Technology news

The brilliant minds at Google’s sister-company Deepmind are at it again. This time it appears they’ve developed a system by which driverless cars can navigate the same way humans do: by following directions. A long time ago, before the millenials were born, people had to drive in their cars without any form of GPS navigation. If you wanted to go some place new you used a paper map – they were like offline screenshots of a Google Maps image. Or someone gave you a list of direct

In the eternal, unresolvable Mexican standoff between gamers and game-makers, reviews are both a tool and a weapon. And when gamers use them offensively en masse, it often leads to massive changes — both for good and for ill. Two recent cases of such “review bombing” have showcased both extremes of the spectrum, with gamers using Steam reviews to lodge both legitimate grievances and petty complaints. The question being, how do you tell which one is which? And how should the re

Google’s March security update for Pixel phones also includes some much-needed functional improvements for the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, as noted by Android Police. The company seems to have heard complaints from users about its latest phones becoming sluggish over time — especially the camera app. This month’s update promises to improve startup times and general responsiveness for the Pixel 3’s camera app.The March update also “improves storage performance on Pixel 3 devi

Over 300 million private messages from Chinese users on popular messaging apps were sitting exposed on the internet on Saturday, according to security researcher Victor Gevers, who works for the nonprofit organization GDI. The database of 364 million records left users’ personal identities searchable to anyone who found the IP address, as reported by the Financial Times.
Each record, drawn from apps like WeChat and QQ, also contained personally identifying Chinese citizen ID numbers, phot

Google has shut down Google Photos sharing to Android TV devices today after a bug was discovered that revealed hundreds of user accounts to other users. Until the bug is resolved, Android TV owners won’t be able to set Google Photo albums as their screensaver or view pictures with Google Assistant on their set-top devices or smart TVs, as reported by Android Police.The bug was first spotted by Twitter user Prashanth who noticed that, while trying to set up a screensaver on a Vu brand TV,

The world of analog synthesizers is a paradise for DIY-types. It doesn’t matter if you can read music: half the fun’s in creating new circuits and twisting knobs just to hear what happens. That’s why we think it might be the perfect instrument for the kind of people who, as kids, got more joy out of taking apart their toys than playing with them. So what’s an analog hardware synth? Basically, a device that generates analog audio signals that are then modified to mak

Foldable phones dominated tech headlines over the past few weeks, starting with the announcement of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold just 11 short days ago. Riding this wave of the foldables, Lego is now poking fun at the upcoming Galaxy smartphone with a tweet showcasing the “Lego Fold,” — actually the company’s Pop-Up Book set, dressed up in the style of Samsung’s own marketing.
Lego is also quick to point out that its foldable actually beats Samsung’s, with a 5

When Android 9 Pie was introduced last year, it brought with it a new feature called Slices, which would allow features from third-party apps to exist within the Android interface. While you’ve been able to ask Google Assistant to toggle some things on and off for a while, the latest implementation of Slices has made it easier to access a variety of Android settings from within Google search — assuming, of course, that your Pixel is equipped with Pie.
It’s very simple: search

This morning, fresh off of a court victory that sealed its acquisition of Time Warner Inc. once and for all, AT&T announced wide-reaching changes to the structure of that company, now known as WarnerMedia. Robert Greenblatt, a former chairman at NBC Entertainment, has been brought on to run WarnerMedia Entertainment, a brand-new unit that folds Home Box Office, Inc. and Turner Broadcasting into one entity. Greenblatt will oversee HBO, TBS, TNT, and truTV. Equally as important, he’s al

Huawei’s chief financial officer filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government Friday as she fights extradition to the United States.
Meng Wanzhou’s attorneys said in a complaint, filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, that Canadian police and border agents violated Meng’s constitutional rights by delaying her arrest until after she could be searched. The officers, “under the guise of a routine border check, unlawfully subjected the Plaintiff to a detention, s

OnePlus might already be moving away from the teardrop notch on the OnePlus 6T for the company’s next flagship phone. A photo posted to Weibo (and republished by Slashleaks) shows a screen with a slim bezel running around it and no notch to be seen. There’s what looks to be a pop-up camera visible at the top left, so it seems OnePlus has chosen that approach instead of a slider mechanism for the entire phone. Think more along the lines of the Vivo Nex and less so Oppo’s Find X

