Technology news

As wildfires devastate the West Coast, the FBI and local officials in California, Oregon, and Washington are also fighting the spread of something else: rampant misinformation.
Conspiracy theories about the wildfires are quickly spreading on Facebook. While they vary, most revolve around the idea that antifa, or anti-fascists, are responsible for the fires.
A screenshot of one of the many wildfire conspiracy theories being spread online.
Image:Screenshot: facebookWARNING: Multiple sources in Eme

Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire — or fire with "WAP" lyrics.
A group of abortion clinic escorts and defenders have developed a devoted fanbase on TikTok after going viral for their unconventional methods of opposing religious protesters. The clinic, which is based in North Carolina, is often swamped with protesters who read Bible passages and chant about sin in an effort to intimidate patients seeking reproductive care. The army of primarily teenage girls defending the clinic's

Image: Crytek We already knew that Crysis Remastered would support ray tracing if you had the PC hardware to run it. However, ahead of the release on PC and current-gen consoles, Crytek announced this week that, for the first time, in this console generation, the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X will offer ray-tracing support — because it’ll appear in the current-gen console versions of Crysis Remastered.Crytek’s CryEngine provides software-based ray tracing, allowing current-gen hardwa

Image: iFixit I don’t think anyone expected an impressively thin gadget with two displays to be more repairable than single-screen smartphones, and iFixit’s teardown of Microsoft’s new Surface Duo confirms this is the case. The takeaway is that while the displays and rear glass can be swapped without too much stress, replacing anything else will be a tedious, risky process.As part of the teardown process, iFixit got this very cool X-ray shot of the Surface Duo. The innards of

Apple issued new App Store rules earlier today, permitting game streaming services like xCloud or Stadia to exist on iOS or iPadOS with a big catch. Apple wants companies like Microsoft to individually submit their games as separate apps using its streaming tech. Microsoft and Google are free to create a “catalog”-style app that collects and links out to all of these individual apps as well.
Microsoft isn’t impressed.
“This remains a bad experience for customers,” s

Big tech companies have faced no shortage of scrutiny on their influence in politics, especially since 2016 elections. One complaint sometimes levied at Google, for instance, is that search suggestions favor a particular candidate. While the company said that search “does not favor any candidate or cause”  during the 2016 elections, now the company has a better solution altogether: just omit search suggestions on election topics altogether. The news shows up as a sing

If intelligent life beyond Earth (should it exist) could view our planet right now, they might be astonished by the great plume of smoke curling over the ocean.
It's a wild sight, captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-West satellite. Potent winds have blown smoke from the historic Western wildfires over 1,000 miles from the coast, into the northern Pacific Ocean. The plume has traveled east too, reaching Mexico. (Hazy skies, from earlier fires, have also b

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we unpack the latest in tech labor and diversity and inclusion. This week, we’re looking at the latest developments in the battle over the classification of gig workers, the rise of labor unions in tech and and Instagram’s latest move to be woke.
Human Capital will soon be available as a newsletter. Be sure to sign up here.Gig WorkBoth sides of Prop 22 are going full steam ahead in their efforts to sway California voters. Uber, Lyft, Instacart and

The controversial push to force Chinese tech unicorn ByteDance to divest part or all of its smash-hit TikToksocial media service to a U.S.-based company could be in doubt after a report today indicated that China’s government may oppose the transaction. According to reporting by Reuters, the Chinese government may prefer TikTok to simply shutter its U.S. operations instead of allowing it to be sold to an American company.
The potential divestment of TikTok is not a regular business transac

Groups of conservative provocateurs, QAnon supporters, and others on social media have jumped on the release of the French coming-of-age film Cuties and a trending “Cancel Netflix” hashtag to associate the company with pedophilia.
This isn’t the first time that people have tried to cancel Netflix. Republicans tried it in 2018 following Netflix’s confirmation that it had signed a multiyear deal with Barack and Michelle Obama to produce a series of titles. Earlier this year

I spent all of 2019 looking forward to Obsidian‘s triumphant return to the world of western RPGs with The Outer Worlds and when it finally released, my excitement was vindicated. Eleven months later I’m reminded why the game earned my personal ‘best of 2019’ moniker thanks to the recently-released Peril on Gorgon DLC expansion. And worry not: there’ll be zero spoilers in this review. First and foremost, you’re not getting an all-new gameplay experience or an

It’s no secret that the tech industry is historically white, straight and male.
Despite promises to examine and reform hiring practices so that tech companies big and small better reflect the world we all live in, diversity reports chart a different path: Black, brown, female and LGBTQIA+ folks aren’t getting their representative seats at the table.
And now, in the wake of a national response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade by police that has seen mill

Photo by Jake Kastrenakes / The Verge Google appears to have a new Nest Thermostat in the works, according to new FCC documentation. It could be equipped with Google’s Project Soli radar motion controls, in what would be a first for the company’s home products, as spotted by Droid Life.There’s very little to go by in the current crop of documents, but the new Nest Thermostat (model G4CVZ) does have an interesting addition: not only will it offer 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0

Toucan has developed a Chrome browser extension designed for anyone who wants to learn a new language but hasn’t found the motivation or the time.
Once installed, the extension scans the text of any (English-language) website you’re visiting and will automatically translate some of the words into the language you’re trying to learn. If you mouse over the word, you’ll see the original English word. Think of it as a browser-based version of language flashcards.
The startup

Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call A group of Democratic senators is calling on the telecom industry to lift their limits and fees associated with heightened broadband use for students in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter addressed to the CEOs of telecom companies including AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and T-Mobile Friday, senators like Mark Warner (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) requested that the telecoms temporarily suspend data caps, overage fees, and

In retrospect, I should have realized Contagion would not be an easy watch in the middle of a pandemic.
But I'd noticed the calendar creeping on up six months since "it all" began — since the day Tom Hanks announced he'd caught the virus, the NBA suspended its season, and a whole lot of Americans realized the disease had really and truly come for us. I wanted to do something to mark half a year spent hiding in my apartment, scrubbing my hands, and fearing the outside world, and with nothin

There are just a few days until we kick off five days of Disrupt 2020 (September 14-18). It’s time to dig in, dig deep and do whatever it takes to discover hidden opportunities. Disrupt is a vehicle for success for all who are playing the startup game. Buy your pass and drive it like you stole it.
If it’s reassurance you need, we’ve got you covered. Here are five more reasons to attend Disrupt 2020.
1. Hone essential founder skills at the Extra Crunch Stage
Every early-stage st

Well, it looks like this might be it for TikTok in the US. As the pressure mounts for parent company ByteDance to sell off its US operations, the Chinese government has allegedly chosen to flex its power to stop the potential sale. For the full background, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to force the China-based ByteDance to either sell its US operations to an American company or risk being banned in the US. The primary motivation for the order appears to be concern about the a

In the wake of the arrest of four employees of San Francisco-based startup PandaDoc, the tech industry in Belarus has rallied support for the company and the pro-democracy movement in the country.
Representatives of the tech community recorded a video, which has had wide circulation on social media, supporting the detained employees.“Our strength is in solidarity,” they say in the video, which also has English subtitles, and which features a litany of tech industry workers, many of w

Alphabet’s Wingis among the companies leading the way for building a sustainable and scalable way for drones and other aircraft to share the skies and build a capable and safe aerial transportation network. Wing’s head of Policy, Regulatory and Community Affairs, Margaret Nagle, will join us at TC Sessions: Mobility this year to talk about the work the company is doing to unlock the potential of this path forward for city skies, and what the landscape looks like from the perspective

Image: Motorola Motorola has quietly released its new budget phone, the Moto G9 Plus, in Brazil. As leaks previously mentioned, the new smartphone includes a 6.81-inch display screen, a quad-camera setup on the phone’s back, plus a 5,000mAh battery.
The Moto G9 Plus is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G — the same chip used by Google’s recently released Google Pixel 4A — plus 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. On the front of the screen, the Moto G9’s 6.81-inch sc

Image: 9to5Google Google definitely intended for its Pixel 4A to come in multiple colors — well, at least two — before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the phone’s very delayed August release. 9to5Google discovered that a 3D render of the Pixel 4A in blue has still very recently been sitting on the Google Store’s servers. It’s a sky blue color with an orange accent button, which is a nice contrast to the black 4A (with mint power button) that Google eventually shipped.

