Technology news

Images: Audi Audi has unveiled concept renderings of a new “Sportback” version of the Q4 E-Tron electric SUV that it debuted last year. Meant to serve as a smaller and more affordable option to the flagship E-Tron, the Q4s are expected to go on sale in 2021 and will start at around $45,000.The Q4 and the Q4 Sportback are “identical twins” from a technical perspective, according to Audi. As such, the Sportback version will also be powered by parent company Volkswagen&rsqu

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge The US Supreme Court has upheld a federal ban on robocalls to cellphones from 1991, and it struck down a provision that exempted government-debt collectors.“Americans passionately disagree about many things,” reads the majority opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “But they are largely united in their disdain for robocalls.”
The ruling concerns the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which prohibited “almost all

If you're trying to inject some positivity into your Instagram posts, the new Pinned Comments feature could help. The feature, which Instagram started testing back in May, is now officially available everywhere.
Instagram's VP of Product, Vishal Shah, took to Twitter to announce that you can now pin a few (of what will likely be your favorite) comments to the top of the comments thread on your posts.Today we’re rolling out pinned comments everywhere 📌That means you can a pin a few

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, the electrical engineering and computer science division of the esteemed German research organization, on Tuesday announced VVC, a new video codec standard that promises to bring around 50 percent efficiency gains in streaming video compression.The codec’s full name is H.266/Versatile Video Coding, as Fraunhofer says it’s designed to be a successor to the industry-standard H.264/Advanced Video Coding (A

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, the electrical engineering and computer science division of the esteemed German research organization, on Tuesday announced VVC, a new video codec standard that promises to bring around 50 percent efficiency gains in streaming video compression.The codec’s full name is H.266/Versatile Video Coding, as Fraunhofer says it’s designed to be a successor to the industry-standard H.264/Advanced Video Coding (A

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge After months of escalating pressure, leaders from the #StopHateForProfit boycott campaign met with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives today. But in a call with reporters after the meeting, organizers from Color of Change, Free Press, the NAACP, and the Anti-Defamation League described the meeting as frustrating.
“The meeting that we just left was a disappointment,” said Color of Change president Rashad Robinson. &ldqu

In the face of mounting advertiser pressure over its handling of hate speech, Mark Zuckerberg today met with the leaders of the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, the Free Press, and the Color Of Change. It did not go well. 
With an ever-increasing number of business pulling advertising dollars from Facebook as part the #StopHateForProfit boycott, the social media behemoth's COO, Sheryl Sandberg, announced Tuesday the "need to take action." Unfortunately, according to the group behind the c

Even in the best of times, finding a notary can be a challenge. In the middle of a pandemic, it’s even more difficult. DocuSign announced it has acquired Liveoak Technologies today for approximately $38 million, giving the company an online notarization option.
At the same time, DocuSignannounced a new product called DocuSign Notary, which should ease the notary requirement by allowing it to happen online along with the eSignature. As we get deeper into the pandemic, companies like DocuSig

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Over the past few weeks, dozens of people connected to the game industry have shared stories of abuse on Twitter. One company in particular, Ubisoft, has had multiple allegations leveled against high-ranking employees, including executives Tommy François and Maxime Béland. In a story from Kotaku, Ethan Gach reports that employees of Ubisoft Toronto are speaking up to leadership “with grave concerns about ongoing reported harassment and

Ever take a Portrait mode photo on your iPhone and wish you could do the same with video?
Well, you're in luck, thanks to a new app called Focos Live.
SEE ALSO: How to download the iOS 14 public beta on your iPhone
As 9to5Mac points out, other apps simulate background blur after the fact. That's not the case here. Focos Live utilizes “depth data" on the iPhone's front and rear cameras to create a live Portrait mode effect with video.
I tested Focos Live to see how it works. After shooting

Images: eSkootr A group of Formula One and Formula E drivers is starting a new racing series that will pit competitors against each other on ultra-fast custom-built electric scooters. The series — dubbed “Electric Scooter Championship,” or “eSkootr” — is set to launch in 2021, and the launch video shows riders whizzing through city streets on Tron-style vehicles and wearing matching neon-accented gear.
There are, unfortunately, few other details about the ser

This week on The Vergecast interview series, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to founder and CEO of Luta Security Katie Moussouris.
Moussouris has a long history in computer security, working at Microsoft and the Department of Defense creating their first bug bounty programs to incentivize catching and reporting security bugs and vulnerabilities in software systems.
Nilay and Katie discuss the history of bug bounty programs, from the early iterations to the current state of affairs, from

