Technology news

With the increasing pace of innovation in technology and communication, taking your awesome biz ideas from go to “whoa” can feel overwhelming at times. Thankfully, there are still a few tried and tested strategies that will help ensure your transformation into a digital marketing whizz is as seamless as a pair of Kim K Skims. Here are some of our faves.
Targeted SMSIt’s no surprise that the most effective way to get a message to a large number of people in an instant is well&he

Nvidia today announced that it has acquired SwiftStack, a software-centric data storage and management platform that supports public cloud, on-premises and edge deployments.
The company’s recent launches focused on improving its support for AI, high-performance computing and accelerated computing workloads, which is surely what Nvidia is most interested in here.
“Building AI supercomputers is exciting to the entire SwiftStackteam,” says the company’s co-founder and CPO Jo

Are you tired of TechCrunch reporting on the daily stock market gyrations? Well, we’re tired of writing about them. And yet here we are, because stonks yet again did wild things that we have to talk about.
Markets are still skittish about the effect the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus, COVID-19, will have on the economy. And the U.S. is still figuring out exactly how many people in the country have been infected by the virus, and how aggressively it may need to respond. So far, the U.S

Founded in 2005, Etsy was born before cloud infrastructure was even a thing.
As the company expanded, it managed all of its operations in the same way startups did in those days — using private data centers. But a couple of years ago, the online marketplace for crafts and vintage items decided to modernize and began its journey to the cloud.
That decision coincided with the arrival of CTO Mike Fisher in July 2017. He was originally brought in as a consultant to look at the impact of runnin

OK, so technically Bailey — Elizabeth Warren's very good golden retriever — stole someone's burrito. But damn if he didn't look adorable doing it and who could blame the pup?
Warren suspended her presidential campaign on Thursday and Bailey was simply done with the decorum that comes with being a potential First Dog. 
Warren staffer Gabrielle Farrell posted a short clip of Bailey munching on an illicitly obtained burrito. In the six-second video, a rush of people attempt to pry

The $71 million in financing that quantum computing technology developer Rigetti Computing recently raised came at a significant cut to the company’s valuation, according to several sources with knowledge of the company.
The company declined to comment on its valuation or the recent round of funding it secured.
Rigetti is one of a handful of startups attempting to make quantum computing commercially viable. It’s a vitally important emerging technology with implications for national s

Presidential candidates: They're just like us! 
Bernie Sanders has marketed himself as a man of the people. His campaign platform focuses on uplifting the working class. He does his own laundry. He and his wife Jane keep holiday cards for years. He says he doesn't get enough sleep. And an analysis of a recent photo shows that like many Americans, the Vermont senator has a clothes chair. 
You know what we're talking aboutThe chair. The one surface in the house designated not for sitting

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook will remove some of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign ads from its platform, CNN reports. “There are policies in place to prevent confusion around the official US Census and this is an example of those being enforced,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an email to The Verge.
As first reported by journalist Judd Legum in his Popular Info newsletter, Trump’s campaign was running ads that asked people to respond to a

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sonos is doing away with Recycle Mode, a controversial part of the company’s trade-up program that rendered old devices inoperable in exchange for a 30 percent discount on a newer Sonos product. The trade-up program still exists, and customers who own eligible legacy products can get the same discount, but they’re no longer required to permanently brick devices that might still work just fine.With the change, Sonos is now giving customers full

A sign directing patients towards a Coronavirus pod at University College Hospital on March 4, 2020 in London, United Kingdom. | Photo by Peter Summers/Getty Images You hate to accuse our big tech platforms of being responsible during a crisis. For one thing, they benefit from low expectations, having historically ignored much of the misinformation that they unwittingly promoted with their recommendation algorithms. And for another, the American part of the COVID-19 crisis is likely just beginn

Numerous tech companies have asked their Seattle-based employees to work from home to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Both Amazon and Facebook have shut down offices in the area after confirming that their Seattle-based employees have indeed contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.As the outbreak continues to spread in the US, including in California and New York, the situation has worsened in Washington where the virus was first discovered Stateside. T

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images From toy unboxings to gaming videos, kids spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos. But if two Democratic senators get their way, YouTube and other companies could be forced to completely overhaul their children’s content ecosystems.The Kids Internet Design and Safety (KIDS) Act was introduced by Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on Thursday; if approved, the bill would force companies like YouTube and TikTok to completely change ho