Warner Bros. has delayed Wonder Woman 1984 once again, moving Patty Jenkins’ sequel to December 25th, according to Variety.“Patty is an exceptional filmmaker and with Wonder Woman 1984 she has delivered an incredibly dynamic film that moviegoers of all ages around the world will absolutely love,” Toby Emmerich, Warner Bros. chairman told Variety. “We’re very proud of the film and look forward to bringing it to audiences for the holidays.”
It’s unclear if

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has issued new rules for its App Store in an attempt to address many of the issues that have come up over Apple’s governance of its digital storefront for iPhone devices, with updates for game streaming services, new rules for online classes, and fewer restrictions for in-app purchases on free email apps, which was the focus of Apple’s previous controversy with Hey.Leading the changes is an explicit ruling on game streaming services like

We all know times are incredibly tough, and everyone’s working overtime on steroids to keep their startup dreams alive. Disrupt events have a reputation for serving up a tasty helping of fun along with the main dish: opportunity. We refuse to host a virtual conference without providing time for levity, swag and kick-ass entertainment.
TechCrunch Trivia on Trivia Royale
It’s time to get your trivia on, startup fans. Download the Trivia Royale app (Google Play) (App Store) and start pl

The theatrical release of Wonder Woman 1984 has once again been delayed, this time for a scheduled premiere on Dec. 25, 2020. 
The sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman was originally meant to release more than a year earlier on Dec. 13, 2019 and has had its date moved five times since that initial announcement. The first move pushed Wonder Woman 1984 up to November 2019 and the second reimagined the film as a summer blockbuster in June 2020. After that, the ongoing realities of COVID-19 and its im

Thanks to this tweet, I learned today how to change what font you see in Slack. And to be honest, I am more than happy to have discovered this on a Friday because I have spent the last hour trying out ridiculous fonts only to realize I didn’t know how to reset it.If you want to try this yourself, you can by simply typing /slackfont followed by the name of a font you have locally. Yes, /slackfont Comic Sans MS works. So does /slackfont Wingdings. You need to make sure you’re typing ho

Facebookis firing up its lawyers to try to block EU regulators from forcing it to suspend transatlantic data transfers in the wake of a landmark ruling by Europe’s top court this summer.
The tech giant has applied to judges in Ireland to seek a judicial review of a preliminary suspension order, it has emerged.
Earlier this week Facebook confirmed it had received a preliminary order from its lead EU data regulator — Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) — ordering it

Appletoday is releasing updated App Store Guidelines with the goal of clarifying how it will approach new technologies, like game streaming services, App Clips and widgets, in addition to better detailing its stance over how and when it will collect in-app purchases from certain categories of apps. The changes arrive at a time when Apple is battling in court with Epic over its requirements regarding the use of in-app purchases. The company is also seeing its App Store business scrutinized by reg

Applelaid out some interesting updates to its App Store rules this morning, the most headline-grabbing of which was a section dedicated to cloud gaming platforms like Microsoft’s xCloud and Google’s Stadia.
This comes after very public complaints from Microsoft regarding xCloud’s rejection from the App Store, which Apple denied because its App Store rules fundamentally did not allow game-streaming platforms on it. The outcry from gamers was notable given how hyped this launch i

With the election looming and a pandemic still raging through the U.S., a shortage of poll workers is just one of many threats to voting this November — but it’s a big one.
In a Facebookpost Friday, Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will launch a poll worker recruitment drive on the platform. Beginning this weekend, U.S. Facebook users over the age of 18 will see a message on their News Feeds linking them to state poll worker registration pages. The company also includes tha

SonicTheOWTHEGEE Disney is currently testing a new feature that will allow Disney Plus subscribers to create tiny private watch parties.
Screenshots of the feature first started to appear on the Disney Plus subreddit yesterday. Seen below, the feature seemingly allows up to six people to join the party. Another screenshot shows a new icon that appears on a film or TV show’s title page, prompting the GroupWatch function. SonicTheOWTHEGEE
The Verge confirmed that GroupWatch is currently bei

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When McKenna Rogers landed a job on Pinterest’s finance team in 2018, she felt like she’d arrived. She loved the platform — so much that she’d used it to help plan her wedding. “Working there felt like a dream come true,” she says. The year before, Forbes included Pinterest in a list of companies where women most like to work.
Three years later, stories from former employees about inequality and insensitivity have poked