Technology news

BMW has big plans for its iNext electric and fully autonomous vehicle, but making the car will require a streamlined, coordinated, and automated manufacturing system — something Microsoft wants to help them build. 
On Tuesday, BMW and Microsoft announced a partnership to launch a new open-sourced industrial manufacturing platform called the Open Manufacturing Platform, or OMP. It's based on Microsoft's Azure, which BMW already uses to run its more than 3,000 machines at 30 production

The latest update for Apple’s Clips app adds a few new features that brings it closer to becoming a full-fledged mobile video-editing app. The most notable addition is the ability to add custom soundtracks directly to videos with songs created in GarageBand and other music apps. Previously, users were limited to built-in soundtracks and iTunes music tracks.
Clips, which is only available on iOS, launched in 2017 as a kind of iMovie for a new generation of creators, with built-in filters,

Andreas Gal, the former CTO of Mozilla and a current employee of Apple, is filing a complaint against US customs agents who allegedly tried to intimidate him into handing over his phone and laptop passcodes. Gal and the American Civil Liberties Union are asking the Department of Homeland Security for an investigation of an incident last year, which Gal recounted in a blog post titled “No one should have to travel in fear.” It’s part of a protracted fight over warrantless searc

Chinese tech workers are protesting long work hours, and they’ve taken the fight to GitHub. If you checked GitHub’s trending list in recent days, you may have seen a repository called 996.ICU — a reference to working from 9AM to 9PM for six days a week, then being sent to an intensive care unit for exhaustion. Instead of code, the repository holds a collection of workplace grievances against China’s biggest and most well-known tech companies, including Alibaba, Huawei, B

Twitter is making it easier for people to appeal decisions about bad behavior on its platform.
The company is launching a new appeals process inside its app so people can ask the company to reconsider its decisions after a report has been made. Twitter has had an appeals process in place in the past, but it wasn't accessible in its app and response time could be slow. 
That's now changing, it says.
"We move quickly to enforce our rules, but sometimes we don’t have the full context and

For years, YouTube ignored its employees’ pleas to address and take down toxic videos in a quest to boost engagement, reports Bloomberg. According to more than 20 former and current YouTube staffers, employees would offer proposals to curb the spread of videos that contained disturbing, extremist content, and / or conspiracy theories, but leadership was reportedly more interested in boosting engagement than heeding those warnings.
One proposal offered a way to keep content that was &ldquo

Part of launching a streaming video service is owning the domain name with which most viewers can reliably expect to find the service via the web. For instance, it could be considered a smart move for Netflix to own, say, Netflix.com, or for HBO to own HBOGo.com. For Sony-owned Crackle, however, it appears getting ownership of the domain name behind its upcoming Crackle Plus premium offering is proving a bit difficult, if only because the gigantic mega-corporation doesn’t feel like paying

Google said today that it would require its extended, non-employee workforce in the United States receive comprehensive health care coverage, a $15 minimum wage, and 12 weeks of parental leave. The move follows protests from employees and other workers at Google who have pushed the company to offer more benefits.
$15 minimum and 12 weeks of parental leave
Google relies on a massive staff of temporary, vendor, and contract workers, many of whom are supplied by third parties and aren’t offe

South Bend mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg officiated a last-minute city hall wedding between two constituents on Monday. The reason for their hurry? Oh, you know, they had a C-section appointment in 45 minutes. 
"After going out into the hall to use the restroom, I ran into a young couple coming out of the elevator, saying I was just the person they were there to see," Buttigieg wrote in a Facebook post. "In my mind I saw the rare few minutes of free time I had left vanishi

An Ode to... is a weekly column where we share the stuff we're really into in hopes that you'll be really into it, too.Forget cultural signifiers like "millennial" or "Gen Z." You can really only define generational experience through Saturday morning cartoons. 
No matter how old you are, hearing the first few notes of those iconic theme songs can jolt you immediately back to being in your jammies, buzzing with empty caloric energy from sugary cereals, just you and the TV, and some mind-num

Pirated versions of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and Arrow can sometimes contain a nasty surprise. They are among the most popular TV shows hackers use as bait to secretly install malware on people's computers.
On Monday, security firm Kaspersky Lab ranked the top 15 pirated TV shows most likely to contain malware. No. 1 on the list was Game of Thrones, even though the HBO fantasy series hasn't released a new episode in more than a year.
"Game of Thrones accounted for 17 percent of all the

