Technology news

A doctor wearing a mask while working at El Alto International Airport in Bolivia.| Photo by AIZAR RALDES/AFP via Getty Images A shortage of masks, gloves, and other protective gear “is putting lives at risk from the new coronavirus and other infectious diseases” warned the World Health Organization (WHO) in a statement on Tuesday. A frightened public has been buying up masks and other equipment, leaving limited supplies for health care workers who need the gear the most.
Masks can

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Facebook is altering its plans for its Libra cryptocurrency project following months of severe regulatory pressure and political pushback, according to a new report from The Information published on Tuesday.According to the report, Facebook no longer intends to make the Libra token — the actual blockchain-based cryptocurrency it’s in the process of developing in partnership with the nonprofit Libra Association — the centerpiece of its d

Photo: Microsoft Microsoft and the NFL have renewed and expanded their partnership, making Microsoft Teams the league’s official communication platform and keeping Surface products as the official tablet. The expanded partnership is a huge win for the tech giant weeks after IBM chose Slack over Microsoft Teams as the internal communication tool for its employees.Microsoft Teams will now be used by all 32 NFL teams, according to Microsoft. The service allows organizations to connect to one

Ubersold its food delivery business in India to the local rival Zomato for $206 million, the American ride-hailing company disclosed in a regulatory filing in one of its key overseas markets.
In January, Uber announced that it had sold the India business of Uber Eats to Zomatofor a 9.99% stake in the loss-making Indian food delivery startup. The two companies had not disclosed the financial terms of the deal, which some Indian news outlets slated to be $350 million in size. TechCrunch had report

Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images Two people who died last week in Seattle had undetected cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, The New York Times reported. One person was hospitalized on February 24th and died on February 26th. The other also died on February 26th at a nursing facility. There have now been nine deaths from the novel coronavirus in the US.Both of the people who died last week were residents at the Life Care long-term nursing facility in Kirkl

Microsoft is “exploring” a new Windows 10 Start menu design that will see the company de-emphasize its Live Tiles. The potential changes were revealed in a Windows Insider podcast today and are designed to “visually differentiate the Start menu from something that’s chaotic color to something that’s more uniform.” Microsoft is looking at reducing the color of the blocks of the tiled interface on the Start menu to simplify it and make it easier to scan for apps

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook’s fact-checking program is designed to stop false information from spreading. But being able to decide what’s true can also be a political weapon, and for the past few days, it’s been used in a fight over President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response.
The battle centers on a recent Politico article about a South Carolina Trump rally, where Trump urged supporters to “treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax.’” A

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge It was a big weekend on the tech and governance beat, led by news of the spread of the COVID-19 disease in the United States and its spiraling consequences for companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. Today we’re introducing a new, hopefully short-lived section of The Interface that covers the spread of the novel coronavirus around the world and the way that the companies we cover here are responding; you can find it just below The Ratio.
But if we

Photo: Nikola Corporation Electric trucking startup Nikola is becoming a publicly traded company. The Arizona-based outfit announced Tuesday that it’s merging with a publicly listed acquisition company called VectoIQ, in a move that’s similar to what space company Virgin Galactic just pulled off in the second half of 2019. The transaction is expected to close sometime in the second quarter of this year, and when it does, Nikola will be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the name NK

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Ford is banning all business trips after two of its employees based in China tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that’s sickened over 90,000 people around the world and over 100 in the US. The employees have been quarantined after being diagnosed with the disease and are now recovering, according to Bloomberg.Ford is prohibiting all travel, international and domestic, until March 27th, and will revisit the ban on

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is canceling its I/O developer event this year, amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. Google I/O was due to take place between May 12th to 14th this year, and the cancellation comes just days after Google scrapped its Cloud Next event in San Francisco.
“Due to concerns around the coronavirus (COVID-19), and in accordance with health guidance from the CDC, WHO, and other health authorities, we have decided to cancel the physical Google I/O ev

Audio electronics company Electrosmith has launched a Kickstarter for a little audio development board called Daisy. It’s a physical board computer designed for use in DIY instruments and sound processors — think of Daisy like a Raspberry Pi but just for music gear.
Shaped like (and about the size of) a stick of gum, Daisy is both for professionals and for beginners who like tinkering with electronics and code. If you’re okay with fiddling around a bit, you can use Daisy even i

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is working on a 14.1-inch MacBook Pro, according to the latest research note from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo seen by MacRumors. That note also reveals that a new 27-inch iMac Pro and 7.9-inch iPad mini may be on the way. Those three products and a new 16-inch MacBook Pro, 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and 10.2-inch iPad will all have Mini-LED displays, according to Kuo.
Kuo has previously reported on Apple’s intentions to roll out Mini-LED displays to some of its p

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Doesn’t it feel like the world is ending? This is an age of generalized anxiety, and also it’s Super Tuesday.The internet, being the modern forum it is, has allowed people to see what’s happening across the world in what feels like real time: it is possible to discern the end of contemporary life and convenience in the climate-enhanced natural disasters that happen more regularly than they ever did before, for example, even as it’s

Image: Hulu Hulu is bringing its live TV service, which is separate from its standalone on-demand streaming app, to PlayStation 4 consoles now that Sony’s competing PlayStation Vue pay-TV service has been shut down. Hulu + Live TV, as it’s called, is a $54.99-a-month bundle that includes live television broadcasts from a number of channels in addition to an ad-free standard Hulu subscription. You can also pay extra for additional channel options.
Hulu with Live TV joins YouTube TV,

