Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sprint is informing customers today of a serious security breach that has exposed subscriber information like billing addresses, phone numbers, and other detailed account information, according to ZDNet. The breach is a result of vulernability, the details of which are currently unknown, in a Samsung website advertising an “add a line” feature for active Sprint account holders.Sprint explained the breach in a letter sent out to consumers that

Accessory company Nomad is overhauling its line of charging cables across the board with a major redesign that adds a whole bunch of Kevlar — actual, licensed Kevlar — to the mix for what promises to be even tougher cables than the company’s already-strong cords.The new cables feature Kevlar K29, an industrial version of the material that’s used in cables (like these charging cords) and also body and vehicle armor, which might make it a bit overkill for charging a phone.

Google Maps is adding support for bike sharing stations in a big way, with the company rolling out a new integration that will offer users information on docked bike sharing services like Citi Bike directly in the app.The new integration is made possible from data provided by Ito World, which provides information on where to find a bike sharing station, how many bikes are there, and whether or not there’s an empty space waiting for you to dock your bike when you arrive at your destination.

The Consumer Technology Association, the organization behind the annual Consumer Electronics Show, is slowly getting up to speed with the modern day. Today, CTA announced it will allow sex tech startups to participate and compete for awards as part of the health and wellness category on a one-year trial basis.
This comes after the CTA royally messed up with sex tech company Lora DiCarlo last year. The CTA revoked an innovation award from the company, which is developing a hands-free device that

Photo: Warner Bros. Entertainment Detective Pikachu, the live-action mystery movie from director Rob Letterman and Warner Bros. Pictures, has surpassed Duncan Jones’ Warcraft as the highest-grossing video game film of all time with $436 million in worldwide ticket sales.Warcraft, produced by Legendary Pictures (the same company that made Detective Pikachu) and based on the Blizzard Entertainment fantasy franchise, was the previous record-holder since 2016, when it ousted Prince of Persia:

In any online game, cheaters can really ruin it for everyone else. Not only do they ruin the sense of fair play, but, in defiance of the old adage, they often prosper. So what’s EA doing with Apex Legends‘s cheaters? Sticking the offenders in a pool together. Respawn, the game’s developers, posted a “check-in” update to Reddit over the weekend, detailing among other things its attempts to mitigate unfair play. There’s the usual measures: creating AI that

Joe Apprendi Contributor Joe Apprendi is a general partner at Revel Partners. More posts by this contributorTaxing your privacy The new era in mobile
Retailers and brands have both seen a tremendous shift in traditional retail dynamics, with merchants and marketplaces increasingly ceding control of the online and in-store shopping experience to the brands themselves. Democratizing access to data through new verticalized tools, however, represents a unique opportunity for retailers to lever

One of Silicon Valley’s most fun and enduring traditions — the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party — takes place on July 25. If you don’t have a ticket yet, know this: We just released the last batch of tickets. Once they’re gone, that’s it. No party for you. Don’t miss out on a night of fun and opportunity — buy your ticket today.
The Park Chalet, San Francisco’s coastal beer garden, provides a picturesque setting (ocean views anyone?)

Image: DoorDash McDonald’s said Tuesday it would be teaming up with food delivery startup DoorDash, the first deal for the fast-food giant since it was reported to be considering ending its exclusive deal with Uber Eats earlier this year.Starting July 29th, DoorDash will start delivering for McDonald’s in Houston, Texas, serving the city’s 200-plus locations. McDonald’s will also join DoorDash’s subscription service, Dash Pass, which offers its 1 million members un

HBO After Netflix beat out HBO last year for total Emmy nominations, HBO returned to its usual dominant position in 2019, earning a whopping 137 total Emmy nominations, thanks to Game of Thrones’ final season.The network secured a total of 32 nominations for Game of Thrones, breaking the previous record held by NYPD Blue (26 nominations in 1994). HBO’s other 105 nominations this year came from series like Barry (17 nominations) and Chernobyl (19 nominations). HBO also earned nearly

