Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is being sued by the family of a 50-year-old man who died in a crash while using the company’s Autopilot advanced driver assistance system. The family of Jeremy Beren Banner is suing for wrongful death, while asking for damages of more than $15,000. A lawyer for the family announced the lawsuit on Thursday, though it has apparently not yet been filed with the Palm Beach County Clerk.Banner is the fourth known person to die while using Autopilo

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge YouTube TV must be feeling a crunch from its recent price increase that raised the streaming TV service’s monthly subscription to $50. For “a limited time only,” YouTube TV is offering a two-week free trial instead of the usual one-week duration. Droid Life spotted the longer-than-usual free trial. Sadly (but predictably), this is only for new customers and won’t do you much good if you’ve already tried and canceled YouTu

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last night, Mychal “Trihex” Jefferson was one of three influential gamers banned from Twitch for 24 hours because he live-streamed the second Democratic debate. Although he understands why he was banned, he says he thought providing commentary was fair use — and that he thought it was important to make gamers realize how much politics matter.Twitch has an ongoing problem with people streaming copyrighted content. Like every other platfor

Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images The Pentagon is hitting pause on awarding its $10 billion cloud computing contract until the Defense Department examines whether the process was rigged in favor of Amazon, according to Business Insider.“Keeping his promise to Members of Congress and the American public, Secretary Esper is looking at the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. “No decision will be made on

Looking to scar yourself for life? Then does Alamo Drafthouse have a deal for you!
IT Chapter Two is just weeks away from its Sept. 5 release date. To celebrate the sphincter-strengthening event, Alamo Drafthouse will offer up "clowns-only" screenings at 17 of its locations across the United States. 
Yep. It's like a regular movie showing, but absolutely every single viewer will be a clown. Amazing? Weird? The closest thing the cinematic experience has to straight-up torture? YMMV.
It's the

While we all hope to never be in a situation where we need to call 911, being able to relay the right information to emergency operators is crucial. Unfortunately, sometimes you might be caught in a situation where you can’t actually speak to the operator – perhaps because you’re in immediate danger or your speech is impaired. Google’s new 911 feature is meant to address these situations. Using the speech technology seen on Duplex and the Pixel’s call-screening tec

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amazon discontinued its push-to-order physical Dash buttons earlier this year, and now the online retailer is completely shuttering the program, with the company set to stop taking orders from any Dash buttons left starting on August 31st, according to CNET.Dash is dead, and Alexa killed it
The news comes as a bit of a surprise, given that when Amazon had first discontinued Dash sales in February, the company had pledged to continue to support them so

Burger King Burger King will start selling its meatless Impossible Whopper in its more than 7,000 locations across the US starting on August 8th. The fake meat patty, which costs only a dollar more than the beef version, is supplied by Impossible Foods. It first rolled out in April in St. Louis restaurants. The Impossible Whopper contains 15 percent less fat and 90 percent less cholesterol than the standard Whopper.
Even still, Burger King claims customers can’t tell the difference, espec

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge DoorDash, one of the leading food delivery startups in the US, has entered into an agreement with payment platform Square to acquire its food delivery app Caviar. The deal, worth about $410 million in cash and DoorDash stock, will see Caviar and its higher-end restaurant partnerships move over to DoorDash’s platform, with Caviar head Gokul Rajaram and his full team working at DoorDash following the acquisition.The acquisition will consolidate even m

One of presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke's greatest strengths is the fact that he's an open book. But if he loses sight of how much people really want to know, it could become a weakness.
O'Rourke is the guy who once shared step-by-step videos of his family's weekend pancake-making process on his Instagram Stories. He's posted photos of himself helping his kids build an igloo one snowy day, and later shared footage of he and his wife, Amy, sneaking out to ring in 2019 with a romantic champagn

If you've ever felt like Facebook was literally listening to your conversations, you're really not going to like its newest idea.
A new patent filing details how Facebook could place targeted advertising inside of private conversations in Messenger. The company has allowed businesses to run ads in its messaging app for some time, but has stopped short of placing ads inside of users' private conversations.
The patent application, however, suggests the company may be thinking about significantly e

