Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has abandoned plans to develop and launch a cloud computing product designed for the Chinese market, among other politically controversial countries, according to a report from Bloomberg. The move marks the second high-profile initiative within Google to develop a product for the Chinese market, after the existence of a censored Chinese search product, codenamed “Dragonfly,” was revealed in media reports in 2018 and caused a firestorm o

Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images On Wednesday, Facebook announced that it had removed accounts belonging to Roger Stone, a friend and confidant of President Donald Trump, after having linked them to fake accounts and pages that were active throughout the 2016 election.
The announcement came as part of Facebook’s release of its monthly report on disinformation on the platform. The company connected Stone’s Facebook and Instagram accounts with a US-based dis

Smart home platform Wink has announced that it’ll finally roll out its controversial new $4.99-per-month subscription on July 27th, following months of delays. The subscription will put many of the service’s previously free features behind a paywall, including crucial aspects of the service like the ability to update firmware or add new devices.“Please know that we have adjusted our timelines since our initial announcement on May 6th to allow users more opportunity to make cons

As personal electric vehicles become more powerful and affordable, e-bikes and standing electric scooters have become increasingly practical alternatives to traditional transportation methods for many people, especially those in crowded cities. But when it comes down to spending your hard-earned money, you might be asking yourself which form of electrified two-wheel transport is best for you. I’m lucky enough to have been able to try a variety of these electric vehicles, constantly weighi

At first glance, Colvin — which recently announced that it has raised a $15 million Series B — might look like just another flower and plant delivery company, but co-founder and CEO Andres Cester said the startup has a much grander vision.
“We were born with the ambition to be the company that would redesign global flower trade,” he said.
Apparently, when Cester and his co-founder/COO Sergi Bastardas started researching the flower supply chain, they found an industry

If necessity is the mother of invention, then new business owners are getting very inventive in the ways in which they access cash. Relying on some long-tested and some new avenues to raise money, entrepreneurs are finding more ways to get public market cash faster than they would have in the past.
Whether it’s from Reg A crowdfunding dollars, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) or direct listings, these somewhat arcane and specialized financing vehicles are making a comeback alo

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon will start publicly listing the names and addresses of US-based third-party sellers on its Marketplace platform as a measure to fight counterfeiters, according to a report from Business Insider. The change was announced in a note sent to sellers on Wednesday, and the change goes into effect on September 1st.“These features help customers learn more about the businesses of a seller and the products that they are selling,” the note says,

Despite over a decade of very serious cinematic universes, it helps to remember that superhero fiction is, in fact, quite silly. This is an empirical fact: it doesn’t matter who wears the batsuit, the mystique all falls away the second they have to do something mundane. This is not limiting, but freeing: You can learn all sorts of things about the world once you stop taking yourself so seriously. This is why Harley Quinn, the animated series streaming on DC Universe and airing on Syfy, is

Intel has announced the details for its upcoming Thunderbolt 4 connection standard, which will be built on top of the also forthcoming USB4 specification.The new spec isn’t technically faster from a maximum speed perspective — like Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4 will support a maximum speed of up to 40 Gbps. But Intel is making other improvements with the new standard, adding high video and data requirements and support for multi-port hubs.Thunderbolt 4 computers will have to support e

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re planning to take some time away from work, it might be a good idea to set up a vacation responder: an automatic reply that goes out to anyone who emails you, letting them know you’re out of the office and therefore not checking email regularly. (It’s also a good idea to let them know in that email when you’ll be back.) On Gmail, it’s an easy thing to set up, and you can choose start and end dates for the automatic r

Scientists have built an AI tool that finds drone pilots flying dangerously close to airports or protected airspace. The system aims to reduce the risks drones pose to aircraft. Not only can they collide with planes, but they can also interfere with radio signals, causing a pilot to lose control of the aircraft. These risks have already caused chaos at a number of airports. Most notoriously, London’s Gatwick airport was forced to shut down in December 2018 after drones were spotted near t

Image: Farworks Gary Larson just released new comics for The Far Side, the first strips since January 1995. While Larson cautions that this is “not a resurrection of The Far Side daily cartoons,” after 25 years of rereading our favorites, we’re so excited for new work that we’ll take anything he wants to share. Larson started to bring his comics online late last year.
The first of the new comics features bears, aliens, and taxidermy (all staples of The Far Side). The sty

GoHealth, a Chicago-based company that provides consumers with a digital portal to help them select insurance products, set an initial price range for its IPO today. The firm intends to price its equity between $18 to $20 per share in its debut.
As the company expects to sell 39.5 million shares in the offering, its IPO haul is huge. At the low-end of its range, GoHealthwould raise $711 million, a figure that rises to $790 million at other end of its pricing spectrum. Including the 5.925 million

