Technology news

Photo by Pauline Acalin for The Verge A test version of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, Starship, partially burst apart during ground tests in Texas today, erupting plumes of gas and sending some pieces of hardware soaring into the sky. Live streams set up by local space enthusiasts captured the failure in real time this afternoon.
The explosive result occurred while SpaceX was seemingly conducting some pressure tests with the vehicle at the company’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Twitter announced that it’s rolling out an “experiment” of a new tweet scheduling feature that you can use right from Twitter’s web app (via 9to5Mac). The new feature could be handy to prep tweets for a coordinated product launch or news announcement, for example. But until today, it wasn’t something you could do on Twitter’s web app — you would have had to use TweetDeck or a third-party service like Buffer

There are some objects that spit in the face of god, either in their design or their intended use, and another such product has just entered our reality. PopSocket — the makers of the now-ubiquitous, carpal tunnel-saving doohickeys that adorn the backs many smartphones — has now made a PopGrip (its term) that is an AirPods case. It looks like a tumorous growth out of the back of your phone, but hey, you probably won’t lose your AirPods again — only your dignity.Like the o

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service launched on November 19th (and you probably shouldn’t buy into it just yet), but we’re already hearing more about Amazon’s rumored entry into the space. CNET reports that Amazon is planning to announce its own cloud gaming service next year. CNET’s story corroborates a January report from The Information, which first revealed the existence of the service and said that it likely wouldn&rsqu

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images Google is bringing its Smart Compose feature to Google Docs, meaning G Suite users will, in future, be served AI-powered writing suggestions outside of their inbox. Though for the time being, only domain administrators can sign up for the beta.The search giant originally unveiled Smart Compose last year, following Gmail’s earlier Smart Reply feature. Smart Reply suggests short responses to emails, while Smart Compose is more meddlesome, acti

On November 20th, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released the results of its investigation into the 2018 fatal Uber crash in Tempe, Arizona, which was widely believed to be the world’s first death by a self-driving car.But rather than slap the cuffs on Uber’s robot car, investigators instead highlighted the many human errors that culminated in the death of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. And they sounded a warning: it could happen again.“If your company tests auto

New York City has released its long-awaited report on government algorithms, but not everyone is happy with the result.“This is a sad precedent.”
In 2017, the city passed a local law to national fanfare. The legislation, Local Law 49, established a task force with the goal of examining how hidden algorithms oversee life in the city. Local stakeholders and advocates were convened, and charged with producing a report with recommendations for using automated tools.
But the task force qu

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google’s smart displays are starting to get some more variety when it comes to video entertainment. Sling TV, the cheapest of the major internet TV streaming services, is adding full support for the Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max today. You can now tune to channels using voice commands.
The Hubs already offer Google’s own YouTube TV service, but a subscription costs significantly more than Sling’s $25 starter price. The monthly cost of many s

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Thursday night, Elon Musk will appear onstage at the Tesla Design Center in Los Angeles to reveal the product he’s most excited about: Tesla’s first electric pickup truck. And while the CEO has teased the truck on and off for six years, with increased hype at every turn, it’s still not super clear what’s in store. Unlike, say, the Model Y reveal earlier this year, Musk has played this one somewhat close to the chest.
Yes, Musk h

Image: Apple Apple has just launched its lineup of battery cases for the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max. They look very similar to last year’s cases (though, obviously, with a bigger camera cutout), and they come in the same black, white, and pink colors. They also maintain wireless charging support.But the new trick for 2019 is a physical button that automatically opens the iPhone’s camera app when pushed — even if your phone is locked. If you turn the phone horizontally f

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Buying a new TV can feel like a uniquely stressful experience for any number of reasons. Most people tend to hold on to a TV for far longer than, say, they’ll keep a phone, so it feels like there’s more pressure to make the right choice. There’s also a terrifying amount of jargon to sift through, with little real information about which features actually lead to a better viewing experience.Unfortunately, there is no perfect formula for buying

