Technology news

Two games more games originally set to release later this year have been pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Deathloop and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe are now slated to launch sometime next year as the coronavirus continues to disrupt the development of both titles.Both Arkane Studios, and Crows Crows Crows addressed their respective communities in separate update posts shared on Twitter, commenting that due to multiple development challenges — including COVID-rela

The sequel is rarely as good as the original, but this one is just as dangerous. 
Twitter is taking action against the follow-up to the coronavirus conspiracy film, Plandemic, which went viral earlier this year. The original video pushed falsehoods about COVID-19 and vaccinations. It was viewed tens of millions of times online.
The newer film, Plandemic: Indoctornation, is hosted on the site FreedomPlatform.tv. According to Twitter, the URL for the video is being marked as “unsafe&rdq

EV startup Canoo is going public at a valuation of $2.4 billion in an effort to raise enough money to help bring its first vehicle, a VW microbus-style van that was first revealed last year, to market.
The company announced Tuesday that it was merging with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp IV, a so-called “blank check” special purpose acquisition company. As a result, Canoo will become a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the new ticker “CNOO.”Another SPAC
It&

In 1996, a 2.5-minute short sandwiched between a bunch of other shorts premiered in an episode of The Simpsons. No one thought much of it at the time, but over the last couple decades, “Chalmers vs. Skinner” — rebranded to “Steamed Hams” — would go on to become one of the most iconic Simpsons moments.
A new oral history of the short published on Mel Magazine by Brian VanHooker dives into how it came to be, featuring interviews with then-showrunners Bill Oakley

Mikhail Kokorich ContributorShare on Twitter Mikhail Kokorich is CEO of Momentus, the first company providing in-space transportation services for satellites.The universal glee that surrounded the launch of the crewed Dragon spacecraft made it easy to overlook that the Falcon rocket’s red glare marked the advent of a new era — that of private space industrialization. For the first time in human history, we are not merely exploring a new landmass. We, as a biological species, are adva

Don’t know what you’re in the mood to watch? Netflix’snew “Shuffle” feature could help. The company confirms it’s currently testing a feature that puts a big button labeled “Shuffle Play” right on the Netflix home screen, beneath your user profile icon. When pressed, Netflix will randomly play content it thinks you’ll like. This could be a movie or show you’re currently watching, something you’ve saved to your list or a title that

Hey everyone, how are you? Are you doing well? Great. Or, condolences, depending.
Anyway, last week the Equity crew was discussing bankers, and how they love to talk up stuff.
The topic matters as there is a big impending transaction out there in the world, namely the shotgun sale of TikTok. And all sorts of folks are nattering about who might just be interested in making a bid for the Facebook competitor.
Danny did a blog about the situation. He said that TikTok is possibly worth “tens of

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Social media sites are trying to stop the spread of Plandemic: Indoctornation, a follow-up to the Plandemic conspiracy video about the novel coronavirus. As NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny noted, Facebook blocks users from reposting a link to the new video, which was uploaded to an external site earlier today. Twitter doesn’t block the video link, but it sends users who click it to a warning screen, saying that the link is “potentially spamm

Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In July, astute Reddit users noticed an odd pattern among the recent winners of T-Mobile’s “T-Mobile Tuesdays” sweepstakes. A disproportionate number of the public winners were located in the tiny township of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.Through the T-Mobile Tuesday program, the carrier offers occasional giveaways with prizes that often include gift cards, tech gadgets, and vacations. Contests are free to enter, and

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber Pass, the subscription service that the company first introduced in 2018, is now available nationwide — minus California.The expansion of Pass — an Amazon Prime-style subscription service that allows Uber customers to pay a monthly fee for discounted rates for Uber rides, Uber Eats deliveries, and scooter and bike trips — comes at a time when the company is struggling to maintain its financial footing during the coronavirus pandemic

