Technology news

Even if you know your Uber driver shouldn't be on the phone, you aren't going to tell on them. Or are you?
On Wednesday, Uber added another reporting tool to the app so that tattle-tale passengers can do just that during the ride. Instead of waiting to give feedback about the ride after it's completed, you can write about all the inappropriate, but not life-threatening behavior your driver is engaged in.
The feature rolled out in all U.S. and Canadian cities where Uber operates. It's a way to fl

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sling TV has run into its first quarterly subscriber loss, parent company Dish reported today. As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, the live TV streaming service ended Q4 with 2.59 million subscribers, down from the 2.69 it reported at the conclusion of Q3.Dish attributed the drop to increased competition. Yes, Sony’s PlayStation Vue might’ve shut down at the end of January, but YouTube TV (now with over 2 million subscribers) and the Disney-owned Hul

If you’ve ever tried and failed to find your favorite song in a karaoke song book, you’ll have better luck on Youka, a free website that creates karaoke songs out of any YouTube video. Youka, short for “YouTube to karaoke,” isolates vocals from tracks and pulls lyrics from sites online. Technologist Andy Baio, who first pointed out the app, notes that the service most likely uses Spleeter, an open-source AI tool that isolates vocals from songs.The app works on just about

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is facing a lawsuit from the US Internal Revenue Service, which claims the social network owes $9 billion in unpaid taxes, according to Reuters. That lawsuit went to trial in a San Francisco court on Tuesday, and the crux of the case is a 2010 deal between Facebook and an Irish subsidiary it uses to shuffle money around internationally. The IRS alleges Facebook undervalued the intellectual property it sold to the subsidiary, thereby dodging billi

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's current cybersecurity advisor, is inadvertently spreading malware thanks to his careless Twitter typos.
Hackers are buying up unregistered domain names erroneously shared on social media by the Trump confidant. The issue, known as "typosquatting," was discovered by Jerome Segura, a director of threat intelligence at cybersecurity company Malwarebytes, according to a report by CNET.
So what is typosquatting? 
The word is a further play on the term &ldq

Image: Flywheel Flywheel will stop offering virtual classes in late March after the exercise company settled with competitor Peloton over patent infringement earlier this month. Live classes will end on March 1st, but on-demand classes will continue to be offered through March 27th.Peloton is also now giving current Flywheel customers the option to trade in their At Home Flywheel bikes for a refurbished Peloton-branded one. Flywheel says it’ll stay in the in-studio virtual class business,

Dish CES 2013 stock 1020 The two biggest satellite TV providers — Dish Network and DirecTV — may be looking to merge, according to Dish chairman Charlie Ergen, who called a potential merger with its biggest satellite rival “inevitable” on the company’s Q4 earnings call, according to The Hollywood Reporter.The news comes as Dish reports that in Q4 2019 it lost 100,000 satellite TV subscribers, along with roughly 94,000 Sling TV subscribers — the first time Sli

Photo by Cody Glenn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Video killed the radio star, and then the internet killed video — and the internet wasn’t satisfied so now it’s after radio, too. The Oakland Athletics baseball team launched a 24/7 digital audio station on TuneIn last May called A’s Cast. It was such a success that on Tuesday, the team announced that they are moving all of their audio content there — including live game broadcasts in Oakland and the surrounding

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This is the first Equity Shot in what feels like a long time, so, let me explain. Most of the time Equity comes out on Friday. It’s a mix of news and chat and venture happenings. It’s fun! But sometimes, a topic comes up that demands more immediate attention. That’s what happened today as we stared at Tesla’sshare price wondering wh

While most of us are aware that we can mute conversations or other accounts on Twitter, it wasn’t until I saw this wonderful tweet by @nonprofWHIT that I realized you could also mute a specific word. And you can do it straight from a tweet — as long as you’re using the iPhone’s Twitter app:
uh, here’s a tutorial pic.twitter.com/wBsg9X4T1p— whit ☁️ (@nonprofWHIT) February 19, 2020If you’re using the Twitter app on an iPhone, it’s a quic

If you want to roam cities and highways in style without relying on a single drop of gasoline, Zero's newest electric motorcycle might be up your alley.
Zero invited members of the press to an unveiling of its new SR/S e-bike on Wednesday. It has a sleek new design compared to its SR/F counterpart, and was designed with aerodynamics in mind, according to Zero. This should allow 13 percent more range at highway speeds once riders are fully leaned in, the company says.
It is a handsome electric mo