An artistic rendering of astronauts on the Moon, mining resources. | Image: NASA House appropriators don’t intend to substantially increase NASA’s budget, potentially jeopardizing the agency’s plans of sending astronauts back to the Moon by 2024.Today, the House Appropriations Committee released its latest funding bill for fiscal year 2021, detailing the budgets for all commerce, justice, and science agencies in the US. The bill would give NASA a total budget of $22.63 billion

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Employees at Away are calling for founder and co-CEO Steph Korey to immediately resign, after a photo of her dressed as a Native American surfaced on Twitter last Friday.In an anonymous letter to Korey’s co-founder Jen Rubio, and her co-CEO Stuart Haselden, employees wrote: “How many times will we have our jobs disrupted by this woman who clearly has a history of poor judgement? We all have financial stakes in this business and she is putting

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram on Tuesday started the official rollout of its pinned comment feature, which the company first began testing back in May. The feature lets any user pin three comments on a post to the top of a thread, and it’s designed to allow the author of a post to better control the tone of the comment thread through highlighting positivity and moderating more negative and abusive responses that show up below the pinned comments.The original test coinc

Amid a global pandemic that's disproportionally hurting Black-owned small businesses, it's more important than ever to open your purse for Black entrepreneurs, artists, and creatives. And with a second wave of that same pandemic looking more and more likely for the U.S., enrolling in an interesting online class or workshop taught by a Black instructor stands to be one of the best ways to help Black entrepreneurs weather the storm: You'll be using your purchasing power to invest in and elevate Bl

Image: Google Gmail for iPad’s latest update brings long-awaited support for split-view multitasking, meaning you no longer have to open a full Gmail screen to check or send new emails.Google says the feature will work with any other iOS apps that support split-view multitasking. You will need to swipe up at the bottom of the screen to display the dock, touch, and then hold another app, then drag it up to either the left or right side of your screen to open the window in Split View.Apple

Do you know what day it is? How about what time it is? No? That's OK! Neither do I. All I know for sure is that it's the year 2020, and everything feels never-ending.
If you've lost all concept of time or frequently have trouble remembering what day of the week it is — let alone when to eat food, drink alcohol, or stop working — you're not alone.
Living the quarantine life, consuming a painful amount of news every day, and having essentially no use for 2020 planners has really messed

The Mmhmm desktop app. | Image: Mmhmm The future of video chat will look more like Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update than it will Zoom. That’s the bet being made by Phil Libin, who led Evernote as CEO during its glory days and has returned to the intersection of consumer and enterprise software with a virtual camera that could reshape video communication. The product has a name that is ridiculous even by the standards of Silicon Valley — it’s called Mmhmm — and

Even though Shami Oshun grew up in the Bay Area with Silicon Valley basically across the street, when she first heard the term “3D printing” in high school she had no idea what that meant. Her interest was piqued, so she took a summer class to learn the ins and outs of the trade.
Inspired by Iris van Herpen’s integration of 3D printing into haute couture, Oshun saw the possibilities of the technology and started experimenting and teaching herself.
Oshun started her self-titled

The Blackout Day on July 7 isn't the same as the movement that caused Instagram to be covered in black squares last month. This latest Blackout Day isn't about social media at all. Rather, it's about the power of money and how we choose to spend it.
With the mid-pandemic economy as volatile as it is, every dollar is particularly valuable. On July 7, organizers are asking people to refrain from spending a single cent anywhere (except at Black-owned businesses, more on that below) to call attentio

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro at the Planalto Palace in Brasília, Brazil, on June 30, 2020.  | Photo by Andre Borges/NurPhoto via Getty Images Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for COVID-19, he announced today. He is 65 years old. Over the weekend, he attended a US Independence Day event with US Ambassador Todd Chapman, who did not wear a mask.Like US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has downplayed the risks and extent of the COIVD-19 pandemic and said th

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US is considering a ban on Chinese social media apps like the popular video-sharing platform TikTok, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Monday.
“We are taking this very seriously. We are certainly looking at it,” Pompeo said. “With respect to Chinese apps on peoples’ cellphones, the United States will get this one right too.”
Over the last few years, US lawmakers have grown increasingly concerned over TikTok&

Image: Samsung Samsung’s new Galaxy A71 5G UW is launching on July 16th. At $649, it will be the most affordable way to access Verizon’s 5G millimeter-wave network. Preorders for Verizon’s edition of the phone, which was announced last month, will begin on July 9th.
The A71 5G UW has a 6.7-inch OLED display, 128GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, and a 4,500mAh battery. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G processor and features a quad-camera system — including

