Technology news

Jake is still out, so you’re stuck with my rambling thoughts on the art of cinema again this week. I didn’t really watch any movies this week, so I’m going to use this time to talk about big-budget adaptations of books — specifically, books I like.
In the post-Harry Potter boom, it felt like every popular book series on the planet was being rushed to film. Some of these (Hunger Games, Twilight, The Da Vinci Code books) did well. Many (The Golden Compass, Ender’s Gam

Walmart is selling off women’s clothing company and online retailer ModCloth, just two years after acquiring it. The brand will now be a part of investment firm Go Global Retail, though it will continue to operate independently.
“We expect they will continue in the same direction as before,” Christian Feuer, managing director of Go Global Retail, told The Verge. “I don’t think the customer will see a change. If they do, I hope they’ll be happy with what they s

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Less than two weeks ahead of the Pixel 4 flagship smartphone’s debut, Google is reportedly pulling the plug on a controversial “field research” program that offered subjects in US cities a $5 gift certificate in exchange for a scan of their face — after a New York Daily News report that one Google contracting agency was actively targeting homeless people in Atlanta and tricking unwitting college students into participating.
Origina

The iPhone’s notch may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but there’s now a lawsuit over it, which alleges that Apple’s advertised screen size and resolution for the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max count pixels that aren’t actually there due to the notch. A federal judge hearing the case, in an all-time great quote, thinks this may not be a big deal: “There doesn’t really seem to be anyone in America who seems to be concerned about it,” he said, according

Adam Neumannmay be out of the daily flow of WeWork, but he seemingly remains top of mind to some of the company’s bankers.
According to a new Business Insider piece, Neumann is working with JPMorgan, UBS, and Credit Suisse to consider new terms for a $500 million loan that he took out before WeWork filed to go public, and from which Neumann has already drawn down $380 million. Since he can no longer pay the loan with proceeds from selling WeWork shares publicly (it yanked its S-1 filing ea

At the very beginning, there were 20 startups. After two days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner.
Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $100,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.
After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed

NASAissues a new formal request for info from industry specifically around spacesuits. The agency is hoping to gather information in order to help it figure out a future path for acquisition of spacesuit production and services from external industry sources.
That doesn’t mean it’s outsourcing its spacesuit design and production immediately – NASA will build and certify its own spacesuits for use in the first Artemis missions, including Artemis III which is the one that’l

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Consumers should stay away from vapes that contain THC, the US Food and Drug Administration said today. People should also avoid all illicit vaporizers, regardless of whether they contain nicotine salts, tobacco, or THC.As of today, more than 1,000 cases of the vaping-related lung injuries have been identified by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with 18 deaths across 15 states. Almost three-quarters of patients have been men, and 80 per

Photo: Niko Tavernise / Warner Bros. Todd Phillips’ standalone supervillain origin story Joker is arriving in theaters amid so much controversy and concern about the potential for copycat violence that the debate has largely overwhelmed the film itself. It’s been fascinating to watch the discussion around the movie shift from “Do we really need another Joker story so soon after Suicide Squad?” to “Is Joker full of dangerous ideas that will spur its worst fans to mu

Apple has admitted there’s a component that can go bad in some iPhone 6S and 6S Plus handsets that can keep them from powering on — and it’s now offering to replace that mystery component free of charge with a new repair program.
The company’s support page doesn’t offer any details about which component caused the issue, but you can enter your phone’s serial number there to see if it’s eligible. Affected handsets are only those produced at the end of the

Physical storage-turned-rentals startup Omniis dealing with layoffs today, two sources familiar with the situation tell TechCrunch. Omni just shed seven operations team members. The startup is in talks to sell its engineering team to Coinbaseafter also receiving interest from Thumbtack.
Omni’s rental business was doing poorly without enough users paying a few bucks to borrow a tent, bike or power drill. Omni had planned to launch a white-labeled platform allowing brick-and-mortar merchants

On September 17, HTCannounced that cofounder Cher Wang would be stepping down as CEO. In her place, Yves Maitre stepped into the role of Chief Executive, after more than a decade at French telecom giant, Orange.
It’s a tough job at an even tougher time. The move comes on the tail of five consecutive quarterly losses and major layoffs, including a quarter of the company’s staff, which were let go in July of last year.
It’s a far fall for a company that comprised roughly 11 perce