Technology news

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft’s Surface Duo is meant to be a showcase for its unique, dual-screen design, so it may be a bit more forgivable that its specs don’t include the latest and greatest components or anything all that’s impressive by way of battery life and storage. According to Windows Central, the phone will ship with the older Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 (which we knew last year when it was announced), a rather small 3,460mAh battery considering

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general are likely to file antitrust charges against Google in the coming months, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. The reporting is consistent with earlier statements by Attorney General William Barr, who said he expected a decision to be made sometime this summer.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton confirmed the general timeline in a statement to the Journal, saying he would &l

Teslaofficials visited two sites in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week to search for a location for its future and fifth gigafactory that will produce its all-electric Cybertruck and Model Y crossover, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch.
Company representatives also visited Austin. A final decision has not been made, but Austin and Tulsa are among the finalists, according to multiple sources. The AP also reported Tulsa and Austin as top picks for the gigafactory.
Tesla expects to make a

CBSAll Access isn’t done launching new Star Trek shows.
After bringing the franchise back to TV with “Star Trek: Discovery” in 2017, then revisiting some beloved characters with “Star Trek: Picard” earlier this year, the streaming service has placed a straight-to-series order for “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” which will depict the early days of the Enterprise, before Captain Kirk took command.
We already got a glimpse of that in the second season of &

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge American consumers spent more this past quarter on video games than they ever have before, to the tune of $10.9 billion — up 9 percent from the year before, according to industry analyst NPD Group (via Bloomberg). The period covers only January to March, meaning spending in the current quarter ending June 30th might end up being just as high, if not higher.Obviously, the main event in the back third of this quarter was the coronavirus pandemic, which rea

The novel coronavirus pandemic has disordered traditional notions of work, travel, socializing and the way we collaborate with colleagues.
It seems obvious that the future of work must evolve, given what we’re experiencing, but what will that future look like? Which changes are here to stay and which ones will revert the moment offices reopen?
TechCrunchhas been a WFH employer for essentially its entire existence. Our staff is distributed across major startup hubs like SF and NYC, but we a

Today, NASA announced the creation of the Artemis Accords, a new set of standards on how to explore the Moon. The agency hopes that other countries will agree to the terms, which lay out how humanity will act on the Moon, including how to mine resources from the lunar surface and ways to protect heritage Apollo sites.
The Artemis Accords, first reported by Reuters, are a reference to NASA’s Artemis program, an initiative to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by 2024. NASA ad

Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images Though many people are pinning their hopes on a COVID-19 vaccine, another option is available: preventive treatment. At a Senate hearing this week, Anthony Fauci noted that a vaccine — which is probably months or years away — isn’t the only way to protect someone from a life-threatening virus.These treatments could protect people against infection for a few weeks or months, said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allerg

The TurboGrafx-16 Mini will launch in North America on May 22nd.
Konami’s miniature console was initially set to come out on March 19th through Amazon for $99.99. However, Konami delayed the console a few weeks before its release after suspending manufacturing and shipments of the system as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A new release date for the console in Europe has yet to be announced.
The TurboGrafx-16 Mini already launched in Japan on March 19th under a different design and name,

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Electric racing series Formula E posted a loss of €10.6 million on record revenues of €161.5 million across its fifth season, or about $11.6 million and $177.6 million, respectively, based on the exchange rate at the time. The new financial figures were disclosed in a previously unreported filing with the United Kingdom’s Companies House Registry, and they cover the company’s fiscal year that ended on July 31st, 2019, just a few weeks

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Buying a refurbished tech product will save you money compared to buying it new. It also gives a device a second life instead of sending it off to be recycled. And especially during these times when demand is high for all kinds of tech, buying refurbished is sometimes the only way to get your hands on a product when retail channels are strained or just completely out of new merchandise.Those are all good things — yet “refurbished” is

A major question mark attached to national coronavirus contact-tracing apps is whether they will function when citizens of one country travel to another. Or will people be asked to download and use multiple apps if they’re traveling across borders?
Having to use multiple apps when travelling would further complicate an unproven technology which seeks to repurpose standard smartphone components for estimating viral exposure — a task for which our mobile devices were never intended.
In

Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images While treats like chips, popcorn, and ice cream (and for some reason, oat milk) topped grocery purchases during the first few weeks of COVID-19 lockdowns, more Americans continue to turn to a different comfort food: plant-based meat alternatives.Grocery store sales of products like Beyond Meat and Tofurky were up 264 percent during a nine-week period ending on May 2nd, according to Nielsen (via The Wall Street Journal). Overall, retail sales plunged 16

As shutdown orders extend indefinitely, online shopping has become a lifeline for people forced to avoid the outside world. Often times opting to shop with a mega corporation like Amazon,Walmart or Target is the path of least resistance, but there are plenty of reasons to patronize an alternative.
There are the ethical questions currently swirling around things like worker safety, as COVID-19 takes a toll on the often low-paid essential workers who keep these businesses running. It’s also

