Technology news

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo is planning to resume testing its autonomous vehicles in Arizona on May 11th, nearly two months after pausing its robotaxi service as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But some of the company’s backup drivers are worried that Waymo may be rushing back into service too quickly.In a blog post, the company said it was taking a “tiered approach” to returning its vehicles to the road. Waymo says it has redesigned its vehicle depots in Arizon

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge New York’s attorney general and Zoom have reached an agreement over the videoconferencing company’s security practices. Attorney General Letitia James offered an update today on a letter she sent in late March, raising concerns after reports of offensive “Zoombombing” as well as other privacy and security issues on the platform. The update outlines steps Zoom is taking to improve its service and praises the company for its handling of c

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s Read Along Android app, which helps teach reading skills to elementary school students, is now available in early access in 180 countries, the company announced today. Read Along uses Google’s text-to-speech and speech recognition technology to provide feedback as kids work through the app’s reading prompts and games. The app supports nine languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hindi. Read Along first launched as a

Illustration by Ana Kova The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is still rising, even though people are driving and flying less during the COVID-19 pandemic. CO2 reached an all-time daily high on May 3rd, hitting levels that haven’t been seen in the more than 60 years since records began.The annual average is also expected to rise, according to an analysis published today by scientists at the national meteorological service for the UK and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. T

Image: Elon Musk / Twitter On May 4th, 2020, Elon Musk and his partner Claire “Grimes” Boucher welcomed their first child together and soon after revealed the baby’s name: X Æ A-12.If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering, “How the hell do I pronounce that?” Musk appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience today, and the first thing the pair discussed was Musk’s newborn son, with Rogan asking how to pronounce the boy’s name.Musk said his

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2019, its biggest loss in three quarters. The company also reported $3.54 billion in revenue. Gross bookings in its ride-hailing business fell 3 percent, while bookings in its Uber Eats division were up more than 54 percent year over year, thanks to increased demand for food deliveries.Uber’s ride-hailing business has plummeted a result of widespread shutdown orders due to the pandemic. The company anno

Netflix is trying to become a dominant presence in the anime streaming space, but AT&T-owned WarnerMedia is leveraging its dedicated anime streaming service Crunchyroll to help sway subscribers over to HBO Max.HBO Max subscribers will be able to stream 17 different anime series currently available on Crunchyroll, including Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-(Director’s Cut), and Keep Your Hands off Eizouken. Crunchyroll will curate new anime conte

Lyft is making face masks mandatory for drivers and passengers, the company announced Thursday. Using the app, drivers and passengers will be required to confirm that they are wearing a mask and are symptom-free. Those who don’t agree to the new policy will be barred from the platform.The news comes as Lyft is beginning to dig itself out of a financial hole brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak. The company said its ride-hailing business plummeted 75 percent by mid-April but has been slowing

Tinder Tinder is now testing a new interactive video feature in the form of live trivia, the company confirmed to The Verge on Thursday. The test will be rolling out to an undisclosed percentage of users and is designed to help Tinder experiment with live video while also matching people up. Because of this, there’s no set time when the trivia will show up, and the game’s mechanics could change frequently. Screenshots appear to suggest that the game will be between a group of people

Photo: iFixit iFixit hasn’t been able to do its traditional teardown of Apple’s new Magic Keyboard yet (citing “social distancing and teardown schedules”), but the company has done the next best thing for anyone looking to see what makes the new $350 keyboard accessory tick: provided X-rays of the insides of the Magic Keyboard, produced by Creative Electron.As one might expect from a $350 keyboard, there’s a lot going on inside the Magic Keyboard. For example, the

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge This week we saw Sonos announce several new products, most significantly the Arc, which is the company’s first soundbar to support Dolby Atmos. Other new devices include the Sonos Five speaker and a refreshed Sub, and all three will only work with Sonos’ new S2 app that launches next month.Sonos CEO Patrick Spence sat down virtually with Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel for The Vergecast to discuss the new products, the S2 update, the backlash tha

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge Facebook will allow most of its employees to continue working from home through the end of 2020, and the company doesn’t expect to reopen most offices before July 6th, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. CNBC first reported the news and said CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be making a formal announcement today.The company said there were a variety of factors involved in the decision, including information from public health agencies, like th

