Technology news

Gift-giving on a budget is an art. Think about the "Christmas Party" episode of The Office where Michael insists on doing the Yankee Swap with everyone's Secret Santa gifts: You don't want to pull a Michael and go way over the agreed price limit, but you also don't want to choose a gift that no one actually wants, like Phyllis' oven mitt. You've got to ride the line: cool gift, but appropriate cost.
Yes, some people possess an innate talent for thoughtful gift-giving on a budget. No matter the o

Gift-giving on a budget is an art. Think about the "Christmas Party" episode of The Office where Michael insists on doing the Yankee Swap with everyone's Secret Santa gifts — you don't want to pull a Michael and go way over the price limit, but you also don't want to go for a gift that no one actually wants like Phyllis' oven mitt. You want to ride the line of cool gift at an appropriate cost.
Some people possess an innate talent for thoughtful gift-giving on a budget. No matter the occasi

“Let the Vapors of the Vishanti drive you from the sight of man! Let the mystic Hosts of Hoggoth prevent you from ever returning again!”
You may not have read those immortal lines before, but superhero comics fans can probably instantly identify the author. Stan Lee, who died yesterday at age 95, wrote like no one before him — or, in spite of his massive influence, anyone since.
Though he initially became famous as a comics writer, Lee’s writing is perhaps the least-cele

Apple has added refurbished HomePods for the first time to its online store, where they’re selling for $50 less than the original price, via MacRumors. Both the white and space gray versions are selling for $299, but you’re better off looking elsewhere — Best Buy’s Black Friday deals show new HomePods selling for even cheaper, at $250.
The HomePod normally costs $349, which is pretty high for a wireless smart speaker that requires you to be locked into Apple products. If

The United Kingdom’s biggest cell carrier, EE, announced plans today to launch proper 5G mobile service throughout parts of the region, with a 16-city rollout planned for 2019. The first phase of the rollout will begin with capital cities across the UK, including Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London. Two other England cities, Birmingham and Manchester, are also included in phase one, which is scheduled for sometime next year.EE is focusing its efforts on high-volume centers in those fi

E-cigarette company Juul Labs will stop supplying over 90,000 brick-and-mortar stores with its fruity and dessert-flavored pods, the company announced today. It’s also quitting Facebook and Instagram in an effort to dampen the popular vape’s appeal to underage consumers. The announcement follows rumors from last week that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon announce a flavor ban to combat youth vaping.E-cigarettes are teens’ favorite way to get nicotine, according

Google’s official G Suite Twitter account is the latest victim of an ongoing bitcoin scam that has been plaguing the social media platform for the last few weeks, joining companies like Target (which saw a similar hack this morning), via The Next Web.
G Suite might be the highest-profile target of the scam yet, which saw fake, promoted tweets that appeared to originate from the G Suite account pop up in users’ timelines this afternoon, directing them toward a scammy bitcoin address

Lilly Singh, one of YouTube’s most successful creators, is taking a break from the platform. In a recent video, Singh — also known as IISuperwomanII — explains that she is “mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted,” and she plans to take time away in order to recoup her creative energy.
For eight years, Singh has consistently released videos and daily vlogs on YouTube. She currently has more than 16 million subscribers between her channels, and

Essential isn’t dead, not yet at least. The handset maker from Android co-founder Andy Rubin, who’s now at the center of an explosive controversy over the mishandling of sexual harassment claims at Google that prompted a worldwide employee walkout, has quietly released its next product. It’s the $149 magnetic headphone jack adapter Essential promised way back in September 2017. The company first announced in June that the accessory would start shipping in the summer, but it ap

Using a new type of design process, engineers at software company Autodesk and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory came up with a new interplanetary lander concept that could explore distant moons like Europa and Enceladus. Its slim design weighs less than most of the landers that NASA has already sent to other planets and moons.
Autodesk announced its new innovative lander design today at the company’s conference in Las Vegas — revealing a spacecraft that looks like a spider wov

Shopping in the UK? Check out the Black Friday gaming deals we've found just for you.
Black Friday officially launches in the U.S. on Nov. 23, which means all the deals you could hope for are soon to be splayed across the internet. But we're here to give you a sneak peek of what's going on sale. 
If you're a gamer — or need to shop for one — there are going to be tons of deals on systems, games, and everything in between from top retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, and mor

It always pays to find a good deal on video games, consoles, and accessories, especially on newer titles and hardware. This year, GameStop has the usual round of deals on controllers and some slightly older titles, but there’s also some standout deals, like a sharp discount on Forza Horizon 4 and other recent games, deals on Xbox One X and One S bundles, as well as a deal on a new PS4 Slim bundled with Spider-Man.
All of these deals start on November 18th, a few days before most Black Fri

Lime already has its shared bicycle and scooter fleets in cities around the country, but it’s not stopping there: starting this week, the company is rolling out a fleet of shared Lime cars in Seattle as part of its new “LimePod” service, with a goal of having 1,500 cars in the city by early next year, via Bloomberg.
Lime is starting off a little smaller, at least at the beginning, with just 50 cars hitting the streets of Seattle this week. However, the company is planning to c