Commercial electric vehicle startup Xos Trucks has raised $20 million, funding it will use to ramp up production ahead of potential new demand fueled by a landmark emissions rule adopted by California that will require more than half of all trucks sold in the state to be zero-emissions by 2035.
The startup, which was formerly known as Thor Trucking, raised the funds from a group of investors including Proeza Ventures,a mobility-focused VC firm backed by Metalsa’s holding company, and BUILD

Fitbit Versa 3. | Image: WinFuture The first look at Fitbit’s new smartwatches, the Versa 3 and Sense, have leaked, courtesy of WinFuture, showing off the upcoming fitness tracking-focused devices.The renders don’t provide too much information about what Fitbit fans can expect from the new hardware. There are, however, some immediate changes that 9to5 Google pointed out. For example, it appears that both Versa 3 and Sense will no longer have physical buttons, 9to5 Google reports. In

TikTokis right in the jaws of a thorny situation with the U.S. government regarding its ownership, but it’s sending a clear message today that it is not sitting on its heels with big deals. Yesterday, it announced a deal with UnitedMasters to allow artists on TikTok to distribute their songs directly to streaming services and other partners directly.
UnitedMastersis the un-record-label label — in fact, a direct distribution company founded by former president of Interscope Records, S

Nearly two years ago, several female employees at Rocksteady Studios, the developer behind the Batman: Arkham series, sent a letter to management accusing the studio of failing to prevent sexual harassment and sexism in the workplace, according to a new report by The Guardian.The letter, which was reportedly sent to management in November 2018, was signed by 10 of the 16 women employed at the London-based studio. Several issues addressed in the letter to management include continuous unprofessio

Nearly two years ago, several female employees at Rocksteady Studios, the developer behind the Batman: Arkham series, sent a letter to management accusing the studio of failing to prevent sexual harassment and sexism in the workplace, according to a new report by The Guardian.The letter, which was reportedly sent to management in November 2018, was signed by 10 of the 16 women employed at the London-based studio. Several issues addressed in the letter to management include continuous unprofessio

If, like me, you can’t afford a full-sized Teslabecause your life has been a series of bad investments (one day my early Fyre Festival backing will pay off), then Radio Flyer’s newest product might be just the thing for you. It’s a scaled-down Model Y, designed for use by kids aged 18 months to four years old — but I can play pretend and yell “vroooommm” just as well, if not better, than they can.
Dubbed “My First Model Y,” this is a collaborative

Reliance Retailhas bought a 60% stake in pharma marketplace Netmeds’ parent firm Vitalic for about $83.2 million, it said today, as India’s largest retail chain looks to expand into new categories and compete more closely with American e-commerce group Amazon.
Reliance Retail said the deal, which grants it a 100% ownership of Vitalic’s subsidiaries (Netmeds,Tresara, and Dadha Pharma), valued the parent firm at about $134 million. Netmeds, which connects customers to pharma

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Some Tesla owners in California are being asked to charge their cars less — both at home and with the company’s Superchargers — to help conserve energy during an extreme heatwave. Pictures of the in-car notice surfaced on Reddit yesterday, and The Verge confirmed multiple Tesla owners in California received it.
“The current heat wave is impacting the grid in California,” part of Tesla’s notice reads. “If possible,

GoogleMaps is getting a significant update that will bring more detail and granularity to its map, with changes that encompass both natural features and city-level details alike. For the former, Google says it’s leveraged computer vision techniques to analyze natural features from satellite imagery, then color-coded those features for easier visual reference. Meanwhile, select cities (including New York, San Francisco and London) will gain more detailed street information, like the locatio

Image: Epic Games Epic Games took on Apple and Google in a very public way last week to protest what it believes are monopolistic app store policies. But Epic was prepared for the fight in part because it knows how to make a spectacle, having already pulled off massive in-game events like the appearance of a giant rolling cube and a volcano eruption. The studio applied tactics it has perfected to hype those events in its disputes with two of tech’s biggest companies.
If you haven’t

Julian Shapiro ContributorShare on TwitterJulian Shapiro is the founder of BellCurve.com, a growth marketing team that trains startups in advanced growth, helps hire senior growth marketers and finds vetted growth agencies. He also writes at Julian.com. More posts by this contributorAccessing social groups through referrals More thoughts on growing podcasts
We’ve aggregated many of the world’s best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, we ask them to share their mo

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge EA’s subscription service is coming to Steam very soon. Today, the publisher announced that the recently renamed EA Play will launch on Steam on August 31st. This marks the fourth platform on which the service will be available, following the PS4, Xbox One, and EA’s own Origin storefront on PC.
Previously known as EA Access, the service gives subscribers the ability to play some of the publisher’s biggest titles, including The Sims 4 and

SkyDeck Spring 2020 Cohort Contributor UC Berkeley SkyDeckis the startup accelerator of the University of California at Berkeley.We are members of the UC Berkeley SkyDeck startup accelerator spring 2020 cohort — the first to attend remotely.
Many of us were looking forward to visiting Berkeley because one aspect of SkyDeck is a focus on helping teams with international founders connect to the Bay Area and crack the U.S. market.
So, we planned to fly in from not only other parts of the U.S.

Anupam Datta ContributorShare on Twitter Anupam Datta is co-founder, president and chief scientist of Truera, and also a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.Justin Lawyer ContributorShare on Twitter Justin Lawyer is chief product officer of Truera and was formerly head of product on Google’s Cloud AI Platform.COVID-19 has disrupted the lives of millions of people and affected businesses across the world. Its impact has been particularly significant on many machine learning (ML) models

Isaac Roth ContributorShare on Twitter Issac Roth is a seasoned entrepreneur who advises founders on open source technology and keeping communities engaged. Over this career, he’s created and sold multiple enterprise software companies and stays active as an advisor and investor.A little over a year into launching StrongLoop,an enterprise API startup eventually acquired by IBM, we were out over our skis. It was my doing — having built a vast top of funnel, we expected our produc

The Lenovo Yoga 7i 15. | Image: Lenovo When you’re writing about laptops, “spec bump” is often code for “boring.” But here’s a spec bump I’m actually very excited about. Behold: Lenovo has rebranded its Yoga C740 and Yoga C640 as the Yoga 7i and Yoga 6, respectively.The 7i will include Intel’s “latest” CPUs — presumably the upcoming “Tiger Lake” generation.AMD’s Ryzen 4000 line gave Intel a run for its money thi

Image: Wizards of The Coast / Wizard of Barge Magic: The Gathering has been around a long time and has experimented with a ton of art styles in the past — some serious, some silly, some realistic, some cartoon-y. But yesterday’s Secret Lair surprise drop, “Prime Slime,” takes the cake in my opinion with its extremely punk aesthetic and lighthearted chaos. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such unabashedly fun art in the game.
Just check out these images o

InVision, the design firm that’s raised more than $350 million from investors FirstMark, Spark, Battery and Tiger Global Management, has today announced the appointment of Eleanor Morgan as chief product officer. The company is also introducing a brand new Design System Manager, giving teams much more flexibility and control in both creating and maintaining their design system.
New features include the ability to import reusable design elements in bulk, as well as the ability to upload nat

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Oculus will soon require all of its virtual reality headset users to sign up with a Facebook account. The Facebook-owned company says it will start removing support for separate Oculus accounts in October, although users can maintain an existing account until January 1st, 2023. All users can maintain a distinct “VR profile” with a separate friends list.
Starting later this year, you’ll only be able to sign up for an Oculus account th

Freshman at UNC walk through campus.| Ted Richardson/For The Washington Post via Getty Images Just a week after bringing undergraduates back to campus, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is sending them home again. After a spike in COVID-19 cases, leadership announced that undergraduate classes will move online for the rest of the semester. They’re spinning up plans to reduce the density in on-campus housing.
There may be other colleges and universities that go through the sa

