Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s tool for reporting instances of voter suppression is now available for US users, just days ahead of the 2020 Iowa caucuses (via Politico). In its “report this tweet” drop-down menu, US Twitter users now will be able to choose “it’s misleading about a political election” or “it intends to suppress or intimidate someone from voting” as options. If Twitter finds the tweet violates its election integri

Whenever global tragedy strikes, people on the internet rush to exploit it. 
The spread of the deadly coronavirus is no different, with fake stories going viral in an attempt to accomplish who knows what. Google, however, wants no part of that, and today announced a new feature in collaboration with the World Health Organization that will hopefully both reduce the spread of misinformation and get valuable information to those in need. 
"Today we launched an SOS Alert w/@WHO, to make re

Photo: Sideshow Collectibles The picture at the top of this post isn’t a screenshot of The Child (aka, Baby Yoda) from Disney+’s The Mandalorian; rather, it’s an incredibly detailed, 1:1 life-sized replica of the iconic character from Sideshow Collectibles, and it could be yours... for the low, low price of $350. Preorders for the figure open today, but it’s not expected to arrive until August to October later this year.If that massive price tag didn’t give it away

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon released its fourth quarter earnings for 2019 today, and the company is touting big Prime subscriber numbers as one of the main contributors to a very successful holiday season. The company says it now has over 150 million Prime subscribers, and that more people joined Prime during the fourth quarter of last year than any other quarter in the company’s history. Since its last milestone of 100 million subscribers in 2018, more than 50 million

American Airlines had already canceled some flights to China due to the coronavirus outbreak — which was officially designated a global health emergency by the WHO earlier today, having sickened thousands around the world — but the airline’s independent union, Allied Pilots Association, is now suing for a temporary restraining order on all American Airlines flights between the US and China effective immediately.
In the meanwhile, it’s telling American Airlines pilots that

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge OnePlus’ smartphones are infamous for lacking support for Qi wireless charging —but the company has been spotted joining the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), the standards group that handles the Qi wireless charging used by virtually every single smartphone, as reported by MobileScout.The lack of wireless charging has been one of the glaring holes in OnePlus’ lineup that crops up every year, especially as OnePlus’ phones have gotten bett

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung has opened up reservations for its next flagship phones, expected to be the Samsung Galaxy S20, S20 Plus, and S20 Ultra, that the company will unveil at an upcoming event on February 11th.But this isn’t a pre-order. It’s more like taking a ticket while you’re in line at the deli. You enter your name, contact info, and preferred carrier, and — you’re ready to wait. It’s highly unlikely that Samsung will run short

Sick of ICE? Audi is too — ICE, as in the “internal combustion engine,” which Audi wants customers to “Let It Go” in proper Frozen fashion in its new Super Bowl advertisement promoting its E-Tron Sportback electric car, starring Maisie Williams.The commercial sees Williams — best known for her role as Arya Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones, and presumably no stranger to being sick of ice and ice-related things — driving Audi’s new electric car w

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Snap announced today that it’s launching Bitmoji TV, which will be a weekly “show” within Snapchat that stars you and your friends’ Bitmoji avatars. The show will launch this Saturday, February 1st, and it will have a 10-episode season, with new episodes debuting weekly, reports Variety.
In each episode, your personalized Bitmoji (if you’ve created one in Snapchat or the Bitmoji app) will pal around with Bitmojis of your

Photo by Naohiko Hatta - Pool/Getty Images The ongoing coronavirus outbreak is a global health emergency, the World Health Organization determined today. Since it started last month, the virus’s spread has reached nearly two dozen countries, sickened thousands, and impacted both travel and business around the world.“The main reason is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries,” said Tedros Adhanom, director general of the WH

Photo by Rich Graessle/PPI/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Super Bowl LIV is coming up this Sunday, February 2nd on Fox, between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. As if that matchup wasn’t reason enough to watch, this year’s Super Bowl will broadcast in 4K HDR. If you want to watch it in 4K HDR, we’re going to tell you how. But bear with us — this is more confusing to walk through than it should be.
It goes without saying that you’ll need a 4K HD

The Electronic Software Association is introducing tighter security measures around press registration for E3, one of the world’s largest video game conferences. This move follows an incident last year in which sensitive personal information belonging to thousands of journalists, YouTube creators, and Twitch streamers was made public. A new blog post published today details updates to the conference and its “media registration process,” which the company says “received a

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A US district judge has squashed Peloton’s counter lawsuit today, against music publishers who claimed the fitness company violated rights to use select artists’ music in its workout videos. Peloton hosts live cycling and running classes that are performed to a curated playlist, but the National Music Publishers’ Association claimed that because Peloton classes can be streamed on bikes, treadmills, or mobile apps, it did not have suf

