Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You’d think that months of reading about overflowing hospitals and mounting death statistics would scare almost anyone into following the current Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations: wear a mask in public spaces to protect others from possible infection, especially since there is no current way to be sure who may be an asymptomatic transmitter — particularly in relatively crowded urban areas.
However, these days, when I go out fo

Amazon Seattle’s NHL team doesn’t have a name yet, but its arena does, after Amazon secured the naming rights to the former Key Arena. But if you guessed the new name would be Amazon Arena, surprise! It will officially be known as the Climate Pledge Arena, a nod to the $2 billion initiative CEO Jeff Bezos announced last year, which sets goals for Amazon to become net carbon neutral by 2040.Of course, that initiative only came after thousands of Amazon employees signed an open letter

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is reclosing 14 more of its retail locations in Florida due to a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. Of the 18 Apple Store locations in Florida, only two currently remain open, one in Jacksonville and another in Sarasota, according to Bloomberg. The tally of closed US Apple stores is currently at 32, which represents 10 percent of the company’s total number of 272 stores in the country.Apple last month began reopening a majority of its US retail loc

In an act of immense humility, Amazon announced Thursday that it had secured the naming rights to the future home of Seattle's National Hockey League (NHL) team and will be calling it the "Climate Pledge Arena."
The name refers to the "climate pledge" Amazon announced and signed on to in 2019, which asks businesses to commit to becoming carbon neutral by 2040. 
On Tuesday, the company announced that its carbon footprint grew 15 percent in 2019 compared to 2018.Welcome to the first net zero

Toronto is considered a world-class city when it comes to food, culture, sports and entertainment. With most of the city on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, it might feel like all that the city has to offer is off limits. Toronto’s people and businesses are resilient and creative, though. They have found innovative ways to offer their services while the city moves toward lifting restrictions. 
With things slowly beginning to open up again, including patios at 50 percent capac

Some of League of Legends’ most popular characters are getting a medical-themed makeover. Today, developer Riot revealed a new line of cosmetics for the strategy game, sales of which will be donated to pandemic-related charity efforts. The new lineup includes skins for three characters — Akali, Shen, and Kennen — along with various icons, emotes, and other cosmetic upgrades. Each item will be sold individually, but there’s also a bundle available that comes with an exclus

Some of League of Legends’ most popular characters are getting a medical-themed makeover. Today, developer Riot revealed a new initiative featuring a line of cosmetics for the strategy game, sales of which will be donated to pandemic-related charity efforts. The lineup includes skins for three characters — Akali, Shen, and Kennen — along with various icons, emotes, and other cosmetic upgrades. Each item will be sold individually, but there’s also a bundle available that c

The coronavirus pandemic has upended life as we know it, mandating we sequester ourselves to slow the spread of a potentially deadly illness that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally. 
That reality presents a whole host of complications to everyday life. One major issue: How do we educate our kids?
The initial spike in COVID-19 cases this spring forced nearly all classes to move online. Parents had to pivot overnight to being educators for their kids. Teachers had to make dra

Cadillac will reveal its first electric vehicle, the Lyriq SUV, during a virtual event on August 6th. The vehicle’s original April 2nd debut was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.GM, Cadillac’s parent company, announced the Lyriq at an “EV Day” event last March in Warren, Michigan, that showcased a new modular electric vehicle platform meant to power a wide range of the company’s electric models in the coming years. The Lyriq will be the first electric luxury

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge California EV startup Lucid Motors gave up majority ownership to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in exchange for the $1.3 billion investment it closed last year, according to an email from the company’s lawyers that was included in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
The lawsuit was filed by Lucid Motors’ former head of finance, Doug Coates, who believes he’s entitled to certain severance benefits based on the language of the deal he

Google Street View car with an Aclima air pollution sensor. | Photo: Aclima Google and Aclima, a company that maps hyperlocal air pollution, announced today that researchers can now access a treasure trove of new data that can bolster efforts to both combat climate change and clean up the air. It’s the result of four years of measurements taken by Google Street View vehicles in California outfitted with Aclima sensors.
The dataset offers researchers a close-up look at changes in air quali

