Technology news

Beginning today, Starbucks is instituting a temporary move to a “to go” model for all of its locations in the U.S. and Canada. One of the more sweeping actions taken by a major food chain, the coffee giant is looking to adhere to advice about social distancing among an exponential uptick in cases of COVID-19.The model, which find the company closing down seating in its cafe and patio areas, will be in place for at least two weeks, according to the company. Instead, Starbucks will rel

At what is now a daily coronavirus press briefing at the White House, President Trump today said that GoogleCEO Sundar Pichai called him to apologize. What Pichai apologized for wasn’t immediately clear, but Trump then went on to praise Google’s communications team for supposedly substantiating Trump’s comments about Google’s coronavirus screening site.
“I want to thank the people at Google and Google Communications because as you know, they substantiated what I sai

The Federal Reserve announced today that it has slashed interest rates as part of an effort to stabilize the economy following a rocky week on the financial markets.
The bank’s Board of Governors cut interest rates to near-zero, the second time that the central bank has cut interest rates in as many weeks. The Federal Reserve also launched a $700 billion quantitative easing (QE) program to help prevent a further economic downturn sparked by the spread of coronavirus.
A statement said

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s Xbox Live service was experiencing issues today, meaning a lot of homebound people who are practicing social distancing weren’t able to log into Xbox consoles. The issues appear to have started around 5PM ET today, with many Xbox users reporting that they were unable to sign in to Xbox One consoles.The Xbox Support Twitter account tweeted at about 7:30PM ET that “Players should once again be able to sign in and access Xbox Li

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon says its Prime delivery service is experiencing delays, and it’s running out of stock on some household staples due to the coronavirus outbreak, CNBC reports.The company said in a blog post that the problems are due to a “dramatic increase in the rate that people are shopping online,” leading to “delivery promises [that] are longer than usual.” Amazon added that it was “working around the clock with our selling p

American Airlines said it will suspend 75% of its long-haul international flights from the U.S., beginning March 16 in response to decreased demand and government travel restrictions put in place to lessen the spread of COVID-19.
American Airlines had already reduced its capacity. This latest move, which was announced Saturday evening, will slash international capacity 75% year-over-year. The suspended service will last through May 6, the airline said, adding that it will cut back on flights gra

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Saturday night, Google laid out everything it’s doing in response to the coronavirus outbreak in its own words — after days of confusion over exactly how the search giant is collaborating with the White House in the face of a growing public health crisis.
As Google’s official PR described it in a string of tweets, there are at least three distinct projects at work. First, Google’s medical subsidiary Verily is building a system for tr

The U.K. government is advising citizens and residents against all travel to the U.S. in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a brief statement, the U.K. Foreign Office said it is “advising against all but essential travel to the USA,” a day after the U.S. government expanded its list of countries whose nationals are effectively banned from entering the U.S. to include the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The announcement by the U.K. authorities follows a move by the Trump administrat

It can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our biweekly column Short Play we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend.
Sometimes what isn’t said in a story is just as important as what is said. Usually, that’s because it can help provide the audience with a deeper understanding of the characters and their actions, but it also leaves things up to the interpretation of the audience. Andbec

Image: WinFuture Apple’s still-unannounced Powerbeats 4 earbuds were spotted at a Walmart in Rochester, New York over the weekend, confirming some specs that previously leaked including 15 hours of battery life, 9to5Mac reports. A photo posted to Twitter showed the earbuds in red, white, and black, with a price tag of $149, which is $50 less than the price of the Powerbeats 3.
@9to5mac @MacRumors did the new Beats Powerbeats drop without announcement? these were found in my local Walmart

For the first time since his 2018 EP Summer Pack, Donald Glover has released new music, an untitled album-length project that appeared on a secret website.
The website, donaldgoverpresents.com, features a four part sketch of a crowded, apocalyptic streetscape and currently loops 12 songs via livestream. Fans on Reddit and Twitter have attempted to pick out individual tracks from the livestream and have identified one song as "Warlords," the song Glover debuted at Coachella in 2019 but hadn't yet

Passengers wait in long lines at O’Hare in Chicago on March 14th. | Brooke Geiger McDonald/Twitter Travelers entering the US from Europe waited for hours in long lines Saturday as new coronavirus screenings led to bottlenecks at major airports, the Washington Post reports. The Trump administration unveiled its new “enhanced entry screenings” on Friday, which routes passengers on flights from 26 European countries through 13 US airports, including Chicago’s O’Hare a

SpaceXwas attempting to launch its sixth batch of Starlink internet broadband satellites, but the launch was aborted when the countdown timer reached zero. On the live feed of the launch, SpaceX engineers were heard to cite a “launch abort on high engine power,” and the announcer presenting the webcast said that it was indeed an abort related to Merlin engine power, and SpaceXlater provided added detail, including that the sequence was auto-aborted by its system.
The announcer noted

Are you ready for Skynet? How about the Holodeck-meets-Skynet universe of Westworld (returning March 15 to HBO)? What about synths destroying the colonies of Mars as seen in Picard? With so much fiction bleeding apocalyptic images of artificial intelligence (AI) gone wrong, we’ll take a look at some possible scenarios of what could actually happen in the rise of artificial intelligence. While many researchers and computer experts aren’t worried, new technologies need