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Facebook will open-source two algorithms it uses to identify child sexual exploitation, terrorist propaganda, and graphic violence, the company said today. PDQ and TMK+PDQF, a pair of technologies that store files as digital hashes and compare them with known examples of harmful content, have been released on Github, Facebook said in a blog post.Facebook said it hopes that other tech companies, nonprofit organizations, and individual developers will u

CBS All Access, the network’s subscription video service, can now be subscribed to and watched through the Apple TV app. It joins the range of subscription-based Apple TV Channels that Apple already offers, including HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, and Epix.It’s possible to subscribe to CBS All Access through many different means, but if you go with Apple TV Channels, you’ll be able to download shows for offline viewing and stream everything from right within the Apple TV app on

Image: Paramount CBS is bringing back Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard sometime next year on its streaming platform All Access. Before it debuts, fans will be able to see what the character has been up to in a new comic series and novel, says StarTrek.com.The company announced that IDW Publishing will release a three-issue comic series called Star Trek: Picard — Countdown, which will be written by Mike Johnson and Kirsten Beyer, who is a supervising producer on the TV show. The series

Google is adding an automated text-to-speech feature to the Phone app on Pixel devices, enabling a one-tap system to relay location information to medical, fire, or police responders without the need for speech.The system is simple: when on an emergency call, the Phone app will now offer three additional buttons, labeled “Medical,” “Fire,” or “Police.” Tapping the button will activate a text-to-speech feature that will read out a message informing the operator

You can't really explain the bond between siblings. One minute you have them in a chokehold for dominance over the TV remote, the next minute you're texting them surreal memes. 
Even if you love them, eventually they'll grind your gears in one way or another. And when they do, what's the go-to revenge? Spamming them with texts? Barging in their room without asking? How about some passive-aggressive slam poetry? 
Kristine Berchtold didn't answer her brother John's FaceTime call, so he d

Photo: Johannes Eisele / AFP / Getty Images Popular e-sports organization Faze Clan is suing professional Fortnite player Turner “Tfue” Tenney, claiming he’s violated his contract by disparaging the company and trying to form a rival e-sports organization. It’s a countersuit to Tenney’s attempt to leave the organization back in May over concerns his contract was exploitative.Faze is now saying Tenney made more than $20 million from streaming, gaming endorsements, a

The U.S. government is not the only one that's watching you. 
So warns famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who on Thursday called Facebook to task for spying on its users. What's more, he promised to teach people how to fight back against such corporate surveillance. 
"In the weeks ahead, I aim to explain how each of these site [Facebook, Instagram, Youtube] spies on you, and methods to limit how much they know about you," he tweeted. "If you use them, keep an eye out."These are my

HBO Max continues to beef up its list of beloved series that will be coming to the platform, announcing the acquisition of BBC series including Doctor Who and The Office.
Just to be clear, this is the UK version of The Office. The U.S. version will head to NBC's streaming service in 2021 following its current run at Netflix.
Not only will HBO Max be home to all 11 past seasons of Doctor Who, WarnerMedia got the exclusive streaming rights for the future seasons of the show for HBO Max. Whether yo

A trio of researchers from the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) recently developed an eyes-free, AI-powered, invisible keyboard interface that positions itself based on where you choose to set your hands when you’re ready to type. Billions of dollars worth of R&D and marketing research go into building better peripherals every year. But, realistically, little’s changed since the advent of the mouse and keyboard. Touchscreens and virtual keyboards

Another day, another massive account takedown on Facebook.
The company has removed hundreds of accounts, pages, and groups it says were tied to the Saudi Arabian government for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior." 
The ring of accounts consisted of 217 Facebook accounts, 144 pages, five groups, and 31 Instagram accounts, which combined reached more than a million people across Facebook and Instagram, according to the company.
"Although the people behind this activity attempted to

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Netflix managed to alarm some Android users who noticed that the popular streaming app was detecting their physical motion activity without explaining why. The company confirmed to The Verge that it was using this data as part of a test to determine whether it could find a way to better optimize streaming performance when customers were on the move. This could include both everyday walking around and also schedule-oriented movement like a daily commut

