Technology news

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge DJI appears to be readying the release of a first-person-view (FPV) drone, according to FCC filings spotted by DroneDJ. Three products — a “DJI FPV Air Unit,” “DJI FPV Remote Controller,” and “DJI FPV Goggles” — were recently registered with the government agency.DJI has dabbled with FPV drones in the past. The company released a PlayStation VR-sized headset dubbed DJI Goggles in 2017 that worked with a few differ

Another day, another mega round for a fintech startup. And this one is mega-mega.
Brazil-based Nubank, which offers a suite of banking and financial services for Brazilian consumers, announced today that it has raised a $400 million Series F round of venture capital led by Woody Marshall of TCV. The growth-stage fund is best known for its investment in Netflix but has also made fintech a high priority, with over $1.5 billion in investments in the space. According to Nubank, the company has now r

Bethesda’s first three Doom games are available on the Nintendo Switch today. In order to play the titles, players will have to do something they never worried about with the originals: connect to the internet and log in to their Bethesda accounts.
Bethesda didn’t mention the login issue when the team announced that all three games were headed to the Switch at the annual QuakeCon convention today, but ResetEra forum administrator Nibel confirmed the news on Twitter:
Looks like DOOM 1

Marcus Hutchins, the hero who helped stop the WannaCry ransomware attack which crippled much of Western Europe, including the NHS’ computer systems, isn’t going to jail. At a sentencing heading in Milwaukee, a federal judge sentenced the British security expert to time served. He was also given one year of supervised release, although he is free to return to the United Kingdom. No fines were imposed. Sentenced to time served! Incredibly thankful for the understanding and leniency of

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Apple is paying contractors to listen to recorded Siri conversations, according to a new report from The Guardian, with a former contractor revealing that workers have heard accidental recordings of users’ personal lives, including doctor’s appointments, addresses, and even possible drug deals.According to that contractor, Siri interactions are sent to workers, who listen to the recording and are asked to grade it for a variety of factors, like whe

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images T-Mobile and Sprint will wait to close their multibillion-dollar merger until a lawsuit from over a dozen state attorneys general is resolved, T-Mobile’s chief operating officer Mike Sievert said on the company’s earnings call today.
Sievert’s admission came only a few short hours after the Justice Department announced its approval of the deal after months of negotiations to create a fourth viable wireless competitor through Dish Network. But

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging service, with over 1.5 billion monthly users, but it’s always had one annoying limitation: you need your cellphone to use it. Sure, you could sign onto the Web or desktop app and access most of the service’s features, but it requires your phone be on and connected to the internet at all times, and it only works on one device at a time. There’s a sign this is changing. According to WhatsApp leaks site WABetaInfo, the messagin

Image: Hulu Hulu isn’t ready to leave the Republic of Gilead just yet. Today, at its Television Critics Association presentation, it announced that it has renewed The Handmaid’s Tale for a fourth season.Based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name, it’s set in a world where the United States has fallen into a theocracy where women are stripped of their rights and forced into sexual slavery. The series just wrapped its third season this week, and in the last two

Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images T-Mobile CEO John Legere took something of a victory lap this afternoon, using a call with investors to trash talk his rivals’ 5G plans now that T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint has federal approval. Legere called Verizon “dead in the water without a strategy” and said AT&T has been “lying” and “confusing” customers about its deployment.
Legere laid out a coherent and entertaining (and if you’re

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission is facing a lawsuit filed by privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, known as EPIC, designed to block the automatic approval of the landmark Facebook privacy settlement. Facebook settled with the FTC earlier this week, walking away with a $5 billion fine, some added privacy checks, and a stock price bump. The consensus: the FTC gave the company a slap on the wrist, and Facebook’s latest earnings report showe

The security researcher responsible for stopping the devastating WannaCry ransomware hack in 2017 avoided prison for charges related to creating banking malware, according to multiple reports.Time served and one year supervised release
Marcus Hutchins became a hero in the digital security community when he discovered a “kill switch” to curb the spread of the WannaCry ransomware, which spread around the globe. But soon after, his fortunes changed dramatically, when he was arrested by

Microsoft is tweaking how Cortana works in Windows 10. While the digital assistant might be disappearing from the Xbox One, Microsoft is testing a new chat-based UI for Cortana on Windows 10 PCs. The new beta app, which was originally spotted last month, is now available to testers, and it supports text and voice queries.
It’s designed to be more conversational, and it’s a big part of Microsoft’s new focus for Cortana. Microsoft is separating its digital assistant away from the

