Technology news

“I do not believe that it is appropriate, practical, or within our mission to examine specific government projects with the purpose of selecting which U.S. agencies we should or should not do business.” Barry Crist, CEO of Chef, in an email to employees. “And to be clear: I also find policies such as separating families and detaining children wrong and contrary to the best interests of our country.” Also Barry Crist, in the same email. It isn’t everyday you’l

We’re going to try something new at Disrupt this year, based on the great response we’ve been getting to our startup how-to coverage. We’re going to put service provider experts on our Q&A stage, where you can talk to them directly in-person about key topics like growth, fundraising and recruiting.
To help kick off this experiment, we’ve asked growth marketing expert Asher King Abramson to lead a session where he’ll tear down your landing pages and Facebook/Inst

Matchstick Ventures, a seed-stage firm that says it invests in “rapidly growing, yet underserved startup ecosystems,” announced this week that it has raised $30 million for its second fund.
That’s a lot more money than the firm’s $5 million seed round. This time, Matchstick says it will write initial checks of around $500,000, and in some cases make follow-on investments of $1 million or $2 million.
The firm’s partners, Ryan Broshar and Natty Zola, are based in Minn

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Uber filed a lawsuit against New York City Friday in an effort to overturn rules limiting the amount of time ride-hail drivers can spend in busy parts of the city. It was the second time this year that Uber has sued New York City.The suit comes a month after the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission approved an extension on its cap on the number of Uber and Lyft vehicles permitted to operate within the city. The moratorium on new vehicle licenses now exte

The FAA has warned against equipping your drone with weapons such as flamethrowers and handguns. But can a nail gun really be considered a weapon — that is, outside of Quake? Let’s hope not, because roboticists at the University of Michigan have made a roofing drone that uses that tool to autonomously nail shingles into place.
In a video shot in UM’s special drone testing habitat, the craft flies up, approaches its bit of roof, and gingerly applies the nail gun before backing o

John Maeda has been a professor at the MIT Media Lab, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, designer partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins and most recently served as the head of computational design and inclusion at Automattic.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that he made another big leap with his latest job, becoming chief experience officer at Publicis Sapient — the consulting arm of advertising giant Publicis Groupe.
At the time he took the job, Maeda said he’d beco

The newest Minecraft beta update comes with the ability to make a customized version of yourself, as spotted by VentureBeat. Developer Mojang announced the feature in a blog post, noting the change alongside a slew of performance and gameplay fixes.
The Minecraft Character Creator lets you personalize your avatar within the game, the first official tool for doing following years of mods and third-party skin creators handling the task. The new tool lets you tweak everything from facial features a

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic for YouTube Verification badges on YouTube are more than just a checkmark to creators. Those tiny marks are a sign that after years of building a channel, they’re seen as a valuable member of the community.
That’s why when YouTube suddenly sent out a flood of emails to creators who have picked up verification badges over the years, alerting them that they were due to have their badge revoked as part of an overhaul to the verification system next month, it hurt.

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Apple’s latest iOS refresh arrived not quite fully baked, leading to all sorts of bugs that range from minor to serious. The situation is so pressing, in fact, that Apple is pushing up the release of iOS 13.1 by a week to help iron out the kinks. But for avid players of battle royale mobile titles like Fortnite and PUBG Mobile, that means going a few days without being able to properly play the touch-based shooters.Both games, as well as many others, rely o

Less than 24 hours after YouTubeannounced that it would be changing its creator verification process, CEO Susan Wojcicki admitted that the news hasn’t gone over very well.
“To our creators & users – I’m sorry for the frustration & hurt that we caused with our new approach to verification,” Wojcicki tweeted. “While trying to make improvements, we missed the mark. As I write this, we’re working to address your concerns & we’ll have more u

It’s worth commending Samsung for taking the time out to fix the problems with the original Galaxy Fold. Granted, maybe some of these problems shouldn’t have been there in the first place – such as an easy-to-remove but essential plastic film – but it’s encouraging that Samsung delayed its most-hyped launch of the year to make a better phone. But don’t get me wrong: the Galaxy Fold is still no durability king, as JerryRigEverything’s (real name Zack Nel

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple isn’t reserving the convenient new audio sharing feature in iOS 13 just for its own AirPods; the company is also extending it to Beats products. Audio Sharing allows two sets of earbuds or headphones to be connected to a single iPhone, letting people listen to the same music or watch video content together from one device.The following Beats products will support Audio Sharing:Powerbeats Pro
Powerbeats 3 Wireless
BeatsX
Solo 3 Wireless
Studio 3 Wirel

Security is in everything, it’s everywhere, and it’s everyone’s responsibility. What part are you playing?
At TechCrunch Disrupt SF on October 2-4, we’re proud to have some of the smartest security executives and highest-ranking officials ready to talk shop on stage. Security will be front and center of Disrupt SF with our panels and experts to discuss a range of topics. You can’t afford to miss out.
If you haven’t booked your ticket to Disrupt SF in two weeks

The United States continues its slow march toward 4K live sports, with Fox Sports rolling out live 4K streaming for its upcoming Thursday Night Football games, starting with September 26th’s Philadelphia Eagles / Green Bay Packers game.
Fox will be offering “4K” streams of the games that will be produced in 1080p and then upconverted to 4K — which, depending on how you view it, may or may not be a “real” 4K stream. At the very least, it’ll likely look be