Update April 2nd, 2:52PM ET: B&H Photo has brought this exclusive back, and it’s once again offering readers of The Verge a good discount on the RTX 2080 card, along with three free games. This offer will expire at 11:59PM ET on Thursday, April 4th.
Zotac’s RTX 2080 AMP graphics card is $659 at B&H Photo once again for readers of The Verge. Previously priced at $739 at B&H Photo and direct through Zotac, this matches the biggest price drop that we’ve seen for this

Lego is announcing its new Spike Prime robotics kit, which is designed to introduce a younger, middle school-aged customer to robotics, engineering, and coding in a way that’s simpler and more goal-oriented than its Mindstorms kits.
The new $330 Spike Prime kit is targeted toward children in grades 6–8. It includes over 500 Technic pieces, and it’s programmed using a Lego-made app built off the Scratch language. Lego is also introducing some new Technic bricks with the kit, li

A week after Vice President Mike Pence boldly declared that NASA would put humans on the Moon within five years, the space agency says it is still working on the details and the budget necessary to make this ambitious plan a reality. At the moment, NASA officials are crafting an amendment to the president’s recent budget request for fiscal year 2020 that would accommodate the expedited lunar return.
Before last week, NASA was targeting 2028 for the return of astronauts to the Moon, as par

The Duolingo owl is ruining my life. So why do I feel so pressured to learn from it?
Like many other disappointments to the public education system, I spent seven years studying Spanish and barely retained any of it. The little remnants that still float around my memory are disjointed and just out of reach — I remember the words and their purpose, but can't seem to string them into a coherent conversation.
The pieces are all there. They're just scrambled. 
I started Spanish lessons on

It can be difficult to choose a new tablet for yourself. Even if you narrow it down to just iPads, there are still several models to pick from. 
Which one is the best to stream the original The Twilight Zone on Netflix while you're in bed? And which one is great for diving into the Jordan Peele reboot on CBS All Access? These are the important questions to ask, but if you need a new iPad, then a sale on the latest iPad model at Amazon will help you decide. (More of a Walmart person? You'll

The perpetual trickster somehow didn't predict the backlash that would be born out of his April 1st prank. 
After his pregnancy-based April Fools' joke was widely ridiculed, Justin Bieber posted an apology to Instagram on Tuesday. View this post on InstagramThere’s always gonna be people offended, there’s also people who don’t take jokes very well, I am a prankster and it was APRIL FOOLS. I didn’t at all mean to be insensitive to people who can’t have children.

The first poster for the Joker movie was revealed by director Todd Phillips Monday, giving us another creepy look at Joaquin Phoenix in Joker makeup.
The new poster, posted on Instagram, is the first new look we've had at the standalone Joker project since September when Phillips posted a short video of Phoenix with and without the iconic clown makeup. View this post on InstagramTeaser trailer tomorrow. #JokerMovie
A post shared byTodd Phillips (@toddphillips1) on Apr 2, 2019 at 8:34am PDTSEE AL

Before Apple’s AirPods, long before the Galaxy Buds or any of these other ones we’ve reviewed, the Bragi Dash were among the first truly wireless earbuds, the first to actually cut the cord. But they were also incredibly ambitious, promising an intelligent earbud like something out of a science fiction movie, and that ambition has apparently taken a toll: the company is now exiting the consumer hardware business, as reported earlier by Wareable.
In a new press release emailed to The

Happy early spring. This is the time of year that Arctic sea ice often reaches its greatest size, freezing over the vast northern ocean. But in 2019, this ice cover — called the maximum ice extent — is meager, particularly in the usually ice-clad Bering Sea. 
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a comparison of Bering and Chukchi sea ice in 2014 (a normal year) versus the maximum sea ice extent this year. As you can see, where there is supposed to

YouTubers Cole and Sav LaBrant are in post-April Fools' Day hot water after playing a particularly harsh prank on Savannah's daughter Everleigh.
In a video uploaded on Monday, the parents inform Everleigh that they're getting rid of their pet Pomeranian, Carl. Everleigh, who loves Carl — obviously, because she's six and also look at him — is devastated.
"Basically, we're giving Carl away to someone else because we feel like we can't take good enough care of him at our house," Sav tel

Updated 4:30 p.m. EST with official statistics from Fandango.
Within an hour of Avengers: Endgame tickets going on sale, the sheer demand for tickets took its toll on Fandango, AMC, and the Marvel fandom at large. The AMC website was temporarily down, and Fandango put users on pause to handle traffic in the meantime.
Fandango reported later in the day that Avengers: Endgame broke the site's first day presale record, beating the previous record held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
SEE ALSO: 'Ave