Amazon’sPrime Day continues to gain competition from rival retailers piggybacking on the annual event with their own sales. Ahead of this year’s Prime Day, RetailMeNot had forecast that this year’s sale would see competition from 250 retailers. Today, the firm upped this figure to over 300, saying it found that more retailers than earlier estimated have decided to run their own counter-sales.
As of 9 AM on the second day of Prime Day — Tuesday, July 16, 2019 — Retai

Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TurboTax TurboTax, facing lower revenues following the passage of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law, decided to start targeting lower-income individuals with paid versions of tax filing software it used to offer for free, according to an investigation from ProPublica.The move helped TurboTax parent company Intuit offset potential losses from the tax law, which doubled the standard deduction, or the amount you can subtract from your income befor

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple, with a revived focus on services and original content, is reportedly looking to invest in podcasts. Bloomberg reports today that the tech company is reaching out to media companies to discuss making certain shows exclusive to Apple Podcasts, the company’s podcast listening app. Apple declined to comment for this story.
This is a complete rethinking of Apple and its place in the podcast ecosystem. The company has always played a neutral role i

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla will increase the price of the “full self-driving” version of its Autopilot driver assistance system by around $1,000 starting August 16th, according to CEO Elon Musk. The higher-tier package currently costs $6,000 if customers choose the option when buying a car, but Tesla charges $8,000 if they decide to upgrade after taking delivery. It’s not clear if Musk was referring to increasing both those price tags, and Tesla did not imme

A Swiss regulatory agency that Facebookexecutive David Marcus said in congressional testimony would be responsible for overseeing data and privacy protections for the company’s newly launched cryptocurrency, Libra, has not been contacted by Facebook, according to a report.Highlights from Facebook’s Libra Senate hearingCNBC is reporting that the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, who Marcus said would oversee data protections for its cryptocurrency in his test

If you’ve been waiting to check out Minecraft Earth (Mojang’sPokémon GO-style augmented reality reimagining of its hugely popular game, Minecraft), good news: it’s starting to roll out to some people now.
The catch? It’s only available to a slice-of-a-slice of the world, at first.
After opening a registration system for its closed beta just a few days ago, the company says that it sent out the first batch of beta invites this afternoon.The beta is being rolled out

Senator Elizabeth Warrendoesn’t seem too unhappy about being labeled “dangerous” by investor Peter Thiel .
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, Palantir and Founders Fund, made the comments in an interview on Fox News with Tucker Carlson, where he described most of the Democratic presidential field as “equally unimpressive” and called Warren “the dangerous one.”
“I’m most scared by Elizabeth Warren,” he said. “I think she’s the one

If you can hear the sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” playing in the distance, it’s likely because Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is returning for Marvel’s Thor 4.Waititi is pausing his work on Warner Bros.’ live-action Akira adaptation to focus his attention on Thor 4, according to a new report from The Hollywood Reporter. There isn’t too much information about Thor 4 right now, but Waititi is expected to team up with Chris Hemsworth again

Photo: Lora DiCarlo The Consumer Electronics Show will allow sex toys to win awards and be presented on the show floor next year, a year after the convention was mired in controversy when an award was revoked from a largely woman-run and woman-focused sex toy company.
Sex toys will be eligible for inclusion under the show’s health and wellness section. The Consumer Technology Association, which runs the show, says they’re being included on a “one-year trial basis,” meant

Toyota will work with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA) on a fuel cell Moon rover vehicle, with a target launch date of a Moon mission currently set for 2029. The two previously announced their collaboration, but on Tuesday they signed a formal agreement, which defines a three-year joint research agreement to co-develop pressurized lunar rover prototypes.
Each year will see the partnership focus on a different phase of the prototype’s development, with 2019 all about identifying

Dale Chang ContributorShare on Twitter Dale Chang is the Operating Partner at Scale Venture Partners, where he advises portfolio companies on strategies for go-to-market and scaling. More posts by this contributorWhy startups can’t afford to ignore customer retention How startups can use data to grow smarter
Round sizes are up. Valuations are up. There are more investors than ever hunting unicorns around the globe. But for all the talk about the abundance of venture funding, there is a lo

At first glance launching a new social app may seem as sensible a startup idea as plunging headfirst into shark-infested waters. But with even infamous curtain-ripper Facebook now making grand claims about a ‘pivot to privacy’ it’s clear something is shifting in the commercial shipping channels that contain our digital chatter.
Whisper it: Feeds are tiring. Follows are tedious. Attention is expiring. There’s also, of course, the damage that personal digital baggage left o

Uber Air, the transportation company’s upcoming flying taxi service, needs vehicle partners in order to make it a reality. Karem Aircraft, which Uber partnered with last year, has just raised a $25 million Series A round for its new air taxi spin-off. The round was led by Korean industrial conglomerate Hanwha Systems.
“Karem’s technology for making safe, quiet, and efficient air taxi vehicles excites all of us,” Uber Elevate head Eric Allison said in a statement. “H

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Highlights from Facebook’s Libra Senate hearing
David Marcus, the head of Facebook’sblockchain subsidiary Calibra, testified before the Senate Banking Committee today. He said Calibra will be interoperable, so users can send money back and forth with other wallets, and he committed

Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images I'm in the middle of reviewing the new Bose Noise Canceling Headphones 700, but before wrapping that up, I felt it was necessary to address an ongoing situation with the company's previous set of headphones. Over the last few weeks, many owners of the Quiet Comfort 35II headphones have been insisting that a recent firmware update has noticeably worsened the level of noise cancellation. Outside noises are now easier to hear, whereas they were mostly hushed

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Former Trump advisor and confidant Roger Stone isn’t going to jail after violating his gag order. Instead, a judge on Tuesday condemned him to perhaps a far worse fate: Stone has been banned from posting on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, according to BuzzFeed News.
In February, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed a gag order on Stone, barring him from speaking about his ongoing legal case or the special counsel’s investigation into

The price of a Teslavehicle equipped with “full self-driving” is about to get more expensive, the second time in the past several months the company has increased fees for a feature that isn’t completely functional.
Tesla CEO Elon Musktweeted Tuesday that the price of its full self-driving option will increase by $1,000 on August 16. Full self-driving, or FSD — a feature that Musk promises will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities — currently costs $

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple informed us that it has sent out a silent security update to Macs to remove software that was automatically installed by RingCentral and Zhumu. These video conferencing apps both used technology from Zoom — they’re essentially white labels — and thus they also had Zoom’s security flaws. Specifically, they installed secondary pieces of software that could take commands from websites to open up your webcam in a video conference witho

When the Emmy nominations were announced last year, Netflixhad a big win, overtaking HBO for the first time. But this year, HBO is back in the lead, with 137 nominations compared to Netflix’s 117.
The Hollywood Reporter has tallied up the just-announced nominations, with Amazon Prime Video getting 47 nods and Hulu receiving 20.
HBO,meanwhile, didn’t just beat Netflix — it also beat its own record for most nominations in a single year. That’s good news for Warner

NBC Newstoday announced an exclusive partnership with Jeffrey Katzenberg’s upcoming mobile streaming service, Quibi, which will see the media company becoming the first major producer for the service’s “Daily Essentials” news programming, aimed at millennial viewers. As part of the deal, NBC will produce both a six-minute morning and evening news show for the service. The programming will air seven days a week and feature dedicated news hosts as well as original news cont

Kevin Krim and Sebastian Chiu ContributorShare on Twitter Kevin Krim is EDO's President & CEO. His 21-year career has spanned search, social and TV advertising across start-ups and major companies like Yahoo and NBCUniversal. Sebastian Chiu is EDO's Chief Data Scientist. He earned his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees from Harvard, working previously as a data scientist at Dropbox.One of the most-discussed plot twists in recent advertising has been the pivot of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC