Technology news

Leave it to Robert Downey Jr. to leak a smartphone: The highly anticipated OnePlus 8 Pro, to be exact.
As first spotted by 9to5Google, a photo of the actor holding what appears to be the flagship phone was posted to Instagram. It hasn't been confirmed that it's the 8 Pro, though Downey Jr. just happens to be a brand ambassador for OnePlus.
The photo, which was originally uploaded to a photographer's Instagram account, has since been taken down. Just wavin' that phone around like it's nothin

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In an effort to ensure the “credibility” of health and safety information in its App Store, Apple is tightening requirements for all coronavirus-focused apps, TechCrunch reports. The company posted a note on its developer blog Saturday that outlines the review process for apps related to the virus.“We’re evaluating apps critically to ensure data sources are reputable and that developers presenting these apps are from recognized ent

First, the obligatory caveat: There's still so much we don't know about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease that results from the virus. New genetic developments are coming everyday — so fast that even the CDC can't keep up.  
During the latest coronavirus press conference Saturday, Dr. Deborah Birx shared new findings about the virus that may contradict what the CDC currently says about transmission. Birx, the highly experienced coronavirus response coordinator at the Whi

Apple Card customers may be able to skip their March payments without interest charges as long as they’re enrolled in its Customer Assistance Program according to 9to5Mac. The company sent an email to some cardholders outlining the offer (as first posted to the r/Apple board):We understand that the rapidly-evolving COVID-19 situation poses unique challenges for everyone and some customers may have difficulty making their monthly payments. Apple Card is committed to helping you lead a healt

Apple today put in place more COVID-19-related safeguards — this time centered on its App Store. In a note posted to its developer community, the company explains that it will take steps to vet submissions of apps focused on the global pandemic that has begun to impact nearly every aspect of life across the globe.“To help fulfill these expectations, we’re evaluating apps critically to ensure data sources are reputable and that developers presenting these apps are from recognize

To curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, Italy has been put on total lockdown. Originally contained to the north of the country — which has seen the worst of the outbreak — the restriction was extended to the entire country by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
Lockdown means Italians cannot go out to concerts, football matches or other large gatherings — but the country is still finding ways to have fun together.
Videos of people all over Italy singing and dancing and holding

Lucasfilm On top of bringing Frozen 2 to Disney Plus three months early, Disney is also making Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker available to purchase a few days early.The Rise of Skywalker is available to buy via digital retailers like iTunes and Amazon today; it was originally scheduled to be released on Tuesday, March 17th. The Rise of Skywalker will not be streaming on Disney Plus either today or Tuesday. A Lucasfilm representative told The Verge there is no update on a Disney Plus streaming

With all the news of movie release delays amid the coronavirus pandemic, Disney just became the first company to offer the opposite. 
Disney+ will make Frozen 2 available this weekend, three months earlier than planned, due to "these challenging times," according to a press release. U.S. users will be able to watch the hit movie on streaming Sunday March 15; it will be available in Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand on March 17. 
SEE ALSO: We have a potent weapon agains

Given its name, you might expect “Devs” — which launched earlier this month on the new FX on Hulu — to be a “Silicon Valley”-style sitcom about the tech industry. And there are indeed some delightful moments where “Ex Machina” writer-director Alex Garland pokes fun at San Francisco and tech culture.
But the prevailing mood is one of mystery and dread. The show takes place largely at a fictional quantum computing company called Amaya, run by it

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images The White House continued to give conflicting information Saturday about a website Google is supposedly building to help people determine whether and how to get a novel coronavirus test.Vice President Mike Pence said during a briefing at the White House that an update would be available on Sunday, March 15th. “We will have very specific description about when the website will be available, when the parking lot sites will be available for people to be

There are good surprises and there are bad surprises. It seems Google just received the latter, courtesy of the president. 
During a Friday press conference, Trump announced that the search giant was working on a site that would help you find a location where you can get tested for COVID-19, after first establishing whether you had the symptoms.
But Google was not planning on saying anything about the site, said Wired's sources at the company. What Trump said wasn't even accurate: the site

[Editor’s note: Want to get this weekly review of news that startups can use by email? Just subscribe here.] 
Some startup investors are so uncertain about the current economic environment that they are hesitating to give us their forecasts on the record (this never happens). But others tell us they see the huge market gyrations and all the downstream effects of the novel coronavirus creating a great environment for long-term bets in the coming weeks. Why?
“Because with oth

After President Trump announced that the government was working with Googleto build a coronavirus screening site that was at the core of the administration testing process, Google quickly corrected this and said that it was actually Verily, Alphabet’s health division, that was working on this and that the site wasn’t ready for a nationwide rollout yet.
Today, Vice President Pence provided a bit more detail, tough he didn’t removes all of the confusion around this. A pilot of th

NASAhas completed the testing process meant to simulate performance in in-space conditions for its Orion crew spacecraft, developed by Lockheed Martinand designed to carry crew on the agency’s Artemis missions. The missions aim to return the next American man and deliver the first American woman to the surface of the Moon. It reportedly “aced” the tests according to NASA, which include thermal vacuum and electromagnetic interference performance checks.
Obviously, it’s not

Startups have done some wild things to get the attention of VCs. In fact, Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta sent YC partner (at the time) Garry Tan a six-pack of beer through the service after missing the deadline for Y Combinator by two months.
Yesterday, the ingenuity of startups struck again.
Tadabase.io, an enterprise startup that offers no-code tools to help businesses automate their processes, has had an ad running that was… well, hyper targeted.
ProductHunt founder and WeekendFund in

