Technology news

Photo by Tim Chapman/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Miami’s National Weather Service issued a warning for falling iguanas along with a cold front swooping through South Florida today and tomorrow. Temperatures are expected to drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit tonight, with wind chill values reaching the mid 20s. That’s enough to (seemingly) freeze the cold-blooded creatures in their tracks.“This isn’t something we usually forecast, but don’t be s

Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Amazon Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was targeted and successfully hacked through WhatsApp from Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to a new report from The Guardian. Citing the results of a digital forensic analysis, The Guardian says the hack, which took place in May 2018, targeted unknown contents on Bezos’ personal cellphone.According to the report, Bezos and the Saudi prince were having a friendly exchange over WhatsApp when the crow

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Even with the high-profile launches of Disney+ and Apple TV Plus last fall, Netflix added more subscribers than expected in the last three months of 2019. Its Q4 results released today show the company continued to grow, even as an avalanche of new streaming services approach and competitors start to release hit series.
According to Netflix, membership grew “both globally and in the US on a year over year basis.” Netflix reports that it now ha

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Oculus’ virtual reality business software program is dropping support for the budget Go headset, pushing users toward the fuller-featured Quest. UploadVR noted today that the “Oculus for Business” page no longer lists the Oculus Go for the platform. An explanatory note says “it’s become clear that Oculus Quest, with its high end graphics and fully immersive capabilities, is the best solution for most business VR needs. We

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Eight senators have been spotted wearing Apple Watches to President Trump’s impeachment trial, seemingly breaking the chamber’s ban on electronics during the proceedings. The apparent violations were spotted by Roll Call, which saw Apple Watches on the wrists of six Republican senators and two Democratic senators, as well as an aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Under rules published last week, senators are prohibited from bringing any

Image: AMD At CES 2020, AMD announced its new Radeon RX 5600 XT, a midrange $279 graphics card utilizing the company’s Navi architecture that sits between the cheaper RX 5500 series and the more powerful RX 5700 series. AMD is positioning the 5600 XT as “the ultimate graphics card for 1080p gaming,” and reviews out today seem to indicate that AMD might have made a card that’s exactly that.
Anandtech found that the RX 5600 XT lives up to AMD’s “ultimate”

Netflix’s Q4 2019 earnings are here, and so are the first official numbers for Netflix’s latest streaming hit The Witcher. The company says the series was watched by 76 million households, making it the most-watched first season of television ever for Netflix. That’s according to Netflix’s newly unveiled definition of “watched,” which it changed from “watched 70 percent of a single episode of a series” to anyone who “chose to watch and did wa

Under Armour may have stopped making connected health gadgets since 2017, but it’s now halting software support entirely for its HealthBox collection, which included a scale, a wristband, and a chest-strapped heart rate monitor. As reported by Ars Technica, UA quietly pulled UA Record, its mobile app for tracking fitness and weight changes, from the App Store and Play Store on New Year’s Eve. A week later, the company said existing HealthBox customers would be able to keep using thei

Starbucks announced today that it’s going to slash the greenhouse gases it emits and waste it sends to landfills in half over the next decade. It’s also committing to conserving or replenishing 50 percent of all the water it draws for its operations and coffee production by 2030.The company also unveiled longer-term strategies to get greener, like switching to reusable packaging and putting more plant-based products on its menu. But it hasn’t yet set a deadline on those initiat

Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images Boeing on Tuesday announced that it’s now estimating its troubled 737 Max aircraft won’t fly again until at least mid-2020, a delay from the earlier January 2020 time frame. The newly announced delay means that the 737 Max will have been grounded for at least a year, regardless of when it returns to flight.The news was issued as a press release on Boeing’s website, and the company says it will be informing customers and suppliers of the revise