2K Games Epic Games has launched a month-long Mega Sale for its online store.You’ll be able to get some very popular games, including Control, Borderlands 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2, at significant discounts. Some titles, such as Assassin’s Creed Origins and Far Cry 5, are on sale for as much as 75 percent off.
All Epic Games users can also claim a free $10 coupon, which you can apply to any game that’s already released on the Epic Games Store (no preorders) and priced at $1

Facebookacquires a popular GIF search engine, video game sales see major growth and Sorrentino reports promising results for a COVID-19 treatment.
Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 15, 2020.
1. Facebook to acquire Giphy in a deal reportedly worth $400 million
Facebook will acquire Giphy,the web-based animated GIF search engine and platform provider. The company confirmed the deal but isn’t disclosing the terms; Axios reports that it’s worth around $400 million.
Giphy has grown t

One of the largest unlicensed Club Penguin fan servers, Club Penguin Online, says it will shut down at the end of the month after receiving a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice from The Walt Disney Company.Club Penguin Online, an unlicensed revival of the popular Disney-owned children’s social network, is one of the largest fan replicas of the game, accruing over 8 million users over the last two years. In a now-removed blog from this week, Club Penguin Online wrote th

Grab your earbuds, and listen to the iconic theme song from Animal Crossing: New Horizons performed at home by the musicians who created the catchy tune.Nintendo uploaded a video today showing the musicians re-creating the wholesome, soothing tropical theme that plays each time you launch the game to continue exploring your island life. The video is every bit as relaxing to watch as the song is to listen to, with the musicians slowly bobbing along to the calming track.The video is edited to clea

CBS All Access is getting another Star Trek series, with this one focusing on three fan-favorite characters: Captain Christopher Pike, Number One, and Science Officer Spock.Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will follow the three characters “in the decade before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they explore new worlds around the galaxy,” according to an official announcement from the network. Actors Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck, who were introduced into CBS&rs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is working to restore streaming quality in various European countries following government requests for the company to reduce bandwidth usage out of fear that it was putting too much stress on broadband connections.People in Denmark, Norway, Germany, and other countries reported noticing an uptick in streaming bitrate, according to FlatpanelsHD. Netflix confirmed to the website that it is “working with ISPs to help increase capacity.”

Image: Postmates Postmates is launching new feature for its on-demand delivery platform called curbside pickup, which the company says is an industry first that could help more restaurants safely operate takeout businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.The option will join pickup, delivery, and non-contact delivery options, and it will be able available for both customers looking to pick up directly from a restaurant and for the restaurants as a choice for how it wants its customers and delivery

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Commerce Department has taken another step toward cutting off Chinese telco Huawei from the overseas companies that make its semiconductors. An amended export rule would block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain US software and technology,” the agency announced on Friday.The rule prevents foreign manufacturers of semiconductors

Illustration by William Joel / T On this episode of The Vergecast, hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn welcome on a few of our colleagues to discuss the week’s important stories.
First up, deputy editor Dan Seifert stops by to cover our recent 13-inch MacBook Pro review, what is going on with the next Pixel phone, and why Windows’ laptop design has gotten so good.In the second half of the show, Silicon Valley editor Casey Newton joins to discuss the implementation of Facebook’s

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Samsung’s T5 USB-C solid-state drive is one of the most compact portable drives that you can buy, and it’s even more affordable than usual today. The 500GB model usually costs around $100, but today, you can get it for $80 at Amazon and Best Buy. The 1TB model that normally costs $200 is down to $150 at Best Buy. The T5 includes a USB-C to USB-C cable as well as a USB-C to USB Type-A cable.
This model utilizes a SATA drive within its enclo

Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images New York City’s subway system has a new app to help essential workers get around during nightly subway closures.Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the nation’s largest subway system and the only one in the US to run 24/7, announced that it would be shutting down between 1AM and 5AM to disinfect the trains and address the growing population of homeless people in the system. At the time, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sai

Making video games is a difficult endeavor at the best of times, but spare a thought for the people behind Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories, which finally came out last month for the PC, PS4, and Switch in the West. I first played it at a game show in Osaka in 2009; it was running on a PlayStation 3, and I was wearing 3D glasses. They were different times, of course — and the final release still manages to feel like a throwback.
Disaster Report 4 was originally set for a March 10th, 2011

Facebook is buying the popular GIF-making and sharing website Giphy for a reported price of $400 million, with plans to integrate the massive GIF library into Instagram and other Facebook apps. News of the deal was first reported by Axios, which revealed the $400 million value of the deal.Giphy is one of the largest GIF sites on the internet, offering tools for creating, sharing, and remixing GIFs. Facebook has already relied on Giphy’s API for sourcing GIFs in its apps for years: Instagra

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
After spending perhaps more time than we should have recently trying to figure out what’s going on with the public markets, let’s return to the private markets this morning, focusing in on venture capital itself. New data out today details how U.S.-based VCs fared in Q1 2020, giving us a window into how flush the financial class of startup land was heading into the C