Technology news

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge Huawei says its foldable Mate X phone is selling at a clip of 100,000 per month since it launched in China in November, according to Android Central. The Mate X, which is only for sale in China, sells for 16,999 yuan, or about $2,400.That’s just shy of the sales estimates for rival Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, although it’s not totally clear exactly how shy. Samsung executive Young Sohn incorrectly claimed the Galaxy Fold had sold 1 million units, but

Alienware’s Concept UFO marries the Nintendo Switch’s portability and modular controller design with more powerful internal components.| Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Every January, PC gaming companies get a full week during CES to show us the latest and greatest in new processors, graphics cards, monitors, and everything else that’s been cooking for the last year or longer. Normally, the PC industry gets to do this without its console counterpart encroaching on its turf.

Though it seems like most people have fully embraced AirPods, let us not forget our roots, and the fact that all of us were once victims to the wired, messy cable life. These tangled Apple EarPod earrings by artists Aleia Murawski and Samuel Copeland serve as a humbling reminder of from where we came. The statement piece, first put on our radar by XOXO Festival co-founder Andy Baio, sells for $40 on the duo’s merch shop, Beef’s World.The story behind the earrings tells the sweet mome

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If there’s one product category that still often sees genuine technological advancements at CES, it’s screens — and these days, PC monitors in particular. As someone who enjoys looking at nice displays, I’m always down to check out some even nicer ones, and CES 2020 brought us some of the fastest, brightest, largest, and curviest monitors ever.
The question, though, is when I’ll actually be moved to buy one. A couple years ago I wro

Photo by BG004 / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images General Motors is readying the announcement of an all-electric pickup truck that will carry the branding of the company’s infamous gas-guzzling Hummer, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new vehicle will reportedly be teased during a Super Bowl commercial starring LeBron James.GM will sell the Hummer truck starting in 2022 under its GMC brand, and it isn’t expected to revive Hummer as a complete brand of its own, as it once was, acco

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images The genetics testing company 23andMe licensed the rights to a drug it developed in-house to a Spanish pharmaceutical company, Bloomberg reported. This is the first time that the company has directly sold a product it created using the genetic information collected from users.23andMe has already shared genetic data with pharmaceutical companies. GlaxoSmithKline has the exclusive rights to use its data for drug development, and purchased a $300 million

Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Casper Sleep Inc. Casper, the mattress company that cornered the market on podcast ads and got into a skirmish over online mattress reviews a few years back, is trying to pivot into “non-traditional categories” according to its attempt to go public, filed Friday and which you can now read in S-1 form. Casper refers to itself as a “pioneer of the Sleep Economy” that brings “the benefits of cutting-edge technology, data, and in

Today, MIT released a 63-page fact-finding report detailing the Institute’s involvement with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. MIT says that the report focused on visits that Epstein made to campus, and 10 donations made by Epstein between 2002 and 2017, totaling $850,000. Nine of the donations, totaling $750,000, were made after 2008, when Epstein pled guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor.The report, prepared by the law firm Goodwin Procter, found that while the Presi

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge On Friday, federal regulators announced that they are launching an investigation into wearable monitoring devices, including Fitbit and Garmin, after rival company, Philips, accused the companies of patent violations, as first reported by Reuters.
In a statement, the US International Trade Commission (USITC) confirmed that its investigation into two of the most popular wearable companies was prompted by a complaint filed by the Philips company last mo

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Microsoft says Skype calls are now transcribed in “secure facilities in a small number of countries,” following a new report in The Guardian about the company’s use of contractors in China to listen to some calls to make sure the company’s transcription software is working properly. The company confirmed to The Verge that China is not currently one of the countries where transcription takes place.
A former contractor who

Marvel Studios Scott Derrickson’s vision for a true horror movie in the form of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness excited MCU fans. But a little over a year before the movie’s release, Derrickson is stepping down. The director announced on Twitter last night that he would no longer helm the project, citing “creative differences” with Marvel Studios.Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is more than just another entry in the MCU for Marvel. It’s a br

Google Pixel 4 | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verg Today’s the day to save on Google products, as there are good deals on both the Pixel 4 and Home Mini. There’s also a gaming deal and some laptop deals.
The Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL are on sale at Amazon. They’re more than $200 off, making these prices lower than they were on Black Friday. The Pixel 4 XL (64GB, white) has been knocked down from $899 to $613.79, and the Pixel 4 XL (64GB, black) is now $661.95. The Pixel 4 (64GB,

Image: Instagram It’s no secret that dedicated music fans band together on social media when their favorite artist releases new material. They list out strategies for how to stream on repeat and buy songs multiple times without detection in hopes of pushing tracks up charts and on to the radio. But rarely does the artist encourage these practices themselves.
Last night, several people noticed that Justin Bieber reposted a fan’s guide to his Instagram that detailed how to game variou

Today, NASA and Canada’s newest class of astronaut candidates graduated to full astronaut status in Houston, making them officially eligible to be assigned to upcoming missions to space. This latest class, nicknamed the Turtles, could potentially fly to the International Space Station on newly developed commercial vehicles, or they could even be assigned to future flights to the surface of the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
“They represent the first wave of NASA’

Photo by Eric Piermont / AFP via Getty Images David Drummond, Alphabet’s chief legal officer and one of the longest serving and highest tenure Google employees, is leaving the company at the end of the month, according to Forbes.Drummond has been at the center of a number of high-profile sexual misconduct controversies at the search giant related to his relationships with employees, most notably Drummond’s 2007 affair with former Google lawyer Jennifer Blakely, who reported to Drumm