Netflix is releasing a new, CGI animated version of the very first Pokémon movie. Dubbed Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution, the remake of the 1998 film follows Ash and friends as they get wrapped up in a legendary pokémon’s quest for revenge.
Much like the original film, Evolution is the story of human-made pokémon Mewtwo. The story is set within the context of the popular animated show, including Ash, Pikachu, and Team Rocket, and it involves a lot o

Half-Life: Alyx will launch in March 2020 for PC-based VR headsets, but right now, Valve is giving gamers the opportunity to catch up on (almost) everything Half-Life-related at no expense. For the next two months, each of the Half-Life games will be free to play on Steam. This is basically a two-month-long trial; you won’t get to keep these games. Every game is compatible with Windows, Linux, and macOS (though all of these games are 32-bit apps, which means they don’t work on macOS

Illustration by Ana Kova A case of the new virus spreading rapidly in China has been reported in a patient in Seattle, Washington, Reuters reports. The patient, initially diagnosed with pneumonia, had recently returned from China. This is the first US case of the virus, which was first detected in Wuhan, a city in central China. It has already sickened around 300 people and killed six.
Despite the case report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said during a press conference t

Sometimes you just want more for someone, even if they are rich, famous, and probably doing fine. Today, that person is Robert Downey Jr., star of Dolittle, in which he plays an eccentric doctor who can talk to garish, computer-generated animals. Dolittle is Downey’s first big feature film after retiring from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yet he exhibits none of the trademark charisma audiences might hope for after ten years of Tony Stark (and a few years as a pretty fun Sherlock Holmes).

AMD CEO Lisa Su at CES 2020 We’re still rolling out our Vergecast interviews from CES 2020 this month, and this week we have a chat with AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su.Dr. Su led AMD’s press conference live at CES in Las Vegas to reveal the company’s new Ryzen 4000 series of processors based on the company’s 7nm Zen 2 architecture. She later sat down with Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel to talk further and answer some listener questions.Nilay and Dr. Su talk about the performance

Photo credit should read EVARISTO SA/AFP via Getty Images Brazilian prosecutors have charged journalist Glenn Greenwald with violating cybercrime laws, The New York Times reports. The complaint reportedly claims Greenwald was part of a “criminal organization” that hacked public officials’ phones — an accusation apparently linked to Greenwald’s extensive reporting for The Intercept on President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
Last year, The Intercept publishe

YouTube TV is now available on PlayStation 4, becoming the first third-party live TV subscription service to launch on Sony’s game console. Ever since the debut of its own PlayStation Vue service, Sony has kept competitors such as Sling TV, YouTube TV, and Hulu’s live TV service off of the PS4.But PlayStation Vue is shutting down at the end of this month, so Sony is finally welcoming other options to its platform. “Unfortunately, the highly competitive pay TV industry, with exp

Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group Billionaire 2020 presidential contender Mike Bloomberg doesn’t think Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “know what they’re talking about” when it comes to breaking up big tech companies, Mercury News reported on Friday.
“Breaking things up just to be nasty is not an answer,” Bloomberg, former New York City mayor, told the Bay Area News Group. “You’ve got to have a good reason and how it would wor

Big Tech government hearings often devolve into predictable shouting matches, rambling tech support pleas, or a made-up internet legal doctrine. But last week, a congressional antitrust committee called in executives from Sonos, Tile, Basecamp, and PopSockets for a simple, well-defined purpose: to explain how big platform monopolies are hurting the rest of the tech ecosystem.
The “Competitors in the Digital Economy” hearing showcased testimony from Sonos CEO Patrick Spence, PopSocket

Lego is back with another new amazing spacecraft build set. This time, it’s a fairly realistic replica of the International Space Station, the orbiting laboratory helmed by NASA and more than a dozen countries all over the world. To celebrate the new creation, the Lego team sent the tiny ISS made out of Lego bricks to the stratosphere using a giant weather balloon in order to get it “as close as possible to the real ISS.”
Lego claims it asked NASA experts to approve the final d