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge On June 6th, Google opened up preorders for the $130 “Founder’s Edition” of its Stadia cloud gaming service, promising those buyers would be the first to experience the future of gaming — and reserve a unique username. Though Stadia went live on November 19th, many buyers are still reporting they haven’t received the most crucial piece of the entire Stadia package: the invite email that opens the door to actually let them

Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images There is yet another 2020 Democratic presidential debate tonight, and the pool of candidates that will be onstage has shrunk down to just 10 participants. This fifth debate will be hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.How do I watch?
There are a number of ways you’ll be able to watch the debate tonight.You’ll be able to stream it for free on MSNBC.com and WashingtonPost.com; it will be featured o

Image: Epic Games In October, Fortnite emerged from a black hole with a new look, a new map, and a new two-month season to earn Battle Pass rewards. Now, that season has been extended all the way until early February 2020, Epic announced in a short blog post today.The company didn’t give much reason for the extension beyond wanting to prepare for “new holiday-themed updates.” Epic’s blog post also teases “new game features, free rewards and a live experience that y

Image: NASA / SpaceX Last week, SpaceX fired up the engines on its new passenger spacecraft, the Crew Dragon, during a ground test, and now, you can watch the fiery show in all its slow-motion glory. Today, NASA released footage from the test, marking the latest milestone SpaceX reached as the company prepares the capsule for its next flight.
The engines, known as SuperDracos, are part of the Crew Dragon’s emergency abort system, which will definitely come in handy if anything goes wrong

If you like being frustrated — briefly and in a satisfying way — have I got a game for you! Grégoire Divaret-Chauveau, a developer based in Nancy, France, has made a web game where you play the arcade classics Tetris and Snake at the same time with the same controls. The catch: when you lose in one, you lose in the other.Tetris on the left, Snake on the right. You play both at the same time.
With the same controls.
You lose in one, you lose in both. Good luck.https://t.co/sg7d

Photo by Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images Amazon is reportedly planning a big expansion for its cashierless store format in 2020.According to Bloomberg, the retail giant wants to open both larger supermarkets and smaller pop-up stores as early as the first quarter of 2020, both using the same Amazon Go technology that creates a shopping experience without any checkout lines. Bloomberg notes that this expansion could include Amazon licensing its technology to rival retailers, som

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Apple CEO Tim Cook will be spending the afternoon of November 20th making conversation with President Donald Trump. The two are scheduled to tour a factory in Austin, Texas, where Apple is manufacturing its new Mac Pro. The president does this kind of photo op all the time as a way of promoting US manufacturing jobs (recent trips include a Louis Vuitton workshop near Dallas and a paper mill south of Toledo, Ohio), and Apple seems to be eagerly playing along. This

Image: Ubiquiti Ubiquiti has announced its first Wi-Fi 6 router, the AmpliFi Alien. The tri-band router supports the latest Wi-Fi 802.11ax standard and includes four gigabit LAN ports on its rear, along with a single WAN port to receive an internet connection. You can also pair multiple units together to create a mesh network. The router costs $379 and is available now from AmpliFi.com.
Despite what its “Alien” name suggests, the router has a nicely understated design compared to mo

When Apple Arcade launched in September, the subscription service debuted with an incredible number of games — so many, in fact, that it could be hard to find the best things to play. In the ensuing weeks and months, a steady trickle of new games has hit the platform, making that search even harder. Apple Arcade is now home to more than 100 games, and while the top end is full of great titles, the quality varies quite a bit. And that’s become even more true as the service has become

Spark is one of the best email apps around on both Android and iOS, offering tons of customization options and plenty of high-level features, but it has tended to lag behind some of its competitors when it comes to design. That changes today with the launch of the latest version of the app, which brings a slick redesign that makes Spark far more enjoyable to look at, along with a new dark mode setting.The odd, windowed design of the old app has been replaced by a more uniform background (either

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Google is adding new tools to Google Earth on the web that let you build your own tour of a place right on top of the Google Earth map. It could help solve the problem of not being able to communicate just how awesome that walk around Tokyo was by letting you show your friends your journey. The tools let you set landmarks, draw lines from place to place, add text, images, and videos to every point along the way, and present the whole thing, step by

You can use the iOS app to scan documents, and the service will try to give you warnings and tell you about loopholes. | Image: DoNotPay DoNotPay, the “robot lawyer” service that helps you contest parking tickets and even sue people, is launching a new tool to help customers understand license agreements. Called “Do Not Sign,” the service is included with DoNotPay’s monthly $3 subscription fee, and it lets users upload, scan, or copy and paste the URLs of any licen

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Most of the year, it’s tough to find a worthwhile deal on a laptop. If you’re in the market for an upgrade, or are buying your first laptop, Black Friday is when all of the retailers and manufacturers mark down most, if not all, of their inventory to the best prices of the year. Regardless of whether you have your eye on a Windows 10 laptop or a MacBook, there will be plenty of both sorts on sale soon (and in some cases, right now).We&rsqu

Microsoft is planning to integrate Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar into its Outlook.com web mail client. The software maker has started testing this integration on some accounts recently, and Twitter user Florian B was able to access it today. After a quick setup process, you simply link a Google Account to an Outlook.com account, and Gmail, Drive documents, and Google Calendar will all be automatically displayed inside Outlook.com on the web.
It looks very similar to how Outlook for iO

Image: Amazon I’ve been thinking about how Amazon takes a chaos-energy attitude towards developing ecosystems around its products. When it’s trying to get third parties to work with its products, Amazon throws open the doors and invites all comers. When it’s making new products itself, Amazon is much more likely than anybody else to just do whatever it wants, sometimes aggressively.Sometimes that leads to hilarious Alexa products like rings that listen to your whisper, IR blas

I've always gone out of my way to recycle, conserve electricity, and vote for government officials who take climate change seriously. But I didn't understand the true gravity of environmental decline until I watched A Plastic Ocean on Netflix a few years ago. As I immediately purchased reusable water bottles for myself and every member of my family, the way I think about shopping drastically changed.
Guilt about over-indulgent holiday shopping is a growing sentiment. We all get giddy when we fin

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Condé Nast’s CEO Roger Lynch thinks that Apple’s premium magazine service, Apple News Plus, has yet to prove itself, Variety reports. Speaking at Recode’s Code Media conference in Los Angeles the CEO said that “the jury is out” on Apple’s $9.99 a month subscription service. Condé Nast currently provides a number of its publications through Apple News Plus, including Wired, The New Yorker, GQ, and Vogue.App

The newest addition to Volkswagen’s forthcoming lineup of electric vehicles was just revealed at the 2019 LA Auto Show, and it’s an EV wagon called ID Space Vizzion. Shown off in concept form only, VW is saying the eventual production version will squeeze 300 miles of EPA-estimated range out of an 82kWh battery, though the company has not run the vehicle through any real EPA testing yet. VW said it may come to the United States in 2022.
The ID Space Vizzion is, perhaps unsurprisingly

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Audi just pulled the wraps off of the E-Tron Sportback, the company’s second electric car, at the 2019 LA Auto Show. Coming to Europe in the first half of 2020, the top-tier version of the new premium EV will offer up to 446 kilometers of range (277 miles) and is powered by dual electric motors with a total power output of 265kW, or around 350 horsepower. A slightly less powerful version of the Sportback with a smaller battery will start at €71,

Photo: Lucasfilm / Disney On Disney+’s first day, its initial 10 million subscribers were hit with a series of outages. The company says this was because of high demand and the way engineers “architected the app.”
Ahead of the launch, Disney executives thought they would be ok. Michael Paull, head of Disney Streaming Services, told The Verge in August that years of handling big streams (like Game of Thrones premieres and finales) prepared the team for a launch of this size. It

After a three-year silence, there has been news on the fourth film in rebooted Star Trek film series: Noah Hawley, best known for creating FX’s Legion and Fargo TV series, is in final talks to write and direct it, according to reports from The Wrap and Deadline.The most recent Star Trek film was 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. Unlike the original two films in the modern iteration of the franchise, Star Trek Beyond was directed by Justin Lin; 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek