Technology news

Today, executives from both Amazon and the server manufacturer, Super Micro, are calling for the retraction of a Bloomberg report published earlier this month. The report alleged that these chips were able to compromise the computer networks of as many as 30 companies, including networks belonging to Amazon.
Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook called for Bloomberg to retract a report claiming that Chinese spies smuggled malicious microchips into a company server. In an unprecedented move, Cook sat do

Some users of Google News for Android are reporting that the app has used up excessive amounts of background data, leading to overage charges. According to dozens of posts on the Google News Help Forum, users have been experiencing this issue as early as June. The issue was verified and addressed by a Google News community manager in September, stating that the company was investigating and working toward a fix, but the issue is still ongoing.
Verge reader Zach Dowdle emailed in with his experi

Guillermo del Toro, the Academy Award-winning director of “The Shape of Water” (not to mention “Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Pacific Rim”) is making a new version of “Pinocchio” for Netflix.
I’d thought that after del Toro’s awards victory earlier this year he might finally make his long-thwarted adaptation “At the Mountains of Madness.” And while I’m not giving up hope that I’ll see a del T

It is one of the enduring mysteries of our time: in a lineup full of otherwise neatly named products, Apple’s alternative hardware cycle iPhones have always seen an -S appended to their names, going back to the iPhone 3GS in 2009. But the question remains: what does the S actually stand for?Turns out, mostly nothing — according to Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller, who told Engadget in an interview that the letters the company picks for its pro

Less than one month after The Wall Street Journal reported allegations of sexual misconduct by Cameron Poetzscher, Uber’s head of corporate development, Poetzscher has resigned, according to the WSJ.
Uberhas confirmed Poetzscher’s resignation to TechCrunch. While Uber searches for a new corporate development lead, Uber CFO Nelson Chai will oversee Poetzscher’s duties.
“We thank Cam for his four and a half years of service to Uber,” an Uber spokesperson tol

Samsung is getting closer to taking the wraps off its foldable smartphone, a prototype of which has supposedly been in the works for years now. In a tweet sent late last week, the company teased a big reveal of the device, or at least a prototype version of it, describing its upcoming developer conference as “the crossroads between the present and the future” and showing a subtle graphic of two lines unfolding into a right-facing arrow.We’ve been hearing for a while now that S

Honor briefly showed off its upcoming Magic 2 phone a few months back, revealing a bezel-less screen and a sliding mechanism that opens up to a camera. The company will unveil the device officially on October 31st, but until then, Honor is teasing the phone with a series of hands-on videos by Chinese celebrities giving their impressions. We can see from the video there are three rear cameras, similar to the P20 Pro by Huawei, its parent company.
Honor is also leaning hard into the clicking soun

Be More Chill — the up-and-coming sci-fi Broadway musical based on Ned Vizzini’s novel of the same name — is getting a film adaptation, according to a report from Deadline. Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Productions have been tapped to make a movie version of the musical, although the deal is still early on, and no film studio has been chosen for distribution yet.If you’re not familiar with Be More Chill, you’re likely not alone: the

What’s in a camera? A lens, a shutter, a light-sensitive surface and, increasingly, a set of highly sophisticated algorithms. While the physical components are still improving bit by bit, Google, Samsung and Apple are increasingly investing in (and showcasing) improvements wrought entirely from code. Computational photography is the only real battleground now.
The reason for this shift is pretty simple: Cameras can’t get too much better than they are right now, or at least not withou

Richard Bransonhas reportedly stepped down from the chairman role of Virgin Hyperloop One.
In a statement, cited by Reuters, Branson said the company would require more time than he could devote to the company:
At this stage in the company’s evolution, I feel it needs a more hands-on Chair, who can focus on the business and these opportunities. It will be difficult for me to fulfill that commitment as I already devote significant time to my philanthropic ventures and the many bus

YouTube is investing $20 million toward educational content through its new Learning Fund program.Malik Ducard, global head of learning, announced the initiative today. Channels like TED-Ed, dedicated to educational Ted Talks, and Hank and John Green’s Crash Course have already secured additional funding, according to YouTube’s blog post. The company plans to invest in content from independent creators, like the Green brothers, as well as traditional news sources and educational org

Cardi B is known for being so lively and boisterous that she’s probably the last person you’d think of when it comes to the soothing aesthetics of ASMR — but that’s exactly what makes this new video from W Magazine so good. Behold: the “I Like It” rapper whispers gently and seductively into not one but two highly sensitive microphones. (As with many ASMR videos, it’s recorded in stereo and works best with headphones.) If she seems like an ASMR natural,

