Technology news

Coursera Online learning platform Coursera will make 3,800 of its courses available for free to people unemployed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gizmodo reported. The Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative is part of its Coursera for Government training program for government employees.The goal of the initiative is to help workers develop skills to become re-employed, according to a Coursera blog post. You can’t apply as an individual for the free courses; government agencies that serve

When T-Mobile and Sprint announced their merger, one of the main upsides touted for the "new" T-Mobile was its ability to build a better 5G network. 
For 5G phone owners and eager early adopters, that sounded great. But now we know the newly combined telco's 5G footprint doesn’t exactly work in the favor of those who currently own a Sprint 5G handset.
Wireless customers with Sprint's 2019 5G phones — like the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, OnePlus 7 Pro 5G, and the LG V50 ThinQ 5G &mdas

Michigan state senator Dale Zorn has apologized for wearing a mask appearing to be made from a Confederate flag at the State Capitol on Friday.
Before apologizing, Zorn denied that it was the flag to local news outlet WLNS, stating, "It wasn't a Confederate flag. It was a mask that my wife made for me and she wanted me to wear it today." Zorn said he told his wife that the mask would raise eyebrows, but was adamant that it was not the flag. He then went on to say that, "Even if it was a Con

[Editor’s note: Want to get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that startups can use by email? Subscribe here.] 
Multiple liquidation preferences, full-ratchet anti-dilution clauses and pay-to-play provisions are some of the words that still haunt startup founders who survived downturns in decades past. So far in this downturn, though, investors seem to be sparing the brutal terms that tend to surface when the money has all the leverage.
Why? It’s easier to let

After spending about $25 million on the project, British technology company Dyson says the UK government doesn’t need the ventilator it developed to help treat COVID-19 patients, Reuters reported. The company, best known for its vacuum cleaners, said last month it had an order from the UK government for 10,000 of the breathing machines and developed one it called the CoVent.Dyson was awaiting regulatory approval for the design of the CoVent, reportedly built in 10 days using the company&rs

Many Americans are now advised to wear masks while outside to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to the CDC — and this may be the case for quite some time. But highly protective yet scarce N95 and surgical masks need to be reserved for healthcare workers, so those who aren't on the frontlines should instead resort to buying or making masks with other fabrics. 
Researchers now suggest that a combination of cotton with natural silk or chiffon (yes, the material many nighties are

Mark Mills ContributorShare on Twitter Mark Mills is the author of the book, “Digital Cathedrals: The Information Infrastructure Era,” and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, and a partner in Cottonwood Venture Partners, an energy-tech venture fund.An epic number of citizens are video-conferencing to work in these lockdown times. But as they trade in a gas-burning commute for digital conne

Finally, some good news: A new turtle species has been discovered. 
Scientist and professor Dr. Uwe Fritz of the Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Dresden, Germany and his international team have identified a new type of fringed turtle, also called matamata.
These reptiles don't look like your usual house pet turtle; they hide in the mud and, as such, look like rocks covered in algae when underwater. They also don't eat like other turtles, either: When prey approaches, it's sucked

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Chinese government has ordered ByteDance to take down its Feishu workplace messaging tool from app stores in China for a month because it let users access posts from Facebook and Twitter, which are banned in the country, Bloomberg reported. ByteDance, which also operates the social media app TikTok, developed Feishu as an internal app, then marketed it for business use in 2019. An international version of the app, called Lark, launched in April 2019 a

Bored? You can draw crude dicks like you did in your middle school notebooks, only this time you'll help feed an AI. 
Reddit user and researcher RichardRNN (get it?) trained a recurrent neural network (which is what RNN stands for) to doodle dicks. Naturally, it's called DickRNN. The researcher apparently fed the RNN about 10,000 penile doodles in order to get it up and running, and now it can draw penises of all different sizes and even include pubic hair. 
Why was this created? For o

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.
The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019, according to App Annie’s “State of Mobile” annual report. People are now spending 3 hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours &mdas

Nathalie Lawhead Have you installed the latest version of Mackerelmedia Fish? No, not Macromedia Flash. Mackerelmedia Fish. The piscine rich media plugin, created by experimental game designer Nathalie Lawhead, used in projects like the hacking tool Haxatron 2000. A relic of an era where social media hadn’t eaten the internet, amateurish weirdness was the norm, and visiting a website might involve clicking through an endless series of arcane installation screens. The website is still onli

Photo by Florence Ion for The Verge We’ve pulled together a few exclusive deals this weekend for readers of The Verge. First, the Google Nest Hello wired video doorbell is down to $170 at Daily Steals. Currently, Google sells this home security device for $199, so you’re getting a solid $30 discount on a brand-new model. If you want to fit your home with one of these, first make sure you have existing wiring to hook up to this doorbell. Next, visit Daily Steals, add one to your cart

While the coronavirus pandemic is far from over, some U.S. states have decided to reopen as soon as... well, right nowGeorgia was the first to ease restrictions, with businesses like gyms and salons opening FridayMichigan will soon follow suit, following protests from residents. 
Reopening worries some citizens, medical professionals, and elected officials, but one Florida man is dedicated to doing what he can to flatten the curve. Attorney Daniel Uhlfelder said he will tour the state's bea

Amazon has lost its appeal of a French court ruling that requires the company to temporarily stop delivering nonessential items in France or face hefty fines, the New York Times reported.
The Versailles Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that led the e-commerce company to close six of its fulfillment centers in France and put workers on paid furlough. Amazon had said the definition of what goods it could ship was not clear and rather than risk being fined, opted to temporarily close th

Duncan Trussell has a great voice. A voice so great he didn’t have to change it at all to become the animated lead of Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel. 
Yes, it helps that the show was created around his podcast The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, in which Trussell meanders through the universe and his psyche as himself. Perhaps Trussell’s gravely, sing-songy sound even helped Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward come up with the idea of turning the podcast into a cartoon.But t

Work(out) From Home is a weekly column where we review smart fitness machines and apps in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Thanks to technology, there are still plenty of ways to exercise if your gym is closed.  Read more...
NordicTrack RW900 Rower
$1,700.00View Product
The Good
Automatic resistance adjustment • Sleek design • Extensive library of on-demand classes
The Bad
Monthly subscription fee • Pricey • Tough to fold and unfold
The Bottom Line
The NordicTrack R

TL;DR: A 15-month subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $6.67 per month as of April 25, saving you 49% on list price.So you've probably been working on improving your home office over the last few weeks, but no setup is complete without a VPN.
Working remotely presents a security risk, so it's important to invest in something that shields your internet activity from hackers and malware. VPNs provide an encrypted tunnel for your online traffic to flow through, so nobody can get their hands on

The pandemic has completely changed the concept of online learning. It’s no longer just for the working parent pursuing their degree after their children fall asleep or the college student whose professor is out sick. It’s for all of us. It actually has been for a while, but we somehow managed to not notice all the opportunities right under our noses and next to our open Twitter tabs. 
So, how about spending this weekend diving into all the lessons that the magical internet has

TL;DR: Keep an eye on your baby at all times with the Smart Beat Video Breathing Monitor for $200, a 19% savings as of April 25.Having a baby is a wonderful — and hugely nerve-wracking — experience.
While it's unlikely anything could eliminate those fears and anxieties completely, this Smart Beat Video Breathing Monitor can definitely offer up some assistance — and perhaps even help new parents get some rest. Developed by researchers at Utah State University, the Smart Beat Mon

TL;DR: Work on your digital skills with the eLearnExcel 2020 Excel Certification School Bundle for $48.99, a 95% savings as of April 25. There's no need to force yourself to learn a new skill or get toned while in isolation. Full stop.
However, if you're getting sick of Netflix and social media and want to brush up on some core digital skills other than scrolling Instagram, we've got just the thing. Forget learning to code or design graphics. You can work on improving a digital skill you al

TL;DR: Turn your backyard into a golf course with the Chippo golf game for just $158.99, a 16% savings as of April 25.If you're one of those golfers itching to get back on the green, you do have some other options, though. It's not all bad news, folks! You could bring your clubs outside and build a makeshift course in your yard, but since you're probably not going to do that, you could try your hand at this Chippo™ Golf Game instead.
You may have heard of the viral golf game Chippo™

Bored at home amid social distancing restrictions and freshly extended stay-at-home orders? Consider the jigsaw puzzle.
The humble hobby is having a moment as people seek out ways to keep themselves occupied at home during the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview with CNBC, the North America CEO of the German gamemaker Ravensburger said the company's U.S. puzzle sales shot up a ridiculous 370 percent year over year at the beginning of April. The co-owner of the Puzzle Warehouse, a family-owned

With stay-at-home orders extending through May 2020, Mother's Day will soon become another holiday we celebrate from afar. It's time to get creative. But don't worry, we've got just the thing.
Moms deserve flowers, but since you can't exactly rush to the store at the last minute to get a floral centerpiece (thanks, social distancing), you should check out these pre-treated floral arrangements from Rose Box. Rather than getting a bouquet of flowers that'll last a week at best, the Rose Box roses

The art of giving a gift is something that takes years to master, and a sad fact of life is that some people will never get the hang of it. You could spend hours researching the perfect gift, and then get totally overshadowed by an expert offering something incredibly fun, personal, and touching. 
It's frustrating, but it doesn't need to be this way. You can hack the system with digital gifts and subscriptions. Your rivals might come up with something special, but your gift will keep on giv

The art of giving a gift is something that takes years to master, and a sad fact of life is that some people will never get the hang of it. You could spend hours researching the perfect gift, and then get totally overshadowed by an expert offering something incredibly fun, personal, and touching. 
It's frustrating, but it doesn't need to be this way. You can hack the system with digital gifts and subscriptions. Your rivals might come up with something special, but your gift will keep on giv

The art of giving a gift is something that takes years to master, and a sad fact of life is that some people will never get the hang of it. You could spend hours researching the perfect gift, and then get totally overshadowed by an expert offering something incredibly fun, personal, and touching. 
It's frustrating, but it doesn't need to be this way. You can hack the system with digital gifts and subscriptions. Your rivals might come up with something special, but your gift will keep on giv

TL;DR: A two-year subscription to TunnelBear VPN is on sale for £3.38 per month, saving you 58% on list price.VPNs help you to browse, stream, and work securely by protecting your online traffic with an encrypted tunnel. That might sound a little complicated, but it's really not.
It simply means that all your data and personal information is safeguarded, so nobody can see what you're doing or where you've been. These services are becoming more and more popular as remote working has become

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber has informed residents of San Francisco’s Treasure Island neighborhood it will no longer make Uber Eats deliveries to the area because of new city regulations temporarily capping delivery commissions.Uber says the regulations limit the company’s “ability to cover operational costs.” But San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney has criticized Uber for its approach, saying it’s cutting off service to a low-income neighborhood i

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is changing its unpaid leave policies starting next month, according to a report from Bloomberg. On May 1st, hourly employees — a vast majority of which are among the company’s 250,000 or so warehouse workers who cannot work from home — must request an unpaid leave of absence to continue staying home if they do not want to work out of fear for their safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.Throughout the coronavirus crisis, Amazon&rsqu

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is changing its unpaid leave policies starting next month, according to a report from Bloomberg. On May 1st, hourly employees — a vast majority of which are among the company’s 250,000 or so warehouse workers who cannot work from home — must request an unpaid leave of absence to continue staying home if they do not want to work out of fear for their safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.Throughout the coronavirus crisis, Amazon&rsqu