Technology news

For decades, Burning Man has represented an escape from the current reality. An event for free-er spirits to rethink new age ideals inside a stateless entity where art, music and partying reign supreme on the desert plains.
Over the years, the Bay Area-founded event has dealt with an internal clash as the gathering has grown larger and attracted a heavy presence from Silicon Valley’s wealthy tech class, with tales of turnkey experiences, air-conditioned camps, helicopters and lobster dinne

Image: Steven Crowder / YouTube YouTube is allowing conservative pundit Steven Crowder to monetize his YouTube channel again, more than one year after Crowder was removed from the company’s Partner Program following complaints of homophobic and racist harassment from another creator.“Creators who are suspended from [YouTube’s Partner Program] can reapply for access, and after careful consideration, we will be reinstating him into the program today,” a YouTube spokesperso

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Playdate, the tiny yellow handheld game console from software developer and indie game publisher Panic, is still in the works without a firm release date. But Panic had quite a few new updates to share on Wednesday regarding its growing third-party developer program, including some really interesting-looking indie games being made to run on the Game Boy-inspired gadget.One of these titles, from game developer Nic Magnier of Keen Games, is the original Doom, which

You could Zoomcall into your science class, or you could conduct a lab experiment in virtual reality. During the coronavirus pandemic, the latter has never felt more full of potential.
The global need for learning solutions beyond Zoom is precisely why Labster, a Copenhagen-based startup that helps individuals engage in STEM lab scenarios using virtual reality, is growing rapidly. Since March, the usage of Labster’sVR product has increased 15X.
On the heels of this unprecedented momentum,

Image: Ubisoft Ubisoft entered the crowded battle royale market yesterday with Hyper Scape, a new first-person shooter promising a unique twist on the crowded formula. Ahead of its release, the game looked like it had potential to be a big hit on Twitch, even topping the streaming giant’s most-viewed charts the day it was announced and its technical test first went live. Sadly, the hype for Ubisoft’s futuristic free-to-play game has fallen off significantly, as it’s now pullin

illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last month, the world’s biggest tech show announced that CES would go online-only in 2021, instead of expecting companies and journalists to brave Las Vegas in January. But the Game Developers Conference (GDC) just announced it isn’t following suit: it’ll hold a “hybrid event taking place physically in San Francisco” that also includes a “robust virtual offering.”
While it’s not yet clear how robust the virt

Today after the bell, Lyftreported its second-quarter financial performance. The American ride-hailing company’s results helped illustrate just how much the economy has changed in the wake of COVID-19 and its resulting disruptions to life, travel and work.
Uber’sown results, which were shared last week, provided hints of what was coming for Lyft. The upshot: a sharply reduced ride-hailing business.
In the second quarter, Lyft reported revenue of $339.3 million and earnings per s

Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek’s first stream back on Twitch after his departure for Mixer was, by any measure, a massive success. He came back with more than 500,000 concurrents, a tide of subscriptions, and a new goatee. Grzesiek’s stream was the most popular on Twitch for the time he was live — a full nine times bigger than top-five streamer Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff’s channel, which had around 55,000 live viewers.“God it feels good, man! Ugh,

For writer-comedian Sarah Cooper, the pandemic hasn’t been so terrible. In fact, by making the best of a lousy situation — in this case, opening a TikTok account while sheltering in place and lip syncing to the often-bizarre ramblings of Donald Trump to underscore their absurdity — she has become an outlet for a country that has often found itself asking while watching a Trump presser: “Is this real, what I’m seeing?”
Now, in addition to the millions of online

The private space launch industry has expanded significantly since the debut of SpaceX,but some markets, like India, are just now getting the regulatory support to clear the way for private players to participate. Now that those barriers are coming down, however, private launch startup Skyroot is leaping ahead on its way to becoming the first private space launch vehicle maker in the country, making significant technical progress with a new, successful upper-stage engine burn test.
Skyroot was

Avatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are no longer working on the live-action series adaptation set for Netflix.The creators announced their departure on Wednesday, sparking concern among fans. DiMartino’s lengthy blog post only confirmed those concerns, as the writer and executive producer noted that “whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make.” Both DiMartino and Konietzko c

Samsung makes good smartwatches. The fact tends to get lost in discussions about a category that’s traditionally been so dominated by a single player. Things have shifted a bit of late, globally. Apple’smarket share has slipped somewhat and Huawei and Samsung have been there to pick up some of the pieces.
Here in the States, Huawei is less of a player for reasons that should be painfully obvious. Google’sWear OS is — for now at least — a non-starter. Acquisition tar

Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, one of the most popular live streamers in the world, returned to Twitch on Wednesday following Microsoft’s decision to shut down the competing Mixer platform, attracting nearly 500,000 active viewers in his comeback stream before it even officially started. Many of those viewers showed up only to find a “starting soon” message, before Shroud turned his camera on at roughly 2:50PM ET. Twitch users conti

