Technology news

After Wednesday’s Apple event, you’d be forgiven for thinking the iPhone, as a product category, is now horribly fragmented.
We don’t have just one, but three different iPhone models: the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. While the pattern of three choices mirrors what Apple did last year, this year’s event confirmed it wasn’t just a one-off. We should expect releases in triplicate for the foreseeable future.
SEE ALSO: The new iPhones are jaw-droppingly expen

For all of Snapchat's current woes, one of its greatest strengths continues to be its content. 
Whether it's music festivals, sporting events, catastrophic storms, or other breaking news events, Snapchat has set itself apart from its peers due to its unique ability to provide a first-person view into what's happening around the world. 
SEE ALSO: Snap's new Spectacles look way less dorky
The challenge for Snap, though, has been that all that content isn't always easily discoverable outs

Imagine the worst beach trip you possibly can. Now here's a worse one.
Seven people were injured on Thursday when a cliff face collapsed onto Navigio Beach on the Greek island of Zakynthos, triggering a landslideAccording to the Associated Press, the incident began when a large chunk of limestone fell from a cliff into the ocean, creating a large wave that caused several small boats to capsize.
SEE ALSO: French beach town bans swimming because of a very horny dolphin
Beachgoers started to run fr

Every year when Apple holds its big iPhone event, there’s always one older-generation model that's removed from Apple Stores.
This year is no exception. Apple has finally put the iPhone 6S out to pasture. Bye-bye, iPhone 6S!
SEE ALSO: Apple unveils iPhone XS and massive iPhone XS Max
But while Apple may not be selling it’s 3-year-old iPhone anymore, the existing iPhone 6S devices out in the wild still have a lot of life left in them. So really, the 6S isn’t going anywhere anyti

The year is 1965. You are speeding down the road in your new Chevrolet Corvair. As you pull up to your destination, you can't help but notice some people squirming and side-eyeing you. They just finished reading Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed and think you are a safety hazard for driving a Corvair. Little do they know that you are driving what will one day not only be a collectible, but will also influence the lives of thousands of people making planes in their backyards. This is the sto

Apple may have hidden a new product in plain sight at its Sept. 12 iPhone event.
The opening video that it used to kick off the event shows a woman wearing AirPods. Stopping in front of a pond, she says, "Hey Siri," but doesn't tap either earbud to activate Apple's digital assistant.
SEE ALSO: Apple didn't mention anything about AirPower, AirPods, or iPads
Hands-free Siri activation isn't currently a feature on the first-generation AirPods.Is Apple teasing a new a pair of AirPods? A second gener

This is why you don't mess with Mother Nature. 
Hurricane Florence is beginning to bear down on the Carolinas with heavy winds and rising tides. Weather forecasts estimate that the Category 2 storm could dump 17 trillion gallons of rain on the East Coast. 
SEE ALSO: Watch hurricane hunters fly into the eye of an intensifying Hurricane Florence
Here's a live look at the hurricane's force: A camera at the Frying Pan Tower located 34 miles off the coast of Cape Fear, North Carolina h

A Southern California city gave the go-ahead this week to Elon Musk's tunnel-digging venture, The Boring Company, to build an underground car elevator.
Yes, a car elevator that would take your vehicle from your garage on street level to a below-ground chamber that connects to the Boring Company's growing tunnel network.
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk's ultra-high-speed hyperloop will cost just $1 to ride
Musk is deep in testing what he says will one day be an underground high-speed transportation system an

After countless rumors, we've now seen the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max at the big Apple Event Wednesday in Cupertino.
All three models are coming to carriers including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, US Cellular, and Xfinity Mobile. 
SEE ALSO: You spent $999 on an iPhone X. Here's how much you can get for it.
The 5.8-inch iPhone XS and 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max  both feature Super Retina OLED screens and dual rear-facing cameras. You can get them in gold, silver, and space gray.Image

