Technology news

Following revelations yesterday regarding the use of session replay tech among big-name travel apps that recode iPhone users’ screens, Apple is now telling developers to either remove the code responsible or disclose it to users, according to a new report from TechCrunch. The punishment for failing to do so could be as severe as having the offending app forcibly removed from the App Store.Apple confirmed to the publication that its App Store Review Guidelines prohibit this kind of activit

Valentine’s Day is coming up next week, and if you haven’t yet bought your crush or loved one or spouse a gift of appreciation, time is running out. Not saying that you have to buy a piece of tech to show some affection, but it can’t hurt.
Razer’s Blade Stealth 13.3-inch laptop is hundreds of dollars off of its usual price at Best Buy. Normally $1,699, this model is currently $1,199 at Best Buy. It’s not the latest version in the Blade Stealth series, though it has

Tesla has started making deliveries of the Model 3 in Europe, but customers who paid for the company’s Autopilot driver assistance package won’t be able to use the futuristic feature set just yet, according to the Los Angeles Times. Autopilot is currently disabled because the company is awaiting approval for the driver assistance package from RDW, the vehicle authority in the Netherlands.
Telsa announced in January that it had received “type approval” in Europe for the M

Ticketing app Gametime is taking its last-minute approach about as far as it can go, with the launch of a new feature called LastCall. This allows users to purchase tickets through Gametimeuntil 90 minutes after an event has started.
Why would you want to do that? Well, prices usually drop precipitously after the event starts — for example, Gametime said that 48 hours before a game, the median price for a Major League Baseball is (coincidentally?) $48, but it’s dropped to $13 by

Instead of making Titanfall 3, developer Respawn took the franchise in a completely different direction with Apex Legends. A free-to-play battle royale game that mashes together elements of Overwatch and Fortnite, Apex Legends was a complete surprise when it launched, but it has turned out to be a big hit early on, luring tens of millions of players. Keep up with the game as it continues to develop and grow right here.Continue reading…

If you can’t beat or join them… force feed ’em? That appears to be Instagram’slatest strategy for IGTV, which is now being shoved right into Instagram’s main feed, the company announced today. Instagram says that it will now add one-minute IGTV previews to the feed, making it “even easier” to discover and watch content from IGTV.
Uh.
IGTV, you may recall, was launched last year as a way for Instagram to woo creators. With IGTV, creators are able to shar

Apple had an idea for a future HomePod that would offer an emoji version of Siri and LED lights that could display a variety of useful information, starting with the weather. In a 2017 patent application that was made publicly available in late January, Apple threw a bunch of increasingly far-out ideas onto its request to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), as spotted by Mac Rumors.
The patent doesn’t name the HomePod specifically, but it does describe it pretty accurately as a de

Lucas Dahlin Contributor Lucas Dahlin is an associate in Goodwin’s Intellectual Property group. He focuses his practice on complex intellectual property matters, with a particular experience in patent and trade-secret litigation.Julius Jefferson Contributor Julius Jefferson is an associate in Goodwin’s IP Litigation group. Prior to joining Goodwin, he clerked for judges of the District of Delaware and of the Eastern District of Texas. Before attending law school, Julius was a Resear

Spoiler warning: this review reveals important ending details from the original 2014 Lego Movie.
The most innovative, daringly different hit projects face two major downsides: the backers are going to want sequels, and the more distinctive a project is, the higher the difficulty level on that sequel. Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 2014 blockbuster The Lego Movie is an excellent case in point. The entire idea of a Lego-based movie looked like the baldest, most mercenary toy-commercial setup

Apple is telling app developers to remove or properly disclose their use of analytics code that allows them to record how a user interacts with their iPhone apps — or face removal from the app store, TechCrunch can confirm.
In an email, an Apple spokesperson said: “Protecting user privacy is paramount in the Apple ecosystem. Our App Store Review Guidelines require that apps request explicit user consent and provide a clear visual indication when recording, logging, or otherwise

Developer Respawn believed that it was “putting a lot on the line” with the surprise launch of Apex Legends, but it looks like the decision was the right one: just three days after launch, the game has reached 10 million players. Fortnite, in comparison, took two weeks to hit the same milestone.
“We knew it would be risky to take the franchise in this direction, to go free to play, and do a surprise launch,” Respawn CEO Vince Zampella wrote in a blog post. “But we

Writer-director Woody Allen filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon Studios today. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Allen claims the company breached its contract with him when it declined to release four of his films.
“Seeking to capitalize on Mr. Allen’s international stature, talent, and track record, Amazon—a technology giant but Hollywood novice—sought to develop its nascent entertainment studio by entering into a series of deals with Mr. Allen

It’s amazing, and yet should surprise no one, that this country’s elected representatives can be either so cynical or so ignorant that two decades into the net neutrality debate, the basics still elude them. Today’s hearing in the House saw members of Congress airing musty arguments and grandstanding generically as if they had just been informed of the internet this week.
The hearing today at the House Energy and Commerce committee was entitled “Preserving an Open Interne

Holding company IACjust released its fourth quarter earnings report, which includes positive numbers for Dotdash, the rebranded company formerly known as About.com — revenue increased 32 percent in the quarter (to $40.2 million), and it was up 44 percent (to $131 million) for the fiscal year.
This comes after big layoff announcements from BuzzFeed, Vice and Verizon Media Group (which owns TechCrunch).
Unlike those companies — and unlike The New York Times, which actually seems to be

Spotify is now explicitly banning ad blockers, as stated in an updated Terms of Service policy sent out today. The new rules specifically state that “circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service” can result in immediate termination or suspension of your account.
The service already takes significant measures to limit ad blockers. In a DigiDay report from last August, a Spoti

