Technology news

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Self-driving startup Zoox has admitted that four of its employees took confidential documents from their previous employer Tesla, according to a statement issued after the company settled a lawsuit this week over the matter.“Zoox acknowledges that certain of its new hires from Tesla were in possession of Tesla documents pertaining to shipping, receiving, and warehouse procedures when they joined Zoox’s logistics team,” the startup said in

Image: Apple Apple’s new iPhone SE 2 combines some of the best components of the premium iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro with the design of the iPhone 8, all for under $400. But one key component missing, as pointed out by MacRumors this afternoon, is Apple’s custom U1 ultra wideband chip, a lesser-known piece of hardware that was first introduced into the iPhone line last September. The tech specs page for the device is posted on Apple’s website, and it leaves off the U1 chip und

Image: Apple Apple will donate a portion of sales from Product Red products to a COVID-19 relief fund, the company announced today. Product Red donations normally go toward fighting HIV/AIDS, but the organization has started directing money toward COVID-19 responses in light of the pandemic.
Now through September 30th, the tech giant will distribute some of the proceeds from the sale of Product Red gadgets and accessories to the Global Fund’s COVID-19 Response. This includes Apple accesso

Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images After endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and President Barack Obama, Joe Biden is now presumptive Democratic nominee — and the main alternative to a president who questions the science of climate change. But for many environmental groups, he’s still a hard candidate to fight for.
“For many environmental groups, he’s still a hard candidate to fight for.”
“We have plans to mobilize against

Apple iPhone SE 2 | Image: Apple It’s been a bad year for small phone lovers. It’s no secret that the average size of new smartphones has increased dramatically over the past few years. But this year it feels like the idea of a small phone you’d actually want to use as a primary device (read: not whatever that Palm phone was trying to be a couple years back) is truly dead and gone.
Earlier today, Apple announced the second-generation iPhone SE, which is basically an iPhone 8 w

Customers who currently subscribe to HBO through Charter, including those who pay for Charter’s Silver and Gold video packages, will get access to WarnerMedia’s new HBO Max streaming service when it launches next month.All of Charter’s current HBO subscribers will automatically get access to HBO Max for no additional charge, “and with no action required other than signing into the HBO Max app,” according to a press release issued by WarnerMedia today. Other Charter

Earlier today a grip of new data presented a sharply negative picture of the American economy. And this afternoon, news broke that a trio of well-known, heavily-backed unicorns were cutting staff.
With stocks down as well, we’ve received negative signals from the private market, the public market and the economy as a whole in the same day. Let’s take a minute to set the macro stage, and then go over the latest cuts from Carta (first reported by Bloomberg), Zume (Business Insider brok

Photo by PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP via Getty Images Amazon has decided to shut down all of its fulfillment centers in France after a French court ruled the company could be fined €1 million per item for shipping anything not directly related to medical supplies, hygiene products, and food items. The company, which plans to appeal the ruling, says that at the moment the “risk [is] too high” that it will run afoul of the ruling due to complexities in its warehouse operations. The shutdo

Image: Google Google is launching a new Kids section for the Google Play Store, which will offer a selection of so-called “Teacher Approved” apps. The search giant says these are apps that meet its quality standards and are highly rated by teachers. Each approved app includes a list of reasons why teachers like it, including age-appropriateness, and what it’s trying to teach children.
According to Google, it had originally planned to launch the new section later this year, but

Illustration by Alex Castro Mindy* listened to the rabbi preside over her uncle’s funeral on Zoom. The virtual event has become commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still felt surreal to her. Her father and uncle Ralph had been unusually close — their dad died when they were young, and Ralph helped raise his little brother. The rabbi was talking about the siblings’ relationship when the screen went white, and black letters started to appear. The scribbles look

Image: Apple Apple is now selling the wheels and feet separately from the 2019 Mac Pro via individual kits, but like the Mac Pro itself, both kits are pretty expensive (via 9to5Mac).
If you configured your Mac Pro with the standard feet and want to give it some mobility, the $699 Mac Pro Wheels Kit gives you four stainless steel wheels you can install. But you should be aware that the Mac Pro’s wheels are cheaper when you buy them as part of a Mac Pro configuration — they cost $400