The new iPhone XS and XS Max will have dual SIM capabilities, with a special edition for the Chinese market that contains a SIM tray which holds two physical cards. For users outside China, however, the new iPhone devices will support eSIM. While there are many benefits to eSIM, the nascent technology hasn’t seen wide adoption yet.
Only nine countries offer eSIM support right now: Austria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, India, Spain, the UK, and the US. Sprint and

Elon Musk’s Boring Company continues to gain validation from city governments. In June, the company was selected to build a multibillion-dollar rapid transit link between downtown Chicago to O’Hare International Airport, and just this week, it got approval from the Hawthorne City Council in California to start building a prototype garage that would transport cars to an underground hyperloop.a real-life batcave
The garage will be built on a private residence near SpaceX’s headq

Nuro, the self-driving delivery startup founded by a pair of Google veterans, released its voluntary safety report on Thursday. Titled “Delivering Safety,” the 33-page document outlines the technology and procedures Nuro is using to safely deploy its fleet of autonomous delivery robots.Formed in 2016, Nuro has set itself apart from other companies that are working on self-driving technology by focusing on delivery rather than ride-hailing. The startup recently announced a pilot deli

The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max were announced yesterday at Apple’s fall hardware event, and preorders for each device begin at 12:01AM PT / 3:01AM ET on Friday, September 14th. The launch of the more affordable iPhone XR is being shoved to mid-October.
Preordering is necessary if you want to receive your new iPhone on launch day, which falls on Friday, September 21st. Those who opt out of preordering may be lucky enough to find a new model at a local carrier retail store shortly after la

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Moment is now the first company to sell an MFi-certified battery case for the iPhone X. It’s shocking Moment released this product before Mophie, but it did.The new Battery Photo Case includes a 3,100mAh battery that charges either wirelessly or through Apple’s Lightning connector. It’s also compatible with Moment’s new lens interface so users can add on one of the company’s perspective-changing lenses. The case features a p

It might not come with a wireless charger, but Hyper’s Q wireless charging adapter — the HyperJuice Wireless Charger — can make your AirPods compatible with any standard 5W Qi charger. It doesn’t come cheap: it’s being sold by Hyper for $50. But it adds functionality that Apple is long overdue on providing.Using the HyperJuice Wireless Charger is a straightforward process: you insert the adapter into the Lightning port of your AirPods case, then place it on your Qi

Snap is expanding its crowdsourced Our Story content to its various media partners, including CNN, NBC News, and NowThis, who’ll be able to draw on the user-submitted images and videos for their own Snap stories, according to a report from Deadline.Introduced back in 2015, the Our Story feature on Snapchat collects Snaps that users submit for specific categories, places, events, or topics — think a sports game or a protest rally — into a single, curated Snap story that offers

The iPhone XS and XS Max are among the most expensive phones you can buy in the US. Where last year’s iPhone X jumpstarted the trend of $1,000 flagships, this year introduced the $1,100 device with a larger screen. And as was the case last year, those who live in other regions around the globe will be paying much more for Apple’s latest devices — as much as $1,389 in Italy for the cheapest model. Similarly, those in Italy buying the iPhone XS Max with 512GB of storage will be

Following its $3 billion acquisition of Jet.com in 2016, Walmart is relaunching the site today with new features that signify its efforts to take on retail giants like Amazon. The rebranded Jet.com is now focusing on appealing to shoppers in major metro cities like New York where their shopping experience will be tailored with localized imagery and messages, and, most significantly, three-hour deliveries. It’s another play in Walmart’s book to dethrone Amazon as the top retail giant

The iPhone X is dead. In its place, we now have three new options: the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. Apple loves to name its phones stupid things as much as I love to complain about it, and so we find ourselves in perfect sync. While I’d like to sit here sucking my teeth and hollering about the absolute ding-dong who decided to call it the XS Max and not just the Max, I must instead speak to a bigger problem: size, size, size.In 2018, Science™ (or rather, The Pudding) con

