Technology news

Misinformation masquerading as news that spreads via Facebook isn’t a recently developed problem for the company, but a new series is trying to open up about what the team at Facebook is doing.Antonia Woodford, product manager at Facebook, published the first “Hunt for False News” blog post today, examining three false stories that circulated on the site before they were debunked. Two of the stories were caught by Facebook and third-party fact-checkers, but the last story was

Verizon will allow all of its Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones to immediately be used on different carriers, a spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge by email. When the phone went on sale yesterday, buyers noticed that the Pixel 3 was locked to Verizon’s network until it was activated. Once activated with a Verizon SIM, the device would be unlocked overnight for use with other carriers.But now Verizon is lifting the lock fully and immediately — but maybe only temporarily. “At la

Google has quietly removed the Unlock with Voice Match function from its latest Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones, as first reported by Piunikaweb. The feature, which was previously available on the past two Pixel devices, allowed for users to unlock their phones’ Assistant features with an, “OK Google” command. Google confirmed that the feature is no longer available on its support page, where it explains: “On Pixel 3 phones, you can’t unlock your phone by saying &lsq

The glory days of The Simpsons, which recently began its 30th season, have been over for multiple decades. But that hasn’t stopped the show from inspiring some viral memes in recent years that wrap its mid-90s humor in the contemporary, often bizarre visual language of modern internet humor.While the most famous remains the endless iterations on the now-famous 1996 ”Steamed Hams” dinner scene, the latest Simpsons meme might be the strangest yet. It revolves around two very ret

The Department of Justice has unsealed a criminal complaint against a Russian national who allegedly attempted to interfere with US elections. Originally dated to late September, it accuses a St. Petersburg-based woman named Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova of acting as the chief accountant for Project Lakhta, an expansive political influence operation that’s been mentioned in earlier indictments. This follows the indictment of several other Russian figures who allegedly conspired to manipula

Some of the world’s most ambitious transportation projects are currently propped up by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, an authoritarian regime that is facing new scrutiny following its alleged role in the brutal killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Billions more have come from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the Japanese tech conglomerate’s $100 billion investment arm, of which Saudi Arabia has contributed $45 billion.
A few of these companies, and some of the

OnePlus is moving up the launch of its OnePlus 6T by a day in order to avoid colliding with Apple’s iPad Pro and Mac event on October 30th, which was just announced yesterday. The change was revealed in a post by CEO Pete Lau on the OnePlus community forum, who explained the difficult decision. Both events were scheduled to take place in New York on the same day, but OnePlus has announced that it will now hold its event on October 29th at the same location and 11AM ET time.
The sold-out l

This week on The Vergecast, Nilay, Paul, and Dieter discuss the Pixel 3, tackling its new features, improved screen, and infamous notch. Then, Nilay covers the latest in antitrust news coming off the heels of the European Commission fining Google $5 billion for “illegally tying” Chrome and search apps to Android. Of course, Dieter also talks about the surprising response to Palm, a tiny phone that’s made to be less distracting than your smartphone. There’s plenty more in

People who primarily watch YouTube videos via their computers can rejoice: in-browser mini-players are finally available for desktop users.Anyone who’s watched YouTube videos via the company’s mobile app will have already experienced the joys of mini-players. The tool, which rolled out earlier this month, allows people to continue playing a video they’re already watching while browsing for another one. Think of it like Facebook’s video player, which minimizes and moves t

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Apple CEO Tim Cook called on Bloomberg to retract its story alleging that Chinese spies compromised a company server through the use of malicious microchips. It’s the first time Cook has gone on the record to contest the allegations.
“This did not happen. There’s no truth to this,” Cook said in the interview.
The initial Bloomberg report alleged that Chinese spies were able to infiltrate critical tech infrastructure belonging to compan