Image: Bungie Destiny 2 will be coming to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, developer Bungie announced on Thursday. Exactly when those next-gen versions will be released, or if they will have any changes from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, is unclear at this time.“More details to come,” Bungie said in a tweet this morning.Destiny 2 will be on next-gen platforms! More details to come. pic.twitter.com/1ZZqGZjjjg— Bungie (@Bungie) May 7, 2020In theory, you would have

EA’s upcoming Madden NFL 21 is coming to the Xbox Series X, and owners of the game for the current-gen Xbox One will be able to upgrade to the Series X version for free, the company announced today at Microsoft’s gameplay reveal showcase. But there’s a catch: instead of using Microsoft’s Smart Delivery program to offer the free upgrade, EA will be running its own — far more limited — upgrade offer.
Last week, things seemed like they were looking great for cros

In October of last year, Google hired Javier Soltero to be the VP and GM of G Suite, its set of office apps and — importantly for today’s news — Google Meet and Google Chat. Now, the company is putting him in charge of yet another set of products: Messages, Duo, and the phone app on Android.The move puts all of Google’s major communication products under one umbrella: Soltero’steam. Soltero tells me that there are no immediate plans to change or integrate any of Goo

Founders hunting down capital in the middle of this pandemic may feel like they’re on a fool’s errand, but some investors are still offering financing, even if the terms might not be as good as they once were. One avenue that appears to remain open: corporate venture capital.
The corporate route offers its own set of unique challenges, depending on the philosophy of the organization’s investment arm. Some are looking strictly for companies that fit neatly into their platform, w

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Nikon has made its entire curriculum of online photography classes free until the end of May. The classes were originally made free throughout April, but Nikon has now extended access for another month.
All 10 classes available at the Nikon School can be streamed for free. The classes are normally priced anywhere between $15 and$50 each.
Each class is taught by a professional photographer and provides in-depth lessons to help you get better at taking photos. Som

Target,which already owns on-demand delivery service Shipt, is in the process of acquiring technology assets from same-day delivery service Deliv. The retailer is characterizing the deal as more of an R&D type of acquisition and not one that will have an immediate consumer-facing impact. Deal terms were not disclosed, but we understand the deal price is nowhere near Shipt’s $550 million ballpark, as it’s not an outright acquisition of Deliv’s business. 
Delivhad raised

Photo by Erin Clark / The Boston Globe via Getty Images On Thursday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) announced a new bill that would require the Federal Communications Commission to study how the novel coronavirus pandemic has affected the lives of people who are now using the internet to learn and work from home. The bill is part of a larger push for more broadband availability as a response to the ongoing pandemic.
The foundation of Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-MA) plan lies in the Obama-era American Reco

Nine Democratic senators are calling on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to provide information on the firing of workers who called for greater protections from COVID-19. In a letter, the senators cite four workers who were fired after raising concerns about safety conditions at the company’s warehouses. Amazon has disputed that the firings were retaliatory, citing other policy violations.“Given the clear public history of these four workers’ advocacy on behalf of health and safety condit

Valorant is still in closed beta, but Riot’s new tactical shooter is already making waves in the competitive gaming scene. Despite the fact that the game isn’t widely available and that we don’t yet know what Riot’s plans are for the game’s esports future, teams and players are jumping aboard.Part of that has to do with its sheer popularity — Valorant has dominated Twitch since its beta first debuted — along with Riot’s history building out a long-

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Sometime around 6:30PM ET on May 6th, popular iOS apps from major companies like DoorDash, Spotify, TikTok, and Venmo suddenly starting crashing. The culprit didn’t remain a mystery for long.Developers on Twitter and GitHub quickly discovered the cause to be an issue with the software development kit (SDK) from Facebook, which is interwoven into the operation of countless mobile apps from companies large and small. The problem, while resolved rathe