A surprise White House press conference Saturday offered plenty of coronavirus news: The U.S. travel ban will be extended to the UK and Ireland, domestic travel may be restricted, and the president has taken a coronavirus test (result currently unknown). But most notable is the gap between what Trump is saying and doing. 
On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted the phrase "social distancing," a measure recommended by the World Health Organization recommends to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Asi

In theory, social distancing is the perfect opportunity to finally clear out your Netflix queue. You're home all the time, your schedule's empty because everything's been canceled, and you need something to do lest you go stir crazy. 
But in practice, it's not just the films we've been meaning to watch that we gravitate towards. Just as frequently, it's the ones we've already seen that we want to watch again and again — whether because they provide the perfect combination of escapism

Apple will shut down all of its retail stores outside of China until March 27, the company announced Saturday. As part of an effort to keep coronavirus from spreading, the company will focus on online sales instead.
"The most effective way to minimize risk of the virus’s transmission is to reduce density and maximize social distance," Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said in a statement. "As rates of new infections continue to grow in other places, we’re taking additional steps to protect our te

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images A coronavirus relief package passed the House 363-40-1 early Saturday, after hours of negotiations between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin. The bill drew unanimous support from Democratic legislators and mixed support from Republicans. Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI), an independent, cast the lone abstaining vote.
The legislation includes provisions for two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid leave for workers affected by

The term Accessibility covers a vast field of standards that comes with a confusing myriad of acronyms. In this post, I assume I don’t need to convince you to care about accessibility (check out one of my former manager’s articles if you still need a push!). I jump straight into attempting to summarize the basic structure of Web Accessibility Standards to provide beginners with a high-level starting point to dive into the topic. I highly recommend check

Photo by Wang HE/Getty Images Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma says he is donating 500,000 coronavirus testing kits and one million protective face masks to the United States, Reuters reports. The Chinese billionaire already has pledged 2 million protective masks to European countries. A first shipment of test kits, medical supplies and 500,000 masks intended for Italy, which has been hard-hit by the virus, arriving at Liege Airport in Belgium late Friday.
“The pandemic we face today can no lon

When I logged onto Joe Biden’s first-ever virtual town hall, I was greeted with one Illinois senator adjusting the angle of her webcam and another showing off an adorable (but screaming) baby in an oddly intimate video call before the former vice president even appeared onscreen. What was at first an awkwardly silent video conference evolved into a complete technical nightmare that resulted in Biden sounding as if he was screaming in TV static for the first few minutes of the event.Friday

For cycling world champion Annemiek van Vleuten, March usually means racing over bumpy roads in Italy, or summiting grassy hills in France. This year, instead, van Vleuten raced across the iconic white gravel of the Strade Bianche from home in Holland. 
On March 8, van Vleuten and her professional road racing team, Mitchelton-Scott, used stationary bikes and an app called Zwift to simulate the Italian race, which was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Van Vleuten and 29 of her teamma

Netflix's On My Block has always ended its seasons on crazy cliffhangers. In Season 1, a shooting left Ruby unconscious from a gunshot wound and in mortal peril. In Season 2, all four of our heroes were abducted after finding and laundering the RollerWorld money. 
Season 3’s ending leaves us with some questions, but for the first time it feels like a conclusion, not a cliffhanger. For the first time, it feels like it might be the moment to let this show go.
First, a quick recap: Seaso

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Outsider.
If you're anything like me, you'll already have binge-watched HBO's The Outsider into a sweet, El Cuoco-shaped oblivion.
And if you're as obsessed with Stephen King's novels as I am (i.e. very obsessed) you'll probably have read the book, too.
But in case you haven't, let me break down a few of the key differences.
Although series creator Richard Price has been pretty faithful to King's 2018 novel, there are a few points where the s

TL;DR: Learn from top-selling instructors with The CompTIA Cyber Security Pathway Certification Prep Bundle, a 95% savings as of March 14. In 2020, we are almost entirely dependent on hackable technology. Not to frighten you, but your phone, computer, tablet, car, bank, credit card purchases, and even your smart home devices can be hacked into. 
As these cybercrimes increase, the need for more highly skilled information security specialists also increases. In fact, these professionals

Fighting fake news has become a growing problem in the past few years, and one that begs for a solution involving artificial intelligence. Verifying the near-infinite amount of content being generated on news websites, video streaming services, blogs, social media, etc. is virtually impossible There has been a push to use machine learning in the moderation of online content, but those efforts have only had modest success in finding spam and removing adult content, and to a much lesser

A knife to a chef is like a brush to a painter or a camera to a photographer. You can probably get the job done with any old one, but having a high-quality one that feels good in your hands can really take your performance (and meals) to the next level.
A quality knife set can be a bit on the expensive side. But making the investment is definitely worth it if you're looking to enhance your cooking experience and produce better meals. Just saying.
Not sure where to start when it comes to choosing

In the time it takes you to snap a photo and upload it to Instagram, the next hacker attack has taken place. Heck, if you take a while to write a caption, multiple attacks could go down in that time frame. That's because, according to a study done at the University of Maryland in 2017, about every 39 seconds, a hacker strikes. We'd expect three years later, that number's only gotten scarier.
Even though online security is as vital as locking your front door, it's not quite as simple. You have to