Microsoft is introducing some big updates to Microsoft Teams today. The software giant has been working on a new “Together Mode” for Teams ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and it’s designed to create a virtual live avatar of yourself that’s supposed to help you better engage with meetings. Microsoft is using AI to segment your face and shoulders and place you and your co-workers together in a virtual space.
That space could be a meeting room-like environment, a cof

Twitter is cooking up some kind of subscription service for its platform, and it’s recruiting engineers to work on it. We don’t know anything about it thus far, but the potential of it is pretty staggering. A job listing on Twitter‘s site for a senior full-stack software engineer said the job was for “a new team, codenamed Gryphon.” The listing describes the team’s project thus: “We are building a subscription platform, one that can be reused by ot

There’s very little chance that in your lifetime, you’ve not used someone else’s password to login to a service. And if you’ve shared your Netflix password, you might lose track at some point of how many people are using it. Keyring is launching its Chrome extension that helps you share subscriptions, such as Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, with friends. You can share six subscriptions with three people for free or pay $5 a m

Yamaha might be best known for its instruments and motorcycles, but it was also the first company to introduce modern e-bikes, way back in 1993. While it may not be as big in the modern e-bike world as the likes of Bosch or Bafang, the company’s motors have made their name with brands such as Giant and Haibike, and the company has recently been expanding its own first-party line-up too. Today, the company is taking a big step forward in the e-bike world by announcing its first 28mph (Clas

Coming soon to TBS: a reality TV show where the best Sims players in the world compete to show off their creations. Today, EA announced a new series called The Sims Spark’d, which follows a fairly traditional reality format: contestants are given a particular goal, and a panel of three experts will judge their creations, with $100,000 in prize money on the line. The difference is instead of designing a dress or baking an outlandish cake, they’ll be telling stories inside of The Sims

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today marks the release of Android 11’s second public beta, the latest test version of the operating system that’s officially due to release in the third quarter of this year. With this latest update, Google says it has achieved its new “Platform Stability” milestone — meaning, from the perspective of app developers, the operating system shouldn’t change much between now and its final release. Google hasn’t announ

As IPO season continues, another venture-backed tech company is moving closer toward going public. This week nCino filed an updated S-1 filing, providing an initial price range for its equity of $22 to $24 per share.
Indeed, nCino,a fintech startup that provides operating software to banks, intends to sell 7.625 million shares in its debut, worth $167.75 million to $183 million at those prices. Including shares offered to its underwriters, its haul grows to between $192.9 million and $210.5 mill

Photo by Quinn Harris / Getty Images One of the biggest names in streaming is heading to YouTube. Today, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins started streaming on Google’s platform, finding a new home after the surprise closure of Microsoft’s Mixer. Ninja teased the announcement earlier today in a tweet, and started his new YouTube venture with a stream alongside Dr Lupo, TimTheTatman, and Courage. It’s not clear yet whether this is an exclusive deal, or if Ninja will feature on

Photo by Brennan King / The Verge Samsung may not include chargers in the boxes of some of its smartphones starting in 2021, according to a report from Korean news site ETNews. The company is taking them out because many people already have chargers and to help reduce costs, the report says.
While not including a charger in the box might seem like a big move, Samsung reportedly isn’t the only major phone maker considering it. Apple may do something similar by not including a charger with

Now that Riot’s team shooter Valorant has been out for some time and the competitive scene is starting to solidify, we can finally get to the important thing: really cool skins. Today, the developer revealed a new line of weapon skins called Elderflame, which are the first “ultimate edition” skins to be featured in the game. They’re appropriately dramatic and over the top, turning your weapons into animated dragons. They swing their little arms, breathe fire, and even hel

Image: Jimmy is Promo (YouTube) As is usually the case with leaked gadgets, first there were photos... and now there’s a video. One day after Samsung officially announced the August 5th Unpacked event where it’s expected to launch the Galaxy Note 20, Note 20 Ultra, and Galaxy Fold successor, the flagship Note has been given the hands-on treatment on YouTube.The video from Jimmy Is Promo — the same source of the photos earlier this week — is under 90 seconds in length, so

Image: Yamaha Yamaha, the Japanese brand known mostly for its pianos and motorcycles, has been selling electric bicycles in the US for a little less than two years. Now, the company is expanding its lineup with the addition of a new, fitness-focused e-bike called the Civante.The Civante is Yamaha’s first Class 3 e-bike offered in the US. That means it’s pedal-assist only, no throttle, with a maximum speed of 28 mph. While that’s sure to upset throttle enthusiasts out there, Ya

Update July 8th, 12:00PM ET: SpaceX postponed today’s launch due to bad weather in the area. The company decided to proceed through the countdown of the launch up until one minute before the planned takeoff in order to collect data from the rocket. A new date for the will be decided soon.
Original Story: Just a week after launching a GPS satellite for the Space Force, SpaceX is back with another launch of its internet-beaming Starlink satellites. The company’s Falcon 9 rocket is slat

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge A team of civil rights auditors has delivered a scathing and unexpected indictment of Facebook’s recent moderation choices after a two-year examination of the platform’s practices and internal policies.
“While the audit process has been meaningful and has led to some significant improvements in the platform,” the report reads, “we have also watched the company make painful decisions over the last nine months with real world

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Android 11, the next major update to Google’s mobile operating system, is likely to begin rolling out on September 8th. As noted by the sharp eyes at Android Police, the date was shown in a slide during a video for the company’s “Hey Google” Smart Home Summit.
At around the 18-minute mark, you can see “checklist for September 8th Android 11 launch” right at the top of the slide, and Google’s Michele Turner says “We

Photo by Maddie Meyer / Getty Images Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are suing the Trump administration over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recent rule requiring international students to take in-person classes in order to remain in the US. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Boston, says that ICE’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion” and asks the court to block the guidelines’ enforcement.
ICE&

Photo by Maddie Meyer / Getty Images Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are suing the Trump administration over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recent rule requiring international students to take in-person classes in order to remain in the US. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Boston, says that ICE’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion” and asks the court to block the guidelines’ enforcement.
ICE&

The machine uses an industrial robotic arm to manipulate equipment made for humans.| Image: University of Liverpool Researchers have developed what they say is a breakthrough robotic lab assistant, able to move around a laboratory and conduct scientific experiments just like a human.The machine, designed by scientists from the UK’s University of Liverpool, is far from fully autonomous: it needs to be programmed with the location of lab equipment and can’t design its own experiments.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter appears to be working on a subscription platform for its social networking service. A new job listing reveals that Twitter has a new internal team, codenamed “Gryphon,” that is “building a subscription platform.” Twitter is currently recruiting engineers to join this subscription team, with employees collaborating closely with the company’s payments team.
The job posting notes potential Twitter subscriptions would be

Permutive is announcing that it has raised $18.5 million in Series B funding, as the London-based startup works to help online publishers make money in a changing privacy landscape.
CEO Joe Root, who co-founded the company with CTO Tim Spratt, noted that publishers are facing increasing regulation, while web browsers are phasing out support for third-party cookies — all good news for privacy advocates, but with a real downside for publisher ad revenue (blocking cookies causes an average 52

Thames Clippers’ fleet will be rebranded as part of the partnership. | Image: Uber You’ll soon be able to use the Uber app to book boat journeys in London, thanks to a new partnership between the ride-hail company and Thames Clippers, The Guardian reports. The partnership will see the existing 20-strong fleet of boats and 23 piers between Putney and Woolwich branded as “Uber Boats by Thames Clippers,” and the service will continue to be operated by the river bus service,

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t been a friend to the media business. Its economic impacts slashed advertising budgets, diminishing a key revenue plank for many publications. The results of falling ad spend have been felt across the industry, with a wave of layoffs hitting publications large and small, niche and general.The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch, and now you can receive it in your inbox. Sign up for The Exchange newsletter,

Nauta Capital, the pan-European venture capital firm that invests in B2B technology startups at seed and Series A, is launching its fifth fund.
The new vehicle has an initial close of €120 million and is expected to surpass the VC’s 2016 fund, which topped out at €155 million.
With offices in London, Barcelona and Munich, Nauta Capital has over half a billion under management and is supported by a team of 24 people, making it one of Europe’s largest B2B-focused

For the second time in less than 24 hours, an enterprise company bought an early-stage startup. Yesterday afternoon DocuSign acquired Liveoak, and this morning Slack announced it was buying corporate directory startup Rimeto, which should help employees find people inside the organization who match a specific set of criteria from inside Slack.
The companies did not share the purchase price.
Rimetohelps companies build directories to find employees beyond using tools like Microsoft Active Directo

Astrophysicians have used AI to discover 250 new stars in the Milky Way, which they believe were born outside the galaxy. Caltech researcher Lina Necib named the collection Nyx, after the Greek goddess of the night. She suspects the stars are remnants of a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way many moons ago. To develop the AI, Necib and her team first tracked stars across a simulated galaxy created by the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. They labeled