Technology news

Huawei, the Chinese technology giant whose devices are at the center of a far-reaching trade dispute between the U.S. and Chinese governments, is reducing orders for new phones, according to a report in The South China Morning Post.
According to unnamed sources, the Taiwanese technology manufacturer Foxconn has halted production lines for several Huawei phones after the Shenzhen-based company reduced orders. Foxconn also makes devices for most of the major smart phone vendors including

Get an Ektorp armchair, Lack side table, Aina throw pillow, and Solvinden string lights and you're set for your Stranger Things living room design. Throw in some alphabet paint on the wallpaper and you're basically in Hawkins, Indiana.
The Swedish furniture superstore IKEA scoured its vast inventory to re-create sets from three iconic TV shows: Friends, The Simpsons, and Stranger Things. As part of its Real Life series you decorate a room to look like the TV version or pick and choose items like

Fitness wearables sit on a scale. On one hand, you’ve got miniature supercomputers that can do almost everything. That’s your Apple Watch or preferred WearOS device. And then you’ve got the most basic ones that tell the time, track steps, and that’s about it. Sometimes, you just want something straightforward. The Lenovo HX06 is an example of that austere simplicity. This black bit of plastic, metal, and glass doesn’t have much in terms of bells and whistles. It te

The Equality Act has a potent patron. 
On Saturday, Taylor Swift posted an image of a letter to her 118 million follower Instagram account asking a veteran Tennessee lawmaker, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, to help pass the Equality Act. The bill, which passed through the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in May, outlaws discrimination against LGBTQ people in public places like schools, work, and housing. 
The Republican-controlled Senate can now take up a vote. But the

Twitterhas suspended a large number of Chinese-language user accounts, including those belonging to critics of China’s government. It seems like a particularly ill-timed move, occurring just days before thirtieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4.
“A large number of Chinese @Twitter accounts are being suspended today,” wrote Yaxue Cao, founder and editor of the U.S.-based publication China Change. “They ‘happen’ to be accounts critical of

To encourage ride-sharing drivers to offer "green" rides, Lyft is offering its drivers in Portland, Oregon free electric vehicle charging.
Starting in July, drivers who use plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicles on the Lyft platform can use Portland General Electric charging stations — at no cost. There are currently five stations across the region, each capable of charging six vehicles at a time with four DC fast chargers and two Level 2 chargers. 
Normally, pricing starts at $3 for

Yesterday the U.S. State Department began implementing its requirement that nearly all U.S. visa applicants submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers as part of the application process. The new requirement, which could affect up to 15 million would-be travelers to the U.S., is part of a broad expansion of enhanced screening under the Trump administration.
First proposed in March 2018, the State Department only just updated the application forms to reque

The Slack Origin Story
Slackis one of the most iconic enterprise companies to come out of Silicon Valley. Part of the reason is the mythos surrounding the startup’s founding as a games company and later pivot into workplace communication. But what’s the story behind the story of the high-flying company? Who supported the company every step of the way?
Our venture capital reporter Kate Clark has the history and background on Slack, soon to be trading as WORK on the NYSE.
“We rea

The actors and everyone on set filming the recently released Netflix miniseries, When They See Us, had access to crisis counseling to help with the heavy, based-on-real-life material portrayed on screen. 
Ava DuVernay's four-part series, released Friday, goes into the 1989 story of five boys who were wrongly accused, arrested, convicted, imprisoned, and eventually exonerated in the "Central Park Five" case. The teens spent between five and 13 years in prison for a sexual assault they were f

FlexTime wants to help people seem cooler than they are by tricking others into believing they’re friends with celebrities like Post Malone and Billie Eilish.The app allows users to simulate a FaceTime call by using clips from various live streams and Instagram stories posted over the last year. The clips are saved using a basic screen recorder, and then played back as a standard FaceTime call that users can interact with to make their own video.The idea began as a possible stunt for Broo

Get your wrist-mounted adventures in while you can, Trainers: Niantic is pulling the plug on Pokémon Go for Apple Watch.
The game's developer noted in a support article that players will no longer be able to connect their Apple Watch to the app as of July 1, 2019 (h/t 9to5Mac). The change is apparently tied to a feature called Adventure Sync that Niantic launched in 2018.
Adventure Sync gives players the ability to track their distance traveled even when the Pokémon Go app isn't op

Mary Ann Azevedo ContributorShare on Twitter Mary Ann Azevedo covers startups and tech at Crunchbase News.More posts by this contributorAs Amex scoops up Resy, a look at its history of acquisitions It’s not so obvious that this VC firm is focused on impact
If you’re a big basketball fan like me, you’ll be glued to the TV watching the Golden State Warriorstake on the Toronto Raptors in the NBA finals. (You might be surprised who I’m rooting for.)
In honor of the big games

While traversing across rocky plains in the shadow of Mount Sharp, the Mars Curiosity rover captured wispy clouds hovering in the sky.
The car-sized robot — which landed on Mars in 2012 — captured these lofty clouds on May 17, 2019, which translates to the 2410th sol, or Martian day, of its mission.
From millions of miles away, NASA scientists suspect these clouds hovered some 19-miles above the red Martian surface. NASA also notes the clouds are "noctilucent," meaning they're high e

Earlier this year, Lyft launched a new feature called “Green Mode”, which allows riders to request an electric or hybrid vehicle for their trip. The company is now partnering with Portland General Electric to offer up free charging for drivers in the Portland, Oregon metro area.
Starting on July 1st, drivers in the Portland area will be eligible to charge their vehicles free of charge at a variety of locations in the area. According to its website, PGE says that it has 3 “Elec

There’s some obvious overlap between “Tuca & Bertie” and “BoJack Horseman” — they’re both talking animal cartoons on Netflix; they have a similar look, courtesy of Lisa Hanawalt (designer on “BoJack Horseman” and creator of “Tuca & Bertie”); and “BoJack” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg co-wrote the first episode of the new show.
Plus, their respective first seasons follow a similar arc, kicking off with rapid-fire

The Russian release of Rocketman is missing a number of scenes, including those that depict drug use and gay relations between two men. Elton John, the subject of the critically hailed new biopic, is not pleased.
John issued a strongly worded statement via Twitter on Friday evening in response to reports from an early screening in Moscow. The statement specifically singles out the "local distributor" in Russia, calling the changes "a sad reflection of the divided world we still live in and how i

Pokémon GO developer Niantic announced this week (via 9to5Mac) that it is ending support for its Apple Watch version of the game, effective July 1st, 2019. After that time, players won’t be able to connect their Apple Watch to their iPhone app.The company announced the app in September 2016 and released it a couple of months later. Players couldn’t play the full game on their watch — it connected to their phone and displayed how far they needed to walk before hatching a

Mashable is celebrating Pride Month by exploring the modern LGBTQ world, from the people that make up the community to the spaces where they congregate, both online and off.When I was a 26-year-old adult looking to come out as queer, I turned to YouTube for support.
Mind you, this was 2009, when coming out videos, a genre in which the subject publicly comes out of the closet or offers coming out advice, were beginning to emerge. YouTube user EatYourPeas18 is believed to have posted one of the ea

Things have slowed down in the deals department following the heap of Memorial Day sales that we saw earlier this week. But there are still more than a few lingering deals from that shopping holiday that are worth checking out.Google’s Nest Hub (formerly known as the Home Hub) is still $74.99 over on eBay, as it has been for the better part of a week. Google recently cut its retail price from $149 to $129, but with all the deals, you shouldn’t have to pay that much.
Samsung’s

The Justice Department has charged a defense wholesaler with fraud and counterfeit trafficking after it produced uniforms and other gear for the US military in China that didn’t do what it was designed to do, according to Military Times.The contractor that’s been charged is Ramin Kohanbash, who owned a New Jersey-based supply company called United Associates Limited. He had gotten a $20 million contract to supply the US military with a variety of specialized uniforms, including park

The Justice Department has charged a defense wholesaler with fraud and counterfeit trafficking after it produced uniforms and other gear for the US military in China that didn’t do what it was designed to do, according to Military Times.The contractor that’s been charged is Ramin Kohanbash, who owned a New Jersey-based supply company called United Associates Limited. He had gotten a $20 million contract to supply the US military with a variety of specialized uniforms, including park

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been catching up on a book that’s been on my to-read list for a while now: Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear. It came out back in March, and I’m kind of kicking myself for not getting to it earlier. It’s a huge space opera that follows the adventures of two salvage workers and their AI as they discover a fantastical alien ship.Engineer Halmey Dz is infected with something on board the alien ship, and that paints a target on their back b

The only thing that can dampen a ‘90s nostalgia trip is seeing an old, beloved gadget fall victim to the cruelty of time, specifically the degradation of a consumer electronic device until the point it barely works properly and is covered head to toe in grime. And gadgets as old as the original Nintendo Game Boy, which came out in 1989, tend not to hold up too well unless they’ve been lovingly cared for and protected from harm over the years.Thankfully, there are those brave souls o

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s noteworthy venture capital deals, funds and trends. Before I dive into this week’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about the sudden uptick in beverage startup rounds. Before that, I noted an alternative to venture capital fundraising called revenue-based financing. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to [email protected] or on

Panic, the venerable Mac and iOS software firm, made a major splash the other week with the announcement of its first hardware device. The Playdate is a bright yellow handheld gaming console with a monochrome screen; it was co-designed by Swedish hardware wizards Teenage Engineering and features exclusive releases from renowned developers like Zach Gage, Bennett Foddy, and Keita Takahashi.
I just met with Takahashi at BitSummit, the ever-growing annual indie game festival in Kyoto, and got the

A digital platform called OBTranslate that aims to translate more than 2,000 African languages to enable rural dwellers to gain easy access to global markets has been launched. According to its creator, 63 per cent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to global markets because of language barriers. “Over 52 native languages in Africa have undergone language death and have no native speakers,” said Emmanuel Gabriel, founder of Germany-based OpenBinacle, the crea

Panasonic’s Lumix mirrorless cameras are widely regarded as the best choice for anyone looking to create beautiful video within a mortal’s budget. The company is today pushing that reputation up into a higher price, quality, and resolution bracket with the announcement of $4,000 the Lumix S1H, a full-frame shooter capable of recording 6K video at 24fps. It’s a fresh iteration of the Lumix S1, which made its debut at Photokina last year and which I’ve recently tried and b

DJI is the leading name in drones, and we’ve liked their prosumer Phantom and Mavic lines quite a bit — but it looks like the company has also quietly built a professional cinematography drone that’s so high-end, it’s not even for sale. You’ll hire DJI to send out a fancy van with a dedicated team of professionals, presumably to fly the drone for you.As DroneDJ notes, the DJI Storm was quietly revealed in a YouTube video that seems to have flown under the radar (so

Google may soon face an antitrust investigation from the US Department of Justice pertaining to its search business and potentially other aspects of the company’s sprawling software and services empire, according to a late Friday evening report from The Wall Street Journal. The DOJ is said to have spent the past few weeks preparing for the probe. Following publication of the WSJ’s story, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Bloomberg are confirming an imminent antitrust prob

Good news: Applenow allows you to download bigger apps over a cellular connection than it used to.
Bad news: there’s still a cap, and you still can’t bypass it.
As noticed by 9to5Mac, the iOS App Store now lets you download apps up to 200 MB in size while on a cell network; anything bigger than that, and you’ll need to connect to WiFi. Before this change, the cap was 150 MB.
And if you’ve got an unlimited (be it actually unlimited or cough-cough-‘unlimited’) p

John Romero, the game developer virtuoso behind Hexen, Quake, Wolfenstein, and other games still being remade and sequelized to this day, just dropped a massive, free mod for one of his most famous and popular creations: Doom. In case you missed my tweet this morning, SIGIL v1.1 is now available for free download at https://t.co/4iBwNEocdw. If you have the paid version (from a box USB or digital download), download the free SIGIL v1.1 to update it. — 𝕵𝖔

A pair of scientists from prestigious Dartmouth University recently published research postulating why Godzilla has more than doubled in size since 1954. If you guessed a gym membership and a high-protein diet: you’re wrong. The King of the Monsters’ incredible evolution in fiction is, arguably, due to real-world global anxiety over increasing nationalism and the US military’s continued nuclear aggression. Yeah, that old chestnut. The research argues that Godzilla’s

Apple is ready to pull the plug on iTunes, nearly two decades after launching the game-changing application. According to Bloomberg, the company plans to retire the product at next week’s WWDC event. Killing iTunes is long overdue. It’s been rumored for years now that Apple would shelve the product, as it does little to benefit customers who already made the switch to one of Apple’s standalone apps for movies, music, or podcasts. According to the Bloomberg report, users can ex

Motorola this week announced the Moto Z4, the latest in its family of phones compatible with attachable accessories. Quite frankly, I’m kind of amazed that Motorola is still making modular phones three years later, but I’m all for it. The company is taking a more laid back approach this year though. The Z4 is no longer aiming at the flagship market, coming with a Snapdragon 675, 4GB of RAM, and 128 GB of storage. That should definitely offer good enough performance for most people &