We’re just starting to see the first phones with Qualcomm’s X55 5G modem (announced last year) hit the market now, with devices like the recently announced Galaxy S20 lineup, but the company isn’t standing still. Qualcomm has already announced its next 5G modem, the Snapdragon X60, which promises improvements to speed, battery life, and overall performance.
Admittedly, the changes here aren’t nearly as dramatic as the X50 (Qualcomm’s first 5G modem, which introduced

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has sent a cease and desist letter attempting to prevent the publication of a book written by a former App Store manager because the company believes the book shares confidential company secrets, according to a report from German publication Focus.
The German-language book, titled App Store Confidential, was written by Tom Sadowski, who led the App Store for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland from 2014 until December 2019, according to his LinkedIn p

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s Smart Compose, which includes predictive text, is now widely available in Google Docs. The feature has been in beta since last year, and it aims to help users reduce repetitive writing, spelling errors, and grammatical mistakes. It relies on artificial intelligence to predict what you might want to type next and retroactively correct any mistakes you make.Smart Compose is already part of Gmail to help users draft emails faster. As a quality

In 1982, NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson accidentally invented a pressurized water gun that went on to become one of the coolest summer toys for years. Now, Hasbro’s bringing back three of the original Super Soakers with that initial air-pressure system — and I’m pretty tempted to buy the one I never got back when parents controlled my cash.
While it’s pretty clear Hasbro isn’t using the same exact molds, the new $17.99 Super Soaker XP100, $12.99 XP30, and $7.99 XP20 l

Alamo Drafthouse is the latest theater chain to offer a subscription package to customers across all of its locations, the theater chain announced today. That includes 41 Alamo Drafthouse theaters throughout the country.CEO Tim League first teased the subscription, called Season Pass, back in March 2019, and it underwent some testing in certain cities before rolling out nationally today. The subscription prices vary by location, ranging from $14.99 in smaller cities to $29.99 in bigger markets l

It's an offer candidates shouldn't refuse. 
M.M. LaFleur, which designs professional women's attire, has announced it will be lending free clothing to women candidates running for office — whether for Congress or town council.
The offer was inspired by feedback from shoppers, according to a statement from founder and CEO Sarah LaFleur. Following the 2016 presidential election, customers told the M.M. LaFleur team they wanted the company to support women running for office.   View

Sony has decided not to attend Pax East next week, despite teasing a prominent presence just weeks ago, following growing concerns over the coronavirus.“We felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily,” the company said in an updated blog post. “We are disappointed to cancel our participation in this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern.”Pax East is one of the largest gaming conventions in the United States,

Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images Julian Assange’s legal team is preparing to testify that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a pardon by President Trump in exchange for covering up the source of the DNC leaks, as first reported by The Daily Beast.
According to Edward Fitzgerald, who is representing Assange in his ongoing extradition hearing in the UK, Assange’s representatives received messages from then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), effectively offering a pardon from Trump in exchang

TL;DR: Buy a new high-speed Ninja Chef blender with bonus smoothie cup for just $99 at Walmart. It's $50 off its regular price and much cheaper than Amazon's current listing.We're now past Presidents Day, so congratulations if you've still stood by your resolution to get healthier this year. It's time to treat yourself, and a smoothie will definitely hit the spot. While a single-serve smoothie blender might be all you need, sometimes you need a blender than provides a bit more use in the kitchen

If you're going on a trip-of-a-lifetime type adventure, just taking handheld snaps with your iPhone ain't going to cut it. You really need to consider investing in a travel tripod so you can get the very best photographs and videos of your epic time away. Luckily these days, compact versions exist that won't add unwanted pounds to your pack, and many fall into the affordable bracket. We're taking a look at the best portable tripods for traveling, whatever your camera set up. 
What to consid

Joe Biden wants to make it clear: Former President Barack Obama is his pal. 
A new video on Wednesday from Biden's campaign laid into billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who has somewhat shadily featured Obama in his campaign ads. While the spots haven't explicitly said Obama's endorsed the former NYC mayor, they can certainly imply that idea, with which Biden took issue. 
The new spot from Biden calls out Bloomberg, running through a litany of cases in which Bloomberg slammed Obama. The video

Mosaic by Jason Mecier for Photoshop’s 26th anniversary | Image: Photoshop If you need to alter a photo, there’s a good chance you’ll photoshop it. But even though people have been photoshopping images for 30 years as of today, it wasn’t until the last decade that it became widely accepted that you can use “photoshop” as a verb. Before then, you were more likely to “edit an image with Photoshop” than you were to “photoshop an image.”
T