Take a look at YouTube’s Trending page, and you’ll see that videos from some of the site’s most popular creators have something in common. Jenna Marbles’ newest video is 20 minutes long. Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg’s is 30 minutes long. Shane Dawson’s latest documentary is more than 60 minutes long. YouTube, a site where videos used to hover around seven or eight minutes, is now inundated with videos that are running longer and longer. The change i

Photo by Shealah Craighead / The White House President Donald Trump has responded to France’s recently passed tax on digital services, promising in a tweet that the White House would announce “a substantial reciprocal action” in the near future.
French President Emmanuel Macron signed the controversial bill into law yesterday. It will require tech companies that make €750 million in global revenue and €25 million in French revenue to pay a 3 percent tax on revenue ge

In step with today’s Justice Department approval of the T-Mobile and Sprint merger, Dish has confirmed that it intends to pursue a new path beyond satellite television: it’s going to replace Sprint as the fourth major US carrier. The company has agreed to what it calls a “transformative transaction” with the DOJ, T-Mobile, and Sprint that will see it acquire Sprint’s prepaid businesses (and customers), acquire a portion of Sprint’s 800MHz spectrum, and gain co

Amelia Krales / The Verge The Department of Justice may have just done more to eliminate those little plastic SIM cards you have to use to get your phone to work on a wireless carrier than all of the efforts of Big Tech over the past four years. That’s because it is requiring Dish and T-Mobile to support eSIM technology as a condition of its merger approval.What may seem like a wonky side detail or extra technical requirement in a blockbuster merger approval announcement could end up chan

Poolside.FM TV may have killed the radio star, but the digital artists behind Poolside.FM are trying to bring it back.People may be familiar with Poolside.FM, a novel take on a classic radio station. Visitors can cycle through 70 different short video clips from the ‘80s and listen to a playlist of songs collected from SoundCloud. The original website launched in 2014, but creator Marty Bell wanted to give it a facelift, launching an entirely new version of the site today. The goal is to

Much of the 1969 Los Angeles seen in Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is real, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The film’s characters, like most Los Angelenos, spend a lot of time driving from place to place. Their travels find them floating along to mostly forgotten versions of famous songs while they pass theaters with marquees promoting movies possibly no one but Tarantino has thought about for years. The 1969 we now remember — with

Regal Cinemas is launching its own movie subscription service that will let moviegoers watch an unlimited number of movies. The price will range from $18 to $23.50 a month, depending on the theater location. Called Regal Unlimited, details were posted on the theater chain’s website today, and the service is set to launch in less than a week, according to Deadline.
Subscription plans are tiered based on theater locations, with moviegoers in larger cities like LA and New York having to sign

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The United States Justice Department has approved the $26 billion merger deal between T-Mobile and Sprint. After over a year in regulatory limbo, the merger received the green light from the last federal agency to hold out, with the Federal Communications Commission already signaling that it will approve the deal.The Justice Department finally approved the deal after Dish reached an agreement with the carriers to acquire Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Sprin

Photo: Silver Screen Collection / Getty Images 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
Smokey and the Bandit, a cross-countr

Fire Emblem: Three Houses was released today for the Nintendo Switch, and based on our review, you may want to pick it up if you like strategic, turn-based battles and building relationships a la Persona. But before you do, you can save $20 by snagging a set of Nintendo Switch game vouchers.
This offer is for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers only, and it allows you to purchase two fully priced Switch titles for $99.99. (The price would usually be $119.99.) For example, you could use these vouc

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge There was a whirlwind of news on our site this week, which means this is a whirlwind Vergecast episode.To start the show, Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Paul Miller analyze Apple’s acquisition of Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion and how that will affect future iPhones.Policy reporter Makena Kelly and policy editor Russell Brandom join the show to discuss Facebook’s $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission and

Photo: Sony Pictures Entertainment Marvel Studios’ hot streak continues, with Spider-Man: Far From Home becoming the ninth film from the studio to cross the $1 billion mark at the box office. It’s also the first Spider-Man movie to do so, via The Hollywood Reporter.Due to the complexities of Marvel and Sony’s rights deal for the web-crawling superhero, that money won’t boost Disney’s already record-breaking 2019 numbers. It’ll go to Sony instead, becoming the