Timberline Studio Lots of people spent their time at PAX East this past weekend waiting for hours in long lines for an opportunity to play or watch demos of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Baldur’s Gate 3. Luckily, for those looking to avoid the lines to play those blockbusters, there was also a plethora of indie titles on the show floor.
Since the inaugural PAX East in 2010, the convention has become a great place to play the newest indies, and this year, in

Microsoft is bringing the original Halo campaign to Windows PCs today. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary has been remastered with 4K support for PC, and it arrives 18 years after the game debuted as a launch title for the original Xbox. Microsoft is also including 60fps support, variable frame rates, and even native keyboard and mouse support. You’ll also be able to use the classic audio in multiplayer and customize Spartans further.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is part of Microsoft&rsq

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge On Monday, Google began to roll out a substantial Android update to its Pixel phones — and then it stopped. As 9to5Google reports, Google has pulled the March update for Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL phones that use AT&T from its website. The AT&T build is no longer listed in Google’s Android API repository.Google has not stated its reasoning for pausing the update, and it did not immediately respond to a request for comment.One Reddit user complai

Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Amazon isn’t shy about its push into sports broadcasting, but a recent deal to give Prime members access to 21 Yankees games this season as part-owner in the team’s network is another testament to its growing ambitions.Prime members who live in New York state, Connecticut, northeast Pennsylvania, and north and central New Jersey will be able to stream all 21 games, according to a press release. Each game is thanks to nonexclusive local rights to spec

Waymo came out with a new ad today that presents a cheerful, very Google-esque look at how the self-driving company plans to eventually make money: ride-hailing, delivery, trucking, and logistics. The ad comes on the heels of the announcement that the Alphabet-owned company has, for the first time, raised $2.25 billion in outside investment.As self-driving technology continues its (very) slow-moving march toward commercialization, Waymo wants to remind you that autonomous vehicles are more than

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Whether you’ve got an older iPhone with less internal storage or would rather save that space for music, photos, and other content, it’s always good practice to clear the data cache from various apps to make room for what you really need on your phone. Twitter currently lets iOS users do this directly from the app, which helps to prevent your iPhone from becoming bloated with preloaded videos, GIFs, and memes you don’t necessarily ne

WhatsApp is finally getting a new dark mode on iOS and Android today. After months of beta testing on both mobile operating systems, the WhatsApp dark mode will be available for all users today. If you already have dark mode enabled at the system level on iOS 13 or Android 10, then WhatsApp will automatically switch over. Android 9 users can simply enable a new dark theme in the WhatsApp settings menu.
Facebook has tweaked its WhatsApp dark mode to ensure it lowers the brightness of a phone disp

Photo by Lev Radin / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images A new lawsuit claims Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rigged software to create a “secret no-release policy” for people suspected of breaking immigration laws. ICE’s New York office uses a risk assessment algorithm to recommend that an arrestee be released or detained until a hearing. But the New York Civil Liberties Union and Bronx Defenders say the algorithm was changed in 2015 and again in 2017, remo

A board explaining contraceptive methods at a clinic in Caracas, Venezuela. | Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images Improving girls’ access to education and reproductive health care is one of the most promising ways to stop human-caused global warming, according to a report published today that ranks solutions to addressing the threat. Addressing health and education ranks second among 76 solutions, sandwiched between reducing food waste and eating more plant-rich diets, that, togethe

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Emergency Operations Center | Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Two US states, Washington and Florida, are in states of emergency over COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that’s sickened over 90,000 people around the world and over 100 in the US. There’s an outbreak of the virus at a nursing facility in Kings County, Washington, and six people in the state have died. Five counties in California also declared

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images On Tuesday morning, investing app Robinhood experienced its second major outage in two days. The first outage lasted from around 9:30AM ET on March 2nd until around 2AM ET on March 3rd, according to a Robinhood spokesperson. Robinhood tweeted about the second outage at 10:11AM ET today and said that service had been fully restored at 11:54AM ET.The two outages were related, Robinhood tells The Verge, and caused by instability in a part of the company&

Photo by Bryan Bedder / Getty Images for Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC Hideo Kojima is a notoriously difficult figure to profile. Access alone is a huge hurdle most journalists will never clear. Those who do still have to grapple with weaving together meaningful observations, commentary, and insight on a man whose work defies rational explanation. Over at The New York Times, Adrian Chen profiled Kojima and his most recent game, Death Stranding, in one of the better profiles I’ve read

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is starting to offer even faster same-day shipping in select cities. The company has built out new warehouses in Dallas, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Phoenix that allow it to deliver orders in a matter of hours, whereas it previously couldn’t guarantee delivery until the end of the day.
Normally, Amazon’s same-day shipping requires customers to place an order by around noon, and the delivery may not arrive until as late as 9PM. In these f

Imagine if a National Lampoon Vacation movie ended with Clark Griswold and his family having to save the world from a fleet of autonomous robots developed by an Amazon-like company. That’s essentially what Sony Pictures’ Connected is.Produced by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Connected tells the story of a family making their way to a college across the country where their eldest daughter will attend. It’s an emotional affair, especially

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google’s Nest Mini smart speaker usually costs $50, but Daily Steals is offering an exclusive deal to Verge readers that bundles two speakers for about the same price. Just put in the offer code VERGENST at checkout. You have a choice of colors, including sky blue, chalk, charcoal, or coral.
This model looks identical to the Home Mini, but it’s different in a few key ways, per The Verge’s review: it sounds better than the predecessor, it can be