I’ve never felt the need to own an Amazon Echo device, partly because I feel like I can Google things faster than a voice assistant can understand me, but mostly because of that one time a bunch of Alexa devices all decided to creepily laugh at their owners, unprompted. But then I saw these antique phones modified with Alexa functionality, which only listen to you when the handset is off the receiver, and it made perfect sense. It’s no longer a hands-free voice assistant by any mean

Nicely displaying high-quality images without sacrificing load time can be a constant dilemma. Now, an experimental web app from Google called “Squoosh” offers a quick and easy way to get the best of both worlds, via 9to5Google.It’s a pretty simple app to use: you can drag and drop an image of your choosing into the tool, at which point, you can pick from compression standards including MozJPEG, OptiPNG, and Google’s own WebP. A small slider lets you quickly adjust the l

Microsoft hasn’t had a great time with Windows 10 in 2018. Earlier this year Microsoft delayed its April 2018 Windows 10 update due to last minute Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues, and then had to fix desktop and Chrome freezing issues after it shipped to more than 600 million devices. Just last month, Microsoft released its October 2018 Update and was forced to pull it offline after a few days of some users complaining that files were being deleted.If those incidents weren’t bad

Microsoft is releasing its Windows 10 October 2018 Update again today, after bugs forced the company to pull it offline last month. A number of Windows 10 users reported missing files after the update was released in early October. While Microsoft did re-release the update to beta testers, it has taken the company more than a month to fully test it and release it more generally today.
“In addition to extensive internal validation, we have taken time to closely monitor feedback and diagnos

YouTube creators like Shane Dawson, Ryland Adams, and Smosh co-founder Anthony Padilla have called out digital network Defy Media following its closure for a series of concerning business practices.Defy Media was the parent company of some of YouTube’s most popular channels, including Smosh, Smosh Games, and Clevver. The network announced last week that it was shutting down operations immediately, leaving teams at Smosh and Clevver looking for a new parent company to back their talent tea

Amazon has just announced the sites for its HQ2. Soon, the company will be expanding into Long Island City, Queens, and Crystal City, in Arlington, Virginia. The expansion, the retail giant says, will bring 25,000 employees to each of the areas, and the company said it would invest $5 billion in the offices. Already, the announcement is raising questions about what the deal will mean for the cities, the scope of the agreement, and how Amazon conducted the search in the first place. With more th

As part of an ongoing reorganization of its health care efforts, Google has announced that it’s absorbing DeepMind Health, a part of its London-based AI lab DeepMind.
In a blog post, DeepMind’s founders said it was a “major milestone” for the company that would help turn its Streams app — which it developed to help the UK’s National Health Service (NHS)— into “an AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors” that combines “the best algo

Internet providers and wireless carriers, by necessity, can see the traffic coming and going to your phone. Some companies have better privacy policies than others, but Google’s Project Fi can’t make a blanket policy — that’s because the carrier doesn’t control its own network, and instead piggybacks off of companies like T-Mobile and Sprint.
To solve that, Project Fi is launching a new option today that allows subscribers to route all of their traffic through a Go

Moment is announcing a refreshed telephoto lens for $99, designed to take better photos on the iPhone XS, XR, and Pixel 3. You can also attach the 58mm zoom lens to any Galaxy, iPhone, or Pixel phone to get those up-close results.
The phone photography company has some of the best mobile lenses you can find, and are releasing this new lens as a follow-up to their first tele lens. The new lens’s benefits include a sharper, brighter image with 2x zoom (100mm zoom lens equivalent) and 4x zoo

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Toy Story 4 teaser, Disney and Pixar are already back with another trailer of sorts: a “trailer reaction” video, just like the ones made by what feels like every single YouTuber ever in response to the initial teaser.
Of course, Pixar’s reaction video has a little more star power, and it takes the time to introduce new characters: Ducky and Bunny. Voiced by comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, the two spend less time actually re

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is arriving on Sony’s PlayStation 4 on December 7th. The base game will be priced at $30 on the PS4, with a “survivor’s edition” at $50 and “champion’s edition” for $60. Both the extra additions include bonus G-Coin and extra in-game rewards, and preorders begin today.
We had been expecting to see PUBG appear on the PS4 after several leaks pointed towards the release. PUBG on the PS4 will include access to the

WeWorkhas picked up another $3 billion in financing from SoftBank Corp, not to be confused with SoftBankVision Fund. The deal comes in the form of a warrant, allowing SoftBank to pay $3 billion for the opportunity to buy shares before September 2019 at a price of $110 or higher, ultimately valuing WeWork at $42 billion minimum.
In August, SoftBank Corp invested $1 billion in WeWork in the form of a convertible note.
According to the Financial Times, SoftBank will pay WeWork $1.5 billion on Janua

Volvo’s new car subscription service, which lets you drive a brand-new vehicle and bundles in maintenance coverage, roadside assistance, and insurance, has proved to be much more successful than the company expected. AutoBlog reports that Volvo has already sold its first-year projection of vehicles in the service’s first four months, resulting in a waiting list for the XC40 that now stretches into 2019.The shortage comes just weeks after Cadillac chose to suspend its own $1,800-a-mo

Spotify is officially releasing its Apple Watch app today. The music streaming service started testing it earlier this month, but the Apple Watch app doesn’t allow you to sync songs for offline playback yet. Spotify’s first version includes the ability to play music on the Apple Watch, or control how music is played to compatible Spotify Connect devices. Spotify has also included complications for the Apple Watch.
We got an early first look at Spotify’s Apple Watch app, and it

AT&T will begin selling the Razer Phone 2 on November 16th, becoming the exclusive US carrier for the device. This is a pretty big deal for Razer — the first Razer Phone was only sold unlocked — and gaming phones, in general, since such niche devices have yet to see a ton of mainstream attention.
The Razer Phone 2 may be one of the best phones on the market for playing mobile games, but it’s not a great choice for most people. That said, if the 120Hz high-refresh screen, g

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You might not remember, but there used to be a jet called the Concorde that had a cruising speed of 1,354 mph, which is twice the speed of sound. New York City to London, typically a seven-hour flight, only lasted three-and-a-half hours on the Concorde. But the Concorde went bust in 2003, and supersonic jets fell out of favor. A new crop of aviation startups is hoping to resurrect it, and thanks to a new set of laws in the US, that comeback seems all but assured.Buoyed by rich investors who wan

On this week’s interview episode of The Vergecast, Nilay talked with president of StubHub Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. Singh Cassidy previously served as president of Google Asia Pacific and Latin America, building the company’s presence globally. In 2015, she also launched theBoardlist, a talent marketplace dedicated to placing women on the boards of tech companies, and she has been a leader in diversifying the industry.
On The Vergecast, Singh Cassidy talked about her long journey as

Amazon has announced that its second US headquarters will be split between two cities, with smaller-than-expected new offices in the New York borough of Queens and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia. The announcement caps a year of deliberations that saw over 200 frenzied proposals offering billions in incentives to the e-commerce giant. Amazon had previously promised that the development would bring 50,000 jobs to the state of its choice, along with $5 billion of capital spending.The

Hackers were able to compromise Target’s Twitter account early this morning for use in a bitcoin scam that has been ramping up over the past few months.This isn’t an isolated event, either. The scammers started by making fake accounts impersonating Elon Musk, an act that is against Twitter’s Terms of Service. The accounts would post scammy links under Musk’s tweets that asked users to send a small amount of bitcoin in order to receive a larger amount. It’s a confus

Cognigo, a startup that aims to use AI and machine learning to help enterprises protect their data and stay in compliance with regulations like GDPR, today announced that it has raised an $8.5 million Series A round. The round was led by Israel-based crowdfunding platform OurCrowd, with participation from privacy company Prosegur and State of Mind Ventures.
The company promises that it can help businesses protect their critical data assets and prevent personally identifiable information from lea

We’re in the thick of November, which means retailers are kicking into full gear by teasing their Black Friday deals. This time, Sam’s Club Black Friday deals have been officially announced yesterday.
Physical Sam’s Club stores will be closed on Thanksgiving this year, but they reopen at 7AM on Black Friday for customers to nab deals. At SamsClub.com, online deals begin at 12:01AM ET on Black Friday and last through November 25th. Some deals are exclusively available online, a

Snap has long resisted traditional social network profiles, arguing that a network of close friends didn’t need them. (You already know what your friends look like and where they go to school, the company said.) But today, it’s changing course — at least a little bit. Snapchat is rolling out what it calls “friendship profiles” to capture all the shared media you’ve exchanged with friends and groups in a single place. But in keeping with the company’s et

Since Pokémon: Let’s Go’s announcement, Game Freak director Junichi Masuda has hammered home a single point: this is not your typical Pokémon role-playing game. Instead, it’s a softer, more approachable version. The kind of game meant to capture the attention of younger audiences who never experienced the original games, new fans drawn into the series by Pokémon Go, and older players whose nostalgia will win them over.The most surprising thing about Pok&ea

Pandora’s podcast genome project, which aims to do for podcasts what its music genome project did for music, has launched in public beta. The new initiative hopes to introduce listeners to podcasts they might enjoy based on prior listening habits, and was first announced earlier this year.
Although the project includes curated elements from an in-house team, much of the work is shared with an automated system which draws upon up to 1500 attributes to build an algorithmic picture of your p

Retail tech SaaS platform Mercauxhas closed a £3.5 million (~$4.5M) Series A funding round led by European VC fund Nauta Capital. 
The 2013 founded London-based startup sells software for retailers to tap into digital capabilities in their physical retail stores — offering a modular platform that’s intended to support digital transformations at a pace of the retailer’s choosing.
“Historically offline retail was just a sales channel. But with the rise