Technology news

Photo by Jake Kastrenakes / The Verge Some users of Nest thermostats can no longer control the devices remotely, and the issue is forcing Google to replace the devices entirely if otherwise standard troubleshooting fails. The issue, which began popping up on Nest forums as early as last November and racking up more than 200 responses, is known as the “w5 error,” and it disables remote control of the company’s thermostats.Controlling the temperature of your home with your smart

A customer advisory board (CAB) can be an invaluable resource for startups, but many founders struggle with putting together the right group of advisors and how to incentivize them. At our TechCrunch Early Stage event, Saam Motamedi, a general partner at Greylock Partners, talked about how he thinks about putting together the right CAB.
“We encourage all of our early-stage companies to put this in place,” Motamedi said. The goal here is to speed up the process to get to product/marke

Alaska's Bristol Bay, a region teeming with fat bears and the richest run of sockeye salmon in the world, is one of the wildest lands left in North America. Now, the prospect of an unprecedented mining district in the dead center of the area's verdant tundra and flowing streams just took a mighty step forward.
On Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a much anticipated final environmental review of the proposed Pebble Mine — a long process triggered in 2017 after the Trump admi

Big Tech CEOs' lives just got a lot less stressful.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee announced Friday that it would postpone its virtual hearing on Big Tech and antitrust regulations. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg were scheduled to testify on the topic via a video call on Monday at 12 p.m. E.T.
The hearing is now delayed. Memorial services for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights hero who died on July 17, will be held instead

Another day, another ridiculous and puzzling statement made during an official White House briefing — this time about a bunch of cartoon dogs. 
Sorry, you did actually read that right. On Friday afternoon, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that President Donald Trump is in deep disagreement with anyone who wants to defund the police. She went on to say that he is "appalled by cancel culture, and cancel culture specifically as it pertains to cops."
McEnany then provided s

Earlier this year, the oft-mocked but actually pretty important new branch of the military, the Space Force, revealed an image that was suspiciously reminiscent of Star Trek. Now the Space Force has revealed a new, sharper graphic that is the force’s actual logo — and a motto to go with it: “Semper Supra,” or “always above.”
To be clear, the image revealed in January, which everyone thought looked quite a bit like Starfleet’s, is the seal for the Space F

Peter Barrettmight be best known today as co-founder and CTO of Playground Global. But his experience in the technology world stretches back to when he was a teenager.
Barrett’s first security program got the attention of the NSA when he was just 19 years old. His career has been an adventure ever since, starting with his first company, Rocket Science Games. Barrett went on to build an IPTV platform at Microsoft, cloud intelligence for automotive at CloudCar and now quantum and optical com

Chauffeured group transportation — the vehicles used for corporate outings, special events and even weddings — is a fragmented industry, with hundreds of small operators that rely on analog systems to book customers. Now in this era of COVID-19, these operators are being squeezed as travel and tourism have dwindled and companies have opted to have employees work from home.
One Los Angeles-based transportation booking startup called Swoop aims to bring these small, local operators int

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images A tribute book for Satoru Iwata, the beloved president and CEO of Nintendo who died in 2015, is getting an English release this spring, publisher VIZ Media announced today. The book, Ask Iwata, is a translation of Iwata-San, which was first published in Japan last year.
“In this motivational collection, Satoru Iwata addresses diverse subjects such as locating bottlenecks, how success breeds resistance to change, and why programmers should never say no,&rd

The cold email worked — you’ve landed a meeting with your dream investor. Hell, you even set aside $40,000 for a pitch deck consultant to make sure your presentation looks suave.
One thing to figure out before you pick out a Zoom background: what information actually goes into those slides?
Lo Toney,founding managing partner at Plexo Capital, has advice for founders looking to raise money: think like a product manager while crafting your pitch deck. Toney has helped shape products at

Joel Shapiro Contributor Joel Shapiro, JD, Ph.D., is Clinical Associate Professor of Data Analytics at the Kellogg School of Management, where he runs Kellogg’s Analytical Consulting Lab. Joel is also Chief Analytics Officer of Varicent, a leading sales performance management software provider.Reid Blackman Contributor Reid Blackman, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Virtue, works with companies to integrate ethical risk mitigation into the development, deployment and procurement of emerging techn