If you’ve gotten used to ordering around John Legend (or his voice, at least) as your Google Assistant, be prepared for a loss: Google has announced that it will discontinue the celebrity cameo voice on March 23rd. Google added the singer’s voice to its roster of available Google Assistant voices at Google I/O last April. It previously noted that the feature would run for limited time, but the company never specified how long it would last. (Disclaimer: John Legend is a Vox Media boa

It has become a part-time job to navigate and if necessary block the ads and other nuisances that plague practically every website today. DuckDuckGois hoping to make this easier and more lightweight with its own list of prime offenders that’s kept constantly fresh by its own crawlers. Naturally, it’s free.
In a blog post announcing the new service, called Tracker Radar, DuckDuckGo observes that although ad and tracker blockers are essential software, they’re not designed effici

Googlethis week issued a recommendation for all Washington State employees to work remotely, citing growing fears around the spread of COVID-19. A spokesperson confirmed the recommendation in an email with TechCrunch. The move comes after a consultation with local health officials.
The software giant has not closed the offices outright, nor is it planning to make an official statement regarding the recommendation, but the news certainly points to broader trend of serious precautions around the n

Last year, Twitterexpanded its rules around hate speech to include dehumanizing speech against religious groups. Today, Twitter says it’s expanding its rule to also include language that dehumanizes people on the basis of their age, disability or disease. The latter, of course, is a timely addition given that the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has led to people making hateful and sometimes racist remarks on Twitter related to this topic.
Twitter says that tweets that broke this r

Walmart is looking to hook more consumers on its online grocery shopping experience by adding Walmart Grocery to its main Walmart mobile application. For years, the retailer has operated two separate apps: its flagship Walmart app (the blue one) and its separate Walmart Grocery app (the orange one). This meant shoppers had to download and switch between two separate apps depending on what they were buying. This setup may have also limited Walmart Grocery’s reach, as some users of the large

Photo by Leon Bennett / WireImage As other notable streamers continue to leave Twitch for other platforms, one of the service’s biggest stars is staying put: today, Imane “Pokimane” Anys announced that she has signed a “multi-year deal” to remain on the platform. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Anys is Twitch’s biggest female star, with more than 3.9 million followers, and she’s long been a mainstay, having started streaming way back in 2013. She

The next NASArover to go to Mars has shed its code name and assumed a new one, sourced from the ingenuous youth of our nation. Keeping with the tradition of using virtues as names, the Mars 2020 rover will henceforth be known as “Perseverance.”
This particular virtue was suggested by Alexander Mather, a middle-schooler in Virginia. He and some 28,000 other kids proposed names in an essay contest last year. The final nine contenders were: Endurance, Tenacity, Promise, Vision, Clarity,

Image: NASA SpaceX will send three tourists on a 10-day trip to the International Space Station sometime in late 2021. It’ll use its Falcon 9 rocket and its new Crew Dragon spacecraft, the company announced on Thursday. This marks the second big space tourism announcement from the company this year.The orbital vacation is part of a deal that SpaceX signed with Houston-based startup Axiom Space, which will manage the logistics of the trip for the three private citizens. While seven private

Crowbar Collective Black Mesa was once a humble video game mod — but as of today, it’s a full-fledged remake of Half-Life, newly released out of Steam Early Access. Developer Crowbar Collective finally launched a 1.0 version of Black Mesa, which updates the 1998 first-person shooter with smarter enemies, levels built from scratch, and a level of detail that wasn’t possible two decades ago.
Black Mesa has been sort of playable for some time. It launched as a mod for Half-Life 2

Ridesharing company Lyft has advised its San Francisco employees to go home after learning one staff member was in contact with someone exposed to coronavirus, or COVID-19. The team member has not exhibited any symptoms and is in touch with medical professionals, Lyft spokesperson Alexandra LaManna told TechCrunch.
“We are basing every step of our response process on CDC guidance, and out of an abundance of caution are encouraging our San Francisco headquarters employees to work from home

Tito's Vodka would like to remind the general public that you can't douse your hands in vodka in place of using hand sanitizer. 
As panic over the new coronavirus spreads, stores across the country are running out of face masks and hand sanitizer. While the shortage could be easily avoided if people just washed their hands correctly, it's clearly not enough for concerned Twitter users. Some are resorting to making their own hand sanitizer, which consists of two parts 99 percent isopropyl al

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is suing Arizona domain name registrar Namecheap and its proxy service Whoisguard for allowing people to register domain names that “deceive people by pretending to be affiliated with Facebook apps,” the company said in a blog post on Thursday.Whoisguard registered 45 domain names — including instagrambusinesshelp.com, facebo0k-login.com, and whatsappdownload.site — that infringe on Facebook’s trademarks, according t

