Technology news

Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images Boeing said it would resume manufacturing the troubled 737 Max airplane after a nearly five-month hiatus. The aerospace company said it would restart production “at a low rate as it implements more than a dozen initiatives focused on enhancing workplace safety and product quality.”
The Boeing 737 Max has been grounded since March 2018 following two fatal crashes that killed a total of 346 passengers and crew members. Boeing continued to manufacture

twitter censorship Social media sites can legally ban users for nearly any reason. They can ban users for off-color jokes. They can ban users for being white supremacists. They can ban users for totally arbitrary and inscrutable reasons. If you sue over a Twitter or Facebook ban, you will almost certainly lose. Despite this, people keep filing lawsuits claiming they’ve been censored on social media — and today, courts handed down another defeat.
An appeals court in Washington, DC ju

Image: Sony Sony and Naughty Dog showed off nearly 24 minutes of new footage for the highly anticipated The Last of Us Part II in a State of Play video today.
The Last of Us Part II seems to share a lot of similarities with the first game — you’ll still be spending a lot of time crawling behind cover to hide from people or the zombie-like Infected. But today’s video showed off some new features, including swinging on a rope to cross a chasm, riding a boat through a flooded are

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From time to time a really bad post on a social network gets a lot of attention. Say a head of state falsely accuses a journalist of murder, or suggests that mail-in voting is illegal — those would be pretty bad posts, I think, and most people working inside and outside of the social network could probably agree on that. In my experience, though, average people and tech people tend to think very differently about what to do about a post like that. T

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge The annual Pokémon Go Fest will be held online from July 25th to July 26th this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event is usually held in select cities across the globe, allowing players to meet up at physical locations like large parks and play the popular AR title. The first Pokémon Go Fest was held in Chicago in 2017 to celebrate the game’s one-year anniversary, but future festivals would expand to other countries, including Japan

GOG.com has kicked off its summer sale on DRM-free PC games, filled with deals on new and old titles. This sale lasts until June 15th. A few of the highlights include Metro Exodus for $20 and Prey: Digital Deluxe Edition, which includes the base game, its soundtrack, and the Mooncrash DLC for just $12. Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition is $22.50, which is an excellent price for such a huge game (and it supports cross-save with the Nintendo Switch version of the game).In addition to d

CA Attorney Gen. Becerra responding to Trump revoking the state’s emissions waiver | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The Trump administration was sued by attorneys general from 23 states and the District of Columbia over the controversial rolling back of Obama-era fuel standards. A coalition of environmental and health groups also filed suit today over the rollback. It’s the latest legal battle in President Donald Trump’s efforts to undo Obama-era plans to cut back on ai

Apple is acquiring Fraggle Rock’s past TV seasons ahead of a new reboot set to land on Apple TV Plus, signaling a potential strategy shift for a service that has thus far relied entirely on original content.
The new Fraggle Rock reboot is being created in partnership with the Jim Henson Company and will bring back characters from the original series “for new songs and adventures, with the same spirit as the classic,” according to a press release. Apple doesn’t mention the

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images For years, Donald Trump’s fight against social media companies has been a one-man boxing match. He calls them out over bias, and they rewrite policies making him the one exception to their rules, taking care never to punch back. But on Tuesday, Twitter slapped back for the first time ever, labeling two tweets as making false and misleading claims about mail-in voting.
On Wednesday morning, predictably, Trump hit back. In a series of early morning

Photo: Bikeshare Museum Uber is sending tens of thousands of its electric Jump bikes to the scrap yard, weeks after offloading the money-losing bike-share division on Lime. The news of the scrapped bikes has incensed bike enthusiasts on social media, one of whom decried the act as “unconscionable.”Uber confirmed in a statement that it was “recycling” many of Jump’s older bikes and scooters after transferring “tens of thousands” of the newer models to Li

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images The White House has set its sights on a single Twitter employee after the company attached a fact-checking link to two of the president’s tweets containing lies and misinformation related to voter fraud. The charge was led on Fox News Wednesday morning, with Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway targeting Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, after digging up some tweets that were critical of Trump, Conway, and the administration.Conway called the emp

HBO Max has arrived. Combining the vast content empire of AT&T’s WarnerMedia — HBO, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, DC Entertainment, TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, The CW, Crunchyroll, and Adult Swim — into a single streaming service already gives HBO Max one of the broadest streaming catalogs around.Additional licensed content, including the works of Studio Ghibli, titles from the Criterion Collection, shows from the BBC, and popular series like Friends and The Big Bang T

Photo by Nick Statt / The Verge Microsoft’s Mixer streaming platform is making a bigger splash in the live event game with a new tournament series starting this week featuring Fortnite player Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. Called Ninja Battles Featuring Fortnite, the weekly tournament series will take place starting this week on May 28th and lasting every Thursday through July, reports Deadline.The event will be hosted on Ninja’s Mixer channel, which is the platform’s most

Samsung unveiled Wednesday a new partnership with Mastercard and fintech company SoFi to offer a new "mobile-first money management experience" called Samsung Money.
The experience consists of a Mastercard debit card managed with the aid of online personal finance company SoFi. Samsung is also touting a lack of account fees, rewards for saving money, and exclusive benefits linked to the company's mobile payment and digital wallet service called Samsung Pay.
Image:mastercard
By enrolling in the S

Kellyanne Conway is not above a good old-fashioned Twitter harassment campaign. 
As counselor to President Donald Trump, Conway speaks with the full force of MAGA trolls at her beck and call. On Wednesday, following Twitter's decision to fact-check two of Trump's tweets, she directed their attention to the company's head of site integrity, Yoel Roth.
The result — scores of angry Trump supporters lashing out at Roth's Twitter handle — was predictable and expected. 
On F

Otrium has raised a $26 million Series B funding round (€24 million), with Eight Roads Ventures leading the round. Existing investors Index Ventures and Hans Veldhuizen also participated. Otriumworks with clothing brands to help them sell items when they reach the end-of-season status.
Due to fast fashion, you have to regularly clear some space in your stores and recover inventory from third-party stores to release new items. But end-of-season sales aren’t enough. Brands end up with a

Microsoft is releasing its Windows 10 May 2020 Update today. It’s the latest “major” update to Windows 10, and its big features include the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 and Cortana updates. Microsoft released a final version of the update to testers last month, and everyone on Windows 10 can get access to the May 2020 Update through Windows Update today.
The biggest change to the May 2020 Update is that it includes the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2), with a custom-built

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding new abilities to Outlook’s “Play My Emails” feature, allowing you to use voice control to organize your emails and day-to-day schedule. The company originally released Play My Emails for Outlook last November, letting Microsoft’s AI assistant Cortana read emails out loud to users.With the new features, Cortana will allow you to accept or decline meetings as well as set up a meeting with someone. If someone emails you regarding importa

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Twitch has a new home for gaming news: the channel Twitch Gaming, which will showcase everything from new game reveals to Twitch drops. In a blog post, Twitch says the channel will be led by streamers, and it already promises to break big news — like, for example, the first competitive Valorant events, which will be held on Twitch on the game’s opening weekend.The new channel will also feature indie games. Twitch Gaming will host an ind

Instagram Instagram is continuing to build out its augmented reality effects, and today, it’s announcing that creators can build effects that react to music through Spark AR, the company’s AR-creation tool. Creators can either import their own music, so long as they own the rights to it, or have the effect sync with any song they pick from Instagram’s music library, which contains big hits and popular music for which Instagram pays the licensing fees. To coincide with the laun

Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s Xbox Family Settings App is a new way for parents and guardians to manage how their children spend their gaming time. Available in preview today on Android and iOS, the app lets parents keep tabs and set limits on how their children use Xbox One consoles and, to a lesser extent, Windows 10 PCs.Using the app, parents can create child accounts, set limits on screen time on a per-day basis, filter content based on their child’s age, and view daily and weekl

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Accessing the plethora of settings hidden in Gmail can be a pain, but it’s about to get a little easier. Google is rolling out a quick settings menu, which offers a sampling of options that let you adjust the look of your inbox without leaving the page. Once this new tweak arrives on your account, it will activate automatically, and you won’t have to leave the page to see the visual changes you make to your inbox.
The quick settings menu conta