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft’s dual-screened Android phone, the Surface Duo, will release on September 10th, following close to a year of waiting since its reveal in 2019. It will cost $1,399, but you’ll only pay that much upfront if you buy it unlocked. Otherwise, you’ll owe a smaller monthly payment if you buy it on an installment plan through AT&T or Best Buy.
The Surface Duo can be preordered through the Microsoft Store, and doing so now should

Photo by Avery White for The Verge Motorola has sent out teasers for its next major smartphone — likely the 5G-upgraded second-gen version of its foldable Razr flagship — which the company will announce on September 9th and promises will “flip the smartphone experience once again.”
While there isn’t a whole lot of information in the teaser, the short clip appears to show a side view of a foldable phone (similar in design to the 2020 Razr) being shut. If that wasn&r

Image: Facebook Facebook’s latest attempt to help combat the spread of potentially harmful COVID-19 misinformation involves a new notification screen that will provide more context about an article or other link, like when it was first shared and its source.The goal, Facebook says, is to “help people understand the recency and source of the content before they share it” and to direct “people to our COVID-19 Information Center to ensure people have access to credible info

Michael Li ContributorShare on Twitter Tianhui Michael Li is founder of The Data Incubator, an eight-week fellowship to help PhDs and postdocs transition from academia into industry.Previously, he headed monetization data science at Foursquare and has worked at Google, Andreessen Horowitz, J.P. Morgan and D.E. Shaw.More posts by this contributorFive building blocks of a data-driven culture The perils of polling in a Brexit and Donald Trump world
It’s 2020 and the world has changed remarkab

Image: Netflix Sarah Cooper, the comedian who went viral this year on TikTok and Twitter for her political satire videos impersonating Donald Trump, is getting her own comedy special on Netflix.Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine will premiere this fall. Cooper will be joined by special guests who will partake in various “shenanigans,” such as sketches and short interviews. According to Netflix, the special will focus on an array of issues in today’s zeitgeist, including pol

Image: Disney Mulan is set to premiere on Disney Plus on September 4th, and it comes with a hefty price tag of $30. In reality, for non-Disney Plus subscribers who want to watch the studio’s live-action adaptation of Mulan, it’s actually going to cost $37.A new trailer for Mulan clears up any confusion around the cost of watching the film, mainly that in order for people to watch the movie, they have to be active Disney Plus subscribers. Mulan will belong to Disney Plus’ &ldqu

Fundraising was once a formal process.
A decade ago, founders would make pilgrimages to the stodgy investor offices that line Sand Hill Road. Now, as the coronavirus ravages the world and venture capital grows as an asset class, a first “yes” can come from an investor-matching tool built on Notion, or an entire fund can come together over a Zoom call. In this era, Twitter DMs are better for deal flow than walking around a conference.
As startup-land becomes more informal, a new gener

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is still littered with groups and pages aligned with the antigovernment “boogaloo” movement months after the company announced that it would ban these communities, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project Wednesday.In June, Facebook announced that it would remove groups dedicated to the boogaloo movement, months after reports first surfaced that the right-wing extremist group leveraged the platform to organize for

David Blaine David Blaine is taking his stunts to YouTube. The magician announced today that his first major live event in a decade will take place exclusively on his YouTube channel. Called Ascension, the event will entail Blaine attaching himself to a variety of helium balloons and attempting to float across the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York. The weather-permitting event will happen on August 31st across multiple hours. Verizon is sponsoring the show, which was made in partnership

Philipshas steadily expanded its Hue line of smart lighting products to cover the entire home, inside and out. But while the ability to remotely control your lighting, including adjusting color, intensity and brightness is great, one of its more recent products focuses more on how to turn all those connected lights into a dynamic, at-home interactive entertainment experience. The Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box is a relatively simple device that sits between your video sources, including things l

If you’re tech-obsessed about the future of moving people, products and packages around the world, you do not want to miss TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on Oct. 6-7. Two packed days of online programming feature the people leading the charge — creative thinkers, innovative makers, dedicated engineers and savvy investors across the mobility and transportation startup ecosystem.
Join your tribe and dive into the conversation. Early bird tickets cost $145 but, like they say, the more the m

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is making it easier for businesses, academics, and third-party developers to build on its platform with the launch of its API v2 today. The company announced the new API last month, but as the news arrived the day after it was hit by one of the most devastating hacks in social media history, it decided to delay the launch. Notably, Twitter is presenting the API v2 not only as a way to deliver new features faster, but as something of a reset in its

Ubercould be forced to shut down its ride-hailing app in California for several months if a court doesn’t overturn a recent ruling that classifies its drivers as full-time employees, CEO Dara Khosrowshahisaid in an interview with MSNBC.
“It’s hard to believe we’ll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly,” Khosrowshahi said, noting it would force the company to temporarily shut down. Khosrowshahi’s comments are consistent to language in a mo

Michael Waxman, co-founder and CEO of dog food startup Sundays, acknowledged that dog owners have no shortage of options when it comes to feeding their beloved pets — but he still thinks there’s room for something new.
“There’s a sort of ‘Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink’ phenomenon,” Waxman said. “There are over 3,000 dog foods, and yet I think there isn’t really one that is the no-brainer, compelling answer.”
Sundays “s

