Technology news

Photo by J. Conrad Williams, Jr./Newsday RM via Getty Images On Wednesday, Twitter briefly locked conservative site The Federalist’s account for suggesting people deliberately expose themselves to the novel coronavirus. The Federalist promoted the medically unsound idea of “medical ‘chickenpox parties’” to infect young, healthy people with the virus under controlled quarantine.The tweet was removed for violating the social media platform’s policies, and a Twi

Medical biotech company Emergent BioSolutions is one of the many health industry players turning its efforts towards addressing the current global coronavirus pandemic. Their work includes a two-pronged effort to pursue plasma-based treatments that could help lessen the impact of COVID-19 on health care systems, with a fast-tracked development timeline that could see human clinical trials start as soon as this summer.
The company is simultaneously working on two different therapeutic approaches,

“Little Fires Everywhere,” a new miniseries on Hulu,can be hard to watch.
Based on Celeste Ng’s novel of the same name, it takes place in the planned community of Shaker Heights during the 1990s, where the arrival of artist Mia (Kerry Washington) and her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood) sets something into motion that (we’re told in the opening scene) will eventually result in a fire that burns the lavish home of the wealthy Robinsons to the ground.
While the show has plen

Qualcomm is announcing a pair of new Bluetooth chips designed for wireless earbuds, the Qualcomm QCC514x and QCC304x SoCs. Both chipsets will support Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Mirroring technology for more reliable connections, along with integrated, dedicated hardware for Qualcomm’s hybrid active noise cancellation and onboard support for digital assistants.Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Mirroring handles connections to a phone through a single earbud, which is then mirrored (hence the

COVID-19 is all anyone can talk about in real life, which means it’s all anyone can talk about on the internet, which means it’s all anyone is discussing on Reddit. There’s r/Coronavirus (1.4 million members), r/Covid19 (101,000 members), and the racist-ly named r/China_flu (101,000 members, disappointingly). These subreddits have quickly been overflowed with people seeking news about how the pandemic has thrown world economies and health care systems into collapse. They exist

The impacts of telecommuting, shelter-in-place laws and home quarantines resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak are starting to impact broadband speeds across a number of U.S. cities, a new report has found. According to broadband analysis site BroadbandNow, 88 out of the top 200 most populous U.S. cities analyzed have now experienced some form of network degradation over the past week, compared with the 10 weeks prior, as more people are going online to work from home, video chat and stream movie

Photo by Felix Zahn / Photothek via Getty Images When you’re in the middle of a Zoom video meeting at home and your cat suddenly decides to start bawling for its dinner, you’ll want to mute your audio in a hurry. In that case, you have a choice: you can either reach for your mouse or touchpad and start searching for the “Mute” button or you can use a quick keyboard shortcut to cut off that noise immediately.
Zoom has a long list of keyboard shortcuts that you can use bef

SpaceX is manufacturing its own hand sanitizer and face shields with plans to donate the materials to hospitals and places in need to help fight the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to an internal memo first reported by CNBC and seen by The Verge. The company also plans to host a voluntary blood drive at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and is looking into setting up drives at other SpaceX locations.
The email, sent to SpaceX employees, claims that the home-brewed hand sanitizer m

As efforts to flatten the spread of COVID-19 pushes employees from their offices, remote work is undergoing a surge in popularity.Well-known remote-work-friendly companies like Zoom have seen a rise in usage, while Slack has already reported that it is successfully converting new users into paying customers, which is pushing up its growth rate.
The pandemic is creating economic and social upheaval, but for a specific cohort of software companies that help distributed teams work together, it&rsqu

Four years ago, mathematician Vlad Voroninski saw an opportunity to remove some of the bottlenecks in the development of autonomous vehicle technology thanks to breakthroughs in deep learning.
Now, Helm.ai,the startup he co-founded in 2016 with Tudor Achim, is coming out of stealth with an announcement that it has raised $13 million in a seed round that includes investment from A.Capital Ventures, Amplo, Binnacle Partners, Sound Ventures,Fontinalis Partners and SV Angel. More than a dozen angel

Illustrator by Alex Castro / The Verge Domain registrar Namecheap on Wednesday said it would no longer be accepting any new domain applications including the words “coronavirus,” “covid,” and “vaccine,” among other versions of words and phrases alluding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Los Angeles-based company says the measure is to prevent abuse and fraud from sites trying to hawk fake products and misinformation and otherwise capitalize on the ongoing

Thanks to the popularity of Amazon‘s Echo family, people have begun to expect voice assistant capabilities from their smart speakers, even ones meant primarily for audio. To that point, Marshall just announced the Uxbridge Voice, its latest Alexa-enabled speaker. As with Marshall’s previous wireless speakers, the Uxbridge features a stylish design that mimics the design of a classic guitar amp, albeit in a rather small form just 6.6 inches tall and 5 inches wide. The speakers come i

Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted Saturday that the company was donating “millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe,” to help combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. Cook’s tweet appears to confirm a statement earlier in the day by Vice President Mike Pence.“The president and I literally heard directly from Apple that they’re donating 2 million industrial masks to this effort around the country and working with

Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images Lyft is offering free or discounted bike-share trips to workers fighting the coronavirus. The ride-hail company is inviting certain workers in New York City, Boston, and Chicago to sign up for free, one-month memberships or discounted trips. Lyft says it’s also stepping up its cleaning procedures to ensure its bikes are appropriately sanitized between trips.Cheaper bike-share could become especially useful as public transportation ridership continues to

Image: CBS The first season of Star Trek: Picard is coming to an end on March 26th, and to celebrate, CBS is offering a free month-long trial (instead of the usual seven days) of CBS All Access to allow viewers to watch the whole season.The month-long trial doesn’t just give access to Picard, though; it’ll give viewers free access to the entire CBS All Access catalog, which includes every Star Trek show ever made (including CBS All Access exclusive Star Trek: Discovery), Cheers, CSI

Photo by Stefano Guidi/Getty Images Most people are currently relying on videoconferencing to keep in touch with work colleagues, family, and friends — and if they’re facing financial difficulties, free is best. While Zoom seems currently to be the most popular videoconferencing app, there are several applications out there that will allow people to meet online for free.We’ve listed here a few of the best known videoconferencing apps, along with a couple of popular text chat a

Image: Retromags As an entertainment industry, gaming isn’t that old — it’s been around since the ‘70s, which makes it a baby compared to radio, film, and maybe even television. The story of most of that history has been one of technological progress; games today look very different than they did in the days of Pong.Since Gamergate, however, the narrative has changed: there’s a new and growing awareness of a toxicity that’s been embedded seemingly in gaming i

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. Gaming is one of those great activities you can do with people without having to physically be in their presence. And since we’re all physically distancing ourselves from one another right now, there’s no better way to help keep each other amused than by playing some games together. So here are a few games you can play with your friends, each

Researchers are using AI to search satellite images for unexploded bombs dropped in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The system uses object recognition algorithms that detect the unique features of bomb craters, including their shapes, colors, textures, and sizes. These algorithms then scan satellite images for signals of the craters. The Ohio State University team first used the system to find craters in a village in the province of Prey Veng, a heavily bombed area around 30 kilometers from th

Photo by BSIP / UIG via Getty Images Two New York City hospital systems are barring anyone except the person in labor from the delivery room, including spouses, partners, and family members. People giving birth will have to go at it alone, which the hospitals say is necessary to protect patient safety during the COIVD-19 pandemic.The rules were instituted by New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System, which have dozens of facilities in the New York area and together deliver nearly 20,0

Image: NASCAR / iRacing Fox and its sibling channel, FS1, are going to broadcast a “season” of virtual races that pit current, past, and the rising stars of NASCAR against each other on the sim racing platform iRacing. The races will air on Sundays at 1PM ET, pretty much the same time slot that NASCAR ran its real-world races before the novel coronavirus pandemic hit. They’ll also be available to watch in the Fox Sports app.
Fox didn’t go into detail about how many races

Samsung Samsung has just refreshed the Galaxy Tab A , and the new model costs just $279.. It features an 8.4-inch screen, a 5,000mAh battery, and LTE connectivity.The tablet is available now for $279. Samsung is currently shipping the Verizon model, but it says the tablet will be available through AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular in the coming weeks. Samsung
Samsung has made a few other updates from last year’s 8-inch Galaxy Tab A: the new tablet includes a 5MP front camera (th

Image: Nomad Nomad, typically known for making smartphone accessories, has reprioritized operations to make medical supplies like face masks amid the ongoing spread of the novel coronavirus, the company has announced.
Right now, Nomad is currently selling disposable three-layer face masks, and you can apply to buy them here. Nomad says it will be prioritize masks first for medical professionals, then for first responders, and then for essential businesses. Its masks cost $0.375 each, and the co

If you’re a bit of a pixel peeper, it can be pretty annoying to always have to change the quality settings on YouTube to get that crispy HD footage. This is especially true on mobile, where video streams often default to 480p. Good news then: YouTube may soon let you set a default quality setting on the mobile app. Or well, at least once the worst of coronavirus is over. XDA recently spotted code in the latest version of YouTube‘s Android app that suggests the company is preparing t

OfferUp, a top online and mobile marketplace app, announced this morning it’s raising $120 million in a new round of funding led by competing marketplace letgo’s majority investor, OLX Group, and others. As a part of the deal, OfferUp will also be acquiring letgo’s classified business, with OLX Groupgaining a 40% stake in the newly combined entity.
Other investors in the new round include existing OfferUpbackers Andreessen Horowitz and Warburg Pincus. The funds will be put towa