Jake Paul is one of YouTube’s most controversial creators for many reasons, from outrageous stunts and pranks to allegations of abuse and bullying from former collaborators. Just last month, his tactics for selling merch to children were called into question by a fellow creator. Speaking to Shane Dawson, however, Paul calls claims of manipulation ridiculous. “Honestly, I think it’s fucking stupid that people think that’s manipulative,” Paul says in Dawson’s l

SoundCloud has partnered with rights clearance startup Dubset, giving SoundCloud artists and DJs a straightforward and legally sound path to clear the rights to samples and remixes uploaded to the platform. Dubset is a technological go-between that lets artists clear the rights to copyrighted material owned by music labels. Artists upload songs and add all original attributions to Dubset’s MixBANK portal, and then its MixSCAN tech scans the tracks for copyrighted material to appropriately

Some owners of the new Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL are experiencing an issue in which taking a photo using Google Camera occasionally fails to save. Users on Reddit and Google’s support forums are sharing their experiences, and the issue appears to be widespread, affecting original Pixel phones as well as the Pixel 2 / 2 XL. Several members of The Verge’s staff who own Google Pixel phones have confirmed they’ve experienced the issue as well.
The issue occurs specifically in cases

Vertu, a phone manufacturer that specializes in producing luxurious handmade smartphones that end up costing thousands of dollars, is back. At a launch party in Beijing, GSMArena reports that the company announced a new pair of handsets: the Aster P Baroque and Aster P Gothic. The company was forced to shut down its UK manufacturing business last year in the face of £128 million worth of debt, at which point its owner, Murat Hakan Uzan, was reportedly planning a resurrection of the brand.

Steam has introduced a new motion-smoothing update for its SteamVR service that will provide smoother gameplay for people who are using lower-end PCs.
Alex Vlachos, a graphics programmer at Valve, issued a blog post this week explaining the update. Unlike traditional motion-smoothing technology, which essentially increases the amount of frames that appear in a scene in an effort to remove or reduce the amount of motion blur affecting an image, SteamVR’s approach to incorporating the techn

Welcome to Fav’d For Later, a Friday roundup of our favorite memes, trends, and all-around good internet content. This week, we’re rediscovering the art of Rickrolling. For good.
As we barrel into another election season, people are finding new ways to get readers riled up and registered to vote. No longer content to trumpet “VOTE” into the Twitter void ad nauseam, clever users have taken the call one step further.On Twitter, Ashlee Marie Preston shared a link with the n

On Thursday, US director of national intelligence Dan Coats told Cyberscoop that he has yet see any evidence to corroborate the claims that Chinese spies compromised critical US tech infrastructure following a report by Bloomberg earlier this month.
“We’ve seen no evidence of [Chinese hardware manipulation],” Coats said, “but we’re not taking anything for granted.”
An earlier Bloomberg report claimed that Chinese spies had inserted tiny malicious chips into S

Meet Hiver, a service that lets you collaborate on generic email addresses, such as [email protected], support@, sales@, etc. Hiver isn’t the only company working on shared inboxes. But compared to Front, everything happens in Gmail directly.
To be fair, Front has been doing a fantastic job when it comes to multiplayer email — and the company has been doing great. Front is a new email client that lets you work together on your inbound emails.
But many teams don’t necess

Microsoft’s upcoming $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub has cleared another major hurdle: the EU has approved the deal after determining that there are no antitrust concerns in Microsoft buying the popular open-source software repository, via the Financial Times.European antitrust authorities have reportedly determined that “the merged entity would continue to face significant ongoing competition from other players.” Officials also aren’t concerned that Microsoft could &

YouTube introduced a subtle design change to its embed feature that will allow viewers to subscribe to a creator’s channel more easily than before.The new embed function allows users to hover over the top-left corner of a video and instantly subscribe to a channel without having to leave the page, as reported by 9to5Google. Increasing subscriber counts remains a primary goal within the YouTube community — just look at PewDiePie and T-Series’ ongoing feud.
It’s a small ch