Technology news

SiriusXM is now offering an $8-per-month streaming music plan that it calls SiriusXM Essential, a bundle of over 300 channels consisting of music, talk radio, comedy, sports, and other content. This new, cheap option doesn’t include Howard Stern’s two channels — you’ve got to step up to Premium for those — and is strictly for online streaming, so it can’t be used with your car’s satellite radio if you’ve got one. But otherwise, the company says yo

The Samsung Galaxy Fold doesn’t release until April 26th, but if you’ve been eagerly awaiting a glimpse under the hood, a pre-production version of the folding phone has already been disassembled and laid out piece by piece in photos. These were originally hosted on microblogging site Weibo, though the originals have since been removed.Something that shouldn’t be much of a surprise: it takes a lot of parts to build a foldable phone. They’re all arranged in a manner that

Marcus Hutchins, best known for his role in stopping the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, has pleaded guilty to two charges related to computer hacking conspiracy. The other eight charges will be dismissed as part of a plea deal first reported by ZDNet.
“I regret these actions and accept full responsibility for my mistakes,” Hutchins said in a statement on his website. “Having grown up, I’ve since been using the same skills that I misused several years ago for constructi

When Special Counsel Robert Mueller released his report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election yesterday and political wonks across the internet rushed to download it, many people noticed two things: you couldn’t search for any text on the pages, and the whole file was really, really large. If you were annoyed by either of those things, you probably weren’t nearly as ticked off as the PDF Association, which published a long explanation of just why the Mueller r

Malware researcher Marcus Hutchinshas pleaded guilty to two counts of creating and selling a powerful banking malware, ending a long and protracted battle with U.S. prosecutors.
Hutchins, a British national who goes by the online handle MalwareTech, was arrested in August 2017 as he was due to fly back to the U.K. following the Def Con security conference in Las Vegas. Prosecutors charged Hutchins with his involvement with creating the Kronos banking malware, dating back to 2014. He was later fr

Microsoft employees have been using an internal message board to criticize the company’s pro-diversity efforts, referring to the hiring of women and minorities as “discriminatory” against white and Asian men, according to a report from Quartz. Microsoft has left these threads untouched, drawing criticism from other employees who feel the company talks up its diversity and inclusion efforts, but takes little meaningful action to reinforce them at a cultural level.The sentiments

Not since Mario's nipples has the video game world been rocked this hard by a revelation about anatomy: Goombas have arms and hands!
The discovery of these appendages comes courtesy of photos of a Goomba keshi rubber figure (an eraser) shared to Twitter by user Joe Piconi, which shows the Goomba with his arms and hands folded behind his back, thus giving him the armless appearance.Goombas have arms and hands. They are folded neatly behind their backspic.twitter.com/nRXVi6u92f
— Joe Piconi

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Westeros? 
A photo posted by Lena Headey on Instagram hints that we could see another delightful Game Of Thrones/Sesame Street crossover in the future. 
The image shows Headey, Peter Dinklage, and their new life coach Elmo hanging out with Cersei and Tyrion's Sesame Street doppelgängers. Look how happy they all look — Muppets will do that to even a blood-thirsty, brother-loving queen. View this post on InstagramSUCH A GOOD DAY AT WOR

German camera maker Leica is facing heat from Chinese censors and nationalistic internet users who are leaving angry comments after it launched an ad dramatizing the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Leica has been censored on the social media platform Weibo, as independently verified by The Verge and reported by the South China Morning Post.
The nearly five-minute video titled “The Hunt” depicts a photojournalist resisting interrogation from Chinese police and managing to stay in his

The FBI is currently investigating a "malicious software attack" that interrupted the Weather Channel’s non-stop 24-hour-a-day coverage.
The Weather Channel suddenly went dark for more than an hour on Thursday during its live morning broadcast. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, an FBI spokesperson said the outage was the result of a ransomware attack.pic.twitter.com/ovSgrgHxXY
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) April 18, 2019"We experienced issues with this morning's live bro

Amazon is now making its delivery drivers take selfies, it confirmed to The Verge, in a bid to reduce fraud. Using facial recognition, the company will verify drivers’ identities to make sure they are who they say they are. The new requirements appeared on the Amazon Flex app to drivers, notifying them that they needed to take a selfie before continuing work. Of course, Amazon warns drivers to “not take a selfie while driving.”
By asking drivers to take selfies, Amazon could b

Another Silicon Valley company is settling with the SEC: the online lending company Prosper, which the SEC had accused of “miscalculating and materially overstating annualized net returns to retail and other investors.” Prosper has agreed to pay $3 million as part of the settlement, in which it has neither admitted nor denied the agency’s allegations.
According to a new release from the SEC: “For almost two years, Prosper told tens of thousands of investors that their ret

Audi has reportedly delayed deliveries of its first flagship electric vehicle, the E-tron, because of issues securing enough batteries from supplier LG Chem, according to The Brussels Times. Wait times have jumped from two months to “6 to 7 months,” per the Belgian news outlet.
The German automaker will also reportedly now make just 45,000 E-trons this year, or 10,000 fewer than expected, because of the supply problem. Audi has also pushed the release of the second car in the E-tron

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority has denied suggestions that it’s putting facial recognition cameras in the subway, saying that a trick designed to scare fare-dodgers was misinterpreted. “There is no capability to recognize or identify individuals and absolutely no plan” to do so with NYC subway cameras, says MTA spokesperson Maxwell Young.
Young was responding to a photo taken in the Times Square subway station by New York Times analyst Alice Fung, which sho

The federal government wants to hold Mark Zuckerberg personally accountable for Facebook’s privacy woes.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently investigating Facebook and looking into whether the Facebook’s founder and CEO should be held liable for the company’s data mishandling and privacy issues. 
Facebook and the FTC have been in discussions for more than a year over the agency’s probe into the company. Source

T-Mobile has officially launched its Money checking account for all US T-Mobile customers, following its soft launch back in November 2018. Some of what T-Mobile offers exclusively to its customers is noteworthy, especially if you’re serious about gaining interest on your cash. On balances up to $3,000, you’ll accrue an attractive 4 percent APY (annual percentage yield), so long as you’re depositing at least $200 into the T-Mobile Money account each month. That kind of perk is

The first paycheck Natt received after her first freelance writing assignment, she spent on mac and cheese.
I’m referring to her in third person because the Natt in question isn’t necessarily me, but a Sim version that lives in the town of Newcrest. But it isn’t inaccurate, either. I’m pretty sure me in real life spent my first adult paycheck on a round of drinks.
This week, Electronic Arts released an update for The Sims 4 that now allows your characters to choose freel

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is here — and it’s already breaking. The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Paul Miller talk first impressions of Samsung’s new phone. Later, they discuss the end of the feud and lawsuits between Apple and Qualcomm, Sony’s PlayStation 5 reveal, as well as Paul’s weekly segment.
Articles discussed in this episode:
My Samsung Galaxy Fold screen broke after just a day
Apple and Qualcomm drop all lawsuits in surprise settlement
Five big

April 20th is a holy day for many who imbibe cannabis. For some, it’s just a great day to watch stoner flicks and smoke herb all day. Others view it with more import; especially those who consume cannabis medicinally. To them it’s a celebration of the day they found a therapeutic treatment that works. Every year, around this time, we see an outpouring of testimony in the news and on social media from people whose lives have been positively changed through the addition of medicinal c

This week, Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging venture released a massive, 505-page report on its proposal to link Washington, DC and Baltimore via a high-speed transit system. It was a small but necessary step toward realizing Musk’s dream of an East Coast hyperloop, which he teased in a tweet almost two years ago.So far, most of what we know about the Boring Company’s plans come from events staged by the company or Musk’s whimsical tweets tracking its progress. In contrast, thi

"And we have lift off the guitarist G 11 mission." Huh? 
The closed captions on Facebook might need a bit of tweaking after a NASA video displayed some peculiar subtitles.
The video in question is the Wednesday launch of Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket, carrying a Cygnus cargo freighter destined for the International Space Station, done in conjunction with NASA. As Ars Technica pointed out, the captions leave a lot to be desired. 
Watch the original video below with the captions turn

A hacker stole thousands of documents from Mexico’s embassy in Guatemala and posted them online.
The hacker, who goes by the online handle @0x55Taylor, tweeted a link to the data earlier this week. The data is no longer available for download after the cloud host pulled the data offline, but the hacker shared the document dump with TechCrunch to verify its contents.
The hacker told TechCrunch in a message: “A vulnerable server in Guatemala related to the Mexican embassy was compromis

Psst! We’re looking at you, early-stage startup founders. How would you like your startup to be a media and investor darling at Disrupt San Francisco 2019? If you think your startup has what it takes to make the cut, apply to be a TC Top Pick. The application process is super easy, free and potentially — dare we say — life changing. Yup, we dare.
Our TC Top Picks program is competitive and highly selective. TechCrunch editors are a notoriously picky bunch, and they’ll rev

Fortnite appears to be gearing up for its next in-game event, and it may not surprise longtime fans to know that this one is again focused on Loot Lake. As we’ve seen in the past few updates, the Loot Lake area of the map has been transformed from its archipelago-style design, which occurred after the trippy butterfly event back in November that transformed the map mid-game, to an excavation site. In the middle now lies a giant metal hatch of sorts, perhaps a door to the mysterious purple

The Weather Channel was hit by a ransomware attack on Thursday, briefly taking a live TV program off the air, according to a Wall Street Journal report.The attack came amid severe weather in the southeastern United States and knocked out the cable channel for more than an hour. The FBI told the Journal a ransomware attack was the source of the problem and that the agency is investigating.“We experienced issues with this morning’s live broadcast following a malicious software attack

This year, April 20th feels different. Marijuana enthusiasts have long celebrated 4/20, but now that businesses are seeing profit potential, they are getting involved, too, with things like $4.20 Lyft credits and CBD-infused Carl’s Jr. hamburgers. Marijuana is a big business, even if it’s not legal everywhere yet. So what’s the current state of marijuana legalization?
In a nutshell, things look promising. From a public opinion standpoint, marijuana legalization has become very

On Thursday, satellite service provider Intelsat announced that one of its communications satellites is now completely lost in orbit above Earth, rendering the vehicle an unmovable piece of space debris. Intelsat says that something damaged the satellite, causing its onboard propellant to leak out into space. Now, without the ability to maneuver and communicate, the satellite could pose a potential threat to other vehicles in the same orbit.
For Intelsat, the most obvious consequence of the los

YouTube wants its paying subscribers to share the wealth with their favorite creators.
The video giant is currently giving out free Super Chat credits to YouTube Premium subscribers, according to AndroidPolice. Super Chats allow viewers to give a monetary "tip" to YouTube creators during a livestream in exchange for a highlighted comment in the chat.It’s a beta test we are running — glad you like it! :)
— Ryan Wyatt (@Fwiz) March 25, 2019YouTube’s Head of Gaming Ryan Wyat

Alphabet’s subsidiary focused on urban tech development, Sidewalk Labs,is now trying to reinvent signage for smart cities. These signs aren’t to direct the flow of traffic, or to point the way to urban landmarks — they’re designed to let citizens know when they’re being monitored.
The proposal is part of a push by the company to acclimate people to the technologies that it’s deploying in cities like New York and Toronto.
Globally, competition for contracts to

Earlier this month, a Chinese shipbuilder unveiled an amphibious autonomous landing vehicle that could someday be part of the country’s military. Nicknamed the “Marine Lizard,” it can be used for assaulting beaches from the ocean in concert with other autonomous vehicles.
The state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Company says that the prototype of the landing craft has been successfully tested and delivered, and it’s the first such vehicle in the world. The vehicle is

Netflix has released the official trailer for When They See Us, the four-part miniseries from Ava DuVernay that tells the story of the Central Park Five, five young black men wrongly convicted of rape  in New York City in 1989. 
According to Netflix, the series will cover the entire 25 years between the April 19, 1989 assault of Trisha Meili and the 2014 settlement between New York City and the five men — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wi

The Roland Corporation is a global powerhouse in the field of music technology. We interviewed Mr. Jun-ichi Miki, Roland Corporation CEO and Representative Director, to find out how the company continues to drive innovation and customer growth. TNW: How does Roland approach the ‘people who are new to music’ market? JM: At Roland, our mission is to continuously devote ourselves to bringing a “Waku Waku” experience to everyone in the world. For those that don’t know,

Netflix is testing a new feature that can help you start streaming when you don’t know what to watch. The company confirmed it’s testing a shuffle mode of sorts, which will allow you to easily click on a popular show to start playing a random episode. The idea with the feature is to offer an experience that’s more like traditional TV — where you could just turn the set on, and there would be something to watch.
With today’s streaming services, that sort of seamless

Sony’s 1000X M3 wireless noise-canceling headphones are currently the best that you can buy. This model has better sound quality than most other over-ear headphones as well as a more isolating noise-canceling effect than its closest competitor, Bose’s QC35 II.The 1000X M3s are usually $349.99, and, according to my colleague Vlad Savov’s review (and my own personal experience), they’re worth every penny. For the next few days, they’re $50 off at Massdrop. That bring

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1. Zoom pops 81 percent in Nasdaq debut
Thursday was a big day for tech IPOs, with Zoomopening trading at $65 a share. The company’s initial public offering gave it a fully diluted market cap of roughly $16 billion.
Meanwhile, Pinterest debuted on the New York Stock Exchange at $23.75 per s

As we near Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, where the company will unveil its next major versions of iOS, macOS, and other software updates, 9to5Mac’s Guilherme Rambo is getting the jump on some of those announcements. Today, he’s reporting that Apple plans to bring the Siri Shortcuts feature (and likely the Shortcuts app itself) to the Mac with macOS 10.15. Shortcuts allow users to create custom Siri voice commands that trigger actions within a particular app.

Ramotion is a remote branding and product design agency that has worked with Bay Area tech startups since 2014. While they typically do branding for funded, fast-growing startups, Ramotion has helped companies ranging from Bitmoji’s early brand identity to Mozilla’s rebrand. We spoke to Ramotion’s CEO Denis Pakhaliuk about their iterative approach, his favorite branding projects and more.  Ramotion’s branding philosophy:“We are a big fan of starting small: desi