Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has issued a set of guidelines and a helpful FAQ to website owners to try and minimize the damage being done by worldwide shutdowns, both online and off, over the coronavirus pandemic.The company says the most important advice it can give is to avoid disabling a website altogether, so long as it’s feasible to continue paying the hosting fees. Some domain registrars, like GoDaddy and Namecheap, are offering support to customers concerned they

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images The United States now has the highest number of coronavirus infections of any nation on the planet, The New York Times reports. Johns Hopkins’ tracker agrees. We now know for sure that our country’s response to the pandemic is a spectacular failure that has been exacerbated by an incompetent president who spent years sabotaging the government’s ability to respond to the current crisis.
The World Health Organization may soon declare that th

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Local officials have confirmed that Tesla stopped making electric cars in California on Monday, March 23rd, in compliance with a shelter-in-place order brought on by the novel coronavirus pandemic. But dozens of workers had to report to the company’s automotive factory to finish processing the final batches of cars this week, according to an email to some of those workers obtained by The Verge and the account of one of the factory’s employees.T

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Airbnb introduced a new program Thursday that its CEO called “free” housing for first responders dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. The program asks hosts — the people who actually own the properties that are booked via Airbnb’s platform — to donate the rental without reimbursement from the company, and apparently, to bear the cost of following CDC-recommended cleaning protocols. The goal is to offer lodging to 100,000 f

Nearly a week and a half after Google’s sister company Verily launched its COVID-19 screening and testing website, the company has published a video of its in-person drive-through testing process.As the video explains, anyone looking to be tested first has to take an online screening questionnaire, the details of which were revealed last week when the website launched. The screener is designed to help prioritize testing. The criteria include exposure to existing cases of the virus, current

Google’s second-generation Pixel Buds may have just appeared in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings, indicating that the company’s new true wireless earbuds could hit their spring release window (via 9to5Google).
Two new FCC filings from Google for wireless earphones appeared yesterday. The filings have two different model numbers, G1007 and G1008, possibly correlating to one filing for each earbud. The filings don’t specifically state that these are the new Pixel B

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Life looks very different right now as the novel coronavirus has millions around the world stuck indoors. Festivals, clubs, and even house parties are banned in many cities, leaving musicians (and music lovers) housebound and searching for creative outlets. Over the past few weeks, several music companies have responded by offering freebies in order to, as Korg said, provide “a musical way to occupy your mind.”
Below, we’ve rounded up an

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch plans to put its community’s charity muscles to good use on Saturday, by hosting a benefit called Stream Aid 2020 that will feature a host of celebrity guests, a lot of music, and a little bit of gaming. (Think UNO and Fortnite.) The event will go live on Twitch’s channel at 12PM ET and stay up for 12 full hours, and the goal is to raise as much money as possible for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organizatio

Today 500 Startups hosted a virtual demo day for its 26th batch of startups, a group of companies that TechCrunch covered back in February.
500 is not the only accelerator that moved its traditional investor pitch event online; Y Combinatormade a similar move after efforts to flatten the spread of COVID-19 required changes that made its traditional demo day setup temporarily impossible.
In addition to hosting a few dozen startup pitches today, 500 also explained changes to its own format and pro

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools and workplaces to close all over the country, tens of millions of American children have started to attend classes online and tens of millions of American adults are now teleworking from home. This crisis has highlighted how many Americans lack high-speed wired broadband internet at home (approximately 141 million) and specifically how many school-age children are disconnected (as many as 12 million).
This digit

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge CarPlay, Apple’s in-car interface, just got better thanks to an update that lets you use third-party map apps on its dashboard.The CarPlay dashboard displays information from multiple apps at once, like music and maps, which can help you get to your destination, but you could only use Apple Maps until now. Third-party map apps had to use a full-screen view instead of appearing as a split screen on the dashboard. With iOS 13.4, third-party apps can finally

Several months ago, we surveyed more than 20 leading real estate VCs to learn about what was exciting them most in the real estate tech sector and hear their opinions on proptech trends like co-working, flexible office space and remote office space.
Since we published our survey, COVID-19 has flipped the real estate sector on its head as more companies move toward mandatory remote work, retail businesses are forced to temporarily shut their doors and high-traffic properties thin out. Suddenly, t

It’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks for residents of Earth. City 17, formerly one of our planet’s finest remaining urban centers, has been destroyed. A nearly spontaneous uprising has destabilized the Combine Empire’s two-decade stranglehold on humanity. It’s a time of danger, but also hope, and we owe much of it to one woman: Alyx Vance.
Vance hasn’t received as much attention as her colleague, the theoretical physicist and military hero Gordon Freeman. But a re