We are handling the first real global crisis since the Cold War with staggering incompetence. People are already dying en masse. We all need to stay home and stay away from one another. If we wait until those who can’t do math see the awful consequences all too visible to those who can, things will get colossally worse. It is already later than you think.
Look at this. Includes smart discussion of @mlipsitch's recent work. It really is later than you think https://t.co/j17jG6wr4h
— B

One of the two young testers Photo: Rachel Sturtz My husband and I have flown with our twin sons since they were infants. I’ve breastfed them next to a couple of middle-aged men who were on their way to a golf vacation. They’ve slept cradled in our arms, across our laps, and against our chests, La-Z-Boy style, as we’ve crisscrossed the country. Whatever the position, I’m not sure any of us were ever really comfortable — especially those two golfers.
For our mo

UPDATE: SpaceXaborted today’s attempt, and will reset for a future attempt at a time and date to be determined.
SpaceXis launching its latest Starlink mission today, with a takeoff time of 9:22 AM EDT (6:22 AM PDT) currently scheduled to take place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will carry 60 more Starlink broadband internet satellites to their low Earth orbit destination, using a Falcon9 rocket with a booster that flew four times previously, including twice in 2018 and tw

With hundreds of new companies starting to utilize all of Salesforce’s customer relationship tools, administrators ready to tackle that challenge will already be head and shoulders ahead of the competition. The training in The Salesforce Certification Essentials Bundle ($39.99, over 90 percent off, from TNW Deals) can put you on the fast track to a prominent role in any Salesforce-ready organization.

TL;DR: Protect your hearing with EARTUNE LIVE U Universal-Fit musician/concert ear plugs for $20.99, a 16% savings as of March 15. We live in a noisy planet, y'all. From the bustling city streets to the endless construction outside your window, there are tons of daily decibel-pounding situations that are bound to make your ears ring. But nothing is quite as loud as live music, which clocks in at around 100 decibels (at the back of the venue). Anything above 85 decibels has the potential to

TL;DR: Become a programming pro with the 2020 Comprehensive Programming Collection for just $30, a 98% savings as of March 15.Whether you want a higher-paying job, a better work-life balance, or just want something to do while you're stuck at home for the next few weeks, coding checks all the right boxes – plus so many more. Add the fact that there's currently a huge demand for programmers, and the career path becomes even more desirable. So, um, what are you waiting for exactly?
The 2020

TL;DR: Learn how to build your own robot with The 2020 Complete Raspberry Pi and Arduino A-Z Hero Maker Bundle for $74.99, a 84% savings as of March 15. From building robots to creating home automation systems, it's amazing how much you can do from the comfort of your own home (with no engineering degree) using Raspberry Pi and Arduino. So if you're afraid of being around people right now (understandably), why not spend the weekend tackling fun and educational project? All you need is the r

Evolution explains how all living beings, including us, came to be. It would be easy to assume evolution works by continuously adding features to organisms, constantly increasing their complexity. Some fish evolved legs and walked onto the land. Some dinosaurs evolved wings and began to fly. Others evolved wombs and began to give birth to live young. Yet this is one of the most predominant and frustrating misconceptions about evolution. Many successful branches of the tree of life have stayed s

TL;DR: Learn how to build a fully functional phone with the Ringo DIY Mobile Phone Kit for $179.95, a 7% savings as of March 15. Android or iPhone? How about neither. With this Ringo DIY Mobile Phone Kit, you can create your own.
Building a phone yourself with this kit won't stand up to your brand-new iPhone 11, but it's still pretty cool. This Arduino-based, DIY mobile phone, dubbed the MAKERphone, comes disassembled as a kit. You'll put it together yourself, learning about programming in

TL;DR: A five-year subscription to Ivacy VPN is on sale for £1.20 per month, saving you 86% on list price.VPNs are no different to other subscription services when it comes to the best deals. To get the lowest monthly rate, you need to sign up for the longest contracts.
This isn't always straightforward though, because you need to really trust a service before signing up for years. We know that this can be a leap of faith, but rest assured that Ivacy VPN has everything needed to keep your

Over the past week, one thing has become painfully clear for U.S. residents: COVID-19 is going to permeate every aspect of our lives for a long time to come. Those of us in and around tech have been noticing this for months now. First through the impact on our friends and colleagues in Asia, who have been facing fallout from the pandemic head-on for some time, and then through the domino effect on tech conferences.First there was MWC, then Facebook’s F8, E3, WWDC. The list goes on and on.

To halt the spread of the novel coronavirus, some cities countries are taking a drastic measure: Stopping the population from entering or leaving certain areas, otherwise known as lockdown. 
Italy was the first in Europe (now the pandemic's epicenter, according to the WHO) to institute the policy, but a whole slew of countries followed suit over the weekend. 
Here's a list of places around the world that have come under lockdown, or partial lockdown measures, so far:
ItalyItalians in l