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Lyft is launching a new delivery service aimed at helping drivers earn money during the novel coronavirus pandemic. As demand for ride-hailing collapses, Lyft’s new pilot program will tap drivers to deliver “essential” items like groceries, medical supplies, and home goods.For years, Lyft has lagged behind its rival, Uber, in delivery, but with the pandemic leaving many drivers out of work and the demand for delivery rising, the company

Airbnbtakes on new debt as it adapts to a world without tourism, Apple announces a new entry-level iPhone and Google lowers Nest camera quality.
Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 15, 2020.
1. Airbnb ups its debt by $1B amid the coronavirus travel crunch
Airbnb has secured commitments of $1 billion for a syndicated term loan from institutional investors. The emergency cash injection comes as the coronavirus travel freeze continues to hammer vacation rentals, with holidaymakers locked down

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Facebook wants to stop people from abusing its system, so it’s making a world of bots that can imitate them. Company researchers have released a paper on a “Web Enabled Simulation” (WES) for testing the platform — basically a shadow Facebook where nonexistent users can like, share, and friend (or harass, abuse, and scam) away from human eyes.
Facebook describes building a scaled-down, walled-off simulation of its platform populate

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge All-electric racing series Formula E is launching a nine-week sim racing competition after having to put its sixth season on pause due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The series joins the likes of NASCAR, Formula One, and IndyCar, all of which are already leaning on the robust software and community of online sim racing to keep fans and drivers entertained and occupied in the absence of real-world racing.The virtual Formula E series will be run in rFact

As the novel coronavirus pandemic has swept across the world over the last few weeks, a pro-Iranian influence operation has spread disinformation over social media suggesting that the US government created the disease, according to a new report from Graphika.
The International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM) “is a prolific operator” that hosts and creates pro-Iran and pro-Palestinian video reports, news articles, and memes.According to Graphika, this content is linked out over social m

Image: Apple Apple’s newly announced second-generation iPhone SE (or iPhone SE 2 as we’ll be calling it) is the company’s first phone with a single rear camera since 2018’s iPhone XR. While its camera hardware is basic, the new $399 device is powered by last year’s A13 Bionic chip, so it will benefit from Apple’s more recent work on image processing. It’s a combination that could reveal how much of Apple’s photography strengths lie in hardware and

Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno’s seminal anime about traumatized child pilots, is branching into friendlier offshoots with a Tamagotchi crossover. In Japan, they’ll launch on June 13th for 2,530 yen (roughly $23). Finally, your very own lil murder tyke, safely contained in a plastic egg.
There are three Tamagotchis available, with designs that pay homage to pilots Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, with 20 variations of angel between them. Raisable angels include classic characters, such

Image: Apple After months of rumors, Apple has finally announced a new iPhone SE. The new phone looks a lot like the iPhone 8, as it has a 4.7-inch LCD screen, Touch ID, a glass back, and thick top and bottom bezels. But on the inside, it’s powered by Apple’s A13 Bionic chip, which is significantly more powerful than the iPhone 8’s A11 Bionic chip and is also what’s inside Apple’s iPhone 11 series of phones. And the second-generation iPhone SE’s $399 starting

Image: Apple Apple announced the successor to its beloved iPhone SE: the iPhone SE 2. The specs are a mix of what you’ll find in the iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone XR, and the iPhone 8. It has the latest A13 Bionic processor, a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, an overall design that mimics the iPhone 8 (it should even work with most iPhone 8 cases), and a few camera traits that seem to be similar to what Apple’s camera array in the iPhone XR could handle. This phone is smaller than other iPhones

Apple is shipping its new keyboard case for the iPad Pro ahead of schedule. The company just announced that the Magic Keyboard is now available for preorder and will start arriving to customers next week. Apple had originally said it would launch in May. The Magic Keyboard costs $299 for the 11-inch iPad Pro and $349 for the 12.9-inch model. It supports both this year’s iPad Pro and the 2018 models.Unlike the previous Smart Folio Keyboard, the Magic Keyboard supports the iPad Pro “wi

Instagram Instagram is trying to make it easier for small businesses to spread the word about how people can support them during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the company announced that business and creator accounts can now include stickers in their stories that direct people to a website where they can order food delivery or buy gift cards.
Tapping the sticker will bring people to a website where they can complete their order. Businesses can also include stickers that link out to a fundraiser

