Technology news

Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images Approving new pipelines, mines, highways, and other major projects could become much easier under new rules proposed by President Trump today. Speaking from the White House, the president moved to amend the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a cornerstone of environmental law in the US.
a cornerstone of environmental lawNEPA requires agencies to get public feedback on new projects, and to consider the potential environmental harms a

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Dozens of subway riders in New York City are being charged extra for their transit rides, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority suspects that Apple may be partly to blame.The MTA is not explicitly pointing the finger at Apple, but it appears that some riders may be unwittingly putting their iPhones too close to the system’s new tap-to-pay OMNY readers while simultaneously swiping their MetroCards at the turnstile.Last spring, the MTA beg

Image: Twitch Hype is important on Twitch. That’s why the company is gamifying it with a new feature called Hype Train, launching on Thursday. If you donate enough to a partnered or affiliate channel, you’ll see a bar pop up above chat, which will give donators rewards as it fills.
Hype is what powers the biggest events on the site — like, for example, Awesome Games Done Quick, which raises an astonishing amount of money for a charity every year. (This year’s beneficiary

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It would be easy to assume that because competition is so stiff among live-streaming platforms — for talent, for eyeballs — that the market is zero-sum. But as it turns out, that isn’t actually true.According to a fourth-quarter report from the streaming tools provider StreamElements and the metrics tracker Arsenal.gg, the entire industry grew an astonishing 12 percent in the last year (based on hours watched). A lot of growth came from

It’s been a few years since I walked over to the drone section of the CES show floor, but Autel Robotics gave me a good reason to finally revisit it this year. The company announced a total of three drones — the EVO II, the EVO II Pro, and the EVO II Dual — but the first two models have some serious specs that just blew me away.All three drones have the same body with different cameras. Let’s start with the EVO II. It takes 48-megapixel photos and claims to shoot 8K video

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Reddit updated its policies about impersonation to no longer allow impersonation of an individual or entity in a misleading or deceptive manner. That means the new policies won’t just affect things like misleadingly altered videos (like deepfakes), but could implicate simple lies made by people impersonating others online. The new policies expand upon the platform’s 2018 ban on deepfake porn videos and were made just days after Facebook

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s moving away from his annual self-reflection challenges to take a longer-term focus on what he sees as important over the next decade.
“Rather than having year-to-year challenges, I’ve tried to think about what I hope the world and my life will look in 2030 so I can make sure I’m focusing on those things,” he wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. “By then, if things go well, my d

iRobot, the maker of the popular robot vacuum Roomba, said it’s working on a version of the disc-shaped household helper that has arms. The company envisions a limbed version of the Roomba that’s able to help out with more complex tasks, like laundry, dishwashing, and food serving.Colin Angle, CEO of the Massachusetts-based company, revealed these plans to Bloomberg while at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Angle said iRobot wouldn’t start selling the enhanced Roomba

The Farewell director Lulu Wang said something during a recent roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter that neatly sums up the biggest problem facing the streaming revolution: there’s too much stuff.
Wang had been offered more money by a major streaming platform for her film, but opted to go with A24, a smaller, more traditional studio. Director Todd Phillips said a filmmaker “like Lulu would get lost on Netflix,” and Martin Scorsese added that there are “too many things.&

Image: Roland Electronic instruments company Roland has unveiled a concept piano called the Facet, which is likely to turn heads as it makes appearances this year. The low poly (or as Roland says “evocative crystal-like”) design has a keyboard with a smart screen and a hollow cabinet that contains speakers instead of the usual hammers and strings. It’s a true concept product in that there are no plans for it to go on sale — Roland says they made it to show the piano&rsqu

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with the family of Qasem Soleimani | Photo by Iranian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Phil Openshaw, a retired Californian dentist, hadn’t checked his website in months. So he was unaware that it no longer displayed details for his annual mission trip that provides free dental services in Uganda. Instead, it displayed a photo of recently assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani with the message “Down with America.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with the family of Qasem Soleimani | Photo by Iranian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Phil Openshaw, a retired Californian dentist, hadn’t checked his website in months. So he was unaware that it no longer displayed details for his annual mission trip that provides free dental services in Uganda. Instead, it displayed a photo of recently assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani with the message “Down with America.”

