL (with

After more than two months of waiting, San Francisco has announced that only two scooter companies are allowed to return to the city: Scoot and Skip. The news comes as a rebuke to hometown ride-hail companies Uber and Lyft, which are both expanding beyond cars in an effort to become one-stop mobility shops. It’s also a snub to startups Bird and Lime, which are the two largest shared-scooter operators in the world; each is valued at over $1 billion.Skip and Scoot are much smaller companies

YouTube is giving creators more ways to fundraise with a bunch of new tools it announced today. Still in beta, the group of tools is called YouTube Giving, and it includes options for fundraisers, community fundraisers, campaign matching, and Super Chat for Good.
The fundraisers feature lets fans donate to campaigns started by creators through a donate button. While the features are only open to a few creators so far, a fundraiser you can currently donate to is the Hope for Paws Fundraiser, whi

George Garofano — one of the four hackers who stole and leaked celebrity nudes in the 2014 event that came to be known as Celebgate (and on 4chan as “The Fappening”) — has been sentenced to eight months of prison time. Variety reports, he’ll also face three years of supervised release and 60 hours of community service after he gets out. In total, Garofano hacked more than 250 people, including Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kirsten Dunst.Three other hackers had

Earin was one of the first startups to ship truly wireless earbuds back in 2015, though they were marred with problems. The second version of Earin’s buds, which were originally teased in early 2017 and are supposed to fix a lot of the first pair’s issues, are finally being released. They include one big surprise, too: built-in Google Assistant.The M2 wireless earbuds are on sale today in the US for $249, available in black or white (with more colors on the way). They’re also

Felix “Pewdiepie” Kjellberg has held the YouTube crown for so long that it’s almost unthinkable to imagine another channel surpassing his enormous 65 million subscriber count. But the infamous Swedish comedian is currently gearing up for what he sees as the inevitable moment that he will no longer be the biggest channel on YouTube.
Yesterday, Kjellberg uploaded a (partially ironic) video where he addresses the YouTube gossip that another channel will soon surpass his subscribe

Netgear’s Orbi line includes some of the most capable mesh routers around, and now, the line is about to get even more interesting. Its latest router, the Orbi Voice, is also a speaker with built-in microphones and Alexa. That way, you can place it in a room where you want to play music or listen to podcasts and improve the area’s Wi-Fi reception at the same time.
There aren’t a lot of other products that combine a router with something else. I really can’t think of any,

It looks like Apple has some big changes in store for the Apple Watch. 9to5Mac seems to have caught an early video stream from Apple that revealed the design of the Apple Watch Series 4, and it seems to be the largest change to date.
The Watch’s screen now appears to go nearly edge-to-edge, and the body of the watch seems to be thinner. The larger screen means there’s now room to show even more information, and there appears to be nine complications visible on the new watch face. It

The image above, according to 9to5Mac, is the upcoming iPhone XS that Apple plans to announce on September 12th. The leaked marketing image shows a new gold color option — we know Apple had explored releasing a gold iPhone X last year — and the two sizes that the OLED iPhone models will come in.The image definitely looks like something that Apple would produce, and the phone is positioned at the same angle that Apple often uses for iPhone marketing assets. Again, this is not a mocku

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate potential anti-competitive effects in Google’s search and digital advertising practices shortly after President Donald Trump made several unfounded or false claims about anti-conservative bias on Google search.
Hatch sent FTC chairman Joseph Simons a letter today in which he expressed concern about “recent reports on Google’s search and digital advertising practices.” Hatch’s letter cites

Lenovo is introducing a new ThinkPad X1 Extreme at IFA in Berlin today. It’s a 15-inch laptop that’s designed to go head-to-head with Dell’s XPS 15 or Apple’s MacBook Pro, and it does so by being lighter than both. At 3.75 pounds, Lenovo has packed a lot into this laptop, including up to an 8th generation (Coffee Lake) Intel Core i7 processor, up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM, and up to 2TB of PCIe SSD storage. There will be multiple models, and the biggest choice will be between

It’s hard to explain just what the Yoga Book C930 is. It’s a laptop, but half of it has an E-Ink display in place of a physical keyboard with haptic feedback when you type. But “laptop” doesn’t quite fit because this is a very thin, small device that’s more akin to a folio than a full computer.But it’s a full computer, too: it’s a Windows 10 device with 7th-Gen Intel processors that should be able to keep up with light computing needs. It has a 36

After years of touting its signature “watch band” hinge, Lenovo is taking a different tack this year with its flagship consumer laptop, the Yoga C930. Instead of a classy-looking watch band, there’s a Dolby Atmos speaker in the hinge, like a little soundbar for a laptop. There are still two more speakers on the bottom of the C930, but the purpose of the soundbar is to ensure that there’s a speaker pointing at you no matter what orientation you’re using. The Yoga C9

Lenovo is announcing a second ARM-powered Windows 10 laptop this week, and this time it’s a Yoga. The Lenovo Yoga C630 WOS (Windows on Snapdragon) is, as you might have guessed, powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 850 processor. It’s the first Windows laptop we’ve seen with the Snapdragon 850, and its a chip that Qualcomm specifically designed for always-connected Windows 10 PCs. This new processor ushers in the latest generation of ARM-powered Windows 10 laptops.
Le

The Big Bang Theory didn’t make the best first impression. Back in September 2007, the CBS sitcom’s pilot episode introduced a pair of California science professors — Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) — who spent much of the next 20 minutes either stammering awkwardly in front of their pretty new neighbor Penny (Kaley Cuoco), or getting humiliated by her hunky ex-boyfriend. Right from the start, the geek community had their worst fears

Mozilla is taking a bold stance against more insidious web advertising practices with an announcement today that its Firefox browser will soon block web trackers by default. The move, which will involve a series of updates over the course of the next few months, is among one of the most proactive approaches to protect consumer privacy that it’s ever employed.“Anyone who isn’t an expert on the internet would be hard-pressed to explain how tracking on the internet actually works

Garmin saved its reveal of the newest Vivosmart fitness tracker for IFA this year. For the Vivosmart 4, the company is adding a “pulse ox2 oximeter,” which measures the oxygen saturation in your blood.
You may have tried an oximeter when a doctor or nurse clipped a little accessory to your finger. In Garmin’s case, the oximeter is trying to determine how well a person is sleeping. It could also figure out whether they stop breathing during sleep, meaning they have sleep apnea.

Bugatti is known for assembling super fast, mind-bogglingly expensive cars by hand. Of course, even if you have the cash, they’re rare enough that you’d probably be better off building your own. According to Lego, that’s apparently possible. The toy brick company announced on Thursday that it built a life-sized working replica of a $2.6 million Bugatti Chiron.
Much like its counterpart, the Lego Chiron has some outrageous specs... they just happen to be outrageous in a much di

Google wants to dominate the IFA tech show in Berlin this week, and it’s already announced integrations in too many gadgets to count. Along with that partner push, the company is announcing a new feature for Google Assistant: it’s bilingual now.
Essentially, if you ask Assistant a question, it will automatically recognize what language you’re speaking and respond in kind. It’s a step toward the goal that Google announced back in February to make Assistant fully multiling

Hot on the heels of Honor teasing the Magic 2 — a bezel-less flagship smartphone with a hidden sliding camera similar to the Oppo Find X — Xiaomi president Lin Bin posted the first official image of the company’s own upcoming Mi Mix 3, which is also a bezel-less flagship smartphone with a hidden sliding camera similar to the Oppo Find X (via GSMArena).Targeting an October release
According to the post, Xiaomi is targeting an October release for the Mi Mix 3, although for now,

Huawei’s Honor sub-brand showed up at IFA with a surprise this year: an early tease of its new Magic 2 flagship, a follow-up to the company’s original AI-enhanced Magic phone from 2016.The big update on the Magic 2 is a new “Magic Slide” feature that hides the camera underneath a slider to enable a full, bezel-free screen without a notch — similar to the sliding Oppo Find X from earlier this year. According to Honor, the new design features a nearly 100 percent scr

Microsoft is increasing the number of devices you can use with Office 365 Personal and Home subscriptions. Starting on October 2nd, Office 365 Personal and Home subscribers will be able to install the Office desktop apps on an unlimited number of devices. Currently, Personal users are limited to one PC or Mac and one tablet, while Home subscribers are limited to 10 devices in total across five users.
Office 365 Home is now even better value for money
Microsoft is also improving the Office 365 H

Apple sent invites today for its annual fall iPhone event where it’s expected to announce multiple new iPhones and possibly a new Apple Watch and an updated iPad Pro. It’ll take place on September 12th in Cupertino, California. The invite features a bronze circle, not unlike the new Apple Park campus that opened last year, without providing much in the way of further hints.
So far, we’ve heard there might be three new iPhones, including an upgraded iPhone X with a 5.8-inch OLE

In 2015, YouTuber Jack Douglass launched Yesterday I Asked You, a series in which he poses a question to his audience and reads the best answers on his channel. Over the past few years, Douglass has released more than 440 episodes of YIAY on his channel Jacksfilms to his 4.3 million subscribers. Now, he’s expanding the popular series into a live game show on Twitch.Douglass announced YIAY Live on his channel, adding that he has no interest in ending the show soon, especially with the 500t

Last year at IFA, Marshall Headphones (Zound Industries’ licensed consumer version of the popular guitar amp company) updated its Bluetooth speakers with multiroom audio support. This year at IFA, the company announced another new version of its Acton II and Stanmore II speakers that — right in line with the trends for 2018 — add Amazon’s Alexa assistant.The new speakers (dubbed the Acton II Voice and Stanmore II Voice, respectively) also have an updated design, with new