Image: Apple Apple has officially announced the new iPhone SE, a lower-cost iPhone that starts at $399 for a version with 64GB of storage. It has the same basic shape and look as the iPhone 8, which means it has a 4.7-inch screen, large bezels on the top and bottom, and a home button with Touch ID. It’s a design that stayed consistent since the iPhone 6, which makes the iPhone SE essentially the fifth generation of that same look. Apple knows this design well.
It is available for preorder

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
Today we need to talk about what we’re hearing from the private markets and the public markets, and how different their messages seem to be.
The public markets through yesterday were on the bounce, rising sharply from recent lows, driven by negative news concerning COVID-19 and its ensuing economic damage. As TechCrunch noted yesterday, major American indices had seen thei

I keep writing about live-streaming like it’s accessible and easy to do — which it’s not. It’s actually quite difficult to get started. Sorry! My bad. I didn’t mean to lead you astray. If you’re still Twitch-curious, I have a gift for you: a guide for how to get started.Before I dive in, I’ll begin with a few caveats. First, there are many ways to stream. Zoom allows you to stream directly to YouTube, for example, and you can always go live on Instagram.

When I was a kid, I spent almost as much time reading about games in magazines as I did actually playing them. There was always so much that was beyond my grasp: a role-playing game from Japan that looked like an anime come to life or fighting game machines that would never come to my local arcade. I would often obsess over expensive consoles that I knew I would never actually own.The TurboGrafx-16 was one of those consoles. The device — which debuted in North America in 1989, fitting snug

The Interface Live is back! To kick off 2020, we’re hosting a virtual discussion between The Verge’s Casey Newton and Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier, author of the new book No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram. In her book, Frier rewrites our understanding of Instagram, showing how the independence originally promised to co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger began to evaporate almost as soon as they were acquired by Facebook. In a freewheeling live discussion, The Interface&

For the first time in a month, I had somewhere to be on a Saturday night. It was a mini-music festival where emo fans and electronic music aficionados gathered, staring up at a handcrafted house that loomed over a massive stage. But first, I had to stand in a lengthy queue with a bunch of strangers wearing concert T-shirts that all read the same phrase: “I literally went to the American Football house in Minecraft.”
The classic emo band American Football headlined a lengthy concert o

Mobile messaging startup Attentive continues to bring in new funding.
The startup raised a $40 million Series B last summer, followed by a $70 million Series C at the beginning of this year. Today it’s announcing that it’s extended the Series C by another $40 million, bringing the total round size to $110 million.
CEO Brian Long (who previously founded TapCommerce with his Attentiveco-founder Andrew Jones and sold the company to Twitter) told me that the new funding closed just

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Recording your iPhone screen can be super helpful, whether you want to save a clip of the game you’re playing, record part of a live stream on Instagram, or create a how-to video for your friends. You can send the video clip you record to a relative or friend, upload it to Twitter, or post it to your Instagram story. Here are the steps on how to record your screen, whether you have a newer or older iPhone.
Screen recording is built into iPhones,

The Mandalorian is Disney Plus’ breakout show, and now it’s set to receive an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look in a new eight-part documentary series exclusive to the streaming platform. The series will premiere on May 4th (otherwise known as Star Wars Day). New episodes will premiere every Friday.Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian will explore different aspects of the series through a number of interviews with the cast, crew, and production team. The series will also include never-befo

Niantic has been tweaking Pokémon Go in an effort to make it more playable from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, and today it’s announcing one of the biggest changes yet: raid battles will soon be accessible remotely. The company is adding a new item called a Remote Raid Pass to the in-game store, letting you play raids that appear on the app’s map or “nearby” page without having to go to the physical location.
Traditionally, raid battles involve several players

The coding platform Glitch is formally launching its first paid product today: a subscription that lets you pay to upgrade the bite-sized apps you can run on its platform.
Since it launched in 2017, Glitch has let anyone write and remix code and then publish bots, web apps, and other projects that it would host for free. But that free hosting came with strict limitations. Apps had limited RAM and storage, and more importantly, they would be shut down if they went dormant for just a few minutes,