Photo by Eric Piermont / AFP via Getty Images David Drummond, Alphabet’s chief legal officer and one of the longest-serving and highest tenure Google employees, is leaving the company at the end of the month, according to Forbes.Drummond has been at the center of a number of high-profile sexual misconduct controversies at the search giant related to his relationships with employees, most notably Drummond’s 2007 extramarital affair with former Google lawyer Jennifer Blakely, who repo

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Verizon is delaying the rollout of its in-home 5G service once again. A Verizon executive told Light Reading that it is waiting for new and more powerful equipment that’s supposed to be released in the second half of this year before it expands the service.
Verizon’s 5G Home service has already had a choppy history. The company first launched 5G in four US cities in October 2018, which it claimed made it the first US carri

The Vergecast began the week in Las Vegas with a preview of gadgets, concepts, and other tech news from CES 2020 that we further analyzed in front of a live audience. In the days that followed, we saw a lot more, including a keynote from upcoming streaming service Quibi, surprising new concept cars, and even news outside of CES that trickled into the show.In this CES 2020 roundup podcast, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Ashley Carman, and Sean O’Kane discuss the most important,

Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images The survival rates for cervical and uterine cancer have been stagnant for years, even as the number of deaths from cancer in the United States dropped overall. This week, the American Cancer Society announced the largest reduction in cancer deaths ever reported in a single year, dropping by 2.2 percent in 2017. But while treatments have improved dramatically for many forms of cancer, these particular cancers are left behind for a number of

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge OnePlus has more surprises to show off after bringing its Concept One smartphone with its disappearing camera to CES 2020. According to 9to5Google, which cites Chinese social media posts from the smartphone maker, OnePlus is teasing a new “screen technology” it plans to show off at an event in Shenzhen, China, on January 13th.The company isn’t saying much about what this new technology could be, but it is sharing a graphic as part of the event

Photography by Becca Farsace / The Verge CES 2020 was a boring year for laptops — at least, it was a boring year for laptops that will be real products that you can actually buy in 2020. The upgrades were incremental at best, and even the more interesting changes are reliant on unproven technology, like AMD’s new processors and 5G internet.But despite the fact that the upcoming wave of 2020 laptops so far looks like it’s been upgraded even more incrementally than ever before,

Yesterday, Game Freak announced expansion packs for Pokémon Sword and Shield. The first, Isle of Armor, is set to launch this June. The Crown Tundra will follow in the fall. In addition to new rivals, clothing, and areas, the expansion pack will also introduce new co-op, legendaries, and a wider pokédex. For most games, this would be standard news. For Pokémon, it’s almost revolutionary.
Pokémon moves at a glacial pace when it comes to major changes. It’s

Google Pixel 4 | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’ve been holding out for a solid deal on the Pixel 4, today’s deal might be worth the wait.
Google’s latest smartphones, the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, are on sale at Amazon. The best deal is on the Pixel 4 XL in white (64GB), which is currently going for $613.79, down from its initial price of $899. The same phone in black costs $661.95. The Pixel 4 (64GB), originally $799, is on sale for $571 in white ($571.99 in black).

Left: a purported leak of Samsung’s marketing material. Right: an official Samsung concept.| via Ajunews and Samsung Could Samsung’s next foldable phone be named the Galaxy Bloom?That’s what Korean outlet Ajunews is reporting, showing a blurry photo of what it claims is an early marketing image for the Bloom. The outlet’s story (which we spotted via SamMobile) says that Samsung told partners at a closed-door meeting at CES that their next foldable is modeled after a make

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales In October, Facebook made the controversial decision to exempt most political ads from fact-checking. The announcement met with a swift backlash, particularly among leading Democratic candidates for president. As criticism mounted, Facebook began to hint that it would further refine its policy to address lawmakers’ concerns. One change that seemed likely was to limit the ability of candidates to use the company’s sophisticated targeting tools, particu

When are two propellors better than four? When they give your drone extra battery life, greater portability, and reduce noise, claims Zero Zero Robotics. That’s the pitch for the company’s V-Coptr Falcon: a bicopter drone with an impressive flight time of 50 minutes — 20 minutes more than the comparable DJI Mavic 2.For years, four propellors have been standard for consumer drones, offering greater power and stability. But Zero Zero says its tilt-rotor design, which lets each pr

When are two propellers better than four? When they give your drone extra battery life, greater portability, and reduce noise, claims Zero Zero Robotics. That’s the pitch for the company’s V-Coptr Falcon: a bicopter drone with an impressive flight time of 50 minutes — 20 minutes more than the comparable DJI Mavic 2.For years, four propellers have been standard for consumer drones, offering greater power and stability. But Zero Zero says its tilt-rotor design, which lets each pr

Image: Bethesda Bethesda’s has given its re-releases of Doom 1 and 2 from last year a pretty hefty update that improves performance, adds new features, and gives access to a huge amount of content in the form of free community-made add-ons. At the top of the list of performance improvements is an increase in framerate, from 35fps originally to 60fps now, but the company has also added new features like support for quick saves, different aspect ratios, and a new quick-weapon-select feature

Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images Boeing employees discussed the problems with the 737 Max in chats and emails that the company characterized as “completely unacceptable” in a statement released today. “Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” one employee said to another in one chat in February 2018, according to documents obtained by The Verge and originally reported by The New York Times. “No,” the other person

Microsoft released its new Windows Terminal command line app last year, and the company has been steadily improving it in Windows 10 ever since. The software maker is now preparing a new update due next week that will introduce retro-style CRT effects. If you’re old enough to be a fan of CRT monitors then this one is for you. A new experimental feature will be enabled that includes the classic scan lines that you might have seen before the world switched to flat monitors and LCD technology