Technology news

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge After the shaky launch of Google’s cloud gaming service Stadia, which failed to deliver on some promised features amid questions about whether Google would support it long-term, the company announced on Thursday that it has added Typhoon Studios, the indie developer behind the forthcoming game Journey to the Savage Planet.It’s not a huge acquisition; Typhoon only has about two dozen employees, and its first game, which has yet to launch, w

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Lyft is flagging people with names its algorithm thinks are inappropriate, like “Dick,” “Finger,” and “Cummings.” The ride-hail company is sending messages to these users telling them their names don’t align with its community guidelines, and are being directed to change their name or get booted from the service.Naturally, this is creating some consternation among people with, shall we say, delicate-sounding names

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Over the past decade, billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer has reinvented himself from fossil fuel funder to climate crusader. He reached a net worth of $1.6 billion as a hedge fund manager who invested in coal, oil, and gas (among other things). But lately, he’s become better known as an activist and donor hell-bent on removing Donald Trump from office and funding a transition away from the fossil fuels that helped him get rich.In July, Steyer st

YouTubers have surpassed their goal of raising $20 million to help the Arbor Day Foundation plant 20 million trees, with the help of more than half a million donors and some wealthy tech executives. The charity campaign began nearly two months ago, when hundreds of YouTubers, led by Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, teamed up to fight climate change and prove that YouTube “isn’t just a drama fest.”Donaldson partnered with some of YouTube’s most popular creators to pr

(NASA/Joel Kowsky) Tomorrow morning, December 20th, Boeing is poised to launch its brand-new passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, from Florida, sending it to the International Space Station on top of an Atlas V rocket. The capsule won’t have any people inside, but it’ll be the first flight of the vehicle, meant to prove that future passengers will be safe when they do board the Starliner for the first time next year.
The Starliner will attempt to dock with the space station

Tesla owners will soon be able to charge their vehicles at EVgo charging stations. The EV charging company said it will partner with Elon Musk’s company to install Tesla’s proprietary connector at all of its 750 public charging stations nationwide.The first connectors will be distributed at EVgo’s charging stations in San Francisco, with the rest of the company’s stations to follow in 2020. EVgo says its new Tesla-supported chargers can provide up to 90 miles of charge in

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge I read a joke the other day that went something like: your cyberpunk dystopia name is just your actual name because the corporations have already won. Although that’s not really a joke, not if you think about it for too long. We do live in an era of unbridled corporate power, power that’s also captured about half the government and the presidency. Today, The New York Times Opinion section published the introductory piece in a series on smartphone loca

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge If you’re the owner of a Ring smart home system, the recent security issues surrounding the Ring camera — including several families whose systems were hacked and a recent report from Motherboard demonstrating how easy it is to do — probably make you a bit nervous, rightfully so. The idea that the cameras that you installed in your home to increase security may actually give strangers access to you, your children, and your home is extremely uns

Image: TiVo TiVo is combining with Xperi — a licensing firm that specializes in semiconductor technology as well as various A/V brands — in a $3 billion merger, the two companies announced today. The deal marks the end of an era for the iconic DVR company.The original TiVo company was bought back in 2016 by Rovi for $1.1 billion, primarily for TiVo’s huge (and profitable) stash of patents. Rovi would go on to change its name to TiVo post-acquisition, and the combined company,

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images On Thursday, seven Democratic presidential candidates are set to take the stage for the final primary debate in 2019. This sixth debate will be hosted by PBS and Politico at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.HOW DO I WATCH?
There are a number of ways you’ll be able to watch the debate tonight.
It’ll be live-streamed on pbs.org, politico.com, and CNN.com and on the CNNgo app on iOS and Android. If you want to watch it through a streami

Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge OnePlus announced its second data breach in two years back in November, and the phone maker promised to launch a bug bounty program by the end of the year to beef up its security. A bug bounty program could, in theory, prevent future breaches. Today, OnePlus announced that its bug bounty program is now live.If you find a bug or vulnerability, you can submit it here (although you’ll need to make an account first), and it seems the company will be updating a

