Technology news

On Wednesday, a panel of mostly Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), laid into representatives from Facebook and Twitter over concerns that conservative speech is actively being censored on both platforms.
Representatives from Facebook and Twitter sparred with Republican lawmakers for hours at the Senate hearing where Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on the Constitution, pressured industry representatives over deep concerns he and his colleagues have that

Last week, AT&T proudly crowned itself as “the nation’s fastest wireless network,” buoyed by speed tests from Ookla and its misleadingly named 5G E — i.e., LTE — network. But there’s just one problem: as Ookla has taken the time to point out in a blog post, AT&T’s claim isn’t nearly as resounding of a victory as the company has declared.AT&T’s claim isn’t nearly as resounding of a victory as it says it is
Now, it is true th

Audible is making some changes to its membership program and how it issues credits, which are used to buy audiobooks through the subscription service. Now, any credits earned through Audible will last up to one year, whereas previously they lasted only six months.The change comes after a class-action lawsuit (and a couple of others) against the Amazon-owned audiobook publisher, which claimed that customers might not have realized that any membership credits they purchased, had been given as a g

If you’re on Twitter, here’s an experiment: type “Enemy of the People” in a tweet through Twitter’s web client, then see if it automatically suggests an account for you to tag. For a lot of (if not all) users, this currently brings up The New York Times’ Twitter handle. At first glance, it lookslike a pretty weird attack on the Times — and it’s something a number of journalists and other users have noticed this afternoon.
It’s not illogical

Bump, the Y Combinator-backed marketplace for streetwear, is announcing that it has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding.
Bump’sJack Ryder told me that even before starting the company, he and his co-founder Sam Howarth were active in buying and selling streetwear and sneakers — but he admitted that it took several tries before the startup found the right model. (He described a previous iteration, involving a reverse marketplace where people post the items they’re interested

Online used car startup ShiftTechnologies has tacked on another $40 million in equity funding, hired a new COO with Amazon and Enjoy roots and scaled up its engineering staff — all in the past several months — as the company aims to double its revenue this year.
The recent activity, along with what executives have told TechCrunch is a diligent focus on unit economics, is all directed toward a larger objective to take the company public sometime in 2021.
Shift, which is based in San F

Tomorrow: Google Cloud Next conference call
Join TechCrunch’s enterprise mavens Frederic Lardinois and Ron Miller as they discuss what’s happening on the ground and at the (I am sure, very exciting) parties this week at GoogleCloud Next in SF. They will talk live tomorrow at 1pm EDT / 10am PDT, and be sure to check your inbox one hour before for the dial-in information.When to ditch that nightmare customer
No, we are not “firing” any Extra Crunch members — yet. But

Disney is widely expected to unveil its upcoming streaming platform, Disney+, at its Investor Day presentation on April 11th. The company’s foray into streaming video comes as sites like Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have pumped billions of dollars into original content. Disney+ is meant to bring its own massive back catalog to viewers in one place.Until recently, Disney has worked with Netflix to stream some of its biggest titles, including films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star

Instagramis home to plenty of scantily clad models and edgy memes that may start to get fewer views starting today. Now Instagram says, “We have begun reducing the spread of posts that are inappropriate but do not go against Instagram’s Community Guidelines.” That means if a post is sexually suggestive, but doesn’t depict a sex act or nudity, it could still get demoted. Similarly, if a meme doesn’t constitute hate speech or harassment, but is considered in bad taste

Update: Launch delayed until tomorrow due to high winds.
Standing down from today’s Falcon Heavy launch attempt; next opportunity is tomorrow, April 11.
— SpaceX(@SpaceX) April 10, 2019It’s finally launch day for the Falcon Heavy’s first mission, and SpaceX’s heavy-duty rocket platform is due to take off at 5 PM Pacific time. The launch will take a major communications satellite into orbit, and as an encore all three of the first stages will attempt to return to Ear

US lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require large companies to audit machine learning-powered systems — like facial recognition or ad targeting algorithms — for bias. The Algorithmic Accountability Act is sponsored by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), with a House equivalent sponsored by Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY). If passed, it would ask the Federal Trade Commission to create rules for evaluating “highly sensitive” automated systems. Companies

In just a few years, Niantichas evolved from internal side project into an independent industry trailblazer. Having reached tremendous scale in such a short period of time, Niantic acts as a poignant crash course for founders and company builders. As our EC-1 deep-dive into the company shows, lessons from the team’s experience building the Niantic’s product offering remain just as fresh as painful flashbacks to the problems encountered along the way.
As we did for our Patreon EC-1, w

To help NASA meet its new goal of getting to the Moon by 2024, longtime space contractor Lockheed Martin is unveiling new designs for a human lunar lander concept that can take people to and from the lunar surface. And the company says it can be ready within the next five years — as long as it has enough resources.
The vehicle consists of two elements: a lander portion that can travel down to the ground, and an ascent vehicle that can lift astronauts off the Moon’s surface. The land

For the first time, Netflix is making its content available to another subscription media service. The company announced today it will bring segments from its popular stand-up specials, plus other original content, to Sirius XM’s new comedy station called “Netflix Is A Joke,” beginning on April 15, 2019.
The station will be offered on Sirius XM’s Channel 93, and will offer highlights from Netflix stand-up specials, comedy talk shows and other original programming, says Ne

Now that Google+ is history, today, Google unveiled what will be offered to G Suite users in its place: Currents. The new app “enables people to have meaningful discussions and interactions across your organization, helping keep everyone in the know and giving leaders the opportunity to connect with their employees.”
The company says Currents has a new look and feel compared to Google+ — it seems somewhat similar to my eyes — and it’s been streamlined to make it fa

Googleis hosting its annual Cloud Next developer conference in San Francisco this week. While the event is still in full swing, with a mystery concert capping off most of the programming tonight, the flood of news has now subsided, so here is our list of the most important announcements from the event.
Anthos
What is it? Anthos is the new name of the Google Cloud Services Platform, Google’s managed service for allowing enterprises to run applications in their private data center and i

Editing Microsoft Office files in Google Docs is a pain. You can view them there, but you’ve previously had to convert them to Google’s format before you could edit, comment, and collaborate inside Docs. That’s about to change: Google just announced that it’s adding native support for Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats — like .docx, .xls, and .ppt — which will let you do real-time collaboration in the commercial versions of Google Docs, She

Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye is the latest Marvel superhero to get his own miniseries on Disney’s upcoming streaming service, Disney+.
The series will act as a “jumping off point” for Renner, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which confirmed the series was in development. Instead of solely focusing on Renner’s portrayal of the character, it will instead follow Kate Bishop, his young protégée. Kate hasn’t appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,

Google announced today that Google Assistant is finally coming to G Suite, starting with the Calendar app within Google’s enterprise platform. In an official Google Cloud blog post, which coincided with the announcement at the company’s Cloud Next conference in San Francisco, the tech giant outlined how the integration will work. Users with G Suite accounts can start testing with Assistant starting today.
If you’re signed in with a G Suite account and synced with the Google Ca

No matter what your politics, beliefs, or even your sports team, we can all agree on one thing: robocalls are the scourge of modern times.
These unsolicited auto-dialed spam calls bug you dozens of times a week — sometimes more — demanding you “pay the IRS” or pretend to be “Apple technical support.” Even the now-infamous Chinese embassy scam, recently warned about by the FBI, has gained notoriety. These robocallers spoof their phone number to peddle scams and

Netflix is branching out beyond film and TV with its first audio-only broadcast in the form of a full-time comedy channel that will air exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio. The channel, to be called “Netflix Is A Joke,” will feature bits from the streaming platform’s series of comedy specials, which include performers like Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Ellen DeGeneres, and Jerry Seinfeld, among dozens of others. The goal, of course, is to expose more people to Netflix’

fYouTube TV has announced that it is adding Discovery’s lineup of networks to its channel package. As of today, the Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and MotorTrend are all available to YouTube TV subscribers. Unfortunately, adding those popular channels will result in YouTube raising the price of its internet TV service yet again. Also effective immediately, YouTube TV will cost $50 per month (or $55 if you’re subscr