Photo credit should read LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images The world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society has decided to take on systemic racism. The move by The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the esteemed Science journals, comes after Black scientists came forward to protest racism within academia and the sciences, and organized a strike on June 10th, that AAAS joined. In a letter to its 120,000 members this month, AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh

Helping Americans get their 40 winks has never been more necessary as the country faces what some health experts have called a sleep epidemic, and Snoop Dogg’scannabis-focused firm Casa Verde Capital wants to help.
The firm is leading a $9.5 million investment into a company called Proper, which is launching with a combination of sleep coaching and supplements, pitching a “holistic” sleep health solution.
One-third of U.S. adults don’t get enough sleep according to Proper

On day one of TechCrunch’s Early Stage virtual conference, Ali Partovi joined us to discuss best practices for startups looking to hire engineers.It’s a subject that’s near and dear to his heart: Partovi is co-founder and CEO of Neo, a venture aimed at including young engineers in a community alongside seasoned industry vets. The fund includes top executives from a slew of different industry titans, including Amazon, Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Stripe.Parto

Microsoft Teams at NBA arenas. | Microsoft The National Basketball Association (NBA) is using Microsoft Teams’ new Together Mode to place basketball fans courtside in a virtual experience during live games. Microsoft only just revealed Together Mode for Teams earlier this month, and it uses AI to segment your face and shoulders and place you together with other people in a virtual space.
The NBA is using this new Microsoft Teams mode combined with 17-foot tall LED screens that will wrap a

Rivianhas started to run a pilot production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, as the electric vehicle startup prepares to bring its pickup truck and SUV to market in summer 2021.
In an email sent to prospective customers, Rivian said deliveries of its R1T electric pickup truck will begin in June 2021. Deliveries of the R1S electric SUV will start in August 2021.
Rivian said in May that deliveries of the R1T and R1S would be pushed to 2021. It wasn’t clear — until today’s

European data watchdogs have issued updated guidance in the wake of last week’s landmark ruling striking down a flagship transatlantic data transfer mechanism called Privacy Shield.
In an FAQ on the Schrems II judgement, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) warns there will be no regulatory grace period.
The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is dead, and any companies still relying on it to authorize transfers of EU citizens’ personal data are doing so illegally is the top-line message.
&l

Have you ever taken something apart, like a clock or a motor?
The method is particularly useful when it comes to learning how things work — or how they don’t, in some cases.
During TechCrunch’s Early Stage event, two venture capitalists took pitch decks and evaluated them with a critical eye on content, presentation and overall messaging. If you missed it the first time through, watch it below in its entirety.
The session was a blast. This was the first time we’ve hosted

There's no academic panic quite like the night before an exam when you can't quite grasp the words in front of you no matter how many times you've read them. It's then that you want help but where to turn? You've played back the professor's lecture dozens of times already. The teaching assistant is likely fast asleep and not up to answering your frantic messages. And your friends probably don't know much more than you do. An online tutor can be your sanity—and grade—saver.
Online tut

Whether you’re an early-stage startup founder, investor, enthusiast or another integral member of the community, you can’t afford to miss Disrupt 2020 — THE tech conference at the epicenter of the startup ecosystem. Here’s something else you can’t afford to miss — early-bird pricing. Buy your pass before July 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT and you’ll save up to $300.
The all-virtual Disrupt, which takes place September 14 -18, may look and feel a bit different, but

Fintech startup Revolut just announced that it has raised $80 million as part of its Series D round that it announced in February. The new influx of funding comes from TSG Consumer Partners.
In February, Revolutraised a $500 million led by TCV at a $5.5 billion valuation. Today’s new funding extends that funding round to $580 million — the company says the valuation remains the same.
If you’re not familiar with Revolut, the company is building a financial service to replace tra

Liking Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a bit like being someone who is super into vinyl. Tell people it’s your favorite movie take on Batman, and you run the risk of sounding like an incredible snob; a contrarian that somehow feels the need to like something other than a bunch of very good live-action movies that lots of other people adore. Regardless, it’s a movie worth celebrating — not because it is better than its live-action siblings, but because it’s maybe the most

Image: h0x0d (Twitter) We’ve seen plenty of pictures of Samsung’s new bean-shaped earbuds, but an early update to Samsung’s Galaxy Buds companion app has confirmed nearly all the details about the upcoming headphones, including the official Galaxy Buds Live name and support for active noise cancellation.
The app also shows a brief guide on how to wear the uniquely shaped earbuds and shows that the earbuds will have touch controls (set to toggle active noise cancellation by def