Image: Royole Royole beat the Samsungs, Huaweis, and Motorolas of the world to producing a smartphone with a folding screen. I suppose the company gets some credit for being first, but the resulting product wasn’t a very good one and felt more prototype than consumer device — both in terms of hardware and software. Now, Royole has returned with the FlexPai 2 and claims it has corrected some of the design flaws of the original.The company’s second foldable phone, due sometime i

Photo by Jonas Güttler / Picture Alliance via Getty Images Even as COVID-19 numbers explode around the country, many Americans are still experiencing the pandemic from afar. But when a family member is infected with the virus, that can change in a matter of hours. In a new essay, New York Times Magazine deputy editor Jessica Lustig describes the impact her husband’s diagnosis has had on her family’s life.At the time of writing, Lustig’s husband (referred to as “T&rd

Illustration by Alex Castro. 2020 is a year in which we could all use an escape. There’s so much going on in the world, and so much of it is overwhelming, that even an hour away from the doom and gloom can be a welcome respite. It’s a time when video games can seem more vital than ever.
Thankfully, 2020 is also a year full of great interactive experiences. That could mean the return of beloved franchises like Animal Crossing on the Switch or Half-Life in virtual reality, or inventiv

Governments around the world are using high-tech surveillance measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak. But are they worth it? Edward Snowden doesn’t think so. The former CIA contractor, whose leaks exposed the scale of spying programs in the US, warns that once this tech is taken out the box, it will be hard to put it back. “When we see emergency measures passed, particularly today, they tend to be sticky,” Snowden said in an interview with the Copenhagen Internationa

In my first weekend playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I had grand designs to pay off my initial mortgage and plant a robust orchard of fruit — but I didn’t expect my proudest accomplishment to be picking more than 6,250 weeds. I was driven to complete that herculean feat because I was rewarded with Nook Miles, a new currency in the series that I’ve become obsessed with collecting.
In New Horizons, you earn Nook Miles for doing just about anything on your island, such as tr

After months of rumors, speculation, and coronavirus-induced uncertainty, Huawei has revealed it will host a livestream event for its upcoming P40 family of smartphones on March 26. While the date isn’t totally new – it had popped up on Huawei’s Weibo last week – we now have official confirmation the P40 will be revealed then and that the event will be publicly livestreamed.  The event will begin at 13:00 GMT/9:00 AM ET, and Huawei says the event will be stream

Image: Zound Industries The Marshall Uxbridge Voice is the latest Bluetooth speaker from Zound Industries, and it adds AirPlay 2 support to the lineup for the first time. Along with Apple’s streaming technology, the speaker also supports regular Bluetooth and Spotify Connect, and you can control it using the Alexa voice assistant. The speaker will be available starting on April 8th for $199 (£169.99 / €199).
Unlike previous Bluetooth speakers released under the Marshall brand,

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
How quickly our world has changed. In late February, TechCrunch covered the news that TripActions, a unicorn four times over, had secured a $500 million credit line to help it scale its corporate travel-focused business; however, it became known yesterday that TripActions is undergoing stiff layoffs after the corporate travel market transformed from growing to moribund in light

In news that should hardly surprise anyone: those in charge of the US‘ biggest companies dumped billions of dollars worth of shares on the stock market just before it crashed. Top execs of public US companies sold roughly $9.2 billion worth of shares in their own companies between the start of February and the end of last week, Wall Street Journal reports. [Read: Online marketplaces are tanking worldwide – except for Amazon] Thousands of insiders reportedly made similar moves.

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge It’s possible that noise-canceling headphones suddenly ended up on your wishlist due to the extended self-quarantine period many of us are experiencing around the world. If that’s the case for you, we’re finding good deals every day on some of our favorite models. Today’s deal is on the Sony WH-1000XM3, which are easily among the best headphones you can currently purchase. Instead of their usual $350 price, Amazon is selling them for $2

Cars of the future are almost certainly going to be powered by electricity. We’re not going to have much choice as governments around the world look to ban petrol and diesel powered vehicles in favor of EVs. On one hand, this is obviously great for the environment, but it makes me a little sad, because most contemporary EVs just sort of feel, the same. They all have bags of torque, accelerate swiftly, are silent, and are just generally a pleasure to drive. But where is the charm, noise, b

Image: ClassPass ClassPass is bringing back its previously discontinued ClassPass Live offering to allow fitness studios to stream workouts and other wellness sessions to members through Facebook Live, Twitch, Instagram Live, and YouTube, reports TechCrunch. The service initially launched back in March 2018, but it shut down late last year.
ClassPass users will not need an additional subscription to access ClassPass Live. Instead, they can use credits to buy classes, like they would an in-studi