Very often on the internet, you see videos where you want to laugh, but know you shouldn’t. Or you suddenly do laugh, and then feel immediately guilty afterward. I saw a video a few days ago (tweeted by @unclehxlmes) of a guy throwing cheese on a baby’s head along with “just cheesed my lil brother.” But it turns out the video was originally posted on one Charles Amara’s Facebook, where @unclehxlmes found it. You asked for it, here it is! Attack of the cheese Episod

In January, Volkswagen teased a new electric dune buggy, a modern reinterpretation of the classic American dune buggies that were first created in the 1960s. Now, the battery-powered buggy is making its global debut this week at the Geneva Motor Show, and it has a name: the I.D. Buggy, placing it alongside the automaker’s other I.D.-branded vehicles that are meant to represent VW’s all-electric future.The I.D. Buggy is at once futuristic and retro
The I.D. Buggy is at once futuristi

Some Google employees believe they found evidence that Google’s plans to launch a censored search engine — codenamed “Dragonfly” — in China are still ongoing, according to a new report from The Intercept. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai told US regulators last year that Google had “no plans” to launch the censored search engine “right now.” But some Google employees, unsatisfied and suspicious, have found internal evidence that suggests dev

This March, it’s time for a different kind of bracket: March Mammal Madness. Instead of obsessing over college basketball teams, pit furry, fuzzy organisms against each other inepic (and purely theoretical) duels to see which one comes out on top. Image: March Mammal Madness
Brackets for the 2019 edition of March Mammal Madness are available, and this year’s competitors range from the mink to the nine-banded armadillo to spinifex hopping mouse to the... dandelion. (The tournament do

Vox Media is returning to SXSW with The Deep End for the second year running, where The Verge will be joined by Vox, Recode, Polygon, SB Nation, Eater, and Curbed to feature unscripted conversations, live podcasts, musical spotlights, and good eats.You can hang out with The Verge all weekend long from March 8th–10th at The Deep End, hosted at The Belmont. If you have an SXSW badge, you’re all set to join us at 11AM CT each day. You can also RSVP here.
Stop by to listen and play. The

Many of the first devices to support 5G will be smartphones, but eventually, the technology is going to be available in a much wider range of devices. Last week at MWC, we got our first look at how that might work for computers, with AnandTech reporting that both Intel and Qualcomm were showing off 5G modems that connected to desktops or laptop machines via their M.2 sockets.
However, before you start betting on being able to plug in one of these modules for yourself and upgrade your desktop or

Today’s best deals include a site-wide discount at Rakuten, a Nokia 9 PureView bundle at B&H Photo that includes a Mophie battery pack, $20 off an extra dock for your Nintendo Switch, and more.
Rakuten is taking 15 percent off of purchases site-wide with the offer code SAVE15. This code can be used to save up to $60 on anything you purchase. It’d be wise to use the discount on products that rarely see a price drop, like the Sony 1000XM3s ($288, usually $349) wireless, noise-canc

The servers running Jibo, a connected home robot, are about to be shut down, and the robot has started informing its owners with a bittersweet message. Reporter Dylan Martin tweeted a video showing Jibo saying that its functions will soon be “limited,” but it “really enjoyed our time together.”“Thank you very, very much for having me around,” Jibo says. “Maybe someday, when robots are more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you c

Readers of this august website may recall that a year ago, I lauded Firefox and its progress toward becoming a genuine alternative to Google’s dominant Chrome browser. As much as I liked where Firefox was going, however, I couldn’t stick with it over the long term. It wasn’t compatible with everything the way Chrome was, its extensions were different, and, for my way of using a browser, it was slower and less responsive. So I returned to Chrome after a few weeks of Firefox, bu

Big four accountancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has issued a special bulletin connecting the Iranian nationals behind notorious SamSam ransomware and the incredibly infamous cryptocurrency exchange WEX (formerly BTC-e). The report alleges SamSam creators Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri used the WEX exchange service to launder sizable chunks of the $6 million in Bitcoin generated throughout their 34-month-long international hacking and extortion spr

Airlines offer special promotions and sales periodically, but JetBlue’s latest sweepstakes involves a bizarre stipulation: wipe your entire Instagram account and post a picture promoting the airline for a chance to win a free year of flights.
According to the official rules, all you have to do is post a photo with a hashtag using JetBlue’s template on a blank Instagram, and make your profile public so the people in the marketing department can see the entry before this Friday, March

The first episode of Netflix’s new horror series The Order, which premieres on March 7th, reads like a pretty straightforward supernatural drama with a touch of dark humor. The second episode starts to get a little weird, and by the third installment, the show transitions into a flat-out hilarious mashup of college and horror comedy. Like the werewolves that are featured prominently in its plot, The Order doesn’t make a particularly smooth transformation, but it’s a lot more i