On a reporting trip to Arizona to learn about the business of Tasers, Matt Stroud volunteered to have the technology tested on himself. “I didn’t know what to expect, and the short description is that it feels like being electrocuted over your entire body,” Stroud says. “You’re completely unable to move.” Stroud had two people on either side of him, and if it weren’t for them, he would have fallen to the ground.“That gave me a real appreciation fo

Google has officially started the process of shutting down and deleting all consumer accounts on its Google+ social network platform, bringing an end to the company’s attempt to directly compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. “The shutdown is underway as of this morning,” a Google spokesperson confirmed to The Verge by email on Tuesday.
Google+ is being phased out due to “low usage” and because it turned into something of a security liability for Google; t

It's a cold day in government hell when Instagram DMs get a shoutout at a House Oversight Committee meeting — so reader, you'll want to grab your winter coat.
On Tuesday, while speaking before Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concern over reports that Jared Kushner used WhatsApp to communicate with foreign leaders and discuss sensitive government-related information.
AOC enforced her belief that action should be taken to properly address

Last week, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development sued Facebook for allegedly making housing discrimination easy. It claimed that Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act by letting ad buyers target audiences that included or excluded certain races, religions, or genders. The move took many people by surprise, apparently including Facebook. Soon, it could test how long-standing rules against housing discrimination intersect with the sometimes controversial laws covering web platforms

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active
$199View Product
The Good
Robust health and activity tracking • Minimalist •lightweight design • Super comfy on the wrist • Bright and sharp display
The Bad
Half-baked iOS compatibility • Battery only lasts a day
The Bottom Line
Samsung's Galaxy Watch Active is a simple, comfy smartwatch that doesn't scrimp on features.
⚡ Mashable Score
3.25😎 Cool Factor
3.0📘Learning Curve
3.0💪Performance
3.0💵Bang for the

Have you tried turning it off and on?
Two new studies confirm every computer dunce's worst fears: IT professionals (i.e. the technological bedrock of corporate America) blame the employees they're bound to help for their computer problems — at least when it comes to security.
A column for ZDNet synthesizes the findings of two new surveys about what IT professionals consider the biggest security threats. Overwhelmingly, the people tasked with protecting our corporate digital lives fear the

True crime fans anxiously awaiting the arrival of Zac Efron's Ted Bundy are getting a fresh glimpse into the much-discussed performance.
A new extended trailer for Netflix's Ted Bundy drama — titled Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (a direct quote from one of Bundy's numerous guilty verdicts) — reveals more of Efron's take on the notorious serial killer. It also highlights the tortured performance of Lily Collins, who portrays Bundy's conflicted long-time girlfriend, Liz Ke

Amazon announced a new round of price cuts that Prime subscribers can take advantage of at Whole Foods grocery stores starting on Wednesday, April 3rd. This batch of discounts focuses on in-season produce, like greens, tomatoes, tropical fruits, and more, according to a press release from Amazon.Additionally, it says that customers who subscribe to Prime can expect more than 300 exclusive deals over the coming months. In terms of how much you’ll save, Amazon says that Prime members can ex

Starting today, Microsoft is ending all ebook sales in its Microsoft Store for Windows PCs. Previously purchased ebooks will be removed from users’ libraries in early July. Even free ones will be deleted. The company will offer full refunds to users for any books they’ve purchased or preordered.Microsoft’s “official reason,” according to ZDNet, is that this move is part of a strategy to help streamline the focus of the Microsoft Store. It seems that the company no

Entertaining guests or planning meals is easier with a slow cooker, and it’s even better when you have a separate crock just for a dip or sauce.
Walmart is offering a bundle of a Hamilton Beach seven-quart programmable slow cooker along with a Party Dipper food warmer, and they’re on sale for $34.99.
The seven-quart slow cooker has a slip-tight lid that helps prevent spills. Control how your food cooks with high, low, and warm settings and two, four, six, eight, and 10-hour cooking t

Google’s voice-recognition virtual assistant, Google Assistant, can do a lot now. It can be your personal interpreter, it can find you the best route home, and it can even donate to your favorite charity.
One thing Google Assistant won’t do, however, is disclose when its potentially recommending you a company advertising with Google.
When Google Assistant users ask their Google Home or Android device to help them find a local service provider, the search giant pulls its recommendatio

Walmart’s ongoing war of attrition with Amazon is continuing. The retail store is adding voice-controlled shopping to Google Assistant as part of a new “Walmart Voice Order” feature, marking its latest salvo against Amazon and its dominant Alexa platform.
Users can simply add Walmart to Google Assistant and link their existing Walmart delivery accounts. They’ll immediately be able to shop with Walmart through voice commands, just like Amazon offers with Alexa.The new int