It’s been another hard week at MIT. Our campus has been divided by revelations of inappropriate fundraising, coverups, and the harboring of far too many tech geniuses who seemingly put their own interests and careers over the safety of women, among other marginalized groups.
As a chaplain to students and faculty at the Institute, but also as an opinion writer on the ethics of technology who is supposed to be on sabbatical from the chaplaincy to focus on the writing, I’ve been torn al

On Sundays in October, Tinderis launching an “interactive adventure” in its dating app called “Swipe Night” that will present a narrative where users make a series of choices in order to proceed. This sort of choose-your-own-adventure format has been more recently popularized by Netflix and others as a new way to engage with digital media. In Tinder’s case, its larger goal may not a dramatic entry into scripted, streaming video, as has been reported, but rather a cr

In November 2020, America will go to the polls to vote in perhaps the most consequential election in a generation. The winner will lead the country amid great social, economic and ecological unrest. The 2020 election will be a referendum on both the current White House and the direction of the country at large.
Nearly 20 years into the young century, technology has become a pervasive element in all of our lives, and will continue to only grow more important. Whoever takes the oath of office in J

Walmart is planning to pull electronic cigarettes from its stores.
“Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam’s Club U.S. locations,” a company spokesman said in an email. “We will complete our exit after selling through current inventory.”
The news was first reported by CNBC citing internal company documents

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has just apologized to the creator community over the company’s decision to revoke verification statuses, leaving many creators without the important badge.
“I’m sorry for the frustration [and] hurt that we caused with our new approach to verification,” Wojcicki said on Twitter. “While trying to make improvements, we missed the mark. As I write this, we’re working to address your concerns [and] we’ll have more updates soon.&rdq

Amazontoday is introducing a new perk for Prime members: free mobile game content. The company, which already offers TwitchPrime benefits through its subsidiary, will now give its Prime members various in-game items for PUBG Mobile, the popular battle royale title from Tencent.
The items launching today include an exclusive Infiltrator Mask, Infiltrator Jacket, Infiltrator Pants, and Infiltrator Shoes to complete a Prime-exclusive set, plus the brand-new Blood Oath – Karabiner 98K and Blac

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Walmart will stop selling e-cigarettes because of “regulatory complexity and uncertainty” surrounding the products. CNBC reported on an internal company memo about the change, and Walmart confirmed the news in a statement to The Verge.
“Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam&rsq

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook today announced that it has suspended “tens of thousands” of apps as part of an ongoing investigation into improper data use on the part of third-party developers. The investigation is part of a broader effort the company embarked on last year in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, which involved a political consulting firm purchasing data on tens of millions of Facebook users that had been collected, packaged, a

Facebookhas suspended “tens of thousands” of apps connected to its platform which it suspects may be collecting large amounts of user profile data.
That’s a sharp rise from the 400 apps flagged a year ago by the company’s investigation in the wake of Cambridge Analytica, a scandal that saw tens of millions of Facebook profiles scraped to help swing undecided voters in favor of the Trump campaign during the U.S. presidential election in 2016.
Facebook did not provide a mor

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Robocalls are a scourge, but cellular networks have finally started fighting them with a pair of technologies called STIR and SHAKEN, which work to verify that a call is coming from a real phone number and not a spoofed robocall or spammer.Apple finally added support for STIR/SHAKEN with iOS 13, which should be great news in theory, adding millions of new devices that will now get this verification technology. But there’s just one problem: Apple

Fujifilm is teasing its forthcoming X-Pro3, the successor to its popular digital rangefinder mirrorless camera, ahead of its official full introduction on October 23. During its X Summit event going on today, the company showed off the X-Pro3 in detailed images (via Fujirumors), revealing for the first time its innovative new rear display design.
The X-Pro3 has an LCD on the back, as do most modern digital interchangeable lens cameras, but it’s definitely unique: The screen is hidden in no

Carsten Breitfeld, a founder and former CEO of EV startup Byton, says he left the company earlier this year because the Chinese government exerted too much influence after an investment from the country’s oldest state-owned automaker, First Auto Works (FAW). He said that while the deal with FAW lent the credibility he sought for Byton and increased access to suppliers, those benefits came with oversight and interference.Breitfeld, who recently became the new CEO of struggling EV startup Fa

The updated Samsung Galaxy Fold is finally making its way into the world after a months-long delay by Samsung to shore up its hardware when it became apparent from review units (including The Verge’s) that the foldable phone was too fragile. Unfortunately, it seems that the “fixed” version of the Fold is still extremely fragile. And based on a new video Samsung released begging owners to treat their new phones with a “special level of care,” Samsung knows it. A new

Photo by Adam Rose / Netflix The brilliant simplicity of the Funny Or Die shorts series Between Two Ferns is that anyone could do it, but only one person could make it work. Shot on a set meant to evoke a public access cable show, Between Two Ferns features a black-curtained set, a pair of seats, and the requisite two ferns. In one seat sits a celebrity guest, from Natalie Portman to Barack Obama. In the other sits Zach Galifianakis, who glowers as he asks a series of misinformed, inappropriate