Facebook has sued four Chinese companies for selling fake Facebook and Instagram accounts, alleging trademark infringement, breach of contract, and related offenses. The company announced the news on Friday, calling it “one more step in our ongoing efforts to protect people on Facebook and Instagram.” It’s an unusual move for Facebook, which says it already purges “millions” of fake accounts every day.
The lawsuit names three people and four companies based in the

We’re happy to announce TNW’s latest venture, Podium! Our staff writers work tirelessly to bring you all the latest and weirdest news in tech on our main site, TNW. But like some Bond villain once said, “the world is not enough.” That’s why we’ve launched subbrands for more in-depth and detailed coverage on certain topics, like hardware (Hey, Plugged!) and blockchain (Hard Fork, over here). Today we’re launching our newest subbrand, Podium, which will s

The new Nokia 9 PureView is $599 until March 10th; after that, it will go back up to $699. HMD Global told us as much during our hands-on with the Android phone, which comes with a quintuple-camera array. However, the best deal on the phone right now is at B&H Photo where you can get a bunch of free stuff with your purchase.
The bundle includes the Nokia 9 PureView in midnight blue with 128GB of storage as well as the Mophie 10,500mAh portable battery (charges via USB-C or Micro USB) and yo

Today, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved WebAuthn, a new authentication standard that aims to replace the password as a way of securing your online accounts. First announced last year, WebAuthn (which stands for Web Authentication) is already supported by most browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Its publication as an official web standard should pave the way for wider adoption by individual websites.At its core, WebAuthn is an API that allows websites to communicat

Budget airline AirAsia is getting into the VC game after it unveiled a venture capital fund that aims to invest in startups across the world.
The airline today announced Redbeat Capital, a $60 million fund that it says will operate independently and seek deals with startups worldwide in areas such as travel, lifestyle, fintech and logistics. The big selling point to prospective companies is the opportunity to tap into AirAsia’s business in Southeast Asia, which claims to cater to 90 millio

Volvo announced on Monday that it will be limiting the top speed on all of its vehicles to 180 km/h (112 mph) in a bid to reduce traffic fatalities. The new speed limit will be implemented on all model year 2021 cars, the company said.Volvo is framing the new policy as a key component in its Vision 2020 goal, in which no one is killed or seriously injured in a Volvo vehicle by 2020. Over the years, the company built its reputation on safety and quirky designs, and today’s announcement is

Hot on the heels of USB 3.2 receiving a confusing Gen 2x2 suffix, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF)has today announced USB 4, the next version of the ubiquitous connector. Although the draft specification won’t become official until it’s published later this year, the standard is expected to increase its maximum speed to 40 Gbps over the 20 Gbps offered by its current version, USB 3.2.
If that speed sounds familiar, then that’s because it’s already offered by the Thund

Microsoft is preparing a new lightweight version of Windows for dual-screen devices and Chromebook competitors. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the software maker is stripping back its Windows user interface with dual screens in mind. This new hardware could launch as early as later this year, depending on chip and PC maker readiness.“Windows Lite,” as it’s codenamed internally, is a more stripped-down version of Windows that is initially bein

An artist with the same name as the pop star Meghan Trainor found herself locked out of her social media accounts last week after Google and Twitter wrongly concluded she was attempting to impersonate her namesake, reports Gizmodo. Although the only explanation Google gave for her Gmail suspension was that Trainor had violated its company policies, YouTube and Twitter both confirmed that the suspension was due to an impersonation complaint.Trainor the artist has been practicing her craft for 15

Mercedes-Benz has pulled the cover off its first ever all-electric racecar on the eve of the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. Dubbed the EQ Silver Arrow 01, which is a nod to the automaker’s flashy electric concept racecar, it’s what Mercedes-Benz will use to compete in EV racing series Formula E starting at the end of 2019.Formula E was launched in 2014 as an all-electric alternative to Formula One and other gas-powered motorsports. What started as a relatively novel idea (other attempts ha

One of the defining features of Ultimate Ears’ UE Boom speakers has always been the bright, colorful fabric and rubber designs, and now the company is taking that to the natural endpoint with the launch of Ultimate Ears Studio, which will let users create their own custom color combinations.
Choose from a variety of options
It’s a similar sort of ideas as Microsoft’s Xbox Design Lab for the Xbox One — users can go to the Ultimate Ears Studio site, and choose from a varie