Are you a Floridian? Wyomingite? A Hoosier? If you're from a state in the U.S., you have a name. Even if you don't agree with it. 
Debates have long raged on about what we call ourselves. Being from New Jersey myself, I'm a 100 percent certified New Jerseyan (maybe a New Yorker if I'm at a rooftop party in Brooklyn and don't want to seem uncool.) But it's a central part of our identity nonetheless, and all the stereotypes that go along with it. For example, oftentimes when I reveal my New J

The world’s biggest game streamer, Fortnite golden boy Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, today revealed his leaping off his heretofore-unstoppable Twitch gravy train in favor of Microsoft‘s Mixer. That’s right, pick your jaw up off the floor — Twitch‘s most well-known attraction is joining the competition. Ninja announced the shift on Twitter earlier today in a mock press conference, saying that he’s streaming on Mixer exclusively full-time, a

If you're going to spend a lot of time online, it's unhealthy to go too long without watching a video of goats. 
Fortunately, you had a great one to watch this week: Two goats (two!) strutting their stuff together. It's even better when set to music, including — but not limited to — Hall & Oates and the Bee Gees.
Which goat do you identify with? The tall boy who's a little more on beat or the smaller fellow with the super long, swingy ears? Perhaps you have the rhythm of the

Our inevitable march through time continues apace, meaning yet another popular smart phone — this time, the Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 — is bidding goodbye to its headphone jack and going full dongle. 
Website SamMobile was the first to share a photo of what's allegedly the new 3.5mm to USB-C dongle that will be included with the upcoming Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+, confirming what we've been hearing for a while now. After taking shots at Apple for 5+ years straight for ditc

Sexism is all around us, from subway ads to Facebook. 
Polly Rodriguez, CEO of the sex toy company Unbound, and Alexandra Fine, CEO of the sex toy company Dame Products, want to stop that, focusing specifically on the advertising industry. They teamed up to fight biased advertising regulations through a creative and informational campaign called Approved, Not Approved. 
The main component of the campaign is a quiz, in which users are presented with different ads and must guess which we

TL;DR: Get 50% off TorGuard VPN plans during the Summer Sale. Or, get a free mini router with purchase of two-year streaming bundle.As we increasingly rely on our devices to connect to the world around us — whether socializing, streaming media, shopping, or simply surfing online — protecting privacy and personal information is vital. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is the best way to make sure your data is secure so you can keep peace of mind no matter where you go online.  
But

illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the 2020 election season heats up, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is introducing a new bill she hopes will help prevent the next Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Feinstein’s “Voter Privacy Act” would empower voters with new authority over how their data is collected and used by political campaigns. If approved, campaigns would be required to notify you if they obtained your data through a data broker and allow you to both access and de

TL;DR: Buy a super comfy Zinus memory foam mattress for as low as $168.51 at Walmart. With options for twin and up to king sizes, you can save as much as 28% on a new mattress. With the return of school on the horizon, one of the most important tips for success is a good night's sleep. A proper student needs rest after a long night of studying or impromptu Super Smash Bros. tournaments. You have plenty of options for great mattresses to buy online, but a college budget is notoriously tight.

TL;DR: You'll save as much as 30% on a vivid LG NanoCell TV when you order your display through Amazon.The picture quality on new TV screens is so lifelike, they just might convince you that Shark Week documentary is spilling onto your living room rug. For that, you can thank developments in LED technology: With local dimming and an increased color gamut, screens are now capable of displaying remarkably rich colors with intense contrasts, crisp details, and bottomless blacks.
As far as feature-r

“Google, tear down this paywall.”
The new Google Chrome update is here and that may or may not be a cause for celebration — depending on who you are.
Chrome 76 enables users to enable incognito mode to access content that’s behind a website’s paywall when they’ve hit their article limit without subscribing.
Incognito mode allows users to browse the internet privately. The feature prevents browsing history and other user data from being saved and also blocks we

The Verge YouTube Premium is starting to let subscribers download videos in 1080p resolution for offline viewing, up from the 720p limit that’s been in place until now. Support for the upgraded resolution is rolling out slowly through YouTube’s iOS and Android apps, a YouTube spokesperson told The Verge. It’ll be available in “most Premium markets,” with more being added “soon.” Android Police first reported on the rollout.
Offline downloads are one of