Wild theories of sabotage still persist two weeks after a mysterious pressure leak occurred on the International Space Station, and the gossip has gotten so nonsensical that both NASA and Russia’s state space corporation, Roscosmos, are now trying to quell the rumors.
In a joint statement released today, NASA and Roscosmos claim that the US space agency is working closely with Russia to figure out the cause of the leak. The statement also notes that no information will be released until t

A friend recently handed me their iPhone to look through some photos, and I pressed in to pop one open with 3D Touch. What I’d done surprised them — not because of the photo choice, but because they’d never seen this feature before on the phone they’d been using for months.
This seems to be the story of 3D Touch: it’s a fascinating idea with the potential to completely rework the basic user interface of a smartphone that has gone fairly unnoticed. And now, three ye

Tyler Cowen,who I interviewed here, is a fascinating economist. Part pragmatist and part dreamer, he has been researching and writing about the future for a long time in books and his blog, Marginal Revolution. Now he and his university, George Mason, are putting some money where his mouth is.
Cowen and the team at GMU are working on Emergent Ventures, a fellowship and grant program for moon shots. The goal is to give people with big ideas a little capital to help them build out their dreams.
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Yesterday, Apple announced that the US Food and Drug Administration cleared two new features for the Apple Watch Series 4. One is an advanced method of monitoring the heart called an electrocardiogram (EKG), and the other is the Watch’s ability to detect and notify the user of an irregular heart rhythm. Both features will be available on the device later in 2018 (not at launch). The news sounds exciting, but there are some important caveats that limit how useful the new gadget will be.Fir

For the second year in a row, Apple has announced three new iPhones at once. And with confusing names like iPhone XR, it’s only getting more difficult to figure out which one might be the best device for you. And the jargon doesn’t end there. A12 Bionic? Liquid Retina Display? Neural Engine? How is anyone supposed to make sense of it all?
Settling on the right iPhone isn’t as daunting as you might think. Ignore the confusing names and just focus on the one or two things that a

Vergecast hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn attended the Apple event on Wednesday, and they were able to get their hands on the new iPhones and Apple Watch that were on display.After the event, they headed to our San Francisco studio to Skype with Paul Miller to record their first impressions, a summary of the event, and lay to rest some conspiracies.That’s all you really need to know before listening!
3:11 - Apple’s AirPower charger is still a no-show, one year after it was first a

A year after asking for suggestions on philanthropy, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is unveiling his first projects. The highlight will be the creation of a network for nonprofit preschools that are to be built in low-income communities and accept students at no charge.
Bezos also intends to fund existing nonprofits that help homeless families by providing access to housing and food. Both initiatives will be overseen by something he’s calling the Bezos Day One Fund, which he’s committing

Four major US carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon — are joining forces to launch a single sign-on service for smartphones. The service, called Project Verify, authenticates app logins so that users don’t need to memorize passwords for all their apps. The companies say their solution verifies users through their phone number, phone account type, SIM card details, IP address, and account tenure. Essentially, your phone serves as the verification method with detail

On October 26th, Netflix will release the first season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, its Teen Vogue-meets-The Craft spin on the Archie Comics teenage witch, and now we have the first teaser. In case you were unclear about what “dark coming-of-age story” meant when Netflix first announced the series, the minute-long clip is here to assure you that, yes, this show will be gunning for a Satanic Panic revival to call its own.
The series, which stars Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men) as

The OnePlus 6 is one of the best Android flagship phones with a headphone jack, but its eventual successor — expected to be called the OnePlus 6T — won’t have one, according to OnePlus’ co-founder Carl Pei. In an interview with TechRadar, Pei said the decision was justified. “We found 59% of our community already owned wireless headphones earlier this year - and that was before we launched our Bullets Wireless headphones,” he said.
It’s not that OnePlus

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the Toronto International Film Festival.
Director Jeremy Saulnier specializes in dragging his characters out of their worlds and leaving them out of their depths. Over the course of his three previous films — Murder Party, Blue Ruin, and Green Room — he’s developed a reputation for intense stories punctuated with startling violence,