Technology news

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Electric moped sharing startup Revel is expanding beyond New York City and into Washington, DC. Starting this weekend, Revel’s mopeds (which are more like speed-limited electric motor scooters, since they don’t have pedals) will be available to rent and ride in the capital city as part of a four-month pilot program. Revel says it will roll out 400 of its mopeds in DC, almost half as many as the 1,000 currently on the streets of Brooklyn and Que

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Twitter will begin allowing users to follow interests, the company said today, letting users see tweets about topics of their choosing inside the timeline. When the feature goes live, you’ll be able to follow topics including sports teams, celebrities, and television shows, with a selection of tweets about them inserted alongside tweets in your home feed.
Topics will be curated by Twitter, with individual tweets being identified through machine learning

Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images On August 12th, the Trump Administration issued crucial changes to the Endangered Species Act, which — if implemented next month — will affect both people and wildlife. Critics of the new measures, announced by the Fish and Wildlife Service, say the changes weaken protections for many species, and potentially open up huge areas of land for oil and gas development, even as carbon dioxide emissions continue to heat the planet.
The

Apple Today’s college students rely on their ID cards for almost everything, including using them to get into the gym or to buy the cafeteria’s beloved turkey-avocado sandwich. That means losing their ID can make navigating campus difficult, and cards can be a pain to replace. Now, Apple has a way for students to integrate their ID cards into their iPhones and Apple Watches so they can buy a sandwich without the need for their physical card. Apple is expanding the program to 12 univ

Facebook has been hiring third-party contractors to review and transcribe audio clips of its users, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Facebook claims it stopped using human workers to review audio clips “more than a week ago,” noting that the contractors were previously hired to check whether anonymized conversations were being correctly transcribed on the Messenger app.
Since 2015, Messenger has offered a feature to transcribe voice clips to text, although it is turned off b

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple and Spotify are in talks about potentially enabling Siri to play songs, albums, and playlists from the leading subscription music service. A new report from The Information confirms that Spotify would be taking advantage of new capabilities that Apple is introducing in iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, which allow other apps to be on equal footing with Apple Music when making music requests through the company’s Siri voice assistant. If Spotify takes

Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images On Tuesday, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released a new economic policy plan for rural America that includes a multibillion-dollar broadband initiative and a pledge to fight for public internet options.As part of the South Bend, Indiana, mayor’s $80 billion “Internet For All” initiative, he promises to expand internet access to unserved and underserved communities across the country within his first term

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge A new set of tariffs from the Trump administration will put a 10 percent import tax on smartwatches, fitness trackers, smart speakers, and Bluetooth headphones, starting September 1st. The administration plans to delay proposed tariffs on most consumer electronics until December 15th, including cell phones and laptops.But the tariffs are still likely to land heavily on Apple, which relies on Chinese manufacturing for its HomePod, AirPods, and Apple Watch. Thes

Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images CBS is merging with Viacom after months of negotiations, reuniting the two companies for the first time since they split in 2005. The deal will increase CBS’s content offering to customers — a growing importance as the streaming wars heat up.The company will be rebranded to ViacomCBS, according to a press release, with Bob Bakish, the current CEO of Viacom, becoming CEO of both companies under the merger. It will take months for

Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch Nate Mitchell, one of the co-founders of Oculus VR and one of the last few remaining public faces of the company, is leaving after seven years of helping to build the virtual reality company. Mitchell made the announcement this morning on the Oculus subreddit, writing that he’s “taking time to travel, be with family, and recharge.”Mitchell’s last title at the company was head of VR product at Facebook, a change made in Nove

The Verge YouTube is experimenting with a new program that will allow creators whose ad privileges have been revoked to appeal the company’s decision using “short videos.”A review team will allow creators with demonetized channels to send in a video that discusses their channel’s content and explains their “creative process,” according to an email posted on a popular subreddit. The review team will then make an assessment within seven days about whether monet

Seattle Sounders FC is getting a lot of new owners today as part of a joint ownership group spearheaded by former Microsoft executive Terry Myerson. Eleven families with connections to the Seattle area have teamed up to form a new ownership group for the Sounders soccer club, and they include some big names. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and his wife Anu Nadella are part of the ownership group, alongside Joe Belfiore, CVP of experiences and devices at Microsoft, and his wife Kristina Belfiore. Sea

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Venmo has added the ability to transfer your balance funds into a bank account in mere seconds. The PayPal-owned peer-to-peer payments company has offered this instant deposit capability with Visa and Mastercard debit cards for some time, but opening it up to bank accounts adds more flexibility.As with instant transfers to a debit card, Venmo will take 1 percent of the money for itself. That’ll be at least 25 cents no matter how much you’r

An animation of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle, which is supposed to fly for the first time in 2021 | Image: Blue Origin On Monday, August 12th, aerospace company Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), arguing that the Air Force is running a “flawed” competition to pick the agency’s next round of launch providers for national security missions. There’s a good chance this last-ditch protest could change the terms of the

YouTube is experimenting with making video thumbnails much larger on its homepage, according to several screenshots that appeared on Twitter and Reddit this morning.The new homepage design, seen in the images below, changes quite a bit about the current setup. Videos are no longer grouped by categories, fewer videos appear in a line for people to scroll through, and, yes, the thumbnails are noticeably larger. It’s unclear just how many people have been served the new layout. We weren&rsquo

Instagram Facebook’s tool for building augmented reality effects, Spark AR, now allows anyone to make custom face filters and other effects for Instagram Stories. The platform was previously limited to approved creators, but today’s update will let anyone create and upload their own AR filters to Instagram. Instagram is also introducing an Effect Gallery tab on artists’ profiles, letting artists display their creations.
Instagram introduced AR filters in May 2018, but the filt