Ford is bringing its autonomous vehicles to Washington, D.C., the fourth city to join the automaker’s testing program as it prepares to launch a self-driving taxi and delivery service in 2021.
Ford will begin testing its self-driving vehicles in the district in the first quarter of 2019. The company is already is testing in Detroit, Pittsburgh and Miami. 
Ford is a bit different from other companies that have launched autonomous vehicle pilots in the U.S. Ford is pursui

Apple will start shipping the iPhone XR this week, and ahead of its launch, the company has unveiled repair pricing. If you crack that notched LCD display, it’ll cost you $199 to fix (if you don’t have AppleCare+). That’s significantly cheaper than the OLEDs on the iPhone XS and XS Max: the XS costs $279, and the XS Max costs $329. Meanwhile, a battery replacement will cost $69 across the three new devices.
Repairs related to “other damage,” like a shattered glass

Richard Branson has stepped down as chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One, Bloomberg and Reuters are reporting. Branson announced his decision Monday, saying the company needed a more involved chairman as it moves forward with its plans to build a fully operational hyperloop.Last week, the Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia had canceled a feasibility study with the company after Branson criticized the kingdom for its involvement in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.A little over a year

Thanks to improper management, NASA has lost a wide array of historical spaceflight memorabilia over the last few decades — such as an old lunar soil bag, former spaceflight hand controllers, and even a test lunar rover. That’s according to a new report out today from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, which analyzed how the space agency oversees its historical assets. While procedures have improved at NASA, a few unique pieces of storied spaceflight property have either

Google Play has generated more than twice the downloads of the iOS App Store, reaching a 70 percent share of worldwide downloads in 2017, according to a new report from App Annie,released in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Android Market, now called Google Play. The report also examined the state of Google Play’s marketplace and the habits of Android users.
It found that, despite the large share of downloads, Google Play only accounted for 34 percent of worldwide consumer spen

Brendan Iribe, former CEO of Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus, is leaving the company. Iribe posted the news on Facebook, writing that “after six incredible years, I am moving on” from Oculus. Iribe didn’t give a reason for his departure or say exactly what he’ll be doing next. “Working alongside so many talented people at Oculus and Facebook has been the most transformative experience of my career,” he wrote. “This will be the first real b

Autonomous cars are coming to the nation’s capital. Ford announced Monday that it would begin testing its self-driving cars on the streets of Washington, DC, early next year, with a particular emphasis on “equitable deployment.”
Autonomous in the first quarter of 2019
Ford currently has vehicles on the road in DC gathering mapping data, and will begin operating those cars autonomously in the first quarter of 2019. A safety driver and a second engineer will remain in the vehicl

Cowboy, the Belgian startup that designed and sells a smarter electronic bicycle, has raised €10 million in Series A funding.
Leading the round is Tiger Global Management, with participation from previous backers Index Ventures and Hardware Club. The new capital will be used to scale operations and expand beyond Belgium into Germany, U.K., Netherlands and France.
Founded in January 2017 by Adrien Roose and Karim Slaoui, who both previously co-founded Take Eat Easy (an early Deliveroo compet

How can Limedifferentiate its scooters and bikes from the piles of Birds and Spins filling Los Angeles sidewalks? Apparently with a physical storefront where it can convince customers of the wonders of on-demand mobility. According to a job listing from Lime seeking a “Retail Store Manager,” the startup plans to open a “lifestyle brand store in Santa Monica”.
[Update: Following the publication of this article, Lime responded to our inquiry, telling TechCrunch “In th

Brendan Iribe,the co-founder and former CEO of Oculus,announced today that he is leaving Facebook, TechCrunch has learned.
Iribe is leaving Facebookfollowing some internal shake-ups in the company’s virtual reality arm last week that saw the cancellation of the company’s next generation “Rift 2” PC-powered virtual reality headset, which he had been leading development of, a source close to the matter told TechCrunch.
Iribe and the Facebook executive team had “fundam

Google’s Android operating system has undergone a pretty incredible metamorphosis since it debuted on the T-Mobile G1 on October 22nd, 2008. A decade might seem like a long time, but on the scale of the PC's growth, it's a blink of an eye. You could make a pretty convincing argument that no consumer technology in history has evolved as quickly as the smartphone, and Android has been at the very center of that evolution.
When Android launched, the OS came into a crowded but troubled market.