Detective Pikachu is going to continue an adored Pokémon movie tradition by giving audiences a special edition Detective Pikachu trading card pack.Pokémon diehards who want to get their hands on Detective Pikachu trading cards will have to go opening weekend, according to Warner Bros. The pack comes with two cards. One is a randomly selected pokémon from the current generation of trading cards in stores now, but changed slightly to incorporate their CGI-likeness. The second

Amazon’s Link Amp is available for purchase today, priced at $299. The Link Amp lets users connect their speakers or headphones with Alexa devices to stream hi-fi music from services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, and Tidal. It’s got a built-in 60-watt, two-channel amplifier, plus multiple input and output lines to be compatible with most speakers.Amazon first announced the Link and Link Amp back in September, signaling the company’s foray into the home audi

This afternoon, SpaceX’s most powerful rocket — which is also the most powerful rocket in the world at the moment — will take its second flight to space from Florida more than a year after its famous debut mission. It will be the Falcon Heavy’s very first customer launch, sending a communications satellite for Saudi Arabia to a high orbit above Earth. All three cores of the rocket will attempt to land back on Earth after takeoff.
The mission will mark the beginning of co

Google announced today that any phone running Android 7 or higher can now be used as a security key for two-factor authentication. So when you need a second device to verify your login, you can just use your phone. It’s different from using the Google Authenticator app, as this will involve Bluetooth, and it’s meant to be more intuitive for users who already have Android phones.
To make your Android phone your security key, you’ll just need to connect your phone through Blueto

Academic publisher Springer Nature has unveiled what it claims is the first research book generated using machine learning.
The book, titled Lithium-Ion Batteries: A Machine-Generated Summary of Current Research, isn’t exactly a snappy read. Instead, as the name suggests, it’s a summary of peer-reviewed papers published on the topic in question. It includes quotations, hyperlinks to the work cited, and automatically generated references contents. It’s also available to downloa

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives successfully pushed through a measure that would reinstate the same net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal in 2017.
The Save the Internet Act was approved 232-190 Wednesday afternoon after months of debate and committee hearings in the House. The measure was introduced last month in both chambers by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) with plenty of fanfare from consumer advocacy groups and the Amer

If you’re not happy with your PSN name, Sony is letting PlayStation users change it starting today. The feature launched in beta in October 2018, but anyone will be able to do it either on their PS4 console or through a browser. I’m one of those cool people who makes all of my usernames into a play on my actual name, so I’m still pretty happy with “faulknerd,” but if your PSN name doesn’t xX_reflect_Xx the current you, it’s easy to change it.
In terms o

Google’s latest Pixel smartphones are catching on, mostly by taking users away from other Android smartphone makers. According to a new study published by CounterPoint Research, more than half of Pixel 3 converts were previously using a Samsung phone.
Specifically, 51 percent of Pixel 3 buyers were formerly Samsung Galaxy owners, while only 18 percent migrated from iPhones, and 14 percent came from Motorola devices. Of the remainder of users who switched to the Pixel 3, about 17 percent c

T-Mobile today took a step toward its upcoming over-the-top TV streaming service that will compete with cable companies and “skinny bundle” apps like Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, PlayStation Vue, and DirecTV Now. The company announced that it has rebranded Layer3 — the IPTV cable provider it acquired last year — as TVision Home, and it’s also introducing a new channel package that’s available for $90 per month to T-Mobile’s own mobile custom

Amazon plans to start accepting cash at its automated convenience stores, addressing rising complaints that cash-free businesses discriminate against impoverished and lower-income shoppers who are more likely to lack access to banking or credit cards.
The change, reported by CNBC with confirmation from Amazon, won’t go into effect right away. And it’s not known yet how Amazon will make the change. CNBC reports an executive saying that “additional payment mechanisms” are