The line-up of big Nintendo games is a little light at the moment, but at least we have some indie games to keep Switch owners busy. During its most recent Indie World Showcase, Nintendo showed off a number of high-profile titles coming to its tablet, including a handful of games that will be available today. Here are the biggest announcements.Hades
Supergiant, best-known for games like Transistor and Bastion, is bringing its Greek-mythology fueled roguelike to the Switch this fall. Hades will s

SpaceXhas raised $1.9 billion in new funding, per a filing with the SEC from Tuesday which was first spotted by Reuters. The company had been reported by Bloomberg to be in the funding process earlier, which pegged the post-money valuation of SpaceX at $46 billion following this raise.
The new funding for the still-private SpaceX hardly comes as a surprise; the Elon Musk -led private launch company has been seeking funding since earlier this year, but Bloomberg reported last week that it increas

Untitled Goose Game is adding another horrible goose to its repertoire. Developer House House announced today that it will release a local two-player co-op mode as a free update on September 23rd.The rules of Untitled Goose Game are simple: you, a cute and terrible goose, honk at innocent villagers, steal their things, and generally make life miserable. It’s a puzzle game built around inciting havoc, and with a friend, that job may be easier than ever. Co-op will be available on all platfo

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Children’s Health Defense, a group founded by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is suing Facebook and its fact-checking partners for rejecting ads and labeling debunked claims about vaccines and 5G networks. The complaint against Facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the fact-checking organizations PolitiFact, Science Feedback, and Poynter Institute is legally shaky. But it marks an escalation of attacks on Facebook for policing pseu

Moment’s new line of Travelwear bags. | Photo: Moment Moment is announcing an expansion of its softgoods line with the new Moment Travelwear bags. The new bags, which include a backpack, a tote bag, gadget organizers, and other accessories, are available through a Kickstarter campaign that starts today. Moment expects to start shipping the bags by November of this year.
Though Moment is best known for its mobile photography lenses, the company says that these bags are not designed to be c

The new map design (right) does a better job at distinguishing between Iceland’s ice caps and greenery. | Image: Google Google Maps is being redesigned to make it easier to distinguish between natural features in the environment, whether they’re mountainous ice caps, deserts, beaches, or dense forests. Google says the new maps will be available in the 220 countries and territories currently supported by Google Maps, “from the biggest metropolitan areas to small, rural towns.&r

Back-to-school season is hitting differently in 2020. This year, first-day-of-school jitters are mixed in with fears of a still-raging pandemic, families stretched to their limits, and economic catastrophe.Schools across the country are already starting classes, an unqualified mess that involves shifts to distance learning, optimistic reopenings, and realistic reclosings. Hand sanitizer and laptops have replaced backpacks and lunch boxes as must-have items for the class of COVID-19.Decisions mad

When you think about money, you probably don’t think about it as a form of media. Apps like Venmo, PayPal, and Square’s Cash App have blurred the line between payment platforms and social media. But there’s a long history of financial services being used as a communications medium — from Western Union to Visa to bitcoin.Lana Swartz, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, points out in her new book, New Money: How Payment Became Social Media

Image: Panasonic The modern office cubicle is almost synonymous with the drudgery of a soul-crushing office job. But if for some reason you’ve found yourself missing the not-quite-solid not-quite-walls of your regular office, Panasonic is working to bring the magic of cubicles to your work-from-home life with its new 88,000 yen (around $835) Komoru home cubicle.
The Komoru is actually a bit more handsome-looking than a traditional office cubicle, and it’s made of wooden pegboards (t

Image: Sony Sony’s WH-XB900N over-ear, wireless headphones are steeply discounted at Amazon. Normally $248, they’re $100 off of that price, which is a big 40 percent discount. These headphones offer digital noise cancellation, and while that will help to make things a little quieter, it’s likely not nearly as effective as active noise cancellation that, in the case of Sony’s $350 flagship WH-1000XM4, relies on microphones, an algorithm, and dedicated processor to help hu