Samsung Galaxy S10+ | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Deals can be slow during this time of year, but there are some worthwhile phone deals available from different retailers. There are currently active discounts on Samsung Galaxy, Motorola, and OnePlus phones.
The Galaxy S10 Plus (1TB) is $300 off at Samsung, for a total price of $1,299.99. The phone also comes with a choice of a free cover, valued between $29.99 and $64.99. You can save an additional $200 when you trade in a devic

1917 is a bit of a brag track, a cinematic flex by people who are really damn good with a camera. The World War I film from Skyfall director Sam Mendes is made to look like one continuous shot, a harrowing nonstop journey through war-torn France in the first modern conflict. After winning Best Drama Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards last weekend, it’s easy to imagine a world where it kills at the upcoming Oscars. It hits a lot of the right notes. 1917 is a solemn war movie with pop

Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call Over the past year, there’s been a renewed sense of urgency among lawmakers to rewrite parts of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA — a little-known law that protects children’s privacy online. COPPA has become increasingly important after high-profile cases against YouTube and TikTok, but the law is over 20 years old and lawmakers argue it needs a huge revamp to keep children safe on the internet as it is today.On Thur

Fans of YouTube creator David Dobrik are captivated by his new digital disposable camera app, with downloads flying past the 1 million mark, The Verge has learned.Dobrik’s app, David’s Disposable, has surpassed “well, well over a million” downloads, a person with knowledge of the numbers told The Verge. The person wouldn’t say how many downloads the app has in total, but they said that downloads are picking up speed. David’s Disposable is ad-supported, but a $

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Lime, the largest electric scooter-sharing company in the world, is laying off 14 percent of its workers and exiting 12 markets, according to a report in Axios. The move comes during the winter months, when most scooter companies see a significant dip in ridership, and amid reports about the industry’s struggles to turn a profit.In a statement posted online, Lime CEO Brad Bao said the company has decided to leave cities where “micromobilit

Thanks to YouTuber MrBeast’s viral tree planting campaign, more than 21 million trees will be planted across the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Haiti, Indonesia, Ireland, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, and the United Kingdom.Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson set out to raise $20 million for the campaign dubbed #TeamTrees in October after reaching 20 million subscribers on YouTube. Each dollar raised would plant one tree. Some of YouTube’s biggest stars j

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge LG’s CEO says the company’s flagging mobile division will be profitable by 2021, but he didn’t provide any real details about how this would happen. Brian Kwon said during a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the company would expand its mobile lineup and “steadily release new ones attached with some wow factors to woo consumers,” The Korea Times reported.
But LG has a track record of over

The PC industry had given up on Intel ever producing its own powerful desktop graphics cards, after the company unceremoniously killed its Larrabee project ten years ago last month.This is not that card. This is not a card you’ll be able to buy at all, in fact.But these first pictures of the Intel DG1 show that the company has actually built a discrete graphics card, and that has to count for something.
At CES 2020 in Las Vegas, the company held a meeting with the press to clarify what the

“We will bend it for you,” an Intel representative told Vjeran, The Verge’s video director, at our CES meeting. “Three times maximum.” This did not make me think that Intel is particularly confident in the durability of its foldable PC.That’s fair enough, really. It’s only meant to be a reference design, as Intel isn’t a company that sells finished consumer electronics in the first place. But it’s an example of how this year’s CES has d

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Uber is making serious changes to its app in California in an effort to comply with the state’s groundbreaking new gig work law that makes it harder for the company to classify drivers as independent contractors.On Wednesday, Uber emailed over 150,000 drivers and millions of passengers to alert them to the changes. The app will now display prices differently, allow users to select preferred drivers, and discontinue some benefits associated with

Microsoft is adding a new Walkie Talkie feature to its Slack competitor, Microsoft Teams. Available in preview in the coming months, the feature will turn smartphones or tablets into a walkie-talkie that will work over Wi-Fi or cellular data. Microsoft is embedding the feature at the center of its navigation bar inside Microsoft Teams, suggesting that’s a highly requested feature that will be used by a lot of companies.
It’s primarily designed for “firstline workers,” emp

Another classic Pokémon adventure is being remade for the Nintendo Switch. Today, The Pokémon Company announced a new version of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team — with the unwieldy title Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX — that reimagines the 2006 dungeon crawling original. That includes a lovely new art style, with revamped 3D visuals that have an almost painterly style. The new game will be out on the Switch on March 6th.
Get ready for Pok&eac