Illustration by Ana Kova It could take decades before cuts to greenhouse gases actually affect global temperatures, according to a new study. 2035 is probably the earliest that scientists could see a statistically significant change in temperature — and that’s only if humans take dramatic action to combat climate change.Be ready for the long haul
Specifically, 2035 is the year we might expect to see results if we switch from business-as-usual pollution to an ambitious path that limi

Business is the foundation, of, well, business. For startups, finding a working business model and honing it through decision-making, smart hires and relentless focus on the right metrics can be the difference between building a scalable company and collapsing into the next Luckin Coffee.
Given how important business performance and finance is, it’s not uncommon in the early days of a startup to hire an “outsourced CFO” — a part-time financial professional who helps with

Amazon Prime Video is rolling out user profiles for family members and friends who share Prime accounts, the company announced today.Each account will allow for up to six user profiles. One profile will default as the primary account, with five additional profiles allowed. These can be regular accounts or kids accounts. The kids account will restrict what type of content is shown, similar to how other children’s accounts on streaming services like Netflix and HBO Max work. Amazon did not n

Image: Loon Alphabet’s Loon division, which uses floating balloons to provide internet, has today launched its first commercial service in Kenya. In a blog post announcing the news, Loon’s CEO Alastair Westgarth said that the 4G LTE service will be provided to Telkom Kenya subscribers via a fleet of around 35 balloons, covering an area of around 50,000 square kilometers across western and central areas of the country, including its capital, Nairobi.
It’s a significant step for

Yesterday evening Palantir, the quasi-secretive data mining and analysis firm, publicly announced that it has privately filed to go public.
The disclosure came in the wake of Palantir raising new capital, taking on hundreds of millions of dollars before its planned public offering. According to Crunchbase data, Palantir has raised billions while private, making its debut a marquee affair in the worlds of technology, startups and venture capital.
As TechCrunch reported yesterday, Palantir has a c

Toshiba’s 50-inch Fire TV Edition model comes with a free Echo Dot at Best Buy. Buying the right TV and set-top streaming box to go along with it can be stressful and expensive. There’s a deal happening today at Best Buy and Amazon that might be perfect for you if you just want a big TV with some, but not all, of the high-end features found in more expensive models. Plus, it essentially has a Fire TV Stick 4K built-in.
The latest 50-inch Toshiba 4K HDR Fire TV Edition (with Dolby Vi

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Magic Leap has appointed Peggy Johnson, a former Microsoft executive, as its new CEO. Johnson will begin leading the company on August 1st, replacing current CEO and company co-founder Rony Abovitz. Her appointment is part of the struggling mixed reality company’s move toward business customers and away from consumer entertainment and personal computing.
Johnson was Microsoft’s executive vice president of business development as well as the head of

Examples of AI-generated faces, not connected with the network of fake authors described in this news story.| Image: The Verge A network of fictional journalists, analysts, and political consultants has been used to place opinion pieces favorable to certain Gulf states in a range of media outlets, an investigation from The Daily Beast has revealed. At least 19 fake personas were used to author op-eds published in dozens of mainly conservative publications, with AI-generated headshots of would-b

When humans cut their way through forests to dig up gold and other minerals that go into phones, computers, and other devices, they run the risk of being a catalyst for a phenomenon called “spillover.” That’s what happens when a virus makes the leap from one species to another. It’s how two-thirds of new infectious diseases, like COVID-19, emerge.The novel coronavirus that has infected more than 10 million people, killing more than 500,000 worldwide to date, began as an a

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge After 90 days, Quibi’s free trial period has come to an end. Now, executives at the company have their biggest hurdle yet: getting people to willingly pay $5 or $8 a month for a service that most critics argue lacks exciting shows and flopped on launch.Quibi, a shortform video streaming service, is supposed to live in between Netflix and TikTok. Its shows are under 10 minutes each and meant to offer a bite-sized way to watch TV. But so far, peo

Halo 3 will be released on PC on July 14th as part of The Master Chief Collection. PC players will be able to buy Halo 3 on the Microsoft Store or through Steam, and it will be available for free as part of Xbox Game Pass for PC subscriptions. Halo 3 will sit alongside Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo: Reach on PC, with 343 Industries promising to release Halo 3: ODST and Halo 4 later.
Originally developed by Bungie (happy Bungie day!), Halo 3 is the final chapter in the original trilogy o

Rolls-Royce's new limited edition Wraith Kryptos is about to dig into the lucrative ultra-rich crypto nerd market. Assuming such a thing exists, of course. 
The Wraith Kryptos is more or less a regular Rolls-Royce Wraith, only it's adorned with an encrypted puzzle that only two people at the company know the answer to. 
Image:Rolls-Royce
Owners who are interested in cracking the code will be able to submit potential answers through a members-only Rolls-Royce app called Whispers.