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twenty-three job-hunting sites have written to the EU’s Competition Commissioner to ask Google to withdraw its first-party job listing tool from its search results, Reuters reports. The sites, which include UK site Best Jobs Online and German sites Intermedia and Jobindex, claim that Google is unfairly pushing users toward its own service, while their pages are being pushed down in search results. There are also fears that, in the future, Google may

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The United States will delay proposed tariffs on many consumer electronics imported from China, the Trump administration said today, giving a reprieve to gadget makers that are hoping to wait out a trade war between the two countries.A reprieve for gadget makers
The Office of the United States Trade Representative said in a statement that it was moving forward with plans to impose a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion in Chinese goods. President Trump s

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The ability to plop widgets anywhere on your home screen is one of the more convenient things about Android. But one huge company, Spotify, is doing away with its widget. As noted by 9to5Google, Spotify’s most recent Android app update quietly phased out the mini-player that previously let users pause / play music or skip tracks from their device’s home screen. If you had the widget on your home screen, you’ll now see either empty space

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify is testing a new feature for speakers with support for Spotify Connect that will allow users to select a device as their Favorite Device. A notification will pop up when your phone is physically nearby so you can swap what you’re listening to on your phone to that speaker. The feature, which is still in testing, was spotted by Thurrott with impressions of how it works. Image: Spotify
It’s a surprisingly simple setup: once a Favorite De

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This week on the Vergecast interview series, The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel sits down with Berin Szóka, the president of TechFreedom. TechFreedom is a tech policy think tank based in Washington, DC that “digs deep into the hard policy and legal questions raised by technological change.”Berin and Nilay have differed on a few issues regarding tech policy, like net neutrality, but what they do agree on is the state of the tech polic

Image: Spotify Spotify is going to give podcasters listener data they can’t get anywhere else. The company is taking its Spotify for Podcasters dashboard out of a beta today, giving more podcasters a chance to see data like their listeners’ music taste, age, gender, location, and how long they listened to a particular episode. Apart from Apple, which offers some show analytics, this is the most detailed information podcasters likely have about their audience.
Around 100,000 podcasts

Image: Snap Snap today announced Spectacles 3, a redesigned version of its augmented reality sunglasses with a sleek new design and an added HD camera to create depth perception. The glasses, which the company has positioned as a limited release, represent Snap’s latest effort to build a new computing platform centered on the face. They will go on sale on Spectacles.com in November for $380.That makes them more than twice as expensive as last year’s model, which cost $150. Snap exec

The notion of the corporate directory has been around for many years, but in a time of more frequent turnover and shifting responsibilities, the founders of Rimeto, a three-year-old San Francisco startup, wanted to update it to reflect those changes.
Today, the company announced a $10 million Series A investment from USVP, Bow Capital,Floodgate and Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates.
Co-founder Ted Zagat says that the founders observed shifting workplace demographics and changes in the

Photos by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Chinese tech conglomerate DJI is continuing a torrid summer for new product releases with another announcement: the DJI Osmo Mobile 3. The third-gen handheld smartphone stabilizer has several new features, but the biggest is that the Osmo Mobile 3 folds up for easier packing.The Osmo Mobile 3 costs $119 and is on sale starting today. DJI is also selling a combo pack that includes a tripod and carrying case for $139.Some of the biggest tweaks came from use

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge We’re back with more exclusive deals for readers of The Verge. If you weren’t following along yesterday, we debuted a bunch of hand-picked deals on tech products. To sum it up, several deals on laptops, fast-charging wall chargers, and Ring smart home tech are still happening.
Today, we’re shifting focus to phones, with a few exclusive offers on unlocked devices, followed by a bunch of tech to complement your mobile phone. Qi wireless chargers

Image: Parallels Parallels Desktop, the virtualization software that allows you to run Windows on a Mac alongside macOS, now offers DirectX 11 support using Apple Metal, meaning it can render 3D graphics up to 15 percent faster. The new functionality comes as part of version 15 of the software, which MacRumors notes will also add support for Catalina’s upcoming Sidecar feature, as well as improved drag and drop and Apple Pencil support.
No virtualization software is going to be able to ma

Dostavista, the “crowdsourced” same-day delivery service founded in Russia but operating in several countries, has raised a $15 million Series B. Leading the round is Vostok New Ventures, with participation from existing investors Flashpoint and AddVenture.
Founded in 2012 by Mike Alexandrovski, after he initially considered creating a game where players would be asked to deliver virtual items before pivoting to the real thing, Dostavista promises same-day delivery powered by its net

Nintendo appears to be preparing to launch SNES wireless controllers for the Switch. In a FCC filing spotted by forum posters at Resetera, photos of the new SNES controller have been marked as confidential until next year. However, a label location reveals that there could be ZL and ZR buttons on the top or this section could form part of the Joy-Con docking rail to attach them to a Switch.
Nintendo launched NES wireless controllers for the Switch last year, alongside access to classic NES title

Caterwings, the Rocket Internet-founded corporate catering marketplace that operates in eight countries, has acquired German competitor Lemoncat.
Terms remain undisclosed, although I understand from a source close to the company that it was an “8-digit all stock” deal and sees investors, which include Lukasz Gadowski, Target Global, Point 9 and Northzone, pick up shares in Caterwings’ parent company B2B Food Group.
Noteworthy, Rocket Internet was also an investor in Lemoncat, d

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge By now you’ve probably read enough about the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, his death in a Manhattan jail, and the attendant conspiracy theories that consumed social networks over the weekend. President Trump led the charge, retweeting a conspiracy theory that sought to implicate former President Bill Clinton.
While there is much blame to go around, Charlie Warzel finds that Twitter bears a special responsibility for what one researcher termed &ld