A still from Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke You can save a good amount of cash on Blu-ray movies and video games on Amazon right now. In addition to discounts, it’s offering a “buy two, get one free” promotion, and the selection is great. If you can’t make up your mind about whether you want three movies or three games, you can mix and match them. You’ll get the most affordable one for free at checkout.
A few notable highlights from the Blu-ray movies part

Image: Epic Epic is asking TikTok users to create Fortnite’s next emote. Over the weekend, Epic kicked off a weeklong contest that will award in-game prizes to someone who posts an original dance move to TikTok along with the hashtag “#EmoteRoyaleContest.” The winning dance will be brought into the game as a new emote, one of the many elaborate moves Fortnite characters can burst into in celebration.
The contest seems to be part of a bigger strategy from Epic that’s desi

Skip, an electric scooter rental startup that operates in and around Washington, DC, said it would start disclosing details about the maintenance and repair requirements of its fleet of two-wheelers. The company’s aim is to shine a light on the environmental impact of the electric scooter boom and challenge its rivals to build better scooters that last longer than the cheap, Chinese-made models that were deployed in the early days.
Electric scooter companies like to boast about their commi

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella | Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images “What do you think is the biggest hardware business at Microsoft?” asked Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella last week during a private media event. “Xbox,” answered a reporter who had been quizzing Nadella on how the company’s hardware products like Surface and Xbox fit into the broader ambitions of Microsoft. “No, it’s our cloud,” fired back Nadella, explaining how Microsoft is building eve

Just before Christmas, Lego released a very surprising new game. Called Builder’s Journey, it wasn’t exactly what many people expected from the toy giant. The company is well-known for its family-friendly action games, based on everything from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, developed by prolific studio TT Games. Builder’s Journey was different. It was a short, solemn experience that had more in common with an artistic indie title than a licensed blockbuster. That wasn’t

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Uber is experimenting with a new feature in California that allows drivers to set their own prices for rides in some circumstances instead of accepting Uber’s set price, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The new feature allows for drivers to increase fares to up to five times more than Uber’s original price, and it follows other major changes Uber made in California in response to the new gig work law.According to the WSJ

Venmo will soon let you add custom animated GIFs to your transaction notes, the payment company announced today. If your Venmo feed is anything like mine, it’s already chock-full of flying dollar bill and pizza emoji, so GIFs seem like a fun way to make Venmo feeds even more lively.You can get an idea of the style of the GIFs, which it made in partnership with animated sticker company Holler, with some examples below. I think they look really fun:
Yes, that last one does have an IKEA logo

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In May, Sonos will stop providing software updates for its oldest products, and they’ll no longer receive any new features. The decision impacts devices that are part of the company’s trade-up program, including all Sonos Zone Players, the Connect and Connect:Amp, the first-generation Play:5, the CR200 controller, and the Bridge.“Without new software updates, access to services and overall functionality of your sound system will be disru

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple reportedly dropped plans to fully secure users’ iPhone and iPad backups after the FBI complained about the initiative, reports Reuters.Apple devices have a well-deserved reputation for protecting on-device data, but backups made using iCloud are a different matter. This information is encrypted to stop attackers, but Apple holds the keys to decrypt it and shares it with police and governments when legally required.“Legal killed it, for r

Video: Nebia by Moen Nebia, the shower startup that counts Apple CEO Tim Cook among its early investors, has launched the third-generation of its shower system on Kickstarter. The big news this time around is the new Nebia by Moen shower’s price, which starts at $199 compared to $499 for last year’s model, and its slightly smaller size. That starting price includes the overhead part of the shower, while stepping up to the $269 model gets you the optional “wand” to clean

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The regulation of facial recognition is emerging as a key disagreement among the world’s biggest tech companies, with Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai suggesting a temporary ban, as recently suggested by the EU, might be welcome, while Microsoft’s chief legal officer Brad Smith cautions against such intervention.“I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it,&