Technology news

This week, a group of 17 automakers sent a letter to President Trump asking him to back down from his administration’s plan to roll back Obama-era vehicle emissions standards. But while the letter was framed as a rebuke, or a warning, it made something clear: many of the world’s biggest automakers still want to lower emissions standards at a time when the planet is experiencing a blooming environmental crisis brought on by humans.The Environmental Protection Agency first announced t

Earlier this week, Microsoft removed a database of more than 10 million faces, intended as a test and training dataset for facial recognition algorithms, according to a report by the Financial Times. Known as MS Celeb, the database contained more than 10 million images of roughly 100,000 people, largely scraped from publicly available online sources. While no individual photo in the dataset was difficult to find, the volume of images and the structured data accompanying them made the dataset ex

A year after Walmart’spersonal shopping service JetBlack launched in New York, the retailer reports two-thirds of customers engage with the service on a weekly basis, and spend an average of $1,500 per month on JetBlack purchases. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the customers are only buying products from Walmart or its subsidiaries like Jet.com — JetBlack is a standalone e-commerce business incubated by Walmart, and will deliver products from other retailers as well.
In fact, t

It’s not like any of us went to a store for unethical people and told the clerk to load us up with dozens of products and services developed by companies that have no regard for personal privacy, human rights, or the future of our planet. But here we sit. There’s a good chance that the company that makes your phone’s OS develops AI for the military and/or uses legal loopholes to avoid paying fair taxes. And, in the US, your phone carrier probably helped destroy net neutrality.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has announced that chief operating officer Barney Harford and chief marketing officer Rebecca Messina are both departing the company. In a Friday email to employees, Khosrowshahi said, “over the years, I’ve learned that at every critical milestone, it’s important to step back and think about how best to organize for the future. Given that we’re a month past the IPO, now is one of those times.”
The executives are stepping down almost a mon

Uber’schief operating officer Barney Harfordand chief marketing officer Rebecca Messina are stepping down as part of an organizational shakeup put into motion just a month after the ride-hailing company went public.
CNBC first reported the departures.
The departures, which CEO Dara Khosrowshahiexplained in an email to employees, were prompted by his decision to more directly control core parts of the business. Khosrowshahi told employees that he wants to be even more involved in the day-to

Apple’s new Mac Pro is its most powerful computer ever, with performance specs catered toward creative professionals like visual effects artists, musicians, and filmmakers who need a lot of processing power. Creatives have been asking for a new professional-level computer from Apple since the disappointment of the un-upgradable trash can-looking Mac Pro from 2013, and Apple finally delivered this week with something very pricey and very powerful. But is the new Mac Pro actually what pros

FedExwill not renew a contract with Amazon to provide express delivery for the e-commerce giant’s packages in the United States.
FedEx, which made the announcement Friday, said in a statement the change would not affect other existing contracts with Amazonor international services. FedEx Express only impacts air services. FedEx will still serve as a carrier for Amazon for last-mile deliveries.
Amazon said in a statement that it respects FedEx’s decision and thanked them for its &ldqu

Sony may be skipping this year’s E3 expo in Los Angeles, but it does have some good news to satiate fans in the form of its annual Days of Play sale. Starting today and lasting 11 days until Monday, June 17th, the sale has some spectacular deals across both Sony’s exclusive lineup of best-selling hits and multiplatform games.This doesn’t just include base games. Sony has expansions, deluxe digital versions, and even virtual reality titles on the list. The full list includes ov

Considering Samsung usually reveals its Galaxy Note devices in the fall or late summer, it was about time we started to see some proper leaks of the upcoming Note 10. But while I was expecting essentially a Galaxy S10 with a bigger screen and a stylus, the first renders of the Note 10 and Note 10 Pro (Samsung is supposedly releasing two Notes this time) appear to suggest a new design language altogether. The renders come courtesy of Pricebaba and reliable leaker @OnLeaks. To be clear, these don

Google will have to face a California lawsuit accusing the company of bias against conservative job candidates as part of a legal challenge first brought against the company by James Damore, author of the infamous 2017 “Google memo.”
Damore exited the lawsuit last year and entered arbitration with the company. But the suit, which argues Google’s hiring practices are biased against white and Asian people, conservatives, and men, will move ahead after surviving a dismissal motio

More than three years ago, self-driving trucks startup Starsky Robotics was founded to solve a fundamental issue with freight — a solution that CEO Stefan Seltz-Axmacher believes hinges on getting the human driver out from behind the wheel.
But a funny thing happened along the way. Starsky Robotics started a regular ol’ trucking company. Now, nearly half of the employees at this self-driving truck startup help run a business that uses the traditional model of employing human drivers

During an interview with Collider, Captain Marvel producers Victoria Alonso and Jonathan Schwartz confirmed that Marvel intends to release the full back catalog of MCU films in 4K over time. “We are going to remaster all of our films in 4K. We’re in the process of doing that, so it’s all happening,” Alonso said.Disney has already released 4K Blu-ray discs for a number of the Marvel Studios movies, which I’ve listed below, but there are definitely holes in the lineu