TwitterCEO Jack Dorsey might not spend six months a year in Africa, claims the real product development is under the hood and gives an excuse for deleting Vine before it could become TikTok. Today he tweeted, via Twitter’s investor relations account, a multi-pronged defense of his leadership and the company’s progress.
The proclamations come as notorious activist investor Elliott Management prepares to pressure Twitter into a slew of reforms, potentially including replacing Dorsey wi

NASA/JPL-Caltech After a months-long naming contest, NASA has renamed its newest Mars rover Perseverance ahead of the robot’s scheduled launch to the Red Planet in July. The new title will replace the bot’s current nickname, Mars 2020, which has been the unofficial title of the rover for much of the last decade.
The space agency picked the name from nine finalist options that were submitted by US students ranging from kindergarten to high school. To enter NASA’s Name the Rover

As part of its newfound quest to keep Overwatch fresh, Blizzard debuted hero pools today, which will see a number of popular characters banned temporarily from competitive play. The first victims of the new system — Orisa, Hanzo, Mei, and Baptiste — are out of rotation as part of the game’s 21st competitive season.
Blizzard first announced hero pools back in January, alongside a new experimental mode where the developer could try out new ideas. (The first was a triple damage mo

On Wednesday night, long after it'd become clear that Elizabeth Warren had no viable path to the Democratic presidential nomination, my 5-year-old daughter asked me about the race. My husband had taken her with him to vote the day before, and she went along because our polling site always has cookies. 
When she asked about the primary, I responded that it was down to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. She wanted to know if Joe and Bernie were both boys. "Yes," I said. 
"How come no one vote

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge LinkedIn is informing job candidates that they have the option to conduct their interviews virtually or delay it until an unspecified date in the future out of caution for the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak, according to an email sent to one applicant from LinkedIn’s staffing team.
“In light of the recent coronavirus outbreak and with everyone’s health being LinkedIn’s #1 priority at the moment, all candidates who are sched

Kinnos, a New York-based startup, was founded six years ago, but what the five-person company produces is suddenly top of mind — and a new round of funding reflects as much.
To wit, Kinnos, which makes additives that cause disinfectants to turn blue long enough to ensure a surface has actually been covered, just closed on $6 million in funding, a major chunk of which came from Prolog Ventures,though it was joined by Allston Venture Fund, Partnership Fund for New York City, Golden Seeds, ME

It started with 28,000. NASA just narrowed it down to one. 
The next Mars rover, which has been going by Mars 2020, has a name: Perseverance. (We're officially giving it the nickname "Percy.") The space agency announced the winning name Thursday during a livestreamed event at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in California. Alexander Mather of Virginia, a middle-schooler, was behind the winning name.
Back in 2019, a naming contest brought in over 28,000 essays with name suggestions from K-12 stud

High-end audio company Bang & Olufsen is no stranger to expensive speakers, so it’s not really a surprise that the company’s latest product, the rather nice-looking Beosound Balance, costs $2,250.Don’t get me wrong: it’s a very attractively designed speaker, elevating the standard “fabric mesh-covered cylinder” that’s become popular these days with a solid oak base (which also houses one of the bass drivers) and clean aluminum accents. Bang & Olu

Ashton Kutcher has access to a powerful facial-recognition app and even he thinks that's "terrifying."
This past September, the actor, tech investor, and advocate for digging up dirt on journalists who dare to criticize a company he's poured money into, was asked about the future of privacy on the show Hot Ones. In response, Kutcher launched into a description of an app on his phone at that moment which sure sounds a lot like Clearview AI. 
"Like, I have an app in my phone, in my pocket rig

Photo by Chesnot / Getty Images Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is reevaluating his plans to spend part of the year in Africa, telling a crowd at a Morgan Stanley conference on Thursday that he may no longer be traveling to the continent amid on the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and what Dorsey worded as “everything else going on.”That “everything else” is likely the open threat to his removal from activist investor Elliott Management Corporation, which last week purchased a 4 pe

HBO is working on adapting The Last of Us into a TV series. In an effort to make sure that the show is actually, well, good (unlike most video game adaptations), Neil Druckmann — the writer and creative director of both The Last of Us and its upcoming sequel — will be involved to help write and executive produce, according to The Hollywood Reporter.I can’t believe we get to team up with one of my favorite writers to bring Ellie and Joel’s journey to HBO. https://t.co/GNsl