We Jews have a word for the way I feel about Amazon's Hunters. It's dayenu, or translated, "it would have been enough."
Hunters exists to show us the myriad ways a Nazi can die horribly – alone, afraid, and cornered. There are Nazis screaming in pain. Nazis begging for their lives. Nazis fooled into thinking they'll live, only to face the horror of a long, slow, torturous death while a multicultural gang of Jews and Nazi hunters gathers around to bear witness.
Dayenu.
Hunters is cut, somew

Typically, Google releases a preview of the upcoming version of Android sometime in March. This year, it’s doing it earlier than ever with the release of the first developer preview of Android 11 for Pixel phones.The emphasis this year is on the developer part of the developer preview, as it doesn’t seem as though there will be major UI or UX changes in this early iteration. (Those will likely come at the Google I/O conference in May.) Because it’s so developer-focused, you&rsq

Even Staples, the office supply store, can’t resist the lure of podcasts. The retailer is teaming up with a company called Spreaker to build podcast studios at six of its stores in the Boston area.The studios will be soundproof, have enough space for four people to record, and will sync with Spreaker’s technology so people can get discounted access to its hosting and distribution services. A recording specialist will be on hand to help, too, and a 60-minute session costs $60. Althoug

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sonos only added Google Assistant as a voice playback option for its smart speakers last year, and the two companies are still working toward adding new features and building out a more robust software relationship. (Strangely, this relationship seems unaffected by the ongoing patent infringement lawsuit between the two companies.)The newest feature, added through a server-side update today, is the ability to set a Sonos speaker as the default option for

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Car subscriptions: they’re totally a thing! The latest automaker to test the waters on subscriptions is Nissan, which just launched a new, two-tier service in Houston, Texas. It’s called “Nissan Switch,” and it will feature a variety of models, including the all-electric Nissan Leaf Plus, the Titan pickup, and the GT-R sports car.Nissan Switch has two tiers: the $699-a-month “Select” plan, which includes the Altima,

I'm biased toward any meme that's ever involved Wishbone, but this meme about having range actually has the range, too.
Range — and, more importantly, whether you have it — has been part of internet lingo for a while. Its latest appearance is in a Twitter meme, where people share four separate, very different screenshots of actors and artists they believe are super versatile. In other words, they have the range.
The obvious example is Wishbone, of course. Just think of all the roles

At about $60 a pop, keeping your personal library of video games stocked with the latest titles is hardly cheap — at least, it *usually* isn't.
Now through Feb. 24 and March 2, respectively, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts (EA) are both having massive publisher sales on some of their bestselling Xbox One titles. Just pull up the Microsoft Store on your console or shop online to take advantage of discounts as high as 95% on titles from popular franchises like Star Wars Battlefront, Far Cry, Tom

Another electric vehicle fire recently made headlines, this time a Porsche Taycan, which went up in flames at a Florida home, burning the car and garage where it was parked. 
But are EVs really more likely to burst into flames than cars that run on gasoline?
The aftermath was posted on Twitter, but it's since been removed. No matter, it spurred replies from EV haters who used the fire as another opportunity to bash electric cars. 
A Porsche spokesperson confirmed its car caught on fire

The Nevada Democratic Caucus has unveiled its system to avoid an Iowa-like app meltdown. The solution? Google Forms. 
On Wednesday morning, the state party shared a link to their official training materials that demonstrates how precinct captains will be able to use that iPad tool they swear isn't an app. 
And though a lot of focus will be put on this tool (thanks, Iowa), the training materials make clear that while the digital side of things is there to make life a bit easier for thos

A never-ending, months-long campaign. Colorful characters with unique strengths and weaknesses. And at the end of it all, a battle between the very forces of light and darkness, for the future of the realm and all within it. 
Am I describing Dungeons & Dragons, the perennially popular tabletop roleplaying game? No, I'm describing the interminable 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, where a field of mortal men and women — no orcs or half-elves in sight — are still ba

Business school is expensive, y'all. Not to mention, you'll have to dedicate a few years of your life to hitting the books, attending classes, and completing projects. No offense, but the lifetime of debt that follows hardly seems worth it.
Fortunately, there are tons of other ways for you to boost your business skills – from sales and management to finance and public speaking – that don't involve emptying your pockets. In fact, you can start building your skillset for less than $35

Image: Epic Games Fortnite’s next season kicks off tomorrow, and more than anything else, I really hope it tells a good story.
While Epic Games’ hugely popular free-to-play battle royale shooter might be best known for its colorful visuals, entertaining emotes, and pop culture references, one of the main reasons I’ve stuck with the game season after season is because of the way it tells a story through frequent changes to the game’s world. In most seasons, Epic slowly ma