Technology news

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Disney CEO Bob Iger has resigned from Apple’s board, just a couple of months before both companies are set to launch their independent streaming services.Iger resigned on September 10th, according to a filing from Apple to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s the same day Apple unveiled the launch date and subscription price for Apple TV Plus, which officially made Apple and Disney competitors.
“I have the utmost

Disney CEO Bob Iger has resigned from Apple’sboard of directors, according to a just-published SEC filing.
Neither company has given any reason for the departure — the explanatory text of the SEC filing is literally just “On September 10, 2019, Bob Iger resigned from the Board of Directors of Apple Inc.” — but with Disney and Apple both prepping to launch their own video streaming services in November, it may be that there’s starting to be too much overlap. Gi

The world of academia is in turmoil over the shock discovery that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein funded several several prestigious science and technology research labs, including MIT’s Media Lab, long after his 2008 conviction for sex crimes involving children. For the late Epstein, his generous donations served to whitewash his tainted reputation. They were part of a well-sculpted PR effort that also included paid-for puff pieces in publications like Forbes and HuffPost, which emph

Apple has released two new commercials for the iPhone 11 Pro, both of which show the phone standing up to more abuse than any one phone should ever have to.The first ad below focuses solely on how tough the iPhone 11 Pro supposedly is against everyday objects being flung at it in a high-speed wind tunnel. First, kids toys and food items pummel it (including an entire head of green leaf lettuce), none of which seem heavy enough to damage the phone.Things get a little more intense later in the ad,

MoviePass’all-you-can-watch movie theater membership always seemed too good to be true. After multiple price hikes, business model changes, temporary shutdowns and raising a mountain of money less than a year ago, the company seems to be calling it quits.
MoviePass has issued an announcement letting customers know that the service will stop working as of September 14th — so, tomorrow — because “its efforts to recapitalize MoviePass have not been successful to date.”

Graphic by William Joel / The Verge MoviePass, the subscription service that spent enormous amounts of venture capitalists’ money subsidizing movie tickets in a bid to upend the theater business model, is officially shutting down on September 14th. The news, announced today via emails to subscribers and separately from a press release issued by parent company Helios and Matheson, marks the end of a tumultuous two-year saga that saw an once-popular platform go to extreme lengths to keep it

Graphic by William Joel / The Verge MoviePass, the subscription service that spent enormous amounts of venture capitalists’ money subsidizing movie tickets in a bid to upend the theater business model, is officially shutting down on September 14th. The news was announced today via emails to subscribers and separately in a press release issued by parent company Helios and Matheson. It marks the end of a tumultuous two-year saga that saw a once-popular platform go to extreme lengths to keep

Julian Shapiro ContributorShare on Twitter Julian Shapiro is the founder of BellCurve.com, a growth marketing agency that trains you to become a marketing professional. He also writes at Julian.com. More posts by this contributorThe secret of content marketing: avoid high bounce rates How to see another company’s growth tactics and try them yourself
We’ve aggregated the world’s best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, we ask them to share their most effective gr

Photo: Courtesy of TIFF Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
Everybody working in genre movies these days wants their own long-running franchise. The financial success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has brought in billions worldwide for Disney and Marvel Studios, has become a kind of holy grail for other film studios, which keep trying to

Prosthetic limbs are getting better every year, but the strength and precision they gain doesn’t always translate to easier or more effective use, as amputees have only a basic level of control over them. One promising avenue being investigated by Swiss researchers is having an AI take over where manual control leaves off.
To visualize the problem, imagine a person with their arm amputated above the elbow controlling a smart prosthetic limb. With sensors placed on their remaining muscles a

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge CNN will no longer run ads for Juul or other e-cigarettes, following reports of a deadly lung illness linked to them. The Daily Beast reports that CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker announced the news at an employee meeting; the network also confirmed it in a statement to the outlet. However, it says the policy may change in the future as health agencies continue to investigate the disease.
“Given the recent news reports of serious illnesses and de

Amazonis testing an easier way for people to leave product feedback with the launch of one-tap ratings. The change is meant to encourage those who don’t have the time, energy or interest in writing reviews to still share their opinion about the product, which benefits the larger Amazon community of shoppers who are reliant on ratings and reviews to make better purchasing decisions.
If you have access to the new experiment, you’ll be able to just tap once to leave your star rating on

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Smart home security systems can be pricey, but Best Buy is hosting a good deal on SimpliSafe’s 11-piece system, our top pick among popular do-it-yourself home security systems. Usually priced at $369.99, it’s currently $269.99 as part of the retailer’s deal of the day promotion.
This kit configuration is exclusive to Best Buy, and unlike the 12-piece set sold on Amazon for $499, this one doesn’t include a camera or a panic button. It does

When DoorDash announced changes in its tipping model last month, it was certainly a step in the right direction. Some workers, however, have said it’s not enough. In addition to wanting fair wages, they want back pay.
In light of DoorDash’s announcement, labor group Working Washington said a key question remained: “Will they pay workers backpay for the customer tips the company has been misappropriating since 2017?”
“There’s no ‘back pay’ at issue

Michael Short/Getty Images J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions has signed a new overall deal reportedly worth $250 million with WarnerMedia, but the director apparently walked away from a $500 million offer from Apple in the process.Abrams and his team at Bad Robot, including co-CEO Katie McGrath, were reportedly uninterested in signing a 100 percent exclusive deal with Apple for the company’s new streaming service, Apple TV Plus, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His deal with Wa

Adobe is hoping to eliminate the tedious, time-consuming process that comes with editing videos for different social platforms with its new AI-powered Auto Reframe feature for Premiere Pro. For example, if you’ve got a video that you want to post to YouTube, the Instagram grid, and Instagram Stories, you’d currently have to manually edit that video for three different aspect ratios. Auto Reframe can automatically identify the main action happening in the video and crop and pan the fr

Photo by Michael Brochstein / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images National grocery chain Whole Foods, which is owned by multibillion-dollar corporation Amazon, is cutting medical benefits for hundreds of part-time employees, Business Insider reported today. The decision, according to the company, is designed “to better meet the needs of our business and create a more equitable and efficient scheduling model,” a Whole Foods spokesperson told BI.Amazon purchased Whole Foods in

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1. Another high-flying, heavily funded AR headset startup is shutting down
In an email obtained by TechCrunch, Daqri — which built enterprise-grade AR headsets — told its customers that it’s pursuing an asset sale and will be shutting down its cloud and smart-glasses hardware pl

Trek is a brand mostly known for its high-quality performance and mountain bikes, but the Wisconsin-based manufacturer is making a major play for urban commuters with its new lineup of powerful, sleekly designed, and impressively fast electric city bikes.Trek’s new Allant+ lineup features 10 different e-bikes, ranging in price from $3,600 to $6,000. If that seems steep, it’s because every model is powered by a top-of-the-line Bosch motor that is lighter and offers less resistance tha

Daqri, known for its business-focused augmented reality headsets, is reportedly shutting down. TechCrunch wrote yesterday that the company’s headquarters had been shuttered and many employees had been laid off, citing reports from former staff members. An email also apparently stated that Daqri is trying to sell its assets in preparation for a shutdown.
Road to VR elaborated on the email, which said that the company would end its Smart Glasses and Worksense programs by the end of September

Uber -owned JUMP pulled its bikes and scooters from a handful of markets over the last few months. The latest city affected is San Diego, where JUMP’s bikes and scooters will no longer be available as of September 19, with the exception of two naval bases in the city.
“We understand this may have a huge impact on your day-to-day commuting and we regret the fact that we can no longer provide this service to you,” JUMP wrote in an email to its San Diego customers.
The decision wa

Ryan Floyd ContributorShare on Twitter Ryan Floyd is a founding managing director of Storm Ventures, investing in early-stage enterprise SaaS companies, and the host of Ask a VC YouTube channel.Sales efficiency is the best way to understand the economics of a business. To me, it answers the question as to whether a business can ever scale. The harsh truth is, if it can’t scale, investors won’t be interested.
Sales efficiency is more simple to measure than other related concepts like

After being courted by seemingly every major entertainment and streaming company, Bad Robothas signed an exclusive deal with WarnerMedia.
While the production company — led by Star Wars director J.J. Abramsand his wife/co-CEO Katie McGrath — was already working with Warner Bros. to create shows like “Castle Rock” and “Westworld,” this new deal is an exclusive agreement covering TV, theatrical films, games (it formed a games division with Tencent last year) and

For decades space has been the play place for world powers, but the advent of (relatively) cheap and frequent rocket launches has opened it up for new business opportunities. But it’s still hard as hell, as early adopters of this orbital economy Tess Hatchof Bessemer Ventures, Swarm’s Sara Spangelo and OneWeb’s Adrian Steckel can attest. They’ll be on the Extra Crunch stage at Disrupt SF 2019 on October 3rd at 1:40 PM.
Spangelo and Steckel are in the midst of launching wh

Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images YouTube is introducing a major change to its music chart system after discovering that artists and labels were using growth hacks to inflate how many people were watching their videos.YouTube is no longer counting “advertising views” when it comes to the company calculating its music charts. Instead, ranking for top-watched music videos will be based on organic plays, according to a new blog post. Running music videos as advertisements in

YouTubewill no longer allow paid views and advertising to influence its YouTube Music Charts, the company announced this morning. Instead, it will calculate its rankings based only on view counts coming from organic plays. In addition, it’s changing its methodology for reporting on 24-hour record debuts to also only count views from organic sources, including direct links to the video, search results, Watch Next and Trending — but not video advertising.
The changes come about after m

Image: Discord Discord seemingly isn’t the place where people want to go for subscription gaming. The hugely popular chat app has already decided to phase out the bundle of games it introduced last year as part of its $9.99-per-month (or $99 annually) Nitro subscription service, thus choosing not to compete with Xbox Game Pass, Uplay+, Origin Access, and other offerings.
”While we and some of you love these games, the truth is the vast majority of Nitro subscribers didn’t play