Technology news

Photo by Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images Congressional leaders are requesting that the owner of 8chan, Jim Watkins, testify before the House Homeland Security Committee to inform the body on what the fringe forum is doing to combat the proliferation of extremist content.“Regrettably, this is at least the third act of white supremacist extremist violence linked to your website this year,” Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) and Mike Rogers (R-AL) wrote. “Americans deserve to know wh

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Chinese EV startup NIO has sold the majority stake in its Formula E all-electric racing series team, according to longtime motorsports journalist Sam Smith. The company will remain a sponsor, a person familiar with the sale tells The Verge, but Chinese motorsports promotion company Lisheng Racing bought the stake and will run the team’s operations from here on out. NIO has been looking to sell its entry since at least April, according to two people f

Disney will offer a bundle package of its three streaming services — Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ — for $12.99 a month starting on November 12th, the company announced today.The company previously hinted at a bundle for all three services, but CEO Bob Iger made it official during the company’s investors call today. At $12.99, the bundle is cheaper than or on par with competitive streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. It’s also significantly cheaper than

Disney is having a record run at the box office this year, surpassing $8 billion in global ticket sales thanks to an astounding run of blockbuster releases across its Marvel and core Disney brands. That said, the company is gearing up to expand that success well beyond the theater, and with that comes big spending. In its fiscal third quarter earning results for 2019, the company posted revenue of $20.25 billion, coming in under Wall Street estimates of $21 billion.“I’d like to congr

Rocket League will remove its paid, randomized loot crates in favor of a system that will tell players what they’re purchasing before they buy. Developer Psyonix announced the news today and described it as a similar change to that made in Epic’s Fortnite.“We are dedicated to creating the best possible experience for our players all over the world,” the developer said. Information on when the change will take place is still to come. Players will still be able to buy Rocke

Streaming service algorithms aren’t always the be-all end-all for finding things to watch and, based on HBO’s new human curator-focused tool, the company wants to help.HBO launched a new website called Recommended by Humans, which pulls from video suggestions and fan tweets to recommend different series or documentaries that people should watch. There are 50 free episodes, movies, and documentaries available on the site, according to a press release from the company, which makes the

Swagtron, the company that excels at showing up at the top of your Amazon search results, is expanding its lineup of electric bikes with a new non-folding model called the EB12. The South Bend, Indiana-based company is mostly known for its compact folding bikes as well as electric scooters and hoverboards, so the inclusion of a lightweight city bike is a sign of growing demand for a range of electric models.The EB12 looks like a standard pedal bike, save for the 270Wh battery strapped to the rea

Journey, the 2012 PlayStation 3 classic by thatgamecompany, is now available on iOS for $4.99, published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was lauded by Polygon at release for its cohesive world, musical score, and multiplayer interactions.In the game, you play as a hooded figure on a journey toward a mountain on the horizon. The path forward always has something interesting to investigate, backed by wonderful visuals and music. On your quest, you may come upon another player, but you can only

After last weekend’s mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, companies are struggling again with the problem of supporting sites associated with white supremacy. In this case, it’s the forum 8chan, where the killer apparently posted a racist rant justifying his attack. Cloudflare terminated its relationship with 8chan, and when the site began working with competitor Epik, web services company Voxility also banned Epik from renting server space.
Cloudflare also emphasized that 8chan likely i

Droid Life Updated at 4:20PM ET, August 6th: Droid Life updated its post to mention pricing for the Note 10 phones, so we’ve added that information below.
Samsung will announce the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus tomorrow, August 7th, at its Unpacked event in NYC. But if you don’t want to wait until then to find out more, the Note 10 has suffered yet another leak — through Samsung’s own marketing materials, no less. Droid Life has shared several full-page snippets of Sam

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Uber and Lyft have long argued that ride-hailing apps have the potential to make cities better by easing traffic and reducing personal car ownership. And every time a study emerges that counters that narrative by exposing ride-hailing’s worsening effects on congestion, the two companies respond by casting doubt on the studies’ findings.Well, this time the data is coming from inside the house. Uber and Lyft tapped transportation consultancy

Spam calls are a plague, and carriers are finally starting to fight back, but there’s been an unexpected casualty: Google Voice’s “get voicemail via message” feature. The company is pulling it because the messages are getting flagged as spam, via Brian Krebs on Twitter.The feature transcribes voicemails from a Google Voice number and texts them to the recipient. But because so many of these voicemails contained automated transcripts of spammy robocalls, those SMS messages

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Starting today, users enrolled in Google’s Advanced Protection Program, which brings increased security and protections to high-profile Google Account users like journalists, activists, politicians, and business leaders, will get additional safeguards for downloads made in Chrome.
To turn on the feature, Google says that a user enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program just needs to turn on Chrome sync. Then, when that user tries to download a fil

Photo: LG LG is teasing a smartphone that could have as many as three screens in a short trailer for its press conference at IFA 2019. The short 20-second trailer shows a video game mockup being played on a smartphone that features a small video game controller icon and a camera, before a second screen folds out to show a map with a route to the company’s IFA press conference highlighted. Finally the device closes shut, revealing what appears to be a third, smaller screen on its front, wh

The Foxconn name displayed outside of an office building on Wednesday, May 8 2019 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Foxconn is a electronics contract manufacturing company, which is constructing a plant in south eastern Wisconsin creating thousands of jobs. | Photo by Joshua Lott for The Verge In 2017, Wisconsin offered Foxconn a record-breaking subsidy to build an LCD factory in the state, only to see the promised factory fall behind schedule and grow progressively smaller. Now, the Wisconsin Departmen

Microsoft is celebrating the launch of Gears 5 with a new custom Xbox One X console and controller. The limited edition console includes the Omen Gears of War symbol frozen under ice and snow, and it’s the first limited edition Xbox One X since the Project Scorpio launch edition. Microsoft’s Xbox industrial design team and The Coalition teamed up to design the custom Xbox One X, and it’s available to preorder today for $499 ahead of the Gears 5 launch next month.
The limited ed

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon Prime Student subscribers can now add an Amazon Music Unlimited membership to their plans for an extra $0.99 per month. Existing customers can add on the benefit, and new college students who haven’t yet tried Prime Student can sign up for a six-month trial here, and get access to the streaming service.Music Unlimited is Amazon’s paid music service and answer to Spotify Premium and Apple Music; it normally costs $7.99 a month for Prime

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Democratic senators wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Tuesday, probing the company on whether it has done enough to protect children’s privacy after The Verge reported last month on a flaw in the Messenger Kids app that allowed minors to chat with unapproved adults.
Late last month, Facebook alerted parents of the flaw and notified them that the group chats created by way of it were being shut down by the company. Messenger Kids allows parents t

Video Games Are Still Blamed For Gun Violence Despite Studies Showing No Connectionhttps://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/748387407/video-games-are-still-blamed-for-gun-violence-despite-studies-showing-no-connect?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alltech&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190806 …