Technology news

Photo-editing app-maker VSCOhas filed a lawsuit against competitor PicsArt.
The suit focuses on 19 PicsArt filters that were supposedly “reverse engineered from VSCO’s filters,” with VSCO alleging it has become a legal issue involving false advertising and violations of the app’s terms of service.
“VSCO has invested significant time and resources in developing its presets [a.k.a. filters], which represent valuable intellectual property of VSCO,” the compa

It’s getting bare-knuckled out there again in the ride-hailing wars.
According to a report earlier today from The Information, newly public Lyft threatened Morgan Stanley with legal action earlier this week, demanding in a letter that the powerful investment bank stop marketing a short-selling product that it believed was disrupting trading in its stock.
The outlet says Lyft learned about the product through the New York Post, which reported in its own, separate story early this week that

Pick a card, any card, and you might feel that you’re in control when you pull the queen of hearts from a magician’s deck. But magicians have strategies that force their audience’s choice — from packing the deck with identical cards, to fanning out the deck with just the right timing so that the choice becomes all but inevitable.This illusion of free will is one of the many illusions and magic tricks that Gustav Kuhn, a magician turned psychology researcher at Goldsmiths

The man who edited Wikipedia with several senators’ private phone numbers and addresses has pleaded guilty to computer fraud and other offenses. Jackson Cosko, a former employee of Senator Maggie Hassan, was arrested last year on suspicion of doxxing five members of Congress. He’s now admitted to breaking into Hassan’s office after being fired, stealing data that included personal contact information, then posting that information online during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kava

Maybe the company known for its smart thermostats isn’t just a smart thermostat company. In newly leaked photos obtained by Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny, Ecobee appears to be working on its first indoor video camera. The photos of the camera show a prominent, conical stand and four lights that flash yellow or blue. The shape of it looks vaguely like a smart speaker.
The camera would actually be Ecobee’s second new product outside of its smart thermostats. Its first was a light switch

AT&T and Verizon had big 5G-related announcements this week: AT&T published speed test results that seemingly validated its “5G E” LTE network as the fastest around, and Verizon launched its 5G network in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis. But both of these announcements underscore just how much of a mess 5G is right now. AT&T’s results appear to be skewed in the company’s favor, and Verizon’s rollout seems slapdash, with poor coverage even in the areas

When Amazon announced a deal to acquire Eero, the maker of a groundbreaking WiFi system, it sounded like a classic Silicon Valley success story: a promising startup is acquired by the biggest bidder in the land, and everyone rolls around in cash. But that is not this story. This story is about investors losing tens of millions of dollars and dozens of employees left with meaningless stock.
According to confidential documents viewed by Mashable, Amazon acquired Eero for $97 millionEero executives

Amazon Studios has announced that it has signed on Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and their company Kilter Films for an overall deal to create original series for Amazon Prime Video. The deal builds on an existing project the pair is developing for the studio called The Peripheral.That project is based on William Gibson’s novel by the same name, which is set between near-future rural America and a distant future in London after an apocalypse. Amazon began developing the pr

Yes, Airbnb is totally cool with hosts placing video cameras inside their rentals. And yes, it's creepy as hell. 
The issue of hidden cameras in Airbnbs is once again back in the news this week, after a family traveling through Ireland discovered a camera disguised as some sort of smoke detector in their rental. And while, according to CNN, Airbnb eventually sided with the family, the latest privacy-violating incident forces us to confront a larger structural issue sure to turn off many a r

We’ve been hearing for months about the pair of Google’s new midrange Pixel 3 devices coming out this year, and now 9to5Google has unearthed even more information about the handsets that points, more than ever, to a summer release date. Thanks to the Google Play Console, the software that allows Android developers to manage apps submitted to the company’s mobile marketplace, 9to5Google was able to pull out two new device profiles for codenamed “bonito” and “s

Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab is probably best known as the birthplace of the modular snake robot. Initially designed to squeeze into tight spots for search and rescue missions and infrastructure inspections, the lab’s snake robot has given rise to an army of different projects, and at least one Pittsburgh-area startup.
Several years ago, the robot became modular, allowing engineers to mix and match pieces and replace malfunctioning segments. From those modules, the team of CMU s

Epic Games’ Fortnite might be the industry-leading battle royale game, but the developer behind the game is still taking smart cues from competitors. Starting next week, Fortnite will introduce what Epic is calling “reboot vans,” or places where players can bring their teammates back to life if they’ve been knocked out of a match for good. The feature is a direct copy of arguably the best feature of competing battle royale hit Apex Legends, which launched two months ago

2K Games revealed this week that Borderlands 3, the latest entry in the much-loved co-op shooter series, will be released on the Epic Games Store as a timed exclusive. Does this mean you should buy it there? Well that’s a tricky question, with both sides having some reasonable arguments in their favor. The “Store War” has been going on for months now — ever since the Epic Games Store was announced late last year. There are a myriad of arguments both for and against the c

Today’s startups have a distinct advantage when it comes to launching a company because of the public cloud. You don’t have to build infrastructure or worry about what happens when you scale too quickly. The cloud vendors take care of all that for you.
But last month when Pinterest announced its IPO, the company’s cloud spend raised eyebrows. You see, the company is spending $750 million a year on cloud services, more specifically for AWS. When your business is primarily focuse

This morning, The WSJ reported Apple’s streaming music service overtook Spotify in paid subscribers in the U.S., and now it hopes to do the same in the Indian market by way of a big price cut. The company’s individual plan in India is now 99 rupees per month ($1.43 USD), versus the 120 rupees per month ($1.73 USD) it was previously.
In addition, the price for the Apple Music student plan dropped from 60 rupees per month to 49 rupees; and the Family Plan is now 149 rupees per month ve

Update: Just kidding! It’s the 9th.
The Falcon Heavy has flown before, but now it’s got a payload that matters and competitors nipping at its heels. It’s the first of a new generation of launch vehicles that can take huge payloads to space cheaply and frequently, opening up a new frontier in the space race. Watch it lift off Sunday afternoon (we’ll post a reminder).
On the 9th, Falcon Heavy will fly for the first time since its inaugural test last February, delivering the

The Falcon Heavy has flown before, but now it’s got a payload that matters and competitors nipping at its heels. It’s the first of a new generation of launch vehicles that can take huge payloads to space cheaply and frequently, opening up a new frontier in the space race. Watch it lift off Sunday afternoon (we’ll post a reminder).
On the 7th, Falcon Heavy will fly for the first time since its inaugural test last February, delivering the now-infamous Tesla Roadster and “St

Starting today, you can use Skype with up to 50 video chat participants, as part of a new update to the stable version of the app. Today’s update cements Skype as the clear group video chat winner — at least in terms of the raw number of people you can have in a single call — since FaceTime only supports up to 32 participants. Previously, Skype only supported up to 25 callers at once, though the new 50-person feature has been in testing for beta users since early March.
In ord

Leading up to Gmail’s 15th birthday this week, Google has been adding a lot of productivity and machine learning tools to its email service. (It may also be trying to make up for the disappearance of its Inbox email app, but that’s an argument for another day.) New additions this week include a way for Gmail to write email subject lines for you and schedule an email to send at a later time.
Compounded with a redesign that launched last year for desktop and earlier this year on the m

What's up in earthquake country?
A compelling new report authored by two U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers found that three powerful California faults have been strangely — almost impossibly — quiet for the last 100 years. Digging into the soil around these faults, Glenn Biasi and Kate Scharer found that big, ground-rupturing earthquakes have been a regular occurrence in the temblor-prone land over the last 1000 years.  
That's what makes the last 100 years so unusual.
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Apple Music has slashed its prices in India, following price cuts by local streaming services JioSaavn and Gaana. Apple Music is now being offered for 99 rupees ($1.43) a month, down from 120 rupees ($1.73) a month.
While many outlets are reporting the price cut is in direct response to Spotify and YouTube Music’s recent launches in India, this is only part of the story. There are several India-specific streaming services that are incredibly popular within the country, like JioSaavn and G

Snapis taking a leaf out of the Asian messaging app playbook as its social messaging service enters a new era.
The company unveiled a series of new strategies that are aimed at breathing fresh life into the service that has been ruthlessly cloned by Facebook across Instagram, WhatsApp and even its primary social network. The result? Snap has consistently lost users since going public in 2017. It managed to stop the rot with a flat Q4, but resting on its laurels isn’t going to bring back th

Picture this: it's 2009 and you're on MySpace. You're listening to an Avril Lavigne track you downloaded off of LimeWire and you have five missed AIM messages. You come across a post with an image of a broken heart that reads "s(he) be(lie)ve(d)." It's the deepest thing you've ever read.
Ten years later, the internet has collectively gone back in their feelings reviving this brand of relatable heartbroken quotes. Poking a little fun at our younger, more extra selves, this meme is a perfect time

You might be surprised what you can buy on Facebook, if you know where to look. Researchers with Cisco’s Talos security research team have uncovered a wave of Facebook groups dedicated to making money from a variety of illicit and otherwise sketchy online behaviors, including phishing schemes, trading hacked credentials and spamming. The 74 groups researchers detected boasted a cumulative 385,000 members.
Remarkably, the groups weren’t even really trying to conceal their activities.

TikTok wants to put together the next Asian boy band or girl group. The short-video app announced today that it’s starting the search for talented young dancers and singers in a new program called TikTok Spotlight. TikTok users in Japan and Korea can compete for a chance to win a record deal by uploading original music videos.
TikTok is creating a new channel on its app for artists to upload their songs, which will then be featured on a playlist for the public to listen to. TikTok will me

When we talk of nostalgia in games, it's usually about the love for retro art styles, chiptunes, genres, or consoles. But another, more valuable relationship to nostalgia is embedded into the medium. And it's in how games can uniquely explore the experience of lost childhood — of longing for that time when home was somewhere safe, bright, untouched by the darkness of reality.
From AAA classics like Legend of Zelda to recent indie hits like What Remains of Edith Finch, game journeys force y

If you have Lime or Bird in your area, you’re probably used to seeing scooters everywhere, and there’s a good chance that some of them are the Ninebot Segway ES2.Paying these services to rent a scooter is the smartest move financially for some. But if you’re someone who would rather own one (and you have the space to store it) or if an on-demand scooter service isn’t operating in your area, Wellbots is offering readers of The Verge an exclusive deal. The Ninebot Segway E

On Friday, rapper Lil Nas X released a remix of his viral trap country song "Old Town Road" featuring pensive cowboy Billy Ray Cyrus.
Judging by the current number of yeehaw memes on Twitter, it's already a huge success. After Lil Nas X's recent debacle involving the Billboard charts, it's also raising questions about who gets to participate in crossover country music.
The 19-year-old originally released the song in December 2018 alongside a Red Dead Redemption-themed video. Within days, it took

Just days ahead of the return of “Game of Thrones,” Roku has forged a deal with HBO that now gives the media device maker the ability to sell the premium channel as a subscription through its dedicated content hub, The Roku Channel. Originally a destination for free and ad-supported movies and TV, The Roku Channel in January rolled out a significant update that put it in more direct competition with Amazon Channels with the launch of premium subscriptions.
Now, alongside the free con

While Spotify dukes it out with Apple and other big tech names to target high-end users in mostly developed markets, a startup out of China has raised some money to expand its music streaming business in the massive but still nascent market of Africa.
Boomplay, a service founded by Transsnet — a joint venture between Chinese phone maker Transsion and Chinese consumer apps giant NetEase — has raised $20 million in outside funding as it looks to break into more sub-Saharan countries an