Technology news

Augmented reality has the potential to change how we see the world — or, I guess if you want to get technical, the way companies show ads to us. 
The latest example of this breakthrough is courtesy of Google's Pixel 4. The new smartphone, released Oct. 24, comes complete with a Google Lens-enabled AR surprise. As Android Police reports, when users point their new phone at the back of the Pixel 4 box, they are treated with an ad for Google's Instagram account. 
"Welcome to #teampi

Ah, the open road. Nothing beats it. Wind in your hair, sun shining down. And wait, what's that? Two humans on a motorbike being operated by a smiling dog?
If you're not on the internet to see random videos of dogs driving motorbikes, then why are you here? 
(Author's note: Please do not try this at home. It's an adorable and funny thing for all of us to enjoy, but it's definitely not safe for dogs or humans. Don't put yourself or your pup at risk.) Read more...
More about Dog, Culture, Ani

Jane Fonda continues to be a badass. 
The legendary actor and activist found herself being recognized on Friday for her work on the screen, but it was the way she accepted the award that is perhaps the most notable. She couldn't attend the annual BAFTA Britannia ceremony in person, you see, because she was too busy getting arrested in D.C. for protesting inaction on climate change. 
That didn't stop her from giving an acceptance speech, however.
"BAFTA, thank you," said the actor as he

You’ve probably already heard that HBO’s “Succession” (which recently completed its second season) is amazing. And as three East Coast tech reporters, we were probably the easiest targets for the show’s many charms.
Still, we felt like we had to talk about it. In fact, our “Succession” review on this episode of the Original Content podcast is perhaps our most epic discussion so far. And we probably would have gone for even longer, if we thought anyone wo

Traditionally, rodents don't operate motor vehicles. It's mostly a human thing. That didn't stop researchers at the University of Richmond, which made the world a better place with some truly excellent footage of rats driving cars this week.
News of the newly empowered rats was first broken by New Scientist on Tuesday. The research team put some clear plastic containers on wheels, devised a steering mechanism out of copper wires, and put 17 rats to the test in small, enclosed driving areas. The

The mysterious lung illness that's afflicted more than 1,600 vape users and claimed 34 lives (as of Oct. 22) has now been shown to disproportionate affect THC users.
That was one of the key takeaways after a Friday briefing from the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Anne Schuchat, the agency's principle deputy director, further confirmed that THC vapes obtained outside of legal supply lines – including those on the black market and those obtained from friends or family – seem to be th

Roaming charges are such a pain. 
A group of Russian researchers were feeling that reality hard recently, after a group of eagles fitted with tracking devices hit them with a serious cellphone bill. After summering in an area of Kazakhstan with no cellphone service, the steppe eagles began their expected migration — but not all of them took the expected route. 
According to volunteers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, tracking devices on the eagles had attempted to send out

A new space race is forming globally, energized by venture capital and the hype around companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The privately-funded space industry is still in its infancy, but there has been an explosion of startups and investors in the sector, and the fever has, in the last few years, spread to Europe. The development of SpaceTech startups will be crucial to the advancement of services we have come to rely on in our daily lives, be it navigatio

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support, and the money that flows through it all.
The app industry in 2018 saw 194 billion downloads and more than $100 billion in purchases. This past quarter, consumer spending exceeded $23 billion and installs topped 31 billion. And there’s no sign of the app economy slowing down.
But with app marketplaces growing this large and powerful, they’re also now coming un

It’s about time that the cybersecurity technology that was once only available to wealthy corporations will become accessible for all.  It used to be scary and thought-provoking when a resourceful hacker cracked open a hoard of user information, but the sheer number of massive hacks that happened, in 2018 alone of Equifax, Twitter, Quora, Facebook, and many others, has ensured our collective desensitization to this issue. We find ourselves in an era when it’s not a question of

Baseball players having fun with their walk-up music is nothing new, but the Washington Nationals exposed much of the world to one of the strangest ballpark traditions we've ever seen on Friday night.
In the midst of a 4-1 loss in Game 3 of the World Series against the Houston Astros, tens of thousands of Nats fans rhythmically chomped their hands together along with "Baby Shark." Yes, the un-killable and bizarre children's song echoed throughout an entire major league stadium in the middle of a

Joker has now earned more money at the worldwide box office than any other R-rated movie that came before it. Ryan Reynolds is totally chill with that.
Totally. Chill.R-Rated box office congratulatory posts aren’t like the ones you’re used to..pic.twitter.com/OTy2BqIP4f
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) October 25, 2019Reynolds of course stars in Deadpool, the previous #1 R-rated box office earner (worldwide) before Joker came barging in. So while we have no doubt his "YOU MOT

With 72 unicorns created since 2009 and $8.7 billion in venture funding last year, the UK is Europe’s leading startup hub.
Although it remains uncertain how Brexit will impact startups’ ease of recruiting and rapid scaling, initial pains are unlikely to displace London from its position as a global center for finance, media, retail, and technology.
As UK-based startups reach $1 billion (~£800 million) valuations at a rate of one per month, according to data from Dealroom, VC fi

Microsoft got a big win over Amazon to close out the week, but not everyone is going to be happy about it.
The Washington Post reported on Friday night that Microsoft won a $10 billion contract from the Pentagon for cloud computing services that will power data management for the military. It's a fairly big upset over Amazon, which was expected to land the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (or JEDI) contract.
The two companies had been the finalists since April. 
Amazon Web Services i

Does quantum computing really exist? It’s fitting that for decades this field has been haunted by the fundamental uncertainty of whether it would, eventually, prove to be a wild goose chase. But Googlehas collapsed this nagging superposition with research not just demonstrating what’s called “quantum supremacy,” but more importantly showing that this also is only the very beginning of what quantum computers will eventually be capable of.
This is by all indications an impo

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Decorative and functional watchfaces are a signature feature of the Apple Watch. It’s pretty easy to select one and tweak their appearance. In fact, you can do it either from the Watch itself or on your iPhone. And if you’re tired of your current choices, you can always add a new one.
On your iPhone
To switch to a previously installed watchface:Open the Watch app. You’ll see a scrolling line of the watchfaces you’ve previously installed.

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about All Raise’s expansion, Uber the TV show and the unicorn from down under.
Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to [email protected] or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that 

Uberis selling foodie experiences such as cooking classes and multi-course fine dining in its on-demand food delivery app, Uber Eats, under a new Moments tab, per Forbes, which reports on a small-scale test currently running in San Francisco.
It says Uber Eatsusers in the city have received an email saying they can book Uber Moments for the next month, until November 17, with initial bookable experiences being a $75 class on making Chinese dumplings and a $55 five-course Nigerian dinner.
“

Sequoia Capitalfounder Don Valentinepassed way at his home in Woodside, Ca., today at age 87 of natural causes.
Sequoia posted a tribute to Valentine shortly afterward, calling him “one of a generation of leaders who forged Silicon Valley.”
A native of New York, Valentine majored in chemistry at Fordham University before joining Raytheon in South California, then moving north to the Bay Area to work at Fairchild Semiconductor, where over the years, Valentine began investing his own s

Image: Russian Raptors Research and Conservation Network, via VK.com crowdfunding campaign Migrating eagles with tracking beacons that send texts reportedly accrued roaming charges so high that scientists had to take out a loan to pay for them, as well as attempt to raise money from a crowdfunding campaign — because some of the birds made unexpected detours (via BBC).One eagle, Min, was apparently so far off course that its transmitter sent enough texts to eat up the entire tracking budge

Ben Horowitz,the co-founder of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, has a new book coming out this coming Monday titled “What You Do is Who You Are,” that takes a look at how to create “culture” at a company.
It’s a word that’s thrown around a lot but that’s very hard to grasp, let alone implement in a sustainable way. Horowitz learned firsthand as a CEO how elusive it can be when he took stock of his company, only to discover it was made up of “s

Credit: Facebook AI Research Facebook remains embroiled in a multibillion-dollar judgement lawsuit over its facial recognition practices, but that hasn’t stopped its artificial intelligence research division from developing technology to combat the very misdeeds of which the company is accused. According to VentureBeat, Facebook AI Research (FAIR) has developed a state-of-the-art “de-identification” system that works on video, including even live video. It works by altering ke

Microsoft has accidentally published an internal design document for its upcoming Windows 10X operating system. Spotted by WalkingCat, the document was briefly available online today and provides some more detail about Microsoft’s plans with Windows 10X. The software giant originally unveiled Windows 10X as the operating system powering the company’s new Surface Neo hardware, but it will also run on similar dual-screen devices.
Microsoft has so far only officially confirmed Windows 1

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images President Donald Trump seems to have recently switched to an iPhone without a home button, and he doesn’t seem to like it very much. So much so that he decided to casually subtweet Apple CEO Tim Cook with a bit of light tech commentary.We can’t tell if Trump recently upgraded to the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, or one of the iPhone 11 variants. But all the top-of-the-line Apple smartphones since last year have ditched the home button last seen on the iPhon

The U.S. Department of Defense today announced that Microsoft has won its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract, worth up to $10 billion over a period of 10 years. With this, Microsoftwill provide infrastructure and platform services for both the Pentagon’s business and mission operations.
“The National Defense Strategy dictates that we must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernized technical capabilities to our women and

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US government has awarded a giant $10 billion cloud contract to Microsoft, the Department of Defense has confirmed. Known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), the contract will provide the Pentagon with cloud services for basic storage and power all the way up to artificial intelligence processing, machine learning, and the ability to process mission-critical workloads.
It’s a key contract for Microsoft as the company battles Amazo

NASAis looking for liquid gold on the Moon — not oil, but plain-old water. If we’re going to have a permanent presence there, we’ll need it, so learning as much as we can about it is crucial. That’s why the agency is sending a rover called VIPER to the Moon’s south pole — its first long-term surface mission since 1972.
VIPER, or the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, will touch down in December 2022 if all goes according to plan. Its mission: dir