There isn’t much that is new about Immigration Nation. Netflix’s six-part documentary series about American immigration law enforcement depicts what news stories have long chronicled: a constant, almost mundane parade of indignity and horror inflicted on the undocumented in America. The reportage, no matter how dogged, has seemed to have had little effect. After the initial visits from dismayed politicians, families are still being separated at the border, and pandemic response measu

Triplebyte, a technical recruiting platform that emphasizes a candidate’s skills rather than background, has incubated nonprofit ColorStack, which aims to increase the number of Black and Latinx people enrolled in computer science programs.
ColorStack, a mentorship-driven community of Black and Latinx engineering students, officially launched in May, but got its bearings at Cornell, where founder Jehron Petty successfully worked to triple Black and Latinx enrollment in the school’s c

Photo by Friso Gentsch/picture alliance via Getty Images Airbnb plans to file for an IPO in August, according to a Wall Street Journal report. That means we could see a listing sometime this year, though the exact timeline will depend on the Security and Exchange Commission’s review process and how the market looks. Per the Journal, the company has tapped Morgan Stanley to lead the offering, with Goldman Sachs “playing a key role.”The news comes at a time when Airbnb faces hig

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 may be a remaster, but it’s also ambitious. The upcoming collection of the iconic PlayStation-era games aims to take everything players loved about the original titles — the skaters, the courses, the tricks — and update them so they feel at home in 2020. It’s not as simple as it sounds.Games, particularly early 3D ones, don’t always age gracefully. It’s a tricky balancing act; change too little, and the game will feel dated,

Netflix is teaming up with the production company behind Diana: A New Musical for a Broadway first: it’s bringing the musical to subscribers at home before the stage production opens to the public.The move comes after Broadway was shut down in late March because of the pandemic. It hasn’t reopened. Although a handful of shows played onstage in previews, Diana wasn’t able to officially open on Broadway before the shutdown. Instead of waiting to get the show on stages next year (

Photo by Philip Cheung for The Verge Uber may shut down its operations in California, one of its largest markets in the US, if it is forced to classify drivers as employees, the company’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on MSNBC Wednesday.Earlier this week, Uber and Lyft were ordered by a California superior court judge to classify their drivers as employees. At issue is the classification of ride-hailing drivers as independent contractors, which Uber and Lyft say most drivers prefer because o

Cardi B has a new OnlyFans for people interested in a more intimate look at her life. In a video posted to her Instagram, Cardi says she’ll be putting behind-the-scenes content for her recently released video with Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP,” on the site, including rehearsals and lead-up to the shoot itself.Her page, which reads “WELCOME TO MY WORLD,” is accessible for $4.99. “I wanna know what my fans would like to see there,” she says in the video. And

There’s no shortage of ways to play classic Neo Geo games in 2020. There’s a mini arcade machine, an arcade stick with built-in games, and all kinds of bundles on traditional platforms. But titles like Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters are best enjoyed at a proper arcade cabinet — and now you can buy one for your house that features 50 classic games.
The new device is called the Neo Geo Multi Video System, or MVSX for short. It’s essentially a full-sized arcade cabinet

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Apple AirPods Pro usually cost $250 new, but Best Buy has taken $55 off the cost for its refurbished units. You can snag a set for $195, and it includes the original accessories, like the Lightning to USB-C cable, a wireless charging case, and two sets of silicone ear tips. Apple originally included three sets of ear tips, but some reviewers note that Best Buy doesn’t include the medium-sized ones.
The AirPods Pro offer active noise cancellation and ha

Remedy’s Control is getting a new $39.99 Ultimate Edition that bundles every update and bit of downloadable content that has been released since the game originally launched in 2019. It will come out on August 27th on Steam for PC, then on September 10th on the Epic Games Store and both the PS4 and Xbox One digitally. Notably, buying this new console version will serve as a ticket that grants you a free digital upgrade to the PS5 or the Xbox Series X version via Smart Delivery when it beco

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s easy to forget about Instagram Reels.
Instagram’s TikTok competitor rolled out last week, bringing with it a newly revamped Explore tab that attempts to replicate TikTok’s video feed. Alongside a new camera layout designed to make creating easier (spoiler alert: it only made things more complicated), Instagram’s goal was obvious: make Reels a new go-to experience on the app, much like it made Stories blow up in 2016.
But a wee

American software company Duck Creek has upped the stakes in its impending IPO, raising its price target from a range of $19 to $21 per share to $23 to $25 per share.
The bump comes as software and cloud stocks have fallen more than 10% from recent highs, putting them in technical correction territory.The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.The good news for the Boston-based startup focus

Alerts about upcoming railroad crossing appear as a banner in the iOS and Android Waze apps.| Image via Waze / Operation Lifesaver Google-owned navigation app Waze is rolling out a global safety feature that alerts users about upcoming railroad crossings.The feature is not wholly new, and was quietly launched in the US, Belgium, and Canada earlier this year, but Waze says it’s now expanding the alerts to more territories. In some countries it’s working with official data from railro