Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Apple responded to Google’s discovery of a major iPhone security flaw with a bristling statement that accused its rival of creating “false impressions.” But Apple did very little to clear up those false impressions, and seems to have created some of its own, as we’ll see by taking a close read.First, let’s talk about what Apple did confirm. When Google originally published detailed information about the iOS exploits, i

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s campaign is demanding that Facebook, Twitter, and Google more aggressively counter disinformation on their platforms. In letters addressed to the companies Friday, O’Rourke’s team outlines how they believe each of them could address the issue after his campaign was falsely linked to a suspected shooter on social media last weekend.
That attack occurred in Odessa, Texas, killing seven people and leaving 25 injured. In the a

A scene from India’s mission control room, after communication with the lander was lost | Image: ISRO What was supposed to be India’s first soft landing on the Moon today appeared to end in failure when the country’s robotic Vikram lander seemingly crashed into the lunar surface during its powered descent to the ground. If it had been successful, India would have become the fourth country to land a spacecraft intact on the Moon. But for now, only the United States, Russia, and

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Philadelphia news anchor has sued Facebook, Reddit, and other web platforms after a convenience store photo started showing up in dating and erectile dysfunction ads. Karen Hepp, who works for Fox 29 News, filed the suit earlier this week. She alleges that the sites violated her right of publicity and damaged her reputation with “abhorrent and disgusting” uses of the picture.
Hepp’s lawsuit names Facebook, Reddit, the image repository

YouTube Seems like modifying the Apple Cards, with their titanium build and all-white finish, is becoming a thing. We spoke with one person who etched the design from the back of a Bicycle playing card onto his Apple Card. Another is going a step further and has sharpened the Apple Card into an actual knife.
See for yourself:
If you now want your own credit card-sized knife, know that there are already options that don’t require you to deface your shiny new Apple Card. There’s this

Tile doesn’t want people to forget about it, especially if Apple debuts its own item tracker. Today, Tile announced a minor update to its Google Assistant integration that’ll allow Assistant to directly ring a Tile. The functionality isn’t launching until later this year, but clearly, Tile wants to get its news out ahead of Apple. Before, Tile just had a Google Assistant skill, which required users to say, “Hey Google, ask Tile to find my phone.” Later this year, th

Image: Google, re-stitched by @atn1988 Fresh off our best look at the Pixel 4’s hardware, another batch of rumors has cropped up regarding what might be the most important part of the phone: the camera. A pair of leaks claims that the upcoming smartphone will offer 8x zoom, an improved Night Sight feature, and a brand-new “Motion Mode” for shooting action shots, via 9to5Google and XDA Developers.We’ve known for a while that the Pixel 4 would have two rear cameras (a firs

The line between an advertisement and entertaining content is blurry on YouTube, and a children’s rights watchdog group is asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to step in.The group Truth in Advertising has filed a complaint with the FTC over one specific YouTube creator’s channel — Ryan ToysReview. Hosted by seven-year-old Ryan Kaji (but run by his parents), the channel often finds Kaji playing with and unboxing toys. The complaint states that Kaji’s parents didn&rsq

It was just last week that we covered a report by Google‘s Project Zero security researchers claiming they’d identified a malware campaign targeting iPhones for “at least two years.” When successful, the exploit chain allowed iPhones to be compromised with no interaction from the user beyond visiting a malicious website. Now Apple is disputing some of Google‘s claims about the severity of these exploits in order to “make sure all of our customers have the fac

Streaming music subscriptions continue to drive the U.S. music industry’s growth and revenues, according to a new report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) released this week. The organization said total music revenue grew 18% to $5.4 billion in the first half of 2019, with streaming music accounting for 80% of industry revenues. The report also noted the number of paid subscriptions topped 60 million in the U.S. for the first time.Streaming revenues grew 26% to $4.3

Procreate is getting some major new brush customization tools to make the go-to iPad illustration app even better for professional artists. Its developer, Savage Interactive, revealed that the features will be part of the upcoming Procreate 5 update slated for later this year.As part of the update, the app is getting a new graphics engine called Valkyrie, which will give artists customizable brush options and let them import Adobe Photoshop brushes for the first time. It’s a big deal, as w

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We’re still days away from the reveal of Apple’s iPhone 11 lineup, but rumors are already swirling about the company’s 2020 phones, which are still a full year away. The latest comes from the reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who claims in his latest research notes that next year’s phones will feature an all-new design, the first since the 2017’s iPhone X overhaul, via 9to5Mac.
Per Kuo’s note, the 2020 iPhone lineup wi

It’s a big day for India’s highly audacious Chandrayaan-2 mission. The nation will attempt to land on the moon’s surface shortly as it inches closer to becoming the fourth in the world to complete a successful lunar landing. ISRO, India’s equivalent of NASA, is live streaming the landing on its website, and YouTube channel (embedded below).
Additionally, if you are tuning in from India, dozens of channels, including Doordarshan (DD1), Disney India, Colors Infinity, Nation

More than a week after researchers at Google detailed one of the most serious iPhone exploits in recent memory, Apple has responded.
In a statement published Friday, Apple went on the defensive, saying that Google researchers were "stoking fear" and had exaggerated the seriousness of the attack.
Cupertino's statement comes more than a week after Google's Project Zero researchers published a blog post detailing how malware embedded in specific websites could steal large amounts of personal data o

PorscheAG is increasing its stake in Croatian electric vehicle components and hypercar company Rimac Automobili . The increased stake is the latest effort by Porsche to invest more into electric mobility, particularly in battery technology.
It was just 14 months ago that Porsche took a 10% stake in Rimac. Now, the German automaker is pushing that to 15.5%, according to an announcement Friday.
Porsche intends to intensify its collaboration in the field of battery technology, said Lutz Meschke, de