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The $999 Skydio 2 self-flying drone is one of the most incredible gadgets I’ve ever touched, but it’s got its fair share of issues. It’s been practically impossible to buy, and we found the nearly crash-proof drone could crash during some landings.But at least those two specific issues may be going away soon. Today, Skydio says it’s back on sale, greatly increasing its production capacity, and the company just issued a huge software upda

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US House Committee on Oversight and Reform has opened an investigation into how data broker Venntel collects and sells data from Americans’ mobile phones to government agencies for warrantless tracking, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
In a letter to Venntel CEO Chris Gildea, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) write that they’re looking into wheth

Waymo is the “exclusive global L4 partner” for Volvo Car Group, the two companies announced Thursday.That means that Volvo will integrate Waymo’s autonomous driving technology, widely considered to be among the best in the world, into a fleet of electric robotaxis that it will deploy at some point in the future. The deal also applies to Volvo’s two subrands, its electric performance company Polestar and its Chinese brand Lynk & Co.“Fully autonomous vehicles have

Earlier today, insurtech unicorn Lemonade filed an S-1/A, providing context into how the former startup may price its IPO and what the company may be worth when it begins to trade.
According to its new filing, Lemonade expects its IPO to price at $23 to $26 per share. As the company intends to sell 11 million shares in its debut, the rental and home insurance-focused unicorn would raise between $253 million and $286 million at those prices.
Counting an additional 1.65 million shares that it will

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has filed a petition asking California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to par back some of the conditions that CPUC insisted on when it agreed to approve the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint earlier this year. It’s requesting changes to its 5G rollout timing, requirements of new jobs, and testing requirements for its 5G network, via Engadget.T-Mobile’s filing makes three requests. First, that the date for T-Mobile’s 5G r

It'll soon cost you $8,000 to buy a Tesla upgrade package, which includes some features that don't even exist yet. 
Tesla's Full Self-Driving package is a future-ready option for those ready to invest in partially automated driving capabilities, even if some of those capabilities— like autonomous driving on city streets — aren't ready yet. But eventually. At an unknown date. 
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is hiking up the price by $1,000 for the set of features on July 1.Reminde

On Halloween in 2018, a colossal lightning flash streaked across the Brazilian sky. 
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite captured the "megaflash," and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Wednesday that this mighty bolt stretched some 440.6 miles (give or take five miles) across the sky. That's about the distance between Washington, D.C. and Boston.
The WMO also certified the greatest duration for a flash, at 16.73 seconds. That extreme event

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior will cease to exist in the UK come October 1st, as Disney moves those channels’ titles exclusively to Disney Plus.The move comes after Disney failed to reach a distribution agreement with Sky and Virgin Media, according to trade publication Broadcast. Sky, which is owned by Comcast, is one of the largest pay-TV services in the UK. Sky’s premium pay-TV service, Sky Q, also offers Disney Plus to i

Ohio EV startup Lordstown Motors revealed its first electric pickup truck, the Endurance, for the first time today at an event that featured Vice President Mike Pence.The truck, which is aimed at the commercial market, is powered by four in-hub electric motors that give it not only all-wheel drive but the ability to independently deliver differing amounts of torque to each wheel, which especially helps when driving off-road or in poor conditions.But other than that, very little is known about th

Illustration by Alex Castro / Th On Thursday, Democrats introduced a new bill that would ban federal law enforcement from using facial recognition technology and make it more difficult for state and local police departments to use the tech.
The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2020, introduced by Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) on Thursday, would ban federal agencies from using facial recogni

Valve has kicked off its 2020 summer sale on Steam, knocking prices down for a huge number of PC games until July 9th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. To name a few especially great discounts, Resident Evil 3 is down to $40 (usually $60), Doom Eternal is $30 (usually $60), Outer Wilds is $16.65 (usually $25), Halo: The Master Chief Collection is $32 (usually $40), Half-Life: Alyx is $45 (usually $60), and Mortal Kombat 11 is $20 (usually $60). We’ll rattle off a few more deals below, but you can check

A group Google Duo call on a Nest Hub Max smart display | Photo: Google Google is expanding the ways you can make video calls on smart displays powered by Google Assistant with new support for group calling in Google Meet and Duo. The new video group calling abilities will be available on the Nest Hub Max and other Assistant smart displays with cameras starting today.
Just like you can do with one-on-one calls, it’s possible to start a group call from a smart display with either your voic

You can finally use your Nest Hub Max for happy hours and birthday parties. On Thursday, Google announced the device can be used to make group video calls with Duo and Meet. 
That also means Facebook's Portal now has some competition.
While the Hub Max is capable of making video calls, it's been limited to one-on-one video chat sessions. Now you can use both Duo and Meet to chat with up to 32 or 100 people, respectively, which is far more than Facebook Portal's eight person limit. But you c

The recent movement of protests against police brutality and white supremacy in the United States have enabled many American institutions to rethink their contributions to a culture that systematically disenfranchises Black Americans. One such company is Disney, which committed to changing the theme of one of their parks' most iconic attractions. 
Splash Mountain, which appears at Disneyland in California, Walt Disney World in Florida, and Tokyo Disneyland, has long been critiqued for drawi

TL;DR: Buy an eye-catching Dyson TP02 Pure Cool Link tower air purifier for just $299.99 at Best Buy, as of June 25. As we continue to spend more time indoors, it's still important to remember the importance of fresh, clean air. While an occasional socially-distanced walk outside is important, we can't neglect to keep our indoor spaces free of dust and allergens with a handy air purifier. And now it's easier than ever to avoid stuffy air at home with a stylish Dyson air purifier on sale rig

CD Projekt Red has debuted two new gameplay trailers for the highly anticipated (and recently delayed again) Cyberpunk 2077. One trailer, “The Gig” shows off some of the game’s prologue, which sees player character V caught up in a heist for a bio-chip, which kicks off the rest of the game.
The trailer also shows off new aspects of the game, including the open-world “Badlands” region and Adam Smasher, a hulking cyborg character that fans of the pen-and-paper RPG mig

Image: CD Projekt Red Studio Trigger, the anime production company made up of former members of the legendary studio Gainax, is producing a Cyberpunk 2077 anime for Netflix set to premiere in 2022. Called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the anime will be a standalone story set in the world of developer CD Projekt Red’s upcoming open-world action roleplaying game.Here’s how CD Projekt Red describes it:CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS tells a standalone, 10-episode story about a street kid trying to su

After taking a decade-long break from space tourism, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos plans to send two paying tourists to the International Space Station in 2023 on a short flight of the country’s Soyuz spacecraft. While they’re up there, one of the tourists will perform a spacewalk with an experienced Russian cosmonaut — a first for any private citizen visiting the ISS.
To fly the tourists, Roscosmos is working with US company Space Adventures, which arranges

Photo by Yu Chun Christopher Wong/S3studio/Getty Images PUBG Mobile has managed to become one of the most popular — and lucrative — games in the world by adapting the battle royale genre in ways that make sense for a smartphone. It still mostly feels like regular PUBG but in a version you can slip in your pocket. Now the development team is taking that philosophy a step further by introducing a new, smaller map designed explicitly for playing quick matches on the go. “We want

In a trailer labled "The Gig," the folks behind Cyberpunk 2077 showed off some key new elements around the upcoming game during IGN's Summer of Gaming stream Thursday.
The new trailer gives a glimpse at some of the story and gameplay of Cyberpunk 2077, detailing a mission that involves breaking into a corporation's building to steal a biochip, a high-risk, high-reward kind of situation. 
There's plenty of combat, driving, and character conversations abound too, giving our first real look at

A handful of folks in Palm Beach County, Florida have some... ideas... about not wearing masks. And those ideas touch on everything from "devil love," to the constitution, to Bill Gates needing to be jailed for entirely unclear reasons. 
The anti-mask crusaders made their voices heard on Tuesday ahead of a vote where the county's board of commissioners would ultimately pass a measure requiring people to wear masks in public.
To be clear: This is a good thing. Masks have been proven to be re

Netflix The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has sued Netflix over its upcoming film Enola Holmes, arguing that the movie’s depiction of public domain character Sherlock Holmes having emotions and respecting women violates Doyle’s copyright.
Enola Holmes is based on a series of novels by Nancy Springer starring a newly created teenage sister of the famous detective. They feature many elements from Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, and most of these elements aren’t covered