Jessica Powell,Google’s former head of PR from 2012-2018 (years in which Googlerequired a not-insignificant amount of PR leadership), is now a rock star writer whose 2018 debut book, The Big Disruption: A Totally Fictional But Essentially True Silicon Valley Story, was the first novel published by Medium.
I recently spoke with Powell for this series on the ethics of technology, because The Big Disruption, for all its manic energy and a playfulness at times bordering on sci-fi sitcom level-

FedEx has decided not to renew one of its shipping contracts with Amazon amid increased competition between the two companies, according to CNBC. The contract in question is Amazon’s FedEx Express contract, which according to Amazon is used for air transportation of packages and is not used for last-mile, ground deliveries. As previously reported, Amazon Prime’s two-day deliveries are mostly handled by UPS, and Amazon says its contracts with FedEx to handle any other logistics, incl

After years of the White House pushing NASA’s human exploration programs back toward the lunar surface, President Trump tweeted today that the space agency should not be focused on the Moon, but instead on Mars, defense, and science.
The tweet makes little sense, given that NASA’s main focus throughout the Trump administration has been sending people back to the Moon. The first space policy directive that Trump signed was an order for NASA to send people back to the Moon, and in Mar

Alongside today’s news that Walmartwill soon introduce in-home grocery delivery in select markets, the company today announced another new effort similarly aimed at saving customers’ time. But this time, the focus was on Sam’s Club members, and specifically addressed the long process involved with buying car tires. To address that challenge, the company is rolling out a new “Sam’s Garage” app across the U.S. in July that will turn what used to take half an hou

The FCCvoted at its open meeting this week to adopt an anti-robocall measure, but it may or may not lead to any abatement of this maddening practice — and it might not be free, either. That said, it’s a start toward addressing a problem that’s far from simple and enormously irritating to consumers.
The last two years have seen the robocall problem grow and grow, and although there are steps you can take right now to improve things, they may not totally eliminate the issue or pe

The fifth season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on June 5th, 2019. We’re looking at each of the season’s three episodes to see what they have to say about current culture and projected fears.
Spoiler warning: This essay does not give away the ending of “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too,” but it does reveal some major plot twists.
Black Mirror has a f

There were a bunch of announcements this week at Apple’s WWDC, so The Vergecast is going to help you out by breaking down all of the important stuff into one episode. There was a lot to discuss, so this is a lot of podcast.
Would you like Nilay’s feelings on the Pro Display XDR? It’s in here. Paul’s thoughts on graphics cards? Done. Dieter’s weird philosophical rantings about iPadOS? Sorry, but that’s here, too. I personally haven’t been able to keep tr

I’m spending some time in the new AudiQ8, and the car company equipped the crossover with its latest infotainment system. I love it, fingerprints, dust and all.
The grimy screens are part of the story. I could have cleaned up the screens for the photos, but I thought it was essential to show the screens after a couple of weeks of use.
There are two screens placed in the center stack of the Q8. The top one features controls for the radio, mapping system and vehicle settings. The bottom scre

Bill Baumel Contributor Bill Baumel is Managing Director at the Ohio Innovation Fund. After twenty years in Silicon Valley - 4 public companies and 10 major acquisitions - Bill came home to the Midwest creating OIF, whose 14 companies have attracted partners such as Microsoft, Facebook, SAP, and Sanofi, providing SaaS, cyber, AI/ML and med tech solutions to a majority of the Fortune 500.In developing VC markets such as the Midwest, some may think that funding from the government or economic dev

When Google announced it was buying Looker yesterday morning for $2.6 billion, you couldn’t blame some of the company’s 1,600 customers if they worried a bit if Lookerwould continue its multi-cloud approach. But Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian made clear the company will continue to support an open approach to its latest purchase when it joins the fold later this year.
It’s consistent with the messaging from Google Next, the company’s cloud conference in April. It was lo

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.
What to watch
Moon, a 2009 indie science fiction drama, was co-written by Nathan Parker with direc

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1. Facebook plans June 18 cryptocurrency debut. Here’s what we know
Facebookis finally ready to reveal details about its cryptocurrency, codenamed Libra. It has currently scheduled a June 18 release of a white paper explaining its cryptocurrency’s basics, according to a source.
It sou

Xiaomirecently discovered a safety issue with the M365 electric scooter where a screw could become loose in the folding apparatus. That would then cause the vertical component of the scooter to break off while in use.
Xiaomi said it only affected a “limited number of production units” — 10,257 to be exact. The recall program will start in the United Kingdom on June 26 and in other markets July 1. The United States is not one of the markets affected.
Electric scooter startup Bir

Claire Stapleton, a longtime Googleemployee who helped organize a 20,000-person walkout of Google employees last November over the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations, announced today on Medium that she has left the outfit.
She cites her health, saying she is having another child this fall. But she also says the move ties to retaliation she has alleged she faced after helping stage the walkout, writing: “I made the choice after the heads of my department branded me wi