Technology news

At first glance, Apple canceling AirPower seems like a huge fail. But it’s nothing compared to another recent hardware disaster. 
The company announced its cool new wireless charger, Apple’s first, in 2017. It was supposed to charge multiple devices (iPhones, AirPods, Apple Watches, etc.) simultaneously — something other wireless chargers currently can’t do.
Most people are calling this a huge embarrassment. But is it really? 
SEE ALSO: Apple just canceled its A

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would very much appreciate if you could curb your hedgehog enthusiasm. At least 17 people have gotten sick and two people have been hospitalized with Salmonella after getting a little too close to their spiny, fuzzy friends.
“Don’t kiss or snuggle hedgehogs, because this can spread Salmonella germs to your face and mouth and make you sick,” reads the CDC’s latest investigation notice. The outbreak started in October of

Google made a big goof today when, in what seemed like a relatively minor update to the connected home section of its online Google Store, it accidentally leaked the existence of a new Nest product. In the image, captured before it was taken down by Android Police, you can see Google touting the benefits of the new Nest Hub Max, as it’s called. According to additional marketing images, it seems like the device has a 10-inch HD display, a built-in Nest Camera, and stereo speakers.We don&rs

As we start April so does a new season of anime begin, with this one slated to have over 40 shows airing in Japan. So to help cut through the information overload, we’ve culled the new season down to seven series that should appeal both to anime fans and to newcomers. Most of these shows are available for viewing internationally a day after they air in Japan, thanks to streaming services like Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, and Amazon.If you like superhero action and satire
One-Punch Ma

Facebook has for years explored ways to help improve mobile connectivity and bring more of the population in developed countries get online, ostensibly a humanitarian effort but more of a thinly veiled ploy to bring more people into its app ecosystem. That effort’s most visible projects have been Facebook’s Internet.org initiative, with its Free Basics and Express Wi-Fi offerings for fast-growing smartphone markets, and the discontinued Aquila project, which sought to fly large, sol

Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, but if you were hoping to buy it so you could charge your iPhone and new AirPods simultaneously, don’t fret: Samsung’s Wireless Charger Duo can do that for $64.50 at Amazon.
Samsung’s dual wireless charger hit the market at $119 alongside the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. It launched a newer version of the Wireless Charger Duo following the launch of the Galaxy S10, but its 2018 model is far less expensive. Another

Apple has canceled its AirPower wireless charger, citing difficulty in achieving the company’s “high standards” for the product, via TechCrunch.“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” said Apple SVP of h

A serial hoax caller who led to a Kansas man’s death was sentenced to 20 years in prison today, the Associated Press reports.In late 2017, Tyler Barriss phoned in a false emergency call on behalf of a gamer angry over a Call of Duty match. The information Barriss used in the call, however, was outdated, and when police arrived at the home, they fatally shot a man who wasn’t involved in the disagreement. The gamers had been arguing over a $1.50 bet.
Pleaded guilty to 51 charges
Autho

On Wednesday, a Georgia man pleaded guilty to hacking into the Apple accounts of several famous musicians and athletes and spending thousands of dollars from the victims’ accounts.According to the Justice Department, Kwamaine Jerell Ford, 27, obtained the login credentials belonging to dozens of professional athletes, including NBA and NFL players, as well as famous rappers, through a phishing scheme. Ford sent emails from addresses pretending to be an Apple support representative.The Jus

My first impression of Battlefield V’s battle royale mode Firestorm wasn’t the action — it was the silence. I heard very little but the sound of my own boots on the snow, the reloading of my gun, and the breath of my soldier as my crosshairs were locked on a window across the road. As a longtime fan of the franchise, I’ve become used to the constant sounds of gunfire, tanks, and objective callouts; the collapsing skyscrapers and the massive explosions of the V-1 rocket. B

Amazon is apparently looking to follow Roku in building a free app that includes video news updates from TV networks. The Information reports that Amazon has already approached several news organizations and Verizon (owner of Yahoo News and Finance) in hopes of distributing their content through the upcoming app for its Fire TV streaming devices.As part of its free, ad-supported Roku Channel, Roku currently offers news programming from ABC News, Cheddar, Yahoo News and Finance, and other partne

I recently found myself entranced by a series of type generators — websites that allow you to create experimental animated type, then transform them into personal pieces of moving art. It’s easy to lose track of time playing with all the settings. And if you get frustrated (and I honestly don’t believe you can because they’re so fun) there are presets you can toggle to help.
The mastermind behind these sites is Kiel Mutschelknaus, a multidisciplinary artist whose work sp

1stdibs began pushing the antiques business into the 21st century long ago. Apparently, investors think it can it can push further and faster with $76 million in new funding. That’s how much the now-18-year-old, New York-based company says it just closed on for its Series D round, led by T. Rowe Price Associates,  with participation from earlier backers Index Ventures, Benchmark and Spark Capital.
The company now boasts a valuation of well over $500 million, it tells the WSJ.
1stdibs

Few software companies have transformed the way we think about moving through physical space like Niantic . The creators of Pokémon GO and soon Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Niantic has become an incredible unicorn success story, with a reported valuation of nearly $4 billion. One part AR, one part gaming, one part location, and many parts fun, the company has been brilliant in executing on an original product vision for what the future of our devices — and us — will be.
But th

How did Niantic happen? How did the company behind Pokémon GO and (soon) Harry Potter: Wizards Unite come to be?
When anyone talks about Niantic, they generally mention that it’s “a Google spinout” and move on. As if that’s something that just happens every day. That dozens of people within a massive company come together, build something… and then just leave and take their work with them to form a new, independent company that goes on to have a valuation of

Google has removed a gay conversion therapy app from a religious group called Living Hope Ministries from the Play Store after vocal protests from a wide range of groups, including thousands of internet users, New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, and most recently, the Human Rights Campaign, as reported by Axios.
The removal of the app comes just a day after Google was suspended from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (which rates workplaces on overall LGBTQ equality) du

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1. Lyft prices IPO at top of range
Lyftraised more than $2 billion Thursday afternoon after pricing its shares at $72 apiece, the top of the expected range of $70 to $72 per share. This gives Lyft a fully diluted market value of $24 billion.
The company is debuting on the Nasdaq stock exchange to

A growing proportion of American adults consider vapes just as or even more dangerous than cigarettes, according to a study out today. The findings illustrate just how hard it is to accurately convey the risks of e-cigarettes, especially when public health researchers are still working out what some of those risks actually are.Part of the challenge is that the risk-benefit calculation for e-cigarettes depends on who’s using them. For adult smokers, completely switching to e-cigarettes may

Ride-hailing startup Lyft may bear the distinction of having highest net loss of any maiden public company ever going public, but despite that, it made its debut in a high gear this morning. Trading as LYFT on Nasdaq, the company’s shares opened at nearly noon today at $87.24, a pop of 21 percent on the $72/share figure the company set last night, when it raised $2.34 billion from investors, valuing the company at $24 billion.
The bigger question will be how Lyft handles the markets l

Alphabet’surban planning subsidiary announced today the launch of CommonSpaces. The new app was created to give park operators and community members a place to enter and organize observations about parks and other publics spaces.
Interested parties can create a web portal for a space. The organizer defines the parameters of a study, outlining what sort of data they’re looking to collect, and users are then given shifts to go about recording data. The goal is discover how people utili

Disney’s 2013 production of The Lone Ranger had some serious problems. Among other things, director Gore Verbinski opted to construct his own historically accurate trains rather than modifying existing ones, or creating one from CGI, which helped send the movie wildly over budget. His version of The Lone Ranger was a poor and ultimately forgettable adaptation, mostly memorable for Johnny Depp’s assertion that his supposed Cherokee heritage and a Joann Fabric & Crafts fake crow p

Political parties, campaigns and brands can’t get an accurate and cost-effective understanding of opinion in small geographic areas, like the constituencies of lawmakers. This is a big problem in political campaigning. And all political campaigning now has a huge online element, as we know. We also know political turbulence is one of the defining themes of our age.
But one thing is clear: All the players want faster, cheaper, more accurate and a more granular understanding of consumers and

A year ago, Apple acquired the digital newsstand app Texture to form the basis of its new subscription-based service, Apple News+, which launched on Monday. As some have expected, the standalone Texture app will soon shut down as a result. According to emails sent to current Texture subscribers pointing to a FAQ on the company’s website, Texture’s last day of service will be May 28, 2019. Existing customers will be offered a one-month free trial to Apple News+ to make the jump.
A clo

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services, and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.
What to watch
The Ones Below, a 2015 psychological thriller written and directed by prolific play

Alibaba has made an acquisition as it continues to square up to the opportunity in enterprise services in China and beyond, akin to what its U.S. counterpart Amazon has done with AWS. TechCrunch has confirmed that the e-commerce and cloud services giant has acquired Teambition, a Microsoft and Tencent-backed platform for co-workers to plan and collaborate on projects, similar to Trello and Asana.
There were rumors of an acquisition circulating yesterday in Chinese media. Alibaba has now confirme

The past couple of years have marked some steep ups and downs for Huawei. Just this morning, the company posted a 25 percent raise in profit, to $8.84 billion, in 2018. Yesterday, on the other hand, a U.K. oversight body issued a report noting “serious and systematic defects.”
While it’s true that ongoing security concerns and reports of Huawei’s ties to the Chinese government haven’t put a damper on the company’s profits, they have managed to stifle its inter