Technology news

A report from Japanese business daily Nikkei claims Nintendo is developing a smaller, cheaper version of its Switch console. The rumored Switch will focus on portability, and it will cut some features to bring the price down, but it’s not yet known what those features might be.The Nikkei report, translated by Nintendo Everything, states that Nintendo has begun working with multiple suppliers and game development companies, informing them that the console could be released as early as 2019

One of EV startup NIO’s cars got stuck on a highway in China on Wednesday after the driver triggered an over-the-air software update, according to Bloomberg and the South China Morning Post. The driver, who was testing the car, and a NIO representative were wading through Beijing’s notorious traffic when the update was triggered. They wound up inside for “more than an hour” after the process began, SCMP says.The NIO representative who was stuck in the car said on Chinese

Kanye West has settled a lawsuit with a fan who sued the artist in 2016 over false claims that The Life of Pablo would be available to stream exclusively on Tidal. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, according to court documents, but all charges involved have been dropped.The court documents specifically state that Justin Baker-Rhett (plaintiff) and West, “hereby stipulate and agree to the dismissal of Plaintiff’s individual claims with prejudice and the putative class&r

Sometimes, it just feels like there’s nothing urgent to watch on Netflix. If the latest titles coming to the service aren’t your cup of tea, or if Hulu has simply won the subscription battle, you always have other options. February is the month of romance and remembering black history, but this month, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and HBO Now are mainly serving up adventure, horror, and superheroes.
Amazon Prime is launching its original series Agatha Christie Presents: The ABC Murders, inspi

“KP used to be a small team doing hands-on company building. We’re moving away from being this institution with multiple products and really just focusing on early-stage venture capital,” Kleiner Perkinspartner Ilya Fushman tells me. Indeed, 47 years after its founding, the storied venture fund is going “back to the future” with today’s announcement of an 18th fund — a $600 million fund for seed, Series A and Series B financings. It’s investing acr

Amazon continues to make loads of money, and last holiday quarter was no different. The company’s fourth-quarter earnings exceeded investor expectations with profit of just over $3 billion on sales of $72.4 billion, a 20 percent increase year-over-year revenue. For Amazon, 2018 was a year of immense growth, and the tech giant capped it off with huge sales from Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and general holiday promotions that lasted through December.
Amazon gave scarce details on which produ

Apple has now shut down Google’s ability to distribute its internal iOS apps, following a similar shutdown that was issued to Facebook earlier this week. A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Google Maps, Hangouts, Gmail, and other pre-release beta apps have stopped working today, alongside employee-only apps like a Gbus app for transportation and Google’s internal cafe app.
“We’re working with Apple to fix a temporary disruption to

Today, Facebook removed nearly 800 accounts that were engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior originating in Iran and operated in a number of other countries across the world.In total, Facebook identified 262 pages, 356 accounts, and three groups that were involved in the coordinated inauthentic behavior by Iran. There were 162 Instagram accounts that were identified as well. Facebook would not confirm that the accounts were created by the Iranian government. No related behavior was found o

Old music technology has been making a comeback with sales for vinyl, cassette tapes, and analog synths increasing over the past few years, but one musician is leaning into our collective retro embrace in an unusual way. Serbian techno DJ Remute’s forthcoming LP, Technoptimistic, was programmed entirely using the sound chip for ‘90s game console Sega Genesis. And, it’s being released on a Sega Mega Drive cartridge.
This isn’t Remute’s first foray into unusual music

Today’s best deals include a $50 discount on the excellent Sony 1000XM3 wireless, noise-canceling headphones. Normally $339.99 at Rakuten ($349.99 everywhere else), these are rare savings that don’t pop up often. If you’re in the market for PC accessories, like mice, keyboards, and headsets, you’ll want to check out Amazon’s markdown on several Logitech products.
Below, you’ll find a few other deals that we think are worth your attention:
Call of Duty: Black

It’s taken a few months, but Facebook has finally updated its iOS apps to support the higher resolutions of the larger iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR phones that Apple released last fall, allowing Facebook to run at the device’s native resolution instead of just scaling up the iPhone XS-sized one, via 9to5Mac.
The update also adds support for the larger screen sizes on the newest 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models that were released last fall by removing the black bars that the app

Sony’s 1000XM3 are the best wireless noise-canceling headphones you can get, and today they’re discounted to $290 at Rakuten with the offer code PRO50. These headphones rarely wiggle down from their usual $350 price, and Rakuten already offers them at about $10 lower than other retailers, so an extra $50 discount on top of that is a great opportunity to save. This deal expires at 11:59 PM on February 3rd, or once stock runs through.
In addition to leading noise-cancellation performa

In today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month is a monthly look at what some of those buttons and switches are like on devices old and new, and aims to appreciate how we interact with our devices on a physical, tactile level.
As a way to control video games, the touchpad on the PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller is a failure.Sony has long used the PlayStation controller as a place to in

Verizon is the first major US carrier to offer one of HMD Global’s Nokia phones, launching a custom version of the Nokia 2.1 starting today. Verizon’s version, called the Nokia 2 V Prepaid, is one of the few Android Oreo Go phones sold in the US. Android Go devices are low-cost phones usually reserved for countries like China and India, and for people with limited internet connectivity.The Nokia 2 V has a basic spec list, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor and 1GB of RAM. Ther

One of the biggest problems with fast-paced e-sports like Overwatch is that it can be tough to follow the action; there’s just so much happening all at once. For the second season of the Overwatch League, which kicks off next month, Blizzard and Twitch have partnered for a robust new spectating tool that should make matches much easier to understand.Called the “command center,” the tool lets you watch games from multiple viewpoints, switching between them at will. They include

Disney’s upcoming Star Wars theme parks, Galaxy’s Edge, are shaping up to be major expansions for its theme parks in Florida and California that are firmly grounded in the Star Wars canon, tying into the larger saga that we’ve seen in the films. StarWars.com announced that Phasma author Delilah S. Dawson will write a prequel novel for the experience called Black Spire.
The book will be part of a larger package of in-universe additions that will flesh out the story about the pl

A streaming service called Locast is trying to revive the dream of Aereo — the legally defeated company that let you stream broadcast TV networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox for a monthly fee — by trying out a different legal approach: giving the whole thing away for free.
Locast, which is highlighted in The New York Times today, is a nonprofit, and it believes that nonprofit status lets it take advantage of an exemption in copyright law that allows for broadcast TV networks to be f

Hulu is preparing to roll out a new advertising format that users will notice when they pause a video.The new advertising unit isn’t a video, like Hulu subscribers are accustomed to, but is similar to a pop-up. When a user pauses a video, an image will appear on-screen that acts as a transparent banner ad. An example can be seen above.Vice president and head of advertising platforms Jeremy Helfand told TechCrunch the new ad format is like “a car billboard on the side of the road&rdq

The UltraViolet digital locker service is going away, but if you currently have a library of videos and TV shows on the service, there’s no need to panic. As long as your account is linked to at least one retailer, your library should be safe.
We say “should be” because, as this is being written, it looks like UltraViolet hasn’t quite finalized all the details yet. Currently, if you live in the US and are linked to at least one of five retailers — Fandango Now, Kal

Uber customers who live in Denver may notice something strange when they open the company’s app today: a tiny train car with the word “transit” next to it, sitting atop the list of usual ride-hailing options. A quick tap produces a list of bus or train routes as well as the expected fare price and end-to-end directions. It’s the first example of Uber’s year-long effort to integrate public transportation options into its app.According to the company’s transit

Oral arguments will begin tomorrow for one of the most important cases in internet law history. The case will be heard in a Washington, DC courtroom, as a group of net neutrality defenders squares off with the Federal Communications Commission in a legal battle to decide the rules of the web.When the FCC, led by a Republican majority, moved in late 2017 to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules, it kicked off a fight on several fronts. There’s been some pressure on congressional lawmakers

Amazon Prime Video is an increasingly popular on-demand streaming service that hosts thousands of popular movies, TV shows, and award-winning Prime Originals. Just in case you don't have all the facts, allow us to explain. 
Amazon Prime costs £79 a year in the UK and offers one-day delivery, music, and Amazon Prime Video. You can pay for the whole package in one lump sum or pay monthly instead at a cost of £7.99 a month, which comes to £95.88 each year. That's the basics c

Amazon Prime Video is an increasingly popular on-demand streaming service that hosts thousands of popular movies, TV shows, and award-winning Prime Originals. In case you don't have all the facts memorised, allow us to explain. 
Let's start with the basicsAmazon Prime costs £79 a year in the UK and offers one-day delivery, music, and Amazon Prime Video. You can pay for the whole package in one lump sum or pay monthly instead at a cost of £7.99 a month, which comes to £95.8

Amazon Prime Video is the popular on-demand streaming service that hosts literally thousands of hit movies, TV shows, and award-winning Prime Originals.
Amazon Prime is priced at £79 per year and offers one-day delivery, unlimited music, and Amazon Prime Video. You can pay for the whole package in one lump sum or pay monthly at a cost of £7.99 a month, which comes to £95.88 each year. 
You can also get a 30-day free Amazon Prime trial if you are a new customer, which lets

Amazon Prime Video is the seriously popular on-demand streaming service that hosts literally thousands of hit movies, TV shows, and award-winning Prime Originals.
Amazon Prime is priced at £79 per year and offers one-day delivery, unlimited music, and Amazon Prime Video. You can pay for the whole package in one lump sum or pay monthly at a cost of £7.99 a month, which comes to almost £100 each year. You can also get a 30-day free Amazon Prime trial if you are a new customer, wh

Volkswagen revealed its new electric dune buggy concept vehicle, a modern reinterpretation of the classic American dune buggies that were first created in the 1960s. Like the original dune buggies, which were made from modified parts taken from VW Beetles, the concept vehicle is based on the ”MEB” platform that will power Volkswagen’s forthcoming lineup of electric vehicles.
The MEB acronym comes from Volkswagen’s native German, “Modulare E-Antriebs-Baukasten,&rdqu

In 2017, Chicago Public Radio program This American Life aired an episode called “We Are in the Future,” which explored the nature of Afrofuturism, a strain of science fiction that addresses the intersection between the larger African diaspora and technology across mediums. The episode followed producer Neil Drumming as he covered the topic and also commissioned a song called “The Deep” from experimental hip-hop group Clipping. This June, the band’s song will be tu

We’ve got what seems to be another good look at Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S10 Plus. This time, the leak comes from 91Mobiles, which claims these are official press images.
What we can see here lines up with earlier leaks at the S10 Plus, showing an extra-wide, dual-lens hole-punch camera in the top right of the display and a strip of lenses and flash modules on the rear. The icons on the lock screen also match previous images, suggesting that Samsung is updating its UI in 2019 with

Another cryptocurrency startup is laying off staff and restructuring its business entirely. This week, it’s the group behind the NEM blockchain and its token, XEM, and of course, it’s the bear market‘s fault. The news was shared in a wordy statement from the NEM Foundation, a non-profit. Unsurprisingly, it held the cryptocurrency market downturn responsible, even while describing its shoddy spending practices. “The XEM exchange rate has suffered catastrophic dr

We’ve all heard the trope cryptocurrencers use to push their utopian dream on us; having the ability to buy your morning coffee with Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency. But I’ve been wondering where this incessant need to “caffeinate by cryptocurrency” came from? Is it really a good thing? I don’t even drink coffee, so what am I supposed to buy every morning with my cryptocurrency? Why is everyone so keen on buying coffee with cryptocurrency? Hard Fork asked some

Two years ago, fantasy author Myke Cole announced The Armored Saint, the first book in a new trilogy that would break pace with his usual work, switching from writing modern, military urban fantasies to something more in the vein of George R.R. Martin or Joe Abercrombie, with all the swords and sorcery that one expects in a modern fantasy book.
Spoilers ahead for the first two books in the Sacred Throne trilogy.The first two installments of the series — The Armored Saint and The Queen of

With less than 100 days to go, TNW2019 is really ramping up. We already have over 50 confirmed speakers from companies like Bynder, Google, and eToro, all coming to discuss the future of technology on May 9 and 10 in Amsterdam. We also recently announced the 11 tracks we’ll be exploring – whether it’s marketing or machine learning that interests you, we have it all conveniently categorized. To help you find talks you’ll love, here are some new speakers we’ve announ

PC accessories, like mice, keyboards, and headsets, can be pricey investments, but several options from Logitech are discounted today on Amazon. Many are from Logitech’s G series of gaming accessories, though the selection includes gear that’s more subdued in design as well.
The Logitech G703 wireless gaming mouse is excellent if you’re on a budget. It has rubberized sides that allow for a steady grip, optional weights for better control, a slick design, and it can even charge