Image: Sony Sony is reportedly planning a PlayStation 5 game event for June 3rd. Bloomberg reports that Sony’s virtual event is tentatively planned for next week but that “plans have been in flux and that the day may change.” Sony is said to be focusing on games for this PS5 event and is not expected to “reveal every essential detail” on the console during the first event.
Further events are planned in the coming weeks and months, much like how rival Microsoft has

Image: Netflix A universal experience when it comes to dating: after a while, it’s hard to go out without getting roped into a murder mystery. The Lovebirds, a new Netflix movie starring Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae, follows a couple with this terribly relatable problem in one of the funniest romantic comedies of the year so far — even if it’s light on the “romantic” part of the equation. Another strong selling point: a light runtime of 87 minutes, which is a wonde

Image: Instagram For the first time in its history, Instagram will start sharing revenue with creators through ads in IGTV and badges that viewers can purchase on Instagram Live. The company has hinted that ads would come to IGTV for more than a year, often saying the long-form video offering would be the most likely place it’d first pay creators.Next week, ads will begin showing up in IGTV for only around 200 approved, English-speaking creator partners, including Adam Waheed and Lele Pon

The Crew Dragon spacecraft sits atop a Falcon 9 rocket. | Image: SpaceX For the first time since 2011, a space mission carrying two passengers to the International Space Station will launch from US soil. It will also mark the first time a private spacecraft has carried astronauts into orbit — and you can watch all the action live.NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be aboard SpaceX’s capsule (named the Crew Dragon), which will be carried into orbit by a Falcon 9 rocket.

All eight Harry Potter movies are streaming on HBO Max, which is surprising considering executives were clamoring to bring the Boy Who Lived home to the newly launched streaming service but weren’t clear as recently as earlier this week when that would happen.The Harry Potter films were originally tied up in a deal with NBCUniversal — which has a number of TV networks alongside its own Peacock streaming service, and still maintains a robust library on Hulu — until 2025. Kevin R

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Woot is offering the iPhone XS Max at its lowest price yet. You can pick up a new model in the space gray color with 64GB for $700. This is 30 percent off of its usual price, and if you’re not keen on having the latest generation of iPhone, it’s a good way to save. The 2018 iPhone XS Max has a big 6.5-inch OLED screen, and it’s powered by the A12 Bionic processor. The version that Woot is selling is unlocked to work with any US carrier.
Woot

Samsung has announced further details for its upcoming debit card program: it’s called Samsung Money by SoFi (which, as previously announced, is partnering with Samsung on the program), and it’ll tie in directly with the existing Samsung Pay app.Originally announced earlier in May, today’s news offers more concrete information on what Samsung Money will actually offer — specifically, a cash management account and a Samsung Money debit card (a Mastercard issued by The Banc

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Mobile gaming achieved a record-breaking high during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from App Annie and IDC. With people worldwide stuck inside due to social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, weekly game downloads rose 35 percent, up to 1.2B, in March. “Mobile is now the primary driver of growth for digital games consumption, increasingly becoming the world’s preferred form of gaming,” the annual report reads.
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Student loans are both a trillion-dollar debt category and also one of the most popular mini-verticals out there in fintech startup investing right now. There are dozens if not hundreds of companies in the space, and they all mostly do one of two things: either they help students think through their student loan options before choosing one (acting as a financial advisor to avoid mistakes) or they help students after they finish school figure out how to optimize their repayments or acquire loan f

Just like nearly everything else on the internet, streaming services are ruled by recommendation algorithms that are designed to predetermine what people want before they ask for it.WarnerMedia is trying to accomplish the opposite with HBO Max. The company’s new streaming service, which will allow for three concurrent streams, is positing itself as a human-first platform — the opposite of Netflix’s strategy. As streaming becomes more of a centerpiece in people’s homes and

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google will soon let businesses add additional descriptors to their listings that appear in Google Search and Maps results to better help potential customers understand what a business offers at a glance. The company is adding these new descriptors and announcing a number of other features today to help businesses better surface important information for customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.The new descriptors, which Google calls “attributes,”