“Talking is just something you do, isn’t it?” asks Trevor Cox. “We take chatting for granted, and yet it’s such an important part of our lives and such a complicated thing.”
Cox is a professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford and an expert in the science of sound. He’s also the author of Now You’re Talking: Human Conversational from Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence.
The Verge spoke to Cox about the history of the human v

Cost and engineering constraints mean most telepresence robots are variants on the iPad-on-a-stick form factor. But they don’t have to be. Just look at this prototype telepresence bot built by engineers from Japan’s Keio University and the University of Tokyo. It’s basically a robot backpack with two arms and a head that can be operated remotely by a human using a VR headset and controllers. It’s fun, ingenious, and even slightly cute.The bot is called Fusion, and its fo

The children’s show LazyTown aired its last episode in 2014, but years later, the educational program about getting physically active found a second life on the internet. Memes about its over-the-top characters abounded, but when actor Stefán Karl, who played LazyTown villain Robbie Rotten, was diagnosed with bile duct cancer, fans went into hyperdrive. If life was threatening to take away their favorite childhood villain, they reasoned, they might as well celebrate him as much as

Jaybird’s updating its X line of workout headphones today with the announcement of its new X4 Wireless Sport. They’re pretty similar to the X3s, although this time around, the X4s are very much waterproof and sweatproof. The company says they’ve received an IPX7 waterproof rating, which means you can submerge them in a meter of water for up to 30 minutes without damage. You previously couldn’t submerge the headphones at all, but they were water resistant. Of course, you

BlackBerry’s Key2 didn’t exactly win over the world when it came out. The best that can be said is that it’s a phone with a physical keyboard for people who really like phones with physical keyboards.But that isn’t stopping BlackBerry (and TCL, which owns the BlackBerry name and brand) from trying again with the new Key2 LE. It’s a lower-specced, cheaper version of the Key2 that brings features like the iconic keyboard at a more affordable price.
Keyboard aside, th

The world of truly wireless earphones can be summed up as follows: there are AirPods, the Jabra Elite 65t, and all the unsatisfying others. I’m not griping, though: having two great options to choose from is still two more than we used to have. But now, Sennheiser, the manufacturer of some of the best headphones in every price class, has made its fashionably late arrival to the truly wireless competition. The Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless are the first pair of entirely wireless earpho

It didn’t take long for the Jacksonville mass shooting to yield to wearying, familiar discourses. On Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum, the host tried to tie games to a welter of mass shootings. “[The gunmen] spend 12, 15 hours a day [gaming], like Nikolas Cruz was one of them, Adam Lanza, and now this young man, gaming,” MacCallum said, adding that playing for hours on end is a danger on par with cigarette smoking. That’s par for the course for Fox, but ev

Apple has acquired a company that specializes in building lenses for smart glasses that can display augmented reality images overtop the real world. Reuters said that Apple likely purchased the company, Akonia Holographics, sometime earlier this year.
Akonia describes its augmented reality lenses as “thin,” “transparent,” and capable of displaying “vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images.” As of two years ago, the company told VentureBeat that it was t

ZTE can’t resist its notch envy. The company introduced its newest flagship phone — the Axon 9 Pro — at IFA in Berlin today, and, of course, it features a notch along with a bezel at the bottom of the display. It also features vertically aligned dual, rear-facing cameras, a la the iPhone X. The phone looks like a 2018 flagship. Here’s the spec rundown:Snapdragon 845 processor
6.21-inch AMOLED display with 18.7:9 aspect ratio
4,000mAh battery
12-megapixel and 20-megapixel

In the wake of the Jacksonville shooting, Electronic Arts is donating $1 million to those impacted by the event. The company will also set up a fund to allow others to make additional contributions, as well as hold a Jacksonville Tribute Livestream with members from the community on September 6th.On Sunday, August 26th, a gunman killed two and left 10 more wounded at a Madden tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, before committing suicide. Among those killed were Taylor Robertson and Elijah Clay

New Yorkers who opened up Snapchat, The Weather Channel, CitiBike or a number of other apps and services this morning found that the name of their city had been swapped with anti-Semitic vandalism, replacing it with “Jewtropolis.”
The offensive change appears to have been a result of edits to Mapbox, a widely used service that powers the maps inside of all these apps and more. The change was also spotted inside the app for StreetEasy and on The New York Times’ map of 2016 elec

Sennheiser entered the truly wireless earbud market today with the debut of its new Momentum earbuds. They’re Bluetooth-enabled, as you’d expect, and are touch sensitive sowearers can access Siri or Google Assistant directly with a tap. They ship with a charging case that’ll power them for at least 12 hours of listening, according to Sennheiser. The case appears to require a USB-C cable. On their own, they have a four-hour battery life. They’ll be released in mid-Novembe