Technology news

iFixit has conducted its teardown of Google’s new Pixel 3A and 3A XL smartphones, awarding the devices a reparability score of 6 out of 10. The site found that the new Pixel’s display is fairly easy to remove — without the heat gun or blow dryer that’s often necessary to melt the adhesive securing the screens on many of today’s phones.Instead, Google uses a “spongy, easily-separated adhesive.” The downside here — and probably a key reason for the

Today Ubisoft officially unveiled the latest Tom Clancy release, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. A sequel to 2017’s Wildlands, it’s another realistic military shooter — and another chance for Ubisoft to say that its games are free of politics.
It’s become something of a trend for the French publisher, which makes big-budget action games that feature settings and storylines plucked from the headlines, yet stubbornly refuse to say much of substance despite this. Ubisoft CEO Yves

Philips Hue has been updated today with a new feature that lets you group individual Hue lights and bulbs together as a group — called a “Zone” — making it easier to control larger light setups, via Android Police.
The update is available on iOS and Android starting today, and gives Hue the much-needed option to group multiple bulbs together. Hue lights could previously only control bulbs through the company’s app on an individual basis or for the entire room at on

Uberhas set its initial public offering at $45 per share, per reports, raising $8.1 billion in the process.
The price, which falls at the low end of Uber’s planned range, values Uber at $82.4 billion. Uber confirmed the price in a press release Thursday afternoon.
The pricing comes one day after drivers all over the world went on strike, with drivers in San Francisco protesting right outside the company’s headquarters.
Uber filed for its IPO last month, reporting 2018 revenues o

Today, Jeff Bezos unveiled the design of his spaceflight company’s lunar lander, the Blue Moon, which can take scientific payloads — and eventually humans — to the surface of the Moon. Bezos said that his company, Blue Origin, has been working on the design for the lander for the last three years.“This is an incredible vehicle, and it’s going to the Moon,” Bezos said after unveiling a mock-up of the Blue Moon lander at the Washington, DC Convention Center. Me

Google’s I/O developer conference took place this week in Mountain View, California, and The Vergecast crew not only attended, but we also recorded a show in front of a live audience!Hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn ran through all of the announcements and then brought on Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s head of Android and Chrome, and Stephanie Cuthbertson, the company’s director of Android, to talk about the newest Pixel devices, the new Nest line, mobile messaging, and, of cou

I'm here to alert the presses that yes, people who peel their chicken nuggets before eating them actually exist. Let the "cursed food opinion" comments roll. 
A photo of nude nuggets, freshly peeled, has been making the rounds on Twitter since late April, but it has recently incurred a fresh wave of delicious backlash. If you know you know💀💀 pic.twitter.com/uenoNxSXDo
— diamante✨ (@kiingdiime) April 29, 2019Like the infamous St. Louis-style bagel fiasco, pe

Yesterday, an Ecobee leak may have inadvertently revealed plans for the smart thermostat maker to expand its presence in the home — but it’s still thinking about temperature, too. A new leak shows the company may also have a new flagship thermostat inbound.
Dave Zatz of ZatzNotFunny unearthed the following image of a new room sensor that he says will be bundled with a new, premium thermostat with a glass screen instead of plastic — one likely to be called the Ecobee4+.
And you

Mr. Fox was apparently not fantastic enough.
Google Maps began rolling out Augmented Reality directions on Pixel Phones this week. This was a feature it promised at last year's I/O developer conference, and one that Mashable got to try out this February. 
The feature is pretty nifty: When you're unsure about your next move, you can hold your camera up to the street and your surroundings, and Google Maps will be able to provide you with a range of helpful specifics, like how many feet there

After months of beta testing, Sonos is nearly ready to roll out Google Assistant to its Sonos One and Sonos Beam smart speakers. In today’s quarterly earnings letter to shareholders, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence confirmed that the company is planning to launch Assistant next week. The functionality will launch in the US initially, “with more markets to come over the next few months,” said Spence.
“This feature will truly elevate the customer experience and marks the first ti

This morning, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes made a landmark call to break up Facebook in The New York Times. Hughes — who left the company in 2007 — argues that Facebook has fostered its users’ bad impulses, prevented other companies from competing, and gained “unilateral control over speech” worldwide. The piece is a blunt condemnation of Facebook’s market power and frightening grip on modern society, and it’s a compelling one.But on one topic, his

OneDegree, an insurance technology startup based in Hong Kong, announced today it has extended its Series A round to $30 million, up from the $25.5 million it announced in September. Its extension, which the company is calling its “A2” round, was led by BitRock Capital, an investment firm that focuses on financial tech. Cyberport Macro Fund, Cathay Venture and investors from its initial Series A also participated.
The company is preparing to launch its online insurance platform, desi

Regardless of the web browser you use, we all rely on the back button to return to the previously visited page. But some websites abuse the back button to stop you leaving. It's infuriating, but soon to be a thing of the past for Chromium-based browsers.
As Naked Security reports, the developers behind the Chromium open source browser, which Google Chrome (and the new Edge browser) are built around, are introducing new behavior to stop websites from breaking back button functionality.
There are

It’s been rumored that Apple will break up iTunes into its component parts in the upcoming macOS 10.15, with new Music, Video, and Podcast apps to replace the aging iTunes. But apparently, the new standalone Music app will still be built on the bones of iTunes, not a new, Marzipan-based app, according to a report from 9to5Mac.
So instead of building a new Music app from scratch that would draw on a shared codebase with Apple’s existing standalone Music app on iOS (which is built on

