Technology news

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge SoftBank is reportedly is preparing to sell chipmaker ARM to Nvidia as early as next week in a deal worth more than $40 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.Rumors of the deal began circulating in July, and Nvidia has been reported to be the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank. The deal, if it goes forward, would be one of the largest ever in the chip sector and would likely face intense regulatory scrutiny. According to the WSJ, the companies

Borderlands 3 is the latest game to adopt an encouraging trend — giving gamers a next-gen upgrade without making them pay for it — and in this case, it’s one that’ll be extremely welcome to console gamers who have 4K TV sets.The image above (and embedded in the tweet below) has all the details, but just in case you can’t make out the fine print the primary news is this: on PS5 and Xbox Series X, the game will now run at 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, both hi

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Google Groups Material Design revamp that’s been in beta for several months will become the default for all users starting next week, the company announced in a blog post. The new interface, which has several “highly requested features,” according to Google, includes a new mobile design, updated collaborative inboxes, and replaces tags and categories in groups with labels.The mobile redesign of Groups will do away with the old and surp

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. 
Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.
Is the vaunted cloud acceleration falling flat?
This week we’re taking a look at the bad side of the cloud software market. In case you were avoiding the news over the last week, tech and software stocks are struggling. Not

Fayette County Public Schools, a 24-school district in Georgia, reopened its classroom doors last month. As at many schools around the country, officials in Fayette have concerns about safely bringing students back to school amid a pandemic — and they’re turning to surveillance technology for help. The school district recently made a deal to purchase up to 75 cameras equipped with thermal imaging. The cameras, made by Hikvision, a Chinese provider of facial recognition tools and oth

Smart home platform Wink is having a widespread outage, just over a month after it implemented a paid subscription plan for most of its previously free features. First reported by Android Police, the outage appears to have started Thursday. Users started getting email notices from the company on Friday apologizing for the outage, and Wink tweeted Friday afternoon that it was aware of an issue, and not under any kind of attack.We are aware of an issue impacting the Wink platform. We just wanted t

Supercell’s mobile games, Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, are massive: together, the pair has been downloaded more than 3 billion times, according to the developer. Now, the Finnish studio is bringing them together with a new Clash animated short, a 12-minute piece called Lost & Crowned. It’s gorgeous and funny but also part of a broader strategy to make the overarching fantasy world something bigger and more enticing. “When it comes to storytelling, we feel it’s imp

Facebook launching an effort to recruit poll workers | Facebook Facebook is launching a recruitment drive for poll workers this weekend, putting messages into users’ News Feeds with links to poll worker registration sites in their state. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post announcing the drive that it was part of the company’s larger voting information campaign, which has a goal of helping 4 million people register and vote.“Voting is voice, and in a democracy, it’s the u

AstraZeneca is partnering with the University of Oxford to develop and test a COVID-19 vaccine. | Photo by Paul Ellis / AFP via Getty Images A big vaccine trial halted this week after a participant experienced serious neurological symptoms. It was one of the first known bumps in the road for the highly touted vaccine candidate, which is being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.AstraZeneca said Saturday it had resumed phase three trials in the UK only, after receiving confirma

TLDR: With The All-In-One Digital Branding Certification Bundle, you’ll have all the training to get a new brand up and running across all the important digital avenues. No matter how great your product or service is, without an easy, identifiable brand element to encapsulate it all, there’s a good chance your business will fly right past most modern digital audiences. That means not only defining how you want your business to be seen online, but all the ways it’ll be seen and

The world-altering coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic is thought to be just 60 nanometres to 120 nanometres in size. This is so mind-bogglingly small that you could fit more than 400 of these virus particles into the width of a single hair on your head. In fact, coronaviruses are so small that we can’t see them with normal microscopes and require much fancier electron microscopes to study them. How can we battle a foe so minuscule that we cannot see it? One solution is to fight tiny

AstraZeneca is partnering with the University of Oxford to develop and test a COVID-19 vaccine. | Photo by Paul Ellis / AFP via Getty Images A big vaccine trial halted this week after a participant experienced serious neurological symptoms. It was one of the first known bumps in the road for the highly touted vaccine candidate, which is being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.Hitting pause on a promising vaccine candidate may be jarring, especially during a deadly pandemic.

Sony is holding a special PlayStation 5 event next week. The company will broadcast a 40-minute “digital showcase” on Wednesday, September 16th that will include updates from first-party Sony game studios and third-party partners. Sony is pitching the event as “one more look at some of the great games coming to PS5 at launch (and beyond!)” before the console launches.
It’s also likely we’ll get a release date and price for the PlayStation 5. Microsoft was orig

Sony is holding a special PlayStation 5 event next week. The company will broadcast a 40-minute “digital showcase” on Wednesday, September 16th that will include updates from first-party Sony game studios and third-party partners. Sony is pitching the event as “one more look at some of the great games coming to PS5 at launch (and beyond!)” before the console launches.
It’s also likely we’ll get a release date and price for the PlayStation 5. Microsoft was orig

Astra’s Rocket 3.1 leaves the pad | Astra The first orbital mission for rocket launch startup Astra ended without its Rocket 3.1 reaching orbit. The rocket successfully lifted off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska at about 11:19PM ET Friday, but the company said its guidance system “introduced some slight oscillation into the flight,” which caused the rocket to drift from its planned trajectory. The flight safety system shut down the engines, and the rocket fell bac

At Woot, Amazon Prime members can pick up a set of Samsung’s very good Galaxy Buds Plus wireless earbuds for $95. This is the lowest price yet. If you don’t have Prime, your checkout price will be $100, so it’s not too harsh of a penalty. This sale is happening for one day only, so don’t expect it to be available if you’re checking this out on Sunday or beyond.
The Galaxy Buds Plus are worth checking out if you value long-lasting battery life, superb sound quality,