Pokémon Sword and Shield will offer new content for players to continue their adventures with an expansion pass. The news was announced today during a special Nintendo Direct.
Previously, Game Freak has released expanded versions of each region through games like Ultra Moon and Ultra Sun. A brief video teased two new parts, including The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra, set for June 2020 and fall 2020, respectively. There will be two different versions of the expansion packs to reflect

A car with a 48-inch screen on the dashboard sounds like a distracted driving nightmare, and to be honest, that could likely wind up being the case. But two years after Byton teased the idea in a concept car that debuted at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, the Chinese EV startup returned to CES and offered a chance to drive its electric SUV in an effort to prove that its headline-grabbing screen may not be as problematic as it seems.
On Wednesday evening, I spent 15 or so minutes behind the w

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Verizon is making some changes to its home internet, TV, and phone service today. The company is announcing that it would be eliminating bundled services and one- and two-year contracts for its services, making it easier for customers to sign up and change their setups as they wish, according to The Wall Street Journal.The idea is that instead of having to subscribe to multiple services to get the cheapest price (Verizon’s infam

Image: Echelon The “Peloton effect” has been several years in the making. Ever since the cult-favorite $2,249 stationary bike that can live-stream classes debuted in 2014, companies have been trying to create their own renditions — whether that’s by making a cheaper version of the bike or implementing the same live-streamed boutique workout class concept into different types of exercise equipment. At CES 2020, it’s clear that we’ll continue to see more of the

A new company called Aira thinks it can build what Apple couldn’t: a Qi-compatible wireless charging pad that allows people to charge multiple gadgets, regardless of how they’re placed on the mat. I got to see early demos of the tech at CES this week, and while I see the promise and feel relatively assured that the charging pads will eventually work, they aren’t ready for primetime just yet. The closest thing to AirPower still needs more work. (And before you get too excited, n

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has stood firm in the face of pressure over its policies on political ads, defending a “warts and all” approach that allows politicians to lie in ads placed on its platform. In a post published in its newsroom, the company said it had based its policies on the principle that “people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them” and “what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.” Facebook

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google has announced the alternative search engines it will show to new Android users in the EU, with DuckDuckGo the most frequently offered choice and Bing tied for last place.EU citizens setting up Android devices from March 1 will be given a choice of four search engines to use as their default, including Google. Whichever provider they chose will become the default for searches made in Chrome and through Android’s home screen search box. A dedicat

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today Facebook appeared at a Congressional hearing about synthetic and manipulated media, and so it was only fitting that the day was consumed by confusion over whether the company had placed a flattering article in Teen Vogue to manipulate the media.
“How Facebook Is Helping Ensure the Integrity of the 2020 Election,” a 2,000-word question-and-answer session with five women working at Facebook to protect it from election interference, appeare

Photo by Amy T. Zielinski/Getty Images Storied film studio Warner Bros. has signed a deal with Cinelytic, an LA startup that uses machine learning to predict film success. The studio will use Cinelytic’s algorithms “to guide decision-making at the greenlight stage,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, though Cinelytic’s CEO Tobias Queisser stressed that the software is only an assistant.
“right now, an AI cannot make any creative decisions”
“Artificial

Photo by Amy T. Zielinski/Getty Images Storied film studio Warner Bros. has signed a deal with Cinelytic, an LA startup that uses machine learning to predict film success. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio will use Cinelytic’s algorithms “to guide decision-making at the greenlight stage,” but a source familiar with the matter told The Verge that the technology would not be used to make creative decisions.
“right now, an AI cannot make any creative decisions

The problem with VR headsets is that they still all look like VR headsets — glorified ski goggles that shut you off from the world. I’m not going to say Panasonic has solved the matter altogether with its own VR glasses at CES this year, but the project does represent something of an improvement. Basically, they’re regular-ish glasses with a dash of steampunk aviator style.
The glasses — and they are glasses, rather than a headset — also offer technical improvements

I’ve always loved toys that have more than meets the eye. Hidden spring-loaded projectiles. Secret passages in my LEGO sets. And of course, Transformers toys. But while many of the best toys rely on a healthy imagination, it always felt like the Transformers were a little too slow for make-believe skirmishes and adventures; the good ones took far longer to turn into a robot than they did in the show.That’s why I’m sad I didn’t personally attend CES in Las Vegas this year