Photo by Helen Havlak / The Verge The US Congress has voted to raise the age for purchasing tobacco from 18 to 21, and it’s applied that rule to e-cigarettes as well as more traditional tobacco products. The higher age limit was included in a federal spending package that passed the House of Representatives earlier this week. It’s now been approved by the Senate, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.
This change, which will likely go into effect next year

Image: Z-Wave Alliance When Apple, Google, Amazon, and Zigbee announced that they were going to work together on a common smart home standard yesterday, one huge name was missing: Z-Wave, a system meant for low-power smart devices like locks and lightbulbs.
The competing smart home system has long been criticized by rivals as not truly being an open standard — despite outward appearances otherwise — and it’s easy to imagine that’s why it was left out. So today, The Z-Wav

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge After months of negotiations, Congress approved a landmark bill on Thursday to stop the flood of illegal robocalls. The president is expected to sign it into law within the next few days.The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or the TRACED Act, empowers the federal government with new abilities to go after illegal robocallers. Once TRACED is enacted, the Federal Communications Commission could fine robocallers up to $10,000 per cal

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge After months of negotiations, Congress approved a landmark bill on Thursday to stop the flood of illegal robocalls. The president is expected to sign it into law within the next few days.The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or the TRACED Act, empowers the federal government with new abilities to go after illegal robocallers. Once TRACED is enacted, the Federal Communications Commission could fine robocallers up to $10,000 per cal

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’ve been procrastinating on purchasing those holiday gifts, are still hoping to get your packages by December 24th, and are depending on Amazon for your online purchases, your deadline is coming up fast.According to Amazon, if you’re not a Prime member, you have until today, Thursday, December 19th, to take advantage of the vendor’s free holiday shipping offers and get those boxes under the tree by the 24th. Friday, December 20th i

Gun violence research just got $25 million in federal funds, after a 20-year drought in funding for that purpose. The spending bill passed by US lawmakers today allocates half of the money to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and half to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Both agencies will use the money to fund studies on gun violence, which kills tens of thousands of people each year in the United States.“The significance of this is huge,” says Mark Rosenberg, who oversaw

Satechi Apple Watch USB-C charging dock | Image: Satechi Satechi has made a convenient USB-C Apple Watch charging dock. It plugs into a USB-C port and then charges the Watch through a magnetic dock. You can charge your Watch using your tablet or laptop, so you won’t have to look for an outlet. And the best part is you don’t need another cord. It does come with a Type-C cable, in case you need more space around the port.
This new dock was just announced, but Satechi is putting it on

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Facebook says it will soon stop its practice of using phone numbers provided to the company as part of its two-factor authentication (2FA) security tool to power a friend suggestion feature, Reuters reported on Thursday. According to the report, Facebook was using phone numbers users gave it specifically to protect their accounts from unauthorized access to try and encourage them to add members of their address book to their friends list.
The company

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge We’re less than a week away from Christmas, but deals are still popping up all over the web. Whether you’re doing last-minute holiday shopping or just want to save on a pair of headphones, there are sales of all kinds happening right now. Most of these products should come in time for Christmas, but we’ve pointed out where that’s not the case.Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The unlocked Google Pixel 3A is $249.99 and the Pixel 3A XL is

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is developing its own operating system that could one day reduce the company’s reliance on Google’s Android, according to a new report by The Information. Development is currently being led by Mark Lucovsky, a Microsoft veteran who co-authored the Windows NT operating system.The report provides a limited amount of information about how the new operating system could be used, but it notes that both Facebook’s Oculus and Portal de

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, a movie set within the world of international espionage, finally has a first trailer that sheds some more light on the director’s 11th film.The first trailer sheds some light on the storyline, which has been kept under wraps for quite some time. It seems like John David Washington’s character is trying to prevent a third World War, but it’s unclear what that entails. Like other Nolan projects, an element of time travel will be included in order

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Uber has agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle charges of sexual harassment and retaliation brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced on Wednesday.The charges stem from an investigation that started in 2017 when Uber found itself embroiled in several major scandals. Most notable were allegations that the company had permitted a culture of sexual harassment and retaliation against individuals who complained about such

Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeMeasuring the intelligence of AI is one of the trickiest but most important questions in the field of computer science. If you can’t understand whether the machine you’ve built is cleverer today than it was yesterday, how do you know you’re making progress?At first glance, this might seem like a non-issue. “Obviously AI is getting smarter” is one reply. “Just look at all the money and talent pouring into the field. Look

Image: Satechi If you’ve been looking for an Apple Watch charger that isn’t yet another long cable that can get tangled up in your bag, Satechi’s new USB-C Apple Watch charging dock might be the charger you’ve been looking for.
The dock looks to be pretty straightforward — it’s just a magnetic Apple Watch dock that can plug into a USB-C port. You can also plug the dock into an included USB-C male to USB-C female cord and plug that cord into a USB-C port, if y

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A September password breach of online game company Zynga affected 170 million people, according to a new report from Have I Been Pwned. According to that site, the Zynga hack ranks 10th among its all-time largest hacks of user information.
Zynga admitted in September that “log-in information for certain players of certain Draw Something and Words With Friends” may have been accessed. Zynga contacted affected users at the time, but it has yet to

Me, an intellectual gamer, 2013: interactive storytelling needs to break out of big-budget action game conventions. Just stop filtering so many narratives through violence, you know? Retire those old clichés like “amnesiac protagonist.” And ugh, does anybody actually like quicktime events?
It’s been six years, and story-based video games feel stronger and more diverse than ever. But it’s also gotten easier to appreciate how well those old conventions could work. An

Billie Eilish performs at the Radio 1 Big Weekend at Stewart Park on May 25, 2019 in Middlesbrough, England. | Photo by Jo Hale/Redferns Billie Eilish, the 18-year-old singer-songwriter redefining pop stardom, recently spoke with the the LA Times about her climate anxiety. It’s taken the form of bad dreams, spooky lyrics, and high fashion: a week earlier, Eilish wore a characteristically oversized “No Music on a Dead Planet” tee to the American Music Awards.“We’re

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Here are two things you probably don’t know:One, a whole bunch of the top power tool brands — including DeWalt, Black & Decker, Craftsman, Porter-Cable and more — are all owned by the same company, Stanley Black & Decker. Those 20-volt lithium-ion battery cartridges you stick into your drill, circular saw and weed whacker are all pretty much the same thing.Two, a tiny startup called Amionx has figured out how to make lithium-ion

Ghostery, which makes the ad- and tracker-blocking extension of the same name, has launched Ghostery Midnight, a desktop app with extended privacy features that costs $14 a month.
Ghostery Midnight includes not only an ad-blocker and a tracker-blocker, but also a VPN, a new feature for the company. It works across a variety of apps and browsers. While the tracker and ad-blocking features are on by default, you can toggle the ad-blocker, tracker-blocker, and VPN on or off. Ghostery Midnight is al

Pokémon Red is the first game I can remember playing myself. And while revolutionary for the time, the rudimentary, 8-bit graphics of the series left a lot to the imagination. Pretend this grass hides wild pokémon. Imagine this pokémon is wielding vast elemental powers. Picture an epic gym battle for the right to be the champion of the entire country. The Game Boy classics could never live up to the dream they were selling. With Pokémon Sword and Shield, though, you d

Image: Airbnb Airbnb has won a court battle in the EU affecting how the company is regulated in the future. The EU’s top court has ruled that Airbnb is not an estate agent but an “information society service,” meaning it can avoid certain responsibilities.The challenge to Airbnb was brought by a French tourism and hotel association, but the decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union means the US company will continue to operate as an e-commerce platform, without

The art of audio storytelling is thriving today — as much or more so than in the heyday of radio in the 1930s and ‘40s. There are podcasts to suit every taste, including politics, history, music, and comedy, and people are listening to them while driving, commuting, jogging, and relaxing. However, there are so many out there that it may be difficult to choose. We asked the staff at The Verge what their current favorite podcasts were. Here they are — try them out and see what yo