Technology news

First it was T-Mobile’s turn, then it was Verizon’s, and now it’s Sprint’s chance to make fun of AT&T’s decision to mislead its customers and apply a “5G E” label to phones that aren’t actually connected to a 5G network.“AT&T is blatantly misleading consumers,” Sprint CTO John Saw said in a statement sent to Engadget. “5GE is not real 5G.” Sprint said it would market “real 5G that is standards-based” in

Those boycotting Trump's national address on border security Tuesday night have plenty of alternative viewing options. It's primetime, after all. 
But if you're still looking for something else to watch, Stormy Daniels will also be folding laundry in her underwear for eight minutes on Instagram Live.If you're looking for anything even remotely worth watching tonight at 9pm EST, I will be folding laundry in my underwear for 8 minutes on Instagram livehttps://t.co/GhMowscZMP
— Stormy Da

Flash drives are good. Bigger flash drives are better. At CES 2019, SanDisk has the biggest flash drive ever: an absolutely massive 4TB prototype USB-C drive that can still fit in your pocket.
The drive doesn’t have a name, much less actual specifications like a price tag or a release date. I’m also not even sure if it’s fair to call it a flash drive, considering that it has an integrated USB-C cable that puts this more on the side of “very small SSD” than “v

Google is rolling out its first monthly update in 2019 for its flagship Android devices. The only listed change is a bug fix addressing an audio quality issue on both models of the Pixel 3 that occurs while recording video, as reported by users on Reddit.Meanwhile, the Pixel 2 / 2 XL, Pixel / XL, and Pixel C are also receiving January updates to patch security vulnerabilities and generally just keep up shop. I received the update late last night on a Pixel 3XL unit that was having some stabilit

LAS VEGAS—If you have $5,000 you can own a supercharged Windows 10 workstation.
The Cemtrex SmartDesk contains three touch-screen monitors, sensors that can let you control your PC with hand gestures, and a wireless phone charger that sits on the side.
We saw the workstation here at CES. It comes integrated with a keyboard, trackpad, document scanner, speakerS, and a web camera, all in a polished frame that's accessible whether you're sitting or standing.Image:pcmagUS-based Cemtrex says th

There's a problem with those calls to Delete Facebook: some people physically can't.
Some Samsung smartphone owners have found that they're unable to remove the pre-loaded Facebook app from their phones, according to a new report from Bloomberg. That's concerning for people who are trying to remove the mammoth social media app from their lives, either because they no longer enjoy it, or because they're concerned about their privacy and security. 
SEE ALSO: Zuckerberg's 2019 resolution: a bu

YouTube was partially down for an hour and a half today, preventing users and creators around the world from watching and uploading videos.
The outage appeared to start around 3:10PM ET and was fixed at 4:40PM ET. YouTube first alerted users to the issue on Twitter around 3:30PM ET.“If YouTube isn’t loading for you or you’re seeing error messages on the site — we’re on it,” the company’s support account tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “More updates to

YouTube is experiencing a worldwide outage that’s affecting some users, but the company is actively working on a solution.
“If YouTube isn’t loading for you or you’re seeing error messages on the site — we’re on it,” the company’s support account tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “More updates to follow.”YouTube users and creators from around the world first started tweeting about the site going down around 3:15PM ET. Unlike the last major Yo

Every year, Mark Zuckerberg announces his New Year’s resolution. In years past, he’s decided to tackle more inconspicuous tasks: learning Mandarin and traveling the entire country. But in 2019, he wants to be more ambitious by tackling big questions surrounding technology’s place in our world.And he plans to ask those questions on his companies’ platforms for everyone to see, perhaps speaking alongside other Silicon Valley executives.
“My challenge for 2019 is to h

Fluorescent lights. Sweaty treadmills. The pungent stench of perspiring persons who, apparently, haven't yet heard the news that deodorant exists.
You could spend an hour of every day amid that triple threat of ickiness inside your local gym — or, you know, you could just go outside more. Some experts have gone so far as to recommend making "spending time outdoors" your top New Year's resolution, as being in nature and getting fresh air — even for just a few minutes — can do wo

A password for Netflix or HBO Go can be a precious thing that’s offered to a romantic partner or gifted from a family member (and saved for future use). But for UK company Synamedia, a password like that is a password to be hunted down. At CES this year, the firm unveiled a new service that uses machine learning to spot shared passwords.It works like this: a streaming service buys access to Synamedia’s platform, which analyzes data from all its users. It looks at a range of factors,

Google has introduced a small, but helpful feature in Docs for G Suite customers. You can now embed Google Drawings that are saved in Drive directly into a Google Doc.Previously, you couldn’t embed an existing Google Drawing within a Google Doc — drawings had to be manually created within the document. Now, in the “Insert” drop-down menu, the option for “Drawing” will let you either select “New” or “From Drive,” allowing you to navigat

On a December afternoon seven years ago, I showed up on the doorstep of Carrier IQ totally unannounced. The controversial company had been accused of providing AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile with the means to track users’ phones and log their personal data using a secret app that users couldn’t remove. (I was naïve enough to think that I’d crack that wide open just by showing up.)
At the time, Carrier IQ was a scandal that appeared to be getting resolved by device makers

If recommendations on YouTube’s homepage seemed a little off these past few days, that’s because something weird was definitely happening, according to the company.YouTube’s product team responded to one of many threads on a popular YouTube subreddit where people were complaining about the recommended videos being offered to them on the main homepage. Videos from five or six years ago littered the homepage, alongside gaming live streams. A YouTube representative responded to c

As the government shutdown continues into its 18th day, some TSA screeners are quitting their jobs and calling out sick, not knowing when they will receive their next paychecks, according to a union representing the TSA. The union sued the federal government last week on behalf of its members.
More than 50,000 people are employed by the agency and won’t get paid until the federal government reopens. Security lines are generally longer following the holidays, but flyers and staff have been

The Vergecast crew is at the Consumer Electronics Show, so we recorded an episode late last night to discuss everything that happened so far at the “world’s biggest tech event” — most notably, the TV news. The big television companies are bringing AirPlay 2, HomeKit, and even iTunes to their products, which makes Apple a big part of the conversation for TVs this year.Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Ashley Carman, and Vlad Savov also break down the “silly CES stuff”

This is an AirPods case that’s also a fidget spinner.I’ll let that sink in for a sec.
The fidget spinner was supposed to be comfortably resting in its grave back in 2017, but a company has just made the first spinning case for AirPods. The ZenPod is made by Air Vinyl, a company known for making AirPod cases. It’s a leather case with a polycarbonate frame and, yes, a built-in anodized aluminum spinner with steel bearings.
It was impossible to escape fidget spinners in 2017. Mar

The sex toy company Lora DiCarlo had planned to present its debut product at CES this week alongside a plaque for winning one of the show’s Innovation Awards. But neither of those things happened — the organizers behind CES revoked the award and the company’s ability to exhibit at the show, then gave a bunch of ridiculous reasons for why it happened.
Lora DiCarlo’s first product, the Osé Robotic Massager, won the “honoree” designation in the robotics a

Google is making a play to grow the Google Assistant ecosystem with more gadgets, called Google Assistant Connect. The idea is that manufacturers can create bespoke little devices that serve specific functions that are integrated with and controlled by the Assistant. The demo that Google is showing off today is a clever little E Ink display. It can show the weather or other information, but it isn’t a full-fledged smart speaker.
Essentially, what this enables is the creation of smart gadg

Lenovo has experimented with slimming down its Yoga display bezels over the years, with varying degrees of success. The Yoga 910 attempted it back in 2016, but it kept a huge chin that really spoiled the look. That same chin persisted on the Yoga 920 and even last year’s Yoga C930, but Lenovo is finally removing it for its 2019 Yoga.
Lenovo’s new Yoga S940 is all about its display. Lenovo is using a 13.9-inch panel that will ship in either a 4K variant with HDR400 support or 1080p m

Amazon’s philosophy on the smart home — put Alexa in literally everything, even the most mundane of products — is pushing Google and its hardware partners to develop similar devices with very narrow use cases. Today, Lenovo announced its new Smart Clock, an essentially smaller version of its Smart Display that features Google Assistant.It is mostly designed to tell you the time and get you up in the morning, but it also does a whole lot of other things, too: it can charge your

Lenovo has a new type of Yoga ready for CES 2019 this week, and it’s clearly inspired by Microsoft’s Surface Studio. The new Yoga A940 is a 27-inch all-in-one PC with a hinge that allows its display to adjust to a drawing mode just like the Surface Studio. Lenovo is also targeting this machine toward content creators, with a stylus and a “precision dial” at the side of the display that can be used to manipulate and adjust content.
The 27-inch display is available in QHD

Google Assistant is already on numerous TVs, but Google is deepening its integration with cable and satellite providers. It says we’ll see the result of those efforts starting “later this year.” Dish has announced that it’s building Assistant directly into its family of Hopper receivers and DVRs. The company has already been supporting Assistant voice commands from external devices, but this is much more convenient from the customer’s perspective, and you won&rsquo

Warning: spoilers ahead for some of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’s final endings.
Almost as soon as Netflix’s interactive Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch hit the streaming service on December 28th, internet detectives were racing through the story, trying to map the branches and discover all the available endings to the choose-your-own-adventure narrative. And shortly after that, viewers began taking to social media with mostly joking complaints about the resolutions they didn&rsquo

Udelv, a self-driving delivery startup, announced that it was teaming up with Walmart to pilot an autonomous grocery delivery service. The Burlingame, California-based company said it was also partnering with Baidu to pilot the Chinese search giant’s latest autonomous driving open platform, Apollo 3.5.It’s the latest in a series of announcements centered on the use of autonomous vehicles in last-mile delivery scenarios, underscoring a core truth about the future: it’s risky to

Amazon is sending out free samples, tailor-made to users’ tastes with the help of their purchasing history, Axios reported earlier today. It’s unclear how long the company has been piloting this program, but it could become a larger part of its overall advertising strategy.
The samples are part of a partnership between Amazon and select brands that allows the brands to send users free samples, hoping they will spur further purchases. The product sampling website went up in December,

A 20-year-old German student has reportedly confessed to leaking the private data of around 1,000 politicians, journalists, and entertainers because he was “angry with the public statements” of his targets. German cybercrime office prosecutor Georg Ungefuk told reporters that police arrested the unnamed suspect and searched his apartment on Sunday. The man reportedly confessed during an interrogation, saying that he was not politically motivated and had acted alone. He has since bee

Olay came to CES to scare conference-goers into taking care of their skin. Well, not exactly, but that’s what happened to me when I tried their “Future You Simulation” app, which already launched in Asia but is coming to the US this year.
I took a selfie on the company’s iPad, entered my age and ethnicity, and then waited as the company aged my photo based on an image database it’s amassed of people ranging in ages up to 80 years old. All humans, regardless of ethn

London’s Heathrow Airport halted departure flights after a possible drone sighting, the airport announced on Twitter.
“We are responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow and are working closely with the Met Police to prevent any threat to operational safety,” read the tweet. “As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause.”
We are responding to a drone sighting at Heathrow

Year after year after year, Dell’s XPS 13 has consistently been one of the best laptops around, with fast processors, good battery life, and its pioneered bezel-less design, but there was always one massive, glaring flaw, going back all the way to the original 2015 model: the terrible webcam placement which, due to the tiny bezels, has been forced to be stuck underneath the screen, giving viewers a lovely, nose-hair view of your face during conference calls.Praises be unto Dell and its R&

The two most in-demand features in modern headphones are wireless playback and active noise cancellation (ANC), and Audio-Technica is addressing both with the launch of three new sets of headphones at CES 2019.Audio-Technica ATH-ANC900BT
At the top of the range is the ATH-ANC900BT, which you can think of as Audio-Technica’s answer to the Sony 1000X M3 and Bose QC 35 II. The noise canceling of this device has three separate modes, and you’ll be able to adjust the intensity for yourse

Amazon has reportedly acquired Israeli disaster recovery startup CloudEndure. Neither company has responded to our request for confirmation, but we have heard from multiple sources that the deal has happened. While some outlets have been reporting the deal was worth $250 million, we are hearing it’s closer to $200 million.
Note: After we published, CloudEndure confirmedon its website, that it has been acquired by AWS.
The company provides disaster recovery for cloud customer

Amazon has reportedly acquired Israeli disaster recovery startup CloudEndure. Neither company has responded to our request for confirmation, but we have heard from multiple sources that the deal has happened. While some outlets have been reporting the deal was worth $250 million, we are hearing it’s closer to $200 million.
The company provides disaster recovery for cloud customers. You may be thinking that disaster recovery is precisely why we put our trust in cloud vendors. If s

Tablo’s DVR boxes will soon be able to automatically skip the ad breaks in your antenna TV recordings, its manufacturer Nuvyyo has announced, according to Variety. The skipping will happen without you having to do anything. As you watch, the DVR will automatically skip to the end of the break when it detects that one has started. The new functionality will enter a testing phase this quarter, and the company intends to have it ready for a full release in the coming months.The functionality

Hulu now has more than 25 million subscribers, a nearly 50 percent annual increase, as the streaming service greatly expanded its content library.Hulu attributes part of that growth to its exclusive content offerings and not just original series. Older hit series like ER, Lost, Bob’s Burgers, and 30 Rock are only available on Hulu, as it has started purchasing the rights away from Netflix. A study by the research firm 7Park Data published in April 2018 found that 97 percent of streams by

CES and Apple don’t usually go together, but anything goes so far in 2019. Apple announced that it will bring AirPlay 2 and HomeKit compatibility to several televisions in 2019, spanning models from manufacturers like Samsung (its new TVs will have iTunes built in, though they will lack HomeKit support) LG, Sony, and Vizio. Not in the market for a new TV? If you bought your television within the past year or two, there’s a slim chance that it could get AirPlay 2.Beyond making it eas

Yubico has announced a new version of its popular Security Key for use in Lightning ports, the first such device to enable physical token authentication for iPhones. The device also supports a USB-C connection.
Previously, the only way to connect a security key to an iPhone was over Bluetooth, which suffered Bluetooth’s normal usability issues as well as potential security concerns around mistaken pairings. Android devices can also pair over NFC, but that functionality is impossible under

Amazon’s Alexa got a head start on its smart home invasion compared to its primary competitor Google, and that early lead has extended beyond the home. Now, Google is aggressively pushing to catch up by partnering with third-party brands to further extend the reach of Google Assistant. One new area is connected car tech, which is served by a scattershot approach that involves often wonky built-in car infotainment systems, Apple’s CarPlay, Google’s Android Auto, and now Alexa a

Comcast has announced a new service as part of its Xfinity xFi internet platform at CES 2019: xFi Advanced Security, a new $5.99 per month subscription that offers additional security protection on your network, including automatically blocking suspicious activity and quarantining devices.
Offering improved safeguards on less secure internet-connected devices, like smart home gadgets
According to Comcast, xFi Advanced Security works using machine learning technology, which analyzes users’