When it comes to home theater, video enthusiasts are usually divided into two camps: those who love their big TVs, and those who need their even bigger projectors. But while setting up a traditional long-throw projector is typically a time-consuming, inflexible affair, increasingly popular ultra-short-throw projectors seek to provide big screen sizes with ample placement flexibility. Optoma’s CinemaX P1 is the latest entry into the category, promising high-end 4K image quality from a rela

Catherine the Great's, the German princess who overthrew her husband in a coup, took over the imperial throne of Russia, continued to rule in his place, and inspired literal books of debauched rumors about her sex life is one of history's most fascinating figures. Now she's come to life again in a new trailer for HBO's Catherine The Great miniseries starring Helen Mirren, in all her power-grabbing and famously horny glory.
Catherine The Great premieres October 21 on HBO.  Read more...
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Pagerduty‘s CEO Jennifer Tejada and Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie both guided their companies to successful IPOs, with Boxgoing public in 2015 and Pagerduty listing its stocks only a few months ago. Both of them will join us on the first day of TechCrunch Disrupt SF (October 2) to talk about their experiences in getting their companies to this point and managing the changes that come with being a public company.
It took both companies about 10 years to get to their IPOs. Levie co-foun

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. Apple Music launches a public beta on the web
While this is the first time Applehas made its music service available on the web, the recent popularity of an unofficial website suggested that there’s some pent-up demand here.
The beta website includes most of Apple Music’s core feat

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has announced that it won’t run ads anymore for dangerous “unproven or experimental medical techniques,” following what the company describes as a “rise in bad actors” marketing untested procedures like stem cell therapy, cellular therapy, and gene therapy, as originally reported by The Washington Post.As The Washington Post notes, untested stem cell therapies have led to severe blindness for some patients. And while t

With the scheduled 2020 shutdown of Google Hire, the tech giant’s applicant tracking system, there’s more room for startups to emerge as the go-to tool for hiring managers. Agave, which has $1 million in funding from SV Angel, Box Group and others, is aiming to serve that need.
Agave is a free hiring platform that offers job postings, hosted career pages, customer relationship management tools and full API read and write access. Agave also offers two paid tiers, ranging from $2 per u

After a short stay aboard the International Space Station, Russia’s humanoid robot, Skybot F850, is on its way home, stuffed inside a Soyuz spacecraft with no crew. Skybot, originally known as FEDOR, was put through a litany of tests by the Russian cosmonaut crew during its two-week stay on the station, to see if it could help free up time for the people aboard the orbiting lab.
Skybot’s trip to the space station was also a kind of test. The robot launched alone in a passenger versio

Damage to lungs seen in four patients.| New England Journal of Medicine, Henry et al Federal officials announced today that 450 people across 33 states have come down with a deadly lung illness that has been linked to e-cigarette use. That more than doubles the total number of reported cases nationwide — last week, the total stood at 215 possible cases in 25 states.In addition, officials in Indiana announced today that a person in their state has died of the disease, bringing the nationwi

Bloober Team / Lionsgate There are lots of video games based on the illusion of choice, full of spaces designed to invisibly nudge players toward a goal. Blair Witch, a game set in the same world as iconic horror film The Blair Witch Project, makes the illusion explicit — then promises you ways to exploit it. It’s a fitting, fascinating, yet often self-defeating idea. I want to play Blair Witch over and over. I also never want to see it again.
Blair Witch was released last week by t

Applehas issued a tart response to an extensive report by Google of a serious security flaw in iOS. The flaw, which let an attacker gain root access to a device visiting a malicious website, was reported last week. Apple wants to “make sure all of our customers have the facts,” which is funny, because it’s likely we wouldn’t have any of the facts if Google had not so rigorously documented this issue.
In a brief news post, Apple says that it has heard concerns from its cus

Daniel Levine ContributorShare on Twitter Daniel Levine is a partner at Accel. He joined the firm in 2010 and focuses on product-first startups aimed at consumers, developers, and bottoms-up business users.While the software revolution started out slowly, over the past few years it’s exploded and the fastest-growing segment to-date has been the shift towards software as a service or SaaS.
SaaS has dramatically lowered the intrinsic total cost of ownership for adopting software, solved scal

Nintendo is teasing a new innovation for the Switch and it’s… kind of weird. It’s a bizarre rubber ring and the company won’t actually say what it’s for. So what exactly is this ring? Um… I don’t actually know. It appears to be made of rubber, given how enthusiastically the people in the video bend it. It also has slots along the side where you can fit Joy-Con. The video also shows users putting on some kind of leg band with another Joy-Con slotted in

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge Data scraped from an exposed Facebook database containing user phone numbers and information that linked those phone numbers to names and other profile information has popped back up in a separate online repository, even after the initial database was mysteriously pulled offline, according to a report last night from CNET.The initial, unprotected database contained more than 400 million records of Facebook users across the US, UK, and Vietnam. The expos

Legendary design brand Braun is back in the speaker business with its first new products since the original Dieter Rams-designed LE line 28 years ago, launching a trio of modern takes on the classic speakers at IFA 2019: the LE01, LE02, and LE03, via 9to5Mac.Or, sort of: the speakers aren’t technically being produced by Braun itself, but rather by Pure Audio, which licensed the Braun Audio branding from Procter & Gamble earlier this year. That said, the three new speakers are clearly i

New York City is suing T-Mobile, alleging that the company used a slew of deceptive business practices, violating the city’s consumer protection law “thousands of times” in the process.
Allegedly charged fees without consent
According to the city, T-Mobile and its subsidiary Metro, as well as other authorized dealers, “preyed on consumers” through several tactics. After a year-long investigation, the city says it obtained evidence that, in at least 21 instances, T-M