YouTube surprised everyone last week by releasing Logan Paul’s premium movie, The Thinning: New World Order, a high-gloss YouTube Red film that had previously been put on indefinite hold after the star filmed a dead body in Japan. The release has been controversial because it not only seemed like YouTube was rewarding a problematic creator, but also that the company treats Logan Paul differently than other YouTubers.Days after Logan Paul’s suicide forest controversy broke out, YouTu

Spotify is testing a What’s New timeline feature with some users that shows new releases seemingly from artists you enjoy. Spotify confirmed the test to The Verge, saying “We are always testing new ways to create better listening experiences for more users, while continuing to find ways to connect artists to their fans.”
The streaming service has been trying to get better at promoting new releases recently, as it now occasionally offers prompts once you open the app for new al

The website of the Saudi government’s upcoming Future Investment Initiative conference was hacked and defaced with images of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Several reporters tweeted screenshots of the site after its defacement, purporting to show Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman — the kingdom’s de facto ruler — brandishing a sword. A portion of text on the site was replaced with an accusation the kingdom of “barbaric and inhuman action,&rd

Intel has been struggling to mass produce its next-generation 10nm Cannon Lake processors. Dubbed Cannon Lake, the 10nm chips were originally supposed to appear in 2016. Delays have hit the process of creating these chips, and Intel revealed earlier this year that the processors should start shipping in 2019. SemiAccurate reported earlier today that Intel has killed off work on its 10nm processors, citing internal sources.
While the SemiAccurate report claims Intel’s 10nm aren’t fin

YouTuber Marzia Bisognin is leaving the platform. The fashion and lifestyle vlogger announced in a video today that after much consideration and personal introspection, she’s ready to leave YouTube behind. “All I have is this feeling that it is time for me to try something new in my life,” she says. “This may seem so sudden to most of you, probably, but it is something that I knew for a long time. Especially this year I’ve struggled with finding a reason to keep go

Faraday Future is cutting its employees’ salaries by 20 percent, and laying off some others, in an attempt to keep the electric car startup alive as it fights with its main investor, The Verge has learned.
The austerity measures were announced in an email to staff sent Sunday night and will go into effect next week. Faraday Future will also cut its hourly employees’ wages by 20 percent, according to the email, which was obtained by The Verge.
Jia will decrease his salary to $1, acco

The website for the Future Investment Initiative, the annual Saudi investment forum, was shutdown after some users were redirected to a protest statement a day before the event is scheduled to take place.“For the sake of security for children worldwide, we urge all countries to put sanction on the Saudi regime,” the website reportedly read. “The regime, aligned with the United States, must be kept responsible for its barbaric and inhumane action, such as killing its own citize

Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers are more than 30 percent off at Newegg. Normally priced at $79.99, you can get a pair for $55.99 with the offer code EMCEPRR37 used at checkout. At the time of writing, Newegg offers a few different color options to choose from, including blue, gray, red, or the red and blue controller combo that comes with some consoles.
Picking up an extra set of Joy-Con is something that most Switch owners will eventually do, or have already done (at full price, no less),

The GoPro Hero 7 Black is here to capture your every move: in the rapids, on the trails, down the slopes, and more. Basically if you're moving, a GoPro can handle the action.
For those who like to seriously get after it, you'll need a microSD card to store all that footage — which is why this deal at Best Buy is so great.
SEE ALSO: Best deals for Oct. 22: Save on Instant Pot, Crock-Pot, KitchenAid, Sony Blu-ray players, Echo Show, and more
When you buy the new GoPro Hero 7 Black at Best Bu

The latest Facebook data breach is prompting scrutiny on the world stage.
On Monday, the Japanese government asked Facebook to be more proactive and transparent about protecting its users' dataReuters learned of the request via a statement from Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission.
SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg on election interference: 'This has been an intense year'
Specifically, Japanese authorities want Facebook to increase monitoring of third party apps, tell users when ther

Shopping for a new 4K TV? We're rounding up the best sales on Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and the Samsung Store. If you're looking to upgrade, now is your chance to get a new 4K TV and save.
SEE ALSO: This proves that Netflix owns the internet — Technically Speaking
Starting with 4K TVs that are 40+ inches, Samsung 49-inch Class LED Q6F Series 4K UHD TV with HDR is on sale for $899.99 from Best Buy, while Walmart has JVC's 49-inch Class 4K Ultra HD HDR Smart LED TV priced at just $249.99. T

YouTubeCEO Susan Wojcicki published her quarterly letter to creators today, which included very strong language regarding the EU’s controversial copyright reform directive. Specifically, her letter focused on Article 13, the so-called “meme ban” that states that any site with a large amount of user-generated content — like Facebook or YouTube, for example — will be responsible for taking down content that infringes on copyright. Wojcicki says the way this

The European Union’s contentious copyright directive became a major talking point for YouTube creators last month, as people rushed to inform their audiences just how consequential the new directive could become.Now, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is adding her concerned voice to the chorus. Wojcicki spent the first portion of her letter to creators addressing Article 13, a new requirement that would give YouTube the sole burden of preventing copyrighted content from being uploaded and shared

When tech companies explore diversity and inclusion initiatives, there’s a risk that marginalized groups may feel “othered” and reduced to a number. That’s what Squarehas found, the company revealed in the first of a series of posts on Square’s diversity and inclusion efforts. So instead of emphasizing demographic data, Square is taking a new approach that entails deep dives into its inclusion efforts.
Regarding promotions and compensation — two key

Name one thing that sounds better than starting the Harry Potter series over again (with an IV of warm butterbeer, of course), when cold weather hits. I'll wait.
The only thing in the way is the whole "adult" thing, and most of us don't have time to hibernate and read books all day.
Luckily, this Amazon Audible deal can help you out. Plow through your favorite novel while sitting on your morning commute, waiting for your kids at soccer practice, or anything else that involves headphones.
SEE ALS

It's Troll Week on Mashable. Join us as we explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of internet trolling.Anyone who's used the internet knows that brands have a complex relationship with trolling.
From restaurant chains and airlines to dictionary social media accounts and more, brands can only resist the urge to troll for so long. When they finally give in, the trolling attempt might end up a surprising success — or a face palm-worthy failure.
A troll has the power to increase respect

Netflix’scommitment to growing its original content collection will see the company again returning to debt markets to raise more financing, the company announced today. According a release published to its investors site, Netflix says it plans to raise $2 billion to help fund new content, including “content acquisitions, production and development, capital expenditures, investments, working capital and potential acquisitions and strategic transactions.”
The funds will be raise

Forget E Ink or OLED screens. Now, the hottest new display is a piece of wood. With the Mui interactive wooden display, which is now funding on Kickstarter, you can choose a Sanded Sycamore, Cherry, Maple, or Ash panel to send and receive messages, check the news and weather, and control your smart home. Via IFTTT, it can also connect to a Google Home, Amazon Echo, Philips Hue, Sonos, and other smart home services.
We got an early preview of Mui last year, and we came away impressed with its el

It looks like the political full-court press ahead of the midterms has gotten on the nerves of some voters deep in the heart of Texas who've filed a suit against Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke over text alerts. 
A class-action lawsuit filed by a Collin County, Texas resident claims he's been inundated with "Beto For Texas" texts that violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCP Act,) because he never gave the campaign permission to send him those messages.
SEE ALSO: Te

China’s central government has drafted a new regulation that would strip blockchains of their anonymity, requiring users to provide their real names and national ID card numbers when registering for a blockchain service. Trading Bitcoin is already banned in the country, but the policy will place significant restrictions on ongoing blockchain development.
On Friday, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator, released a draft of the policy, which would a

eBay announced its new Instant Selling program for smartphones today, which will allow users to list their old phone on the platform and immediately receive an eBay voucher in return. eBay says it’s offering higher return rates than Gazelle, EcoATM, AT&T Trade-in, Apple Give Back, and Verizon Trade-in.For a 64GB unscratched, unlocked iPhone X, for example, you can get up to $490 on Gazelle, $260 on EcoATM, $450 through AT&T Trade-in, $525 through Apple Give Back, and $500 through

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has shut down a self-driving school bus project in Florida, calling it “unlawful.” It’s one of the most forceful interventions by the Department of Transportation in the early days of autonomous vehicles. The news was first reported by Jalopnik.
The North American arm of international transportation company Transdev was using one of its pod-like electric autonomous shuttles — called the EasyMile Easy10 Gen II &md

The Trump administration has a major ask to make of big tech companies. In a meeting at the White House today, officials will ask Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM, among others, to make it easier for employees to do stints in the government.
It’s a heavy lift, of course, asking well-compensated workers to take time out from demanding gigs for the betterment of federal and state governments. A number of companies, including Facebook and Google, already allow employees to take time off for

Anthony Scaramucci, that dude who served as President Donald Trump's Communications Director for a whopping ten full days, is back. And for some reason, he's dancing.
To promote his upcoming book, Trump The Blue-Collar President, the Mooch recalled his short run in the Trump administration through interpretive dance for a very embarrassing video with the New York Post. 
SEE ALSO: Obama shut down Scaramucci so hard in 2010 he's probably still shook
After a bit of swearing, Scaramucci introdu

Pair Eyewear, the customizable glasses brand for kids, has today announced the close of a $1 million Seed round, with investors including Corigin Ventures, Outbound Ventures, Precursor Ventures, and Bolt Ventures.
The company has a simple premise: Pair sells affordable glasses to children. But beyond simple frames, Pair sells both base frames (regular glasses) and top frames (snap-on fronts for base frames that let you change the color and style of glasses).
Base frames, which include hand-polis