Patreon Patreon says the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have reached its platform. In a blog post today, the company said more than 30,000 creators signed up for an account in the first few weeks of March. These creators are likely independent artists who have been particularly impacted by government restrictions of large gatherings, as well as restaurant and business closings.
The company also says the average new patron growth across the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Italy is up 3

Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images At press conferences for the past week, President Donald Trump has continued to push the idea that the United States could relax the distancing measures put in place around the country to slow the COVID-19 outbreak by Easter, April 12th. “America will, again, and soon, be open for business,” he said on Monday, despite public health experts’ warnings that April 12th is far too soon and would be catastrophic.Many governors (both Repu

Image: @OnLeaks and iGeeksBlog New leaked information about OnePlus’ next flagship phone reveals it may come in a really slick seafoam green shade and that it might be the first OnePlus phone to have wireless charging (via Android Police).
The new green color for the new device, likely to be dubbed the OnePlus 8 Pro, was revealed today in what appears to be leaked press renders shared by @OnLeaks and iGeeksBlog.Image: @OnLeaks and iGeeksBlog
These renders also show that OnePlus has appare

Marion Kelly is back and still stealing her dad’s thunder in live BBC interviews. The OG of “interrupting a work-from-home parent’s video call,” Marion and her family appeared on BBC today to share tips for dealing with cooped-up kids while working from home during the pandemic.
As Marion and younger brother James squirmed and protested behaving on camera, her mother Kim Jung-A said the family has tried to get outside as much as possible, while under coronavirus lockdown

Katie Baki leads a yoga class over Zoom. Yoga looks different this week. Studios are empty, music is off, and instructors are often demonstrating forms with a couch on one side of them, a TV on another, and a laptop pointed at them from across the room.
As more of the US goes under quarantine to limit the spread of COVID-19, yoga studios and instructors have moved online to connect with clients and stay afloat. Yoga instructors say it’s a nice reprieve for students, giving them a chance t

Dyson — the British technology company best known for its high-powered vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, and fans — has designed a new ventilator, the “CoVent,” in the past several days, which it will be producing in order to help treat coronavirus patients, via CNN.The company reportedly developed the ventilator in 10 days based on Dyson’s existing digital motor technology. Dyson is still seeking regulatory approval in the UK for the rapidly designed device, but it&rsq

Image: Huawei Huawei has a new sporty smartwatch it’s announcing alongside its flagship P40 smartphone series. The Huawei Watch GT 2E includes 100 workout modes, like rock climbing, skateboarding, and parkour, and has storage for up to 500 songs, Huawei says. The red and green versions of the device feature a similar design to the Nike Editions of Apple’s smartwatches, with a rubber watchband covered in small holes.The smartwatch features broadly similar specs to last year’s W

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge If you’ve had your eye on Samsung’s Galaxy S10 Plus but haven’t fancied the $999 price tag, today is your lucky day. Verge readers can get an unlocked model of the 2019 flagship for just $579 over at Daily Steals. All you have to do is enter the code VERGEGXLYS10 at checkout.The S10 Plus has a 6.4-inch OLED screen that looks rich and vibrant, according to Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert. It’s also excellent for shooting video, with the abi

Images: Rad Power Bikes Last year, Rad Power Bikes released the RadRunner, a fat-tire electric utility bike with a beguiling look, a simplified-but-not-underpowered drivetrain, and an affordable price tag. The response was so great that the Seattle-based company wanted to build on the buzz with an upgraded version, which it dubbed the RadRunner Plus. And it looks great.The original RadRunner was the company’s most affordable model (only $1,299) because Rad Power Bikes left out many of the

Nintendo released a surprise Nintendo Direct Mini presentation today, announcing a variety of new games, rereleases, and DLC coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2020, including classics like XCOM 2, BioShock, and Borderlands; a first look at the next Smash Bros. DLC character; more Star Wars ports; and more.Here are the biggest announcements and news:
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition got a May 29th release date along with a new look at the gameplay for the upcoming Switch port.A new Nintend

On Scotty Sire’s YouTube channel, it doesn’t look like anything has changed. He does Q&As with friends, pranks his pals, and jokes around with them in his backyard — just about the same things he did before California required him to stay indoors since Sire and his co-stars live and are quarantining together.
“We’re going to be sitting on our asses, doing whatever we can think of,” Sire said in a video last week.
Social distancing has had very different im