Technology news

E-book and audiobook subscription service Scribd has been actively embracing and experimenting with bundling over the past couple of years, creating joint offers with The New York Times and with Spotify and Hulu.
Today it announced a slightly different take on the idea with Scribd Perks. These perks give Scribd’spaying subscribers (the service costs $8.99 per month) access to a number of additional services at no extra change.
The initial lineup includes Pandora Plus (ad-free music and pod

Hims & Hers, the startup focused on providing access to elective treatments for things like hair loss, skin care and erectile disfunction and online telemedicine services, is expanding its services to include a Spanish language option, the company said.
After Mexico, the U.S. has the second-largest Spanish speaking population in the world, with an estimated 41 million U.S. residents speaking Spanish at home. The population also prefers to receive healthcare information and frequent facilitie

In a new letter to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, a group of Democrats in the Senate urge regulators to “closely monitor the negotiations” between Uber and Grubhub and to initiate an antitrust investigation if a rumored deal between the two companies comes to pass.
In a letter signed by Senators Amy Klobuchar, Patrick Leahy, Richard Blumenthal and Cory Booker, the lawmakers caution that a merger between Uber’sfood delivery service Uber Eats and

It’s been a rough couple months for BuzzFeed (and media in general), but the company is still releasing fun new features.
Today’s addition offers a new, more social take on the quizzes that the site is known for. Instead of taking a quiz on your own and then sharing the results on social media (or simply thinking to yourself, “That’s right, I am a total Samantha” and moving on with your life), you can now take that quiz with friends.
With BuzzFeed Quiz Party, when y

Image: Lego/Nintendo Lego and Nintendo had already announced that their interactive Super Mario Lego starter set and two expansion packs would launch on August 1st, and the two companies announced today that four swappable outfits for Mario, called “Power-Up Packs,” will also be released on the same day.
Inspired by the classic costumes from the Super Mario games, the Power-Up Packs not only change the appearance of Lego Mario but will also produce sounds for each corresponding suit

Image: Lego/Nintendo Lego and Nintendo had already announced that their interactive Super Mario Lego starter set and two expansion packs would launch on August 1st, and the two companies announced today that four swappable outfits for Mario, called “Power-Up Packs,” will also be released on the same day.
Inspired by the classic costumes from the Super Mario games, the Power-Up Packs not only change the appearance of Lego Mario but will also produce sounds for each corresponding suit

Virgin Orbithas been preparing for this moment for years, but it’s now officially ready to launch its small satellite delivery vehicle to orbit for the first time. This key demonstration mission, taking off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California, will replicate the actual operational launch experience that Virgin Orbit hopes to provide its customers going forward.
The company is targeting Sunday May 24 at 10 AM PT (1 PM ET) for this historic launch, with a four-hour window on the day

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Tesla voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against Alameda County “without prejudice,” according to documents filed in a California court Wednesday — but the company did not provide any reasoning for why it was dropping the suit.The electric carmaker sued the county on May 9th, amid Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s war of words with county officials over the shuttering of his company’s manufacturing facility in Fremont, California.the compa

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Intel has acquired Rivet Networks, the maker of Killer-branded NICs (network interface cards responsible for managing your connection) found in some laptops from popular brands like Dell, Alienware, HP, and other manufacturers. Killer’s own networking products were noteworthy for providing gaming-centric features like minimizing latency to keep you from missing a beat in-game, and prioritizing network traffic for games and other applications that ne

Teslahas officially dismissed a lawsuit filed earlier this month against Alameda County that sought to force the reopening of its factory in Fremont, Calif.
The dismissal, which was granted Wednesday, closes the loop on a battle between Tesla CEO Elon Muskand county health and law enforcement officials. The lawsuit, filed May 9 hours after Musk threatened to sue and move operations out of state, sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Alameda County. Reuters was the first to report the

Photo by David Bush for The Verge Tesla is raising the price of the top tier “Full Self-Driving” version of its Autopilot driver assistance package by around $1,000 on July 1st, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter this week. The company has done this before — a few times. It will probably do it again.
The “Full Self-Driving” package, to be clear, does not yet make Teslas capable of driving without human intervention. Right now, it gives customers access to a series

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge Facebook will begin reopening its offices worldwide on July 6th with stringent safety measures in place, according to a new report from Bloomberg published on Wednesday. The reopening plan is part of a multistep process the social network has in place to begin restoring some of its in-person operations, which are crucial to its data center management and the development of hardware like the Portal video chatting device and its Oculus line of virtual rea

WarnerMediaannounced today that director Zack Snyder’s version of “Justice League” will be released on HBOMax in 2021.
Snyder is the only credited director on the 2017 superhero film, but he left the film during post-production, after his daughter’s suicide, with “Avengers” director Joss Whedon stepping in to write and shoot new material.
The resulting film received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, leading to corporate shakeups at DC En

Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images A group of Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), is calling on the Trump administration Wednesday to launch an antitrust investigation into Uber and Grubhub if the two companies decide to merge.In their Wednesday letter, Klobuchar, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) requested that the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission “closely monitor” talks of a deal between the two foo

It’s that special time of year when both Mental Health Awareness Month in the US and Mental Health Awareness Week in the EU combine forces to become Super Duper Mental Health Awareness Time. We made that last part up, but the fact of the matter is that it’s safe to say those of us born after World War II have never collectively experienced anything like the COVID-19 pandemic as a global community. Everyone is affected by the pandemic in one way or another, and everyone has mental he

This week Alexia Bonatsos of Dream Machine and Niko Bonatsos of General Catalyst swung by Extra Crunch Live to discuss where they are investing today and what the future might look like.
As expected, these seed and early-stage venture capitalists had a lot to say about their current investing cadence and what interests them in the world of edtech, Clubhouse and more. A big thanks to everyone who came out and submitted some great questions.
Going back through the chat today, a few sections jumped

Apple’s EarPods are perhaps the most iconic accessory ever included with a gadget. The white headphones have been through a few revisions, but they’ve been a staple ever since the original iPod, only becoming more popular with the advent of the iPhone. Unfortunately, they might soon be going the way of the dodo. According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo(via 9to5Mac), the iPhone 12 family may be the first ever to not come with bundled headphones. Granted, this shouldn’t come as t

Zoran Basich ContributorShare on Twitter Zoran Basich is the crypto editor for Andreessen Horowitz. More posts by this contributorCrypto Startup School: A new type of computer drives waves of innovation
Editor’s note: Andreessen Horowitz’s Crypto Startup School brought together 45 participants from around the U.S. and overseas in a seven-week course to learn how to build crypto companies. Andreessen Horowitz is partnering with TechCrunch to release the online version of the course ov

Palantir, the data analytics company co-founded by Peter Thiel,is already an active tech player in the scrum for federal contracts, but it’s playing a new and increasingly prominent role in providing the government with software tools to address the COVID-19 crisis.
This month, the Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a new $5 million contract to Palantir through veteran-owned software reseller i3 Federal LLC, which lists Palantir as a partner. The contract, set to run through November,

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Nick Bryner, a high school senior in Los Angeles, spent hours completing his AP English Literature and Composition test last week. But when he snapped a photo of a written answer with his iPhone and attempted to upload it to the testing portal, it stopped responding.The website got stuck on the loading screen until Bryner’s time ran out. Bryner failed the test. He’s retaking it in a few weeks.Bryner is among the many high school students a

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In the majority of Verizon’s 5G markets, uploads have so far remained on LTE and been unable to match the blistering download speeds of millimeter-wave. But that’s changing today. Verizon says that 5G uploads are now available in all 5G markets, so if you’re an early adopter and already have a 5G smartphone, you should notice this speed bump.
But as always, there are caveats.For one, Verizon doesn’t want custom

Scientists claim they can “teach” an AI moral reasoning by training it to extract ideas of right and wrong from texts. Researchers from Darmstadt University of Technology (DUT) in Germany fed their model books, news, and religious literature so it could learn the associations between different words and sentences. After training the system, they say it adopted the values of the texts. As the team put it in their research paper: The resulting model, call

Demonstration of UV disinfecting technology at the Corona Maintenance Facility on Tue., May 19, 2020. | Photo: MTA New York City Transit The Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched its pilot to use powerful ultraviolet lamps to disinfect New York City’s subways and buses.The agency says it will deploy 150 mobile devices to clean subways, buses, and subway stations as part of the first phase of the pilot. The second phase will focus on MetroNorth and Long Island Rail Road commuter t

Disney announced today that episodes from the first 19 seasons (and parts of the 20th season) of The Simpsons would be available to stream on Disney Plus in their original 4:3 ratio starting May 28th, fixing one of the biggest criticisms of the streaming service following its launch last November. Disney initially announced last month that it was aiming to have the correct aspect ratio available by the end of May, but they did not specify what day in May.The Simpsons aired in a 4:3 aspect ratio

Autonomous aviation startup Xwing locked in a $10 million funding round before COVID-19 hit. Now the San Francisco-based startup is using the capital to hire talent and scale the development of its software stack as it aims for commercial operations later this year — pending FAA approvals.
The company announced Wednesday its Series A funding round, which was led by R7 Partners,with participation from early-stage VC Alven, Eniac Venturesand Thales Corporate Ventures. Xwing has already hired

The long rumored “Snyder Cut” of director Zack Snyder’s Justice League is very much real, and it’ll be streaming on HBO Max as an exclusive in 2021.
“I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized. Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality,” said Snyder in a statement announcing the news.
The Snyder cut’s hi