Raspberry Pi — makers of everyone’s favorite miniature computers — has opened its first physical retail store today in Cambridge, UK, via VentureBeat.Previously, if you wanted to buy a Raspberry Pi, you probably got it online from Amazon or an authorized Pi reseller, like Adafruit, but physical stores in which to buy them remained few and far between.And the Raspberry Pi Foundation looks to be going a step further with its store and borrowing from Apple’s book, marketing

In letters sent today, three Senators criticized controversial research apps used by Facebook and Google. The letters questioned the companies on the scope of their research, and asked Apple questions about how the company polices its App Store.
Last week, TechCrunch revealed that Facebook was paying people between the ages of 13 and 25 up to $20 a month to install an invasive research app that logged phone data. Soon after, the outlet noted similar activity from Google, and in response, Apple

Kingdom Hearts III is finally here after more than 20 years of waiting from an absurdly patient fanbase. To celebrate the achievement, Sony has released a limited-edition Series A Walkman.The Walkman, one of Sony’s flagship portable music players, can be seen in the tweet below. It’s not a new product by any means — the first Walkman was released in 1979 and built for cassette players. This version, the NW-A55, is Sony’s digital model of the device. It can hold up to 16G

Apple released iOS 12.1.4 today to fix a major security flaw in FaceTime that allowed people to eavesdrop on iPhone users. The bug was originally reported to Apple by Michele Thompson after her 14-year-old son, Grant, discovered that you could add yourself to a Group FaceTime call and force recipients to answer immediately. Apple was initially slow to respond, but the company has now credited the discovery to Grant Thompson of Catalina Foothills High School.Apple also tells The Verge that it&rs

Netflix’s Smart Downloads feature, which launched on Android last year, is coming to iOS. The feature, which can be toggled on and off from the Downloads section of the app, automatically deletes each downloaded episode as you watch them. When you’re connected to Wi-Fi, it will also download the next episode in the series.Netflix says that the feature is meant to save you the time and effort of going through your old files and manually clearing them out, and to allow you to start wa

One of the last major holdouts in adding Android Auto compatibility has finally caved. Toyota announced on Thursday that the 2020 models of the 4Runner, Tacoma, Tundra, and Sequoia will feature Android Auto. The 2018 Aygo and the 2019 Yaris (in Europe) will also get Android Auto.Toyota was one of the last big automakers to build CarPlay compatibility into its cars, too. The company announced in January 2018 that CarPlay would come to the 2019 Avalon. After that, it spread to the company’s

Sandwich-maker Jimmy John’s is positioning itself as the first national restaurant chain to come out publicly against third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats, GrubHub, and Door Dash. The company unveiled a new marketing campaign Thursday in which it vows never to use delivery apps, calling them notoriously unreliable, and lauding itself for bucking an industry trend.“We want to control the experience from the fresh prep to the hand off to the customer,” said James North, CEO

Google Fiber’s attempt to roll out its gigabit internet across the city of Louisville, Kentucky has apparently failed so spectacularly that the company has decided to completely shut down the service and leave town altogether. CNET has a report on the news, which Alphabet’s Access division confirmed in a blog post on Thursday. “We’ll work with our customers and partners to minimize disruption, and we’re committed to doing right by the community, which welcomed us a

Europe’s next Mars rover, slated to launch next year, will be named after noted scientist Rosalind Franklin, whose work led to the discovery of the structure of DNA.Last July, the UK’s space agency announced a competition to name the rover, which is scheduled to launch in 2020 as part of the ongoing ExoMars mission. People from across the European Union submitted 36,000 names for consideration and the winning name, Rosalind Franklin, was selected by a panel of experts. British astro

Earlier this week, Slack announced that it has filed the paperwork to go public at some point later this year. The big question is, will the company exit into the public markets as expected, or will one of the technology giants swoop in at the last minute with buckets of cash and take them off the market?
Slack,which raised more than $1 billion on an other-worldly $7 billion valuation, is an interesting property. It has managed to grow and be successful while competing with some of the world&rsq

To better measure aptitude of applicants, online career marketplace Hiredhas acquired Py, which helps companies like Opendoorand Niantic identify talent with app-based interactive courses on Python, iOS development and more.
As part of the deal, Hired will launch a new feature called Hired Assessments, leveraging tools from the Pyplatform, as well as a tiered subscription model. The base-level package, called Hired Essential, will provide enhanced search functionality, tools to help candidates a

Shortly after closing a $100 million pre-IPO round, food delivery business Postmates has confidentially filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an upcoming public offering, Bloomberg first reported and the company confirmed in a blog post.
The company will debut on the stock exchange at a more than $1.85 billion valuation — the valuation it garnered with its $100 million round in January. In total, Postmateshas raised $681 million in venture capital f

Instagram today announced that IGTV previews will begin showing up in users’ main feeds starting today. Ideally, you would have to tap the one-minute previews to go watch the full video in IGTV, something I can’t imagine anyone would want to do voluntarily.
Instagram first introduced its vertical-video platform last June as a standalone app, and since then, the company has been aggressively pushing its content by integrating IGTV into the main app, putting IGTV videos in the Explore

Epic today announced that it’s much-anticipated account merge feature for console players is finally live. If you head to this page here, you’ll get a rundown of how it works and what the special conditions are to ensure everything goes smoothly and you don’t end up getting locked out of one of your accounts. To be clear, this is only going to be useful if you have V-Bucks, Fortnite’s in-game currency, or any collectibles like skins or emotes that are locked to another p

There are few things more meta than a PC game where you build your own PC. PC Building Simulator, which is now available on Steam after a period of early access, gives you the experience of being a one-person PC-building workshop, juggling moody customers with various demands. Your tasks could be as simple as blowing dust out of an older computer and scanning for viruses or, as you level up, it could be to build an entire PC from scratch.
If you’re not a PC-building aficionado, the game s