At Woot, Amazon Prime members can pick up a set of Samsung’s very good Galaxy Buds Plus wireless earbuds for $100. We’ve seen this $50 off discount only once before, back in July, but it’s back again to match the lowest price yet. If you don’t have Prime, your checkout price will be $105, so it’s not too harsh of a penalty. This sale is happening for one day only, so don’t expect it to be available if you’re checking this out on Sunday or beyond.
The Gal

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2
$1,999.99View Product
The Good
Robust cover display functionality • Sleek and durable design • Very capable cameras • Improved display with 120Hz refresh rate
The Bad
Way too expensive • Thick and heavy build
The Bottom Line
The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is proof that Samsung is capable of successfully manufacturing a foldable phone that's both sleek and powerful. But at $2,000, it's more elite toy than must-buy.
⚡ Mashable Score
4.5😎 Cool Factor

Coastal Elites has nothing nice to say about Trump. But he should be flattered by it all the same.
Written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Jay Roach, the movie consists of what it describes as "five desperate confessions from people barely coping with the new normal." That "new normal" would seem to refer to the pandemic, which is built into the structure of the film: Each of the five segments is shot remotely, and all but one is presented under the guise of some socially distanced activity.
But

TL;DR: Stay safe while browsing with a one-year subscription to the Speedify 10 Bonding VPN for $29.99, a 58% savings as of Sept. 12. VPNs don't just protect your data and private information — they can also speed up your internet connection. One great option is Speedify, and for a limited time, you can get a one-year subscription for 58% off.
Speedify features channel bonding, which basically means that you can use all of your internet options — WiFi, cellular, ethernet, and mo

TL;DR: Get a lifetime subscription to the Rootd meditation app for $59.99, a 60% savings as of Sept. 12. Rootd, a woman-founded app designed for people with anxiety, tailors its treatment plans to users' individual needs. The app's range of helpful tools and on-demand usability make it a great option among virtual mental health resources: In fact, it's earned 4.6 out of 5 stars on Apple's App Store and 4.7 out of 5 on Google Play.
Perhaps Rootd's most notable feature is its "panic button,"

TL;DR: Take footage while you drive with a Rexing® V3 Dual Full HD WiFi Dash Cam for $169, a 15% savings as of Sept. 12. If you're involved in a car accident, a dash cam can provide helpful information to your insurance company about what happened. The Rexing® V3 Dual Full HD WiFi Dash Cam is one well-reviewed option to consider.
This dash cam has a 4.2 out of 5-star rating on Amazon and a slew of features. For instance, it's got front and cabin cameras that simultaneously record fu

TL;DR: Ease your muscle pain with the JAWKU Muscle Blaster Chrome for $149.99, a 25% savings as of Sept. 12. So you're anxious to jump into your new workout routine. Great! There's just one problem: Your muscles aren't used to it. After one round of weight training, everything hurts. That's where a massage gun can help.
You've likely seen these devices before, but perhaps you haven't taken the leap of faith due to their often-astronomical prices. (The popular Theragun, for example, can cost

The security battle between iOS and Android tightens each time an operating system update comes out. Apple has held the lead for years — and though the gap is expected to close with the 2020 release of Android 11 and its heightened privacy measures, iOS 14's release will be right on its heels.
But one aspect of cyber safety remains Android's turf: Cooperating with parental control apps.
These apps, which usually require access to a phone's location, contacts, browsing history, and call and

We have an extra item of clothing to think about these days: face coverings. 
When it comes to finding the right mask for you, it's best to prioritize a reusable one if you can. The blue paper ones might be convenient, but they're generally single-use and bad for the environment. 
Fortunately, there are plenty of reusable masks on the market that actually quite nice to look at. And a bunch of them are on sale.
Note: These are not medical masks, so they will not protect as well as N95 m

One of the major challenges facing gene therapy — a way to treat disease by replacing a patient’s defective genes with healthy ones — is that it is difficult to safely deliver therapeutic genes to patients without the immune system destroying the gene, and the vehicle carrying it, which can trigger life-threatening widespread inflammation. Three decades ago researchers thought that gene therapy would be the ultimate treatment for genetically inherited diseases like hemophilia,

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. As the COVID-19 pandemic goes on, it can be tricky to maintain social ties and have fun with your family and friends. We all want to hang out and do things, but in the interests of everyone remaining healthy, that’s not an option for lots of people. That said, while it’s still not wise to go to movies, concerts, or game nights with friends, t

I live in San Francisco, but I work an East Coast schedule to get a jump on the news day. So I’d already been at my desk for a couple of hours on Wednesday morning when I looked up and saw this:
What color is the sky this morning pic.twitter.com/nt5dZp5wWc
— Walter Thompson (@YourProtagonist) September 9, 2020As unsettling as it was to see the natural environment so transformed, I still got my work done. This is not to boast: I have a desk job and a working air filter. (People who ma

Alex Zajaczkowski was just months into her role at Toast, a restaurant point-of-sale software company, when she was let go during COVID-19 layoffs. Toast, last valued at $5 billion, cut 50% of its staff through layoffs and furloughs.
Zajaczkowski said she started applying for jobs within a week.
“I think I got on the boat a little bit quicker than others because I wanted that security a little bit faster,” she said. She and former Toast colleagues formed a Slack to communicate about

It would seem T.I. left a paper trail. 
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday announced charges against the 39-year-old rapper, real name Clifford Joseph Harris, for his alleged role in promoting a fraudulent initial