What do people tend to get wrong about remote work? And how can companies make it work better for them?
While just about every tech company on the planet has become remote over the last few weeks, GitLab has been at this a while — since pretty much day one of its existence back in 2014, in fact. Since then they’ve grown to more than 1,200 employees across 65 countries, with a staggering valuation of nearly $3 billion. They’ve figured out some stuff along the way, sharing it all

Today GoProentered the cutthroat business of personal lighting. This is the GoPro Zeus Mini; it looks like a rad little light, though it’s a curious product from an action camera company.
The waterproof Zeus Mini costs $69.99 and ships with a magnetic spring clip. GoPro says the light is also compatible with all of GoPro’s mounts. The versatile mounts could be the best thing about the Zeus Mini. This light makes sense for those invested in GoPro’s ecosystem. Already have a GoPr

If you tuned into Microsoft’s Build developer keynote yesterday, one of the things you may have seen was a mysterious “RGV2cw” 3D-printed object on the shelf behind CEO Satya Nadella. It was part of many Easter eggs hidden throughout Microsoft’s Build stream, spelling out “devs” in Base64 format.
The shelf also had little Easter eggs hidden away, including an 8-inch floppy disc, an original Microsoft cap, the GitHub Octocat mascot, and even a Gold Master CD-RO

More than five years after starting the company, Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield is stepping down as CEO of the U.K. challenger bank to take up the newly created role of president.
Current U.S. CEO, TS Anil, will become the new “MonzoUK Bank CEO,” subject to regulatory approval, and for now will hold both U.K. and U.S. roles.
Anil previously held exec roles at Visa, Standard Chartered Bank and Citi, and therefore brings a ton of banking and financial services experience. This includes

Image: Call of Duty League The Call of Duty League (CDL) announced on Tuesday that you’ll soon be able to earn in-game rewards, or “drops,” for watching CDL broadcasts, and the Overwatch League has detailed its plans for drops as well. The announcements follow Activision Blizzard and YouTube’s multiyear deal announced in January that made the Google-owned video platform the exclusive streaming partner for Activision’s esports leagues.To earn the rewards for watchin

Conversa Health, the automated chat technology for healthcare updates, is pitching a modified version of its service specifically to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19.
The company’s personalized automated chat asks about employees’ potential exposure to the novel coronavirus and then asks about potential symptoms.
Once employees complete the survey they are either cleared to go into work and receive a digital badge that they’ve taken the check up, or are instructed to stay home

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T’s actual 5G network is rolling out to major parts of the US this year, but the company’s fake 5G network — which it calls “5G Evolution” and shortens to “5G E” when it appears in the corner of smartphones — has remained the subject of controversy for the last two years. Now, the carrier says it may stop the charade after the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) recommended it cease using the mis

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple released iOS 13.5 today with two new features that are a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic: changes to Face ID to make it easier to unlock your phone if you’re wearing a face mask and support for the first phase of Apple and Google’s jointly-developed exposure notification system.
On previous versions of iOS, if you were wearing a face mask and tried to use Face ID to access your phone, you’d have to wait for a couple seco

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is testing a way to let you limit how many people can reply to your tweets. If you’re part of the test, when you compose a tweet, you’ll be able to select if you’ll allow replies from everyone, people you follow, or only people you @ mention. Twitter said in January that this feature would be coming to the platform sometime this year.Here’s a video from Twitter showing how the feature works:
Testing, testing...A new way to

Applehas released iOS 13.5, which includes support for the Exposure Notification API that it co-created with Google to support public health authorities in their contact-tracing efforts to combat COVID-19. The API requires third-party apps developed by public health authorities for use, and none have yet been released, but iOS device users already have access to COVID-19 Exposure Logging global settings.
As previewed in the beta release, you can access the Exposure Logging settings under the Set

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, Apple and Google rolled out support for their coronavirus exposure notification system, as implemented in an update to iOS and Android. First announced on April 10th, the system uses a complex BLE Beacon protocol to allow users to track recent exposures to other users who have tested positive for COVID-19. The companies have pledged not to collect data from the framework or otherwise monetize it, and they intend to shut the system down once

Appleand Googletoday made available the first public version of their exposure notification API, which was originally debuted as a joint contact-tracing software tool. The partners later renamed it the Exposure Notification system to more accurately reflect its functionality, which is designed to notify individuals of potential exposure to others who have confirmed cases of COVID-19, while preserving privacy around identifying info and location data.
The launch today means that public health age

Twitter today acknowledged that it has begun testing a new setting that lets users limit who can reply to tweets. The setting was first noted earlier this year. Similar to Facebook’s post view settings, the current implementation features a small glove icon in the corner. Tapping on it brings up a “Who Can Reply?” window.
Testing, testing…
A new way to have a convo with exactly who you want. We’re starting with a small % globally, so keep yourout to see it in actio