When you scroll through your Instagram feed today, you might have to keep scrolling... and scrolling...
There’s a new glitch that lets people post extra-long images onto their feeds. It’s attention-grabbing for pretty obvious reasons: they take a while to scroll past. Instagram normally limits portrait photos to roughly the size of your screen.
The glitch appears to only work on iOS. To make it work, you basically just create or save an extra-long image, then open up Instagram’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Now that we’re all inside and online a brain-breaking amount of time per day, Twitch is looking to fund a slate of new unscripted series to help broaden its audience — and take advantage of the fact that its audiences are bigger than ever. According to Bloomberg, which got its hands on an internal document looking for pitches, the company wants live, interactive programming that airs a few times per week — preferably, “game shows,

Zoomacquires some encryption expertise, Uber makes a big investment in scooters and we review the new 13-inch Macbook Pro.
Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 7, 2020.
1. Zoom acquires Keybase to get end-to-end encryption expertise
Keybase,whose encryption products include secure file sharing and collaboration tools, should give Zoom some security credibility as it goes through pandemic demand growing pains. A number of Zoom security issues have come to light in the last couple of months

A UV scrubber at Pittsburgh International Airport. | Photo: Pittsburgh International Airport Pittsburgh International Airport has put UVC fixtures on its floor-cleaning robots, making it the first airport in the US to test the use of the ultraviolet rays to scrub the coronavirus from surfaces. If effective, the UV-cleaning robots could be a model for other airports as they plan to reopen and try to persuade people to travel again.Allegheny County Airport CEO Christina Cassotis said the partners

Alamo Drafthouse wants to bring the feeling of independent movie rental stores to people in their homes, launching a video-on-demand service completely curated by Alamo Drafthouse employees.
Alamo on Demand will include a library of films available to both rent and purchase, with titles selected and curated by the company’s programming team. The goal is to “champion innovative and exciting films” beyond the 41 locations its theaters exist in around the country.The theater chain

Microsoft is detailing the first games that will support the company’s upcoming Smart Delivery program for cross-generation games between the Xbox Series X and Xbox One. Smart Delivery is Microsoft’s free upgrade program for the Xbox Series X that lets you buy an Xbox One version of a game and get the Xbox Series X version free of charge. It also means you can buy an Xbox Series X game with Smart Delivery and get the Xbox One version, too.
It’s designed to prevent situations wh

Stilt, a Y Combinator alum that provides financial services for immigrants without Social Security numbers or credit reports, announced today that it has closed a $7.5 million seed round. It also launched FDIC-insured pre-approved global bank accounts today.
The startup has raised equity from investors including Liron Petrushka; Hillsven Capital; Streamlined Ventures; Gokul Rajaram; Bragiel Brothers; Fundbox CEO Eyal Shinar; Next Insurance CEO Guy Goldstein; Charles Choi of SK Networks; and Y Co

Microsoft is detailing the first games that will be optimized for its next-gen Xbox Series X console today. All of the games included in Microsoft’s Xbox 20/20 show will sport a new Xbox Series X Optimized badge, which signals that a game has been improved and optimized for the new console.
Optimizations include 4K support at up to 120fps, DirectStorage support, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and faster load times. Effectively, when you see the Optimized badge, you know that a developer

Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet’s smart city subsidiary, is walking away from its ambitious plan to transform a slice of Toronto’s waterfront into a high-tech utopia.The plan, which was projected to cost over a billion dollars and has been under development for over two years, had run into community opposition from local residents who objected to the company’s high-tech, sensor-laden vision for the city’s waterfront.With great sadness and disappointment we announce that @sidewalk

After months of hardware reveals, spec reveals, and hype, Microsoft is finally doing a proper first look at gameplay footage for its upcoming next-gen console, the Xbox Series X, showing off gameplay from 13 games that will be headed to the console this fall.
Before you get too excited, the trailers showed off come from a variety of third-party games, the biggest of which are Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Madden 21, which had already been announced to arrive on the Series X this fall. Bigg

Apple has announced that it’s giving $10 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics, a company that produces COVID-19 testing kits that are critical to monitor the spread of the novel coronavirus.According to Apple’s announcement, the funding will help COPAN vastly scale up its production of testing kits, “expanding production from several thousand today to more than one million kits per week by early July.” Apple is also helping COPAN source and de