Technology news

Microsoft is launching a developer edition of the company’s HoloLens 2 headset today. Priced at $3,500, it’s the exact same pricing as the version that will be sold to businesses later this year. While the original commercial pricing of the HoloLens was $5,000, the original development kit was always $3,500, so there are no price cuts for developers this time around.
The kit will include the HoloLens 2 hardware and Azure credits alongside free trials of Unity Pro and Unity PiXYZ Plu

Investigators are still trying to pin down exactly why a SpaceX vehicle exploded during testing on April 20th. A SpaceX official confirmed today that the explosion destroyed the test version of the company’s passenger vehicle known as Crew Dragon.“There was an anomaly and the vehicle was destroyed.”
The company launched an investigation into the incident soon after it happened, and it’s still combing through evidence from the accident. The safety and performance of the C

Following the early success of the Overwatch League, Activision is planning to launch a similar, city-based professional league for Call of Duty as well, and today the publisher announced the league’s first teams. The company says that it has already sold franchises to owners in Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Paris, and Toronto.Each team will be owned and operated by the same ownership groups behind their city’s respective Overwatch League team. “In Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Pari

May is as good a month as any to dive into new fandoms. If you’re not already caught up with Game of Thrones, it’s still possible to block out the spoilers and binge all eight seasons before the finale airs on May 19th. Not only is HBO pulling out all the stops in what should be an epic battle, it’s also giving fans one last farewell in Game of Thrones: The Last Watch, which airs on May 26th.
But there’s more to life than Game of Thrones. For people who’ve spent ye

Pokémon trainers have ditched their bulky pokédexes for smartphones that are capable of handling their pocket monster data. That makes finding a good phone case crucial, even if that means searching far and wide to find one capable of protecting the power that’s inside.Casetify, a popular phone case designer, is introducing a new line of pokémon-themed cases ahead of Detective Pikachu’s release. Many of the phone cases, which are available for various iPhone mod

OnePlus is expected to announce its next flagship phone, the OnePlus 7, along with a souped-up OnePlus 7 Pro model, in a few days on May 14th. So of course, it’ll be of no surprise to anyone that pictures of the premium OnePlus 7 Pro have made their way to the internet ahead of schedule, thanks to WinFuture.And honestly, there’s not a whole lot to see here — from the pictures, the OnePlus 7 Pro just looks a whole lot like the already leaked OnePlus 7. That’s a good thing

Epic Games’ acquisition of Rocket League developer Psyonix should have been a game industry success story for the ages. Psyonix was a small, mostly contract studio that created a blockbuster online game that became an overnight success and now, a few years later, it gets scooped up by the cash-flush creator of Fortnite.But in short order, the announcement became the latest controversial touchpoint in Epic’s ongoing struggle to compete in the PC game marketplace with Valve-owned Stea

Verizon is seeking a buyer for Tumblr, the blogging platform it acquired along with other Yahoo assets in 2017. The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon has approached other companies in recent weeks that could be potential new homes for Tumblr. The platform hosts 465.4 million blogs and 172 billion posts, according to its about page. The Journal notes that the sale process “is ongoing” and might not result in any transaction.Late last year, Tumblr took the controversial step of

On Thursday, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee pressed major tech companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Google, to submit their budgets to curb content from terrorists and extremists on their platforms.
Committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) first pushed the companies for a briefing in March after the white nationalist terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, was live-streamed to Facebook. According to the committee, no company was able to adeq

If you, like me, took an absurd amount of measures to prevent seeing Avengers: Endgame spoilers before watching the movie, learning that a local TV station in the Philippines aired a pirated version of the film one day after it was released may make your head roll.Orient Cable, a regional cable provider in Dipolog City in the Zamboanga del Norte district of the Philippines, aired a badly pirated version of Endgame, according to the Philippine News Agency. Imagine watching television and stumbli

Significant spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 3, “The Long Night,” and for Avengers: Endgame.
Heading into last weekend, we were expecting a lot of big, meaningful pop-culture deaths. Avengers: Endgame threatened to kill off some major Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, as the franchise opened up to new sequels and spinoffs. A lot of Game of Thrones characters we’ve seen grow up over eight years were also on the line, as they faced a seemingly endless ar

Avengers: Endgame debuted this weekend, breaking box-office records and speeding to a staggering $1.2 billion weekend take. It’s Marvel’s biggest movie ever, and at the current rate of ticket sales, it might just wind up as the biggest movie of all time. It’s hard to discuss Endgame as a single film, or even as the second half of the two-part story that started with Avengers: Infinity War, given how heavily it relies on the buildup of the other previous 20 films in Marvel Stud

Facebook today removed Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Paul Nehlen, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, and Infowars from Facebook and Instagram, saying their accounts violated its policies against dangerous individuals and organizations. They will be prohibited from creating new accounts, although Facebook and Instagram users will continue to be able to create posts praising them and their viewpoints, the company said.
“We’ve always banned individuals or organizations

Early Friday morning, SpaceX is set to launch another one of its Dragon cargo capsules to orbit, loaded with supplies and science experiments for the International Space Station. It’s an otherwise routine launch for the company — the 17th one that SpaceX has launched for NASA since 2012. However, this mission comes two weeks after the passenger version of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule exploded during an engine test.
The exact cause of that accident has yet to be identified, but the

On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved the first climate bill in nearly a decade that would block President Donald Trump from leaving the Paris climate agreement.The bill, called the Climate Action Now Act, was passed in the House with a 231-190 vote. If approved, it would require Trump to build out a plan to uphold the United States’ pledge, established under President Barack Obama, to the Paris climate agreement. The Paris agreement required the US to cut its emissions by at

Adobe is testing raising the price for its Creative Cloud Photography plan, taking it from $10 / month to $20 / month, as spotted by PetaPixel.Previously, the Photography plan was the cheapest Creative Cloud subscription option, offering Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC, and 20GB of cloud storage. The new plan offers the trio of apps plus 1TB of cloud storage, but double its old price. This makes the new Photography plan just $1 cheaper than the next price plan, a $21 / month pl

Google is adding four new Playmoji to its augmented reality Playground service based on characters from the upcoming Detective Pikachu. Starting today, you’ll be able to download and take photos with Charizard, Jigglypuff, Mr. Mime, and Detective Pikachu from within the Playground section of the camera app on Google Pixel phones.The search giant rebranded its ARCore-powered AR Stickers as Playmoji during last year’s Google Pixel 3 event. Initially, the characters were only available

The Federal Trade Commission is in the midst of negotiating a settlement with Facebook that would require the company to strengthen its privacy practices by creating new privacy-focused positions at the company, according to a new report from Politico.
The deal isn’t final, and the provisions of the settlement won’t be official until the FTC formally announces it. According to reports, Facebook has agreed to create a new privacy oversight committee that may include Facebook board me

Google is always sponsoring weird and inventive projects with the help of artificial intelligence, and its latest is characteristically odd. Named PoemPortraits, the web app takes a word of your suggestion and combines it with a selfie to create the eponymous poem portrait. Basically, it’s an Instagram filter paired with a few lines of AI-generated poetry.
It’s fun and strange and worth a few minutes of your time to mess around with. I created the image above using the word “m

Uber has announced that it will begin selling train and bus tickets through its app for its customers in Denver, Colorado. It’s the first step in the ride-hailing giant’s high-stakes quest to become the de facto smartphone app for all modes of transportation, not just cars. It’s Uber’s chance to blunt some of the negative effects its rising popularity has had on public transportation.
Following a staggered rollout, residents of Denver will be able to use Uber’s app

Companies want to use robotics and AI to revolutionize farming, but first, they have to prove there’s a market for what they’re growing.Robot farming startup Iron Ox has taken the first step in doing so, announcing today that it’s selling robot-reared leafy greens in a single location in California. The firm, which launched last October, is offering three varieties of greens at the San Carlos branch of Bianchini’s Market, a family-owned grocery store that specializes in

Whether it is for a parent or significant other, it can often be difficult to come up with great gift ideas. So using the expertise of The Verge’s staff, we’ve put together a list of some things we think would make great Mother’s Day gifts, or might give you inspiration for your own Mother’s Day gift idea.These are things that have either served the staff well, or are things they wish they had. And so, compiled below is a list of 13 things from Popsockets at around $10 to

Ron Howard might be returning to the world of his classic epic fantasy film Willow. The director confirmed that he and Solo: A Star Wars Story writer Jon Kasdan were discussing the possibility of developing a TV series based on the film with Disney, with the goal of bringing it to the company’s forthcoming streaming service, Disney+.The original film follows an aspiring sorcerer named Willow Ufgood (played by Warwick Davis) who comes across an infant, Elora Danan. She was sent down a rive

It’s been a long time coming for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the crowdfunded gothic action game from acclaimed Castlevania director Koji Igarashi. If you’re wondering what the holdup has been — the game was successfully crowdfunded back in 2015, after all, and it has seen multiple delays since then — the latest trailer for the game is a surprisingly honest answer. After highlighting a number of negative fan comments about the game’s visual style, the video s

Tinder is launching a new feature for all users today called Festival Mode that’ll let users add a badge to their profile that advertises the music festivals they’ll attend this summer. The app will prompt users to make a selection on the Festival Mode card, which will give other users a heads-up that they’ll be at a festival and potentially willing to meet.
Users will be able to select from 12 festivals in both the US and UK, including Governors Ball, Bonnaroo Music & Art

Best Buy is offering a sweet deal to anyone who is purchasing a Nintendo Switch. You’ll get a free game (up to $59.99 in value) along with the portable console. Unlike past sales, the catalog of games isn’t limited to Nintendo-published titles, like Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe, or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to name a few. As good as those games are, it’s nice that the door is also open to the newly released Mortal Kombat 11 or Final Fantasy XII: The

Update May 2nd, 10:00AM ET: Blue Origin successfully performed another test launch of its New Shepard system today. Both the New Shepard rocket and capsule touched down safely back at the company’s West Texas facility around 10 minutes after liftoff. The capsule reached about 346,000 feet, or more than 65 miles, eclipsing the recognized boundary of space.This morning, Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight venture Blue Origin will send its suborbital rocket to space on its 11th test flight —

Teslais raising up to $1.55 billion through the sale of notes and shares, according to a filing made by the EV maker today.
The document outlines that Tesla will sell up to $1.35 billion in convertible senior notes. The number could increase further: Tesla is giving underwriters the chance to buy a further $202.5 million for over-allotments. In share numbers, that’s an initial 2,723,198 shares that could expand to 3,131,677.
The notes are due in 2024 and, already, Tesla founder and CEO Elo

A leaked image of the unannounced Moto Z4 suggests that the phone could be the first flagship Moto Z device to have a headphone jack. Outside of the 3.5mm connector, the handset appears to support Motorola’s Moto Mod accessories — including the recently released 5G module — and has a teardrop-notched display along with a single camera on its rear. The image was posted to Twitter by Evan Blass.Motorola’s Moto Z lineup has had an on-off relationship with the headphone jack