No one wants to be the person responsible for bringing vegetables to a Memorial Day potluck. 
Sure, people may nibble on those carefully cut celery sticks, or plunge a few carrots into your homemade ranch dip, but let's be real: The veggie platter is never the star of the show. 
Nay, the true cookout glory lies with those responsible for the queso dip, Sloppy Joes, baby-back ribs, and cheesy potato casserole — those guilty-pleasure comfort foods for which everyone needs seconds,

Delta Air Lines will test offering free Wi-Fi on 55 domestic daily flights this month. The tests will start on May 13th and last for two weeks, and they will allow users to do just about everything except stream video free of charge.Delta calls the tests the “first step toward realizing its vision” of offering free, in-flight Wi-Fi, though it admits there will likely be “several more” phases before any actual rollout happens. Currently, JetBlue is the only US airline tha

"I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you" Taylor Swift sang years ago.
But it seems the Game of Thrones references run deeper than just dragon imagery. In a new interview, Swift explains that the HBO juggernaut was definitely in her head while writing reputation. 
"A lot of the songs [on reputation] were influenced by the show," she told Entertainment Weekly.
Swift has always written semi-autobiographical music, but between 1989 and reputation she became a Thrones fan and couldn

Popular YouTube gaming creator Jared “ProJared” Knabenbauer is being accused of soliciting nude photos from fans, including at least two people who were underage.Knabenbauer is a gaming personality on YouTube with around 1 million subscribers who has appeared on other popular channels, including Game Grumps. But Knabenbauer has now been accused of abusive behavior toward his wife, popular cosplayer Heidi O’Ferrall, and asking that fans send him nude photos over a period of yea

We’re still a few months away from Apple’s next iPhone (which will likely launch in September), but rumors are already swirling and case makers, at least, seem to be convinced, based on the latest batch of leaked case renders courtesy of Slashleaks and Sonny Dickson.There isn’t a ton new to see here — renders of an iPhone with a massive square camera module with three triangularly arranged lenses have been floating around for months, but the fact that case makers seem to

Hugo Barra, the former Xiaomi executive who has run Facebook’s Oculus VR team since 2017, is changing roles in what looks like a larger shake-up in VR at Facebook. Barra announced on Twitter that he would be “taking a new role [at Facebook] building a global AR/VR partner ecosystem based in NYC.” He’s being replaced by Erick Tseng, formerly Facebook’s director of product management.
Barra is transferring just before Oculus launches its new Quest mobile headset. Ech

The fetid waste of penguins and elephant seals helps spread nutrients across surprisingly large areas of Antarctica. This fertilizer traveled nearly as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles) past the edges of their active outposts, floating on the chilled Antarctic winds.In areas where the poop wafted, tiny creatures such as mites, springtails (sometimes called snow fleas), and other microscopic critters were two to five times more abundant than in areas less fecally blessed, according to a paper in Cu

There is no lack of parenting advice available, and the sea of tips from well-meaning relatives and internet strangers alike can leave parents looking to scientific evidence for guidance.The problem is that not all evidence is equal. There are plenty of studies out there, but a tiny study funded by a formula company, for example, should not be taken as seriously as a large randomized trial conducted by a government agency. “It is not super straightforward to evaluate all of this literatur

In response to a stunning op-ed from Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes published in The New York Times this morning, the company says it welcomes more accountability for its actions from lawmakers in Washington, but it says breaking up Facebook by decoupling Instagram and WhatsApp from its core service would be a step too far.“Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful American company,&rdqu

Significant spoilers ahead for Avengers: Endgame and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Up until Avengers: Endgame, hero death in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was rarely permanent. Agent Phil Coulson died in The Avengers, and was resurrected for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Bucky Barnes appeared to die in Captain America: The First Avenger, and came back as the antagonist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Even Loki, a villain turned semi-hero, seemingly died in Thor: The Dark World, came back for Thor: Ra

The first trailer for It: Chapter Two, the sequel to Andy Muschietti’s critically acclaimed 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror tale, is a creepy return home to Derry, Maine, 27 years after the events of the first film.The members of the “Losers’ Club” are all grown up, but upon their return home, they’re horrified to discover that Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård) has resurfaced. The first part of the trailer focuses on Beverly Marsh (J

Child and privacy advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday claiming that Amazon’s Echo Dot Kids devices are unlawfully recording and storing the conversation data of young children.
In the complaint, the coalition accuses Amazon of unlawfully storing data from conversations with children even after parents try to delete it. If true, the practice could violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), one of the only federal privacy

Instagram will begin hiding search results for hashtags that consistently return false information about vaccines, the company said today. Starting today, the company will effectively begin blocking access to hashtags that return misinformation designed to dissuade people from getting vaccinated. Instagram made the announcement at an event for press in San Francisco on Thursday.
“If the hashtag was #vaccines1234, if it contained a high proportion of known vaccine misinformation, we would

In retrospect, Game of Thrones warned us that it was all #ForTheThrone at the beginning of the months-long hype campaign for the final season. As we approach the final two episodes of the series, that idea — not the war with the White Walkers, not carefully considered character stories, not even a more nuanced look at the power structure of Westeros — has become the show’s focal point: who will sit on the Iron Throne when the dust settles?
That contraction of the story has lef

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.
Time machines aren’t real, but most people still basically understand their rules: respect the butterfly effect, don’t meet your past self, don’t take the Infinity Stones to another universe, and if you want to prevent a disaster, prepare for unforeseen consequences.
In the upcoming Netflix release Se

On Thursday, Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, called for United States national security agencies to investigate two Chinese telecommunications providers.Carr called for the investigation at an FCC Open Meeting on Thursday, prior to voting on a measure that would block a separate Chinese company, China Mobile, from operating within the US. Carr used some of his time at the dais to target China Unicom and China Telecom, two other Chinese telecom c