Photo by Brennan King / The Verge If you’re in the market for a new smartphone and prefer Android over Apple, look no further; you can purchase Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Plus for $950 again today on Amazon; $50 less than its smaller-screen sibling, the S20 5G.
The Galaxy S20 Plus 5G usually retails for $1,200 and includes a 120Hz screen refresh rate plus 5G network support. My colleague Dieter Bohn pointed out in his dual review that despite 5G not justifying part of the phone’s re

Taylor Alison Swift has done it again.
In the middle of a global pandemic, the 30-year-old singer and songwriter surprise-dropped her eighth studio album, folklore, and it's plunged fans even deeper into their already cavernous feels.
Throughout folklore's 16 tracks, Swift flexes her truly remarkable imagination and tells stories patiently, softly, and with a level of passion that will give you chills. The folk, indie rock, and light country vibes coupled with lyrics about cardigan sweaters, the

Some of the key creators behind the beloved Suikoden franchise are attempting to crowdfund a spiritual successor. Today, a new team called Rabbit & Bear Studios announced an upcoming Kickstarter campaign to fund Eiyuden Chronicle, a roleplaying game designed to evoke PlayStation-era nostalgia. The campaign will debut on July 27th, and the team is led by Yoshitaka Murayama, director and writer on the first two Suikoden titles. “This is a new title for me,” Murayama tells The Verge

Samsung has basically confirmed its new earbuds will be called the Galaxy Buds Live — not, sadly, the Galaxy Beans. 
First spotted by The Verge, an update to the connected Galaxy Buds Live app hints at what to expect. 
The app update comes only a week after a promotional video and images of the earbuds were leaked on Twitter. What followed were a few hilarious memes poking fun at what will forever be known as the Galaxy Beans.
SEE ALSO: Samsung officially confirms the Galaxy Z Fl

We live our whole lives on Zoom now, and honestly? It’s kind of lousy. Transposing every aspect of work and play to a grid of videoconference windows is a great short-term solution, but long term, it just can’t make up for everything we used to do in person. It’s harder to do everything in front of a webcam, whether it’s teaching kids or making people laugh.Over the last couple of months, several TV comedies have managed to pull together quarantine specials that invariabl

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This week on The Vergecast, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Makena Kelly, and Casey Newton join a Zoom call to discuss the upcoming big congressional antitrust Zoom call featuring CEOs from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.Though the hearing is likely to be postponed (that news came after this episode was recorded), the discussion is still relevant. Signaling a big move to regulate Silicon Valley, the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee

TL;DR: The noise-canceling Beats Solo Pro and noise-isolating, truly-wireless Powerbeats Pro are on sale at Best Buy — save $70 and $50, respectively.Kids may or may not be going back to school in a physical building, but the scramble for back-to-school supplies isn't going anywhere.
Actually, student figuring out remote learning will have a similar checklist to that of the swarm of people who started working from home in the spring. One absolute essential for those who can afford it is a

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon added 173,000 postpaid phone customers and 287,000 postpaid smartphone customers in the second quarter, even as it lost 81,000 consumer Fios TV subscribers, the company reported Friday. But it saw a net gain of 10,000 consumer Fios broadband subscribers, even though it had to suspend many in-home installations because of pandemic restrictions.The Keep Americans Connected Pledge — waiving late fees and promising not to cut off service for cus

Photo by Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images Monday’s congressional hearing with the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple will “likely” be postponed as the late Rep. John Lewis will lie in state at the US Capitol next week.
The House Judiciary Committee had initially scheduled the blockbuster hearing for Monday at noon, setting the stage for a dramatic public airing of the various antitrust concerns facing the companies. But a source familiar told The

Image: h0x0d (Twitter) We’ve seen plenty of pictures of Samsung’s new bean-shaped earbuds, but an early update to Samsung’s Galaxy Buds companion app has confirmed nearly all the details about the upcoming headphones, including the official Galaxy Buds Live name and support for active noise cancellation.
The app also shows a brief guide on how to wear the uniquely shaped earbuds and shows that the earbuds will have touch controls (set to toggle active noise cancellation by def