Just in time for the Super Bowl, Madden 20 will be getting a new shoe. More specifically, the Nike Vapor Edge Cleat. Among the players getting this special footwear: Christian McCaffrey, Odell Beckham Jr., Kyler Murray, Ezekiel Elliott, and Dalvin Cook (congrats, Dieter). Most notably, it will be the first time an aesthetic update will actually affect players’ abilities in-game, increasing their speed and acceleration. EA says the virtual shoes are available in-game now.
Madden is a strang

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Despite executive comments to the contrary, Huawei says it’s still open to using Google services after being forbidden from including them on devices last year. Huawei’s Fred Wangfei apparently said the company has no plans to return to using Google’s mobile services — the Play Store, Gmail, Google Maps, and other Google-made apps — even if the US government decides to lift the trade ban that forced Huawei to come up with it

Blizzard’s colorful team-shooter Overwatch is getting some big changes next month. Today the developer provided some details on the game’s next patch, bringing Overwatch to version 1.45, and it includes two major shifts. One will add a more experimental flavor to the game, while the other concerns which hero characters players can choose from.
To start, there will be a new feature called the “experimental card,” which will be available right in the main menu. Essentially,

Image: Apple Apple announced today that redesigned maps in its official Maps app have now rolled out to all users in the US. The company first announced plans to redesign its maps in June 2018, and the redesign was effectively complete and first began rolling out in full to parts of southeastern US last month. Apple also says the new maps will arrive for users across Europe “in the coming months.”
The new maps have considerably more detail than before and give you a better view of r

Image: Apple Apple announced today that redesigned maps in its official Maps app have now rolled out to all users in the US. The company first announced plans to redesign its maps in June 2018, and the redesign was effectively complete and first began rolling out in full to parts of southeastern US last month. Apple also says the new maps will arrive for users across Europe “in the coming months.”
The new maps have considerably more detail than before and give you a better view of r

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just days after Avast’s popular antivirus software was revealed to be harvesting browsing data and selling it to advertisers, the company has said that it’s shutting down the subsidiary that made it possible. Writing in a blog post, company CEO Ondrej Vlcek says Avast is terminating its Jumpshot subsidiary’s data collection and operations “with immediate effect,” and doesn’t mention any plans to transfer the company&rsq

Image: CBS The pilot episode of the new Star Trek: Picard series, which streams on CBS All Access, is available to view for free right now on YouTube, which we first learned about via Slashfilm. The intro credits say the episode is free “for a limited time,” so if you want to see Patrick Stewart reprise his role as the Starfleet captain from The Next Generation without shelling out for All Access, hit the link soon.The new show “plays surprisingly well for people who have not

A telescope in Hawaii has produced the highest resolution video of the Sun’s surface ever created, revealing what looks like exploding bits of caramelized popcorn covering the star at the heart of our Solar System.
The trippy image comes from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, which first started taking images of the Sun in December from Hawaii’s Haleakalā mountain. The observatory is hailed as the largest and most powerful solar telescope in the world. When it’s fully

View of St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates, Illinois on January 24, 2020 where a Chicago woman affected by the coronavirus is treated in isolation. | Photo by DEREK R. HENKLE/AFP via Getty Images The first case of person-to-person transmission of the new coronavirus has been confirmed in the United States by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The husband of a female patient with confirmed coronavirus in Chicago, Illinois tested positive for the virus. The risk to the gen

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon released its Super Bowl commercial this week, and it’s a weird one. The company’s Super Bowl commercials have historically been a little offbeat, but the best word I can use to describe this year’s is disconcerting.
It starts with Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi preparing to go out somewhere, and DeGeneres turns to an Echo Dot and asks Alexa to turn down the thermostat before they leave. DeGeneres then wonders aloud, “What do y

The Bouqs plans to take a slice of Japan’s $6 billion flower market this year with a $30 million strategic growth round from Japanese enterprise business investor Yamasa. While The Bouqs still must compete with bigger contenders like 1-800-Flowers and FTD in the U.S., it will now have to take on incumbents like Ayoma Flower Market and FloraJapan, both of which also offer same-day delivery throughout the land of the rising sun.
So why Japan? According to The Bouqs founder and CEO John Tabis

Today, NASA is shutting down one of its long-lasting space observatories, a telescope that’s been wandering through space for nearly two decades, snapping images of some of the coldest and most ancient objects in the Universe.The soon-to-be sleeping spacecraft is the Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003. The observatory was originally designed to last between two-and-a-half and five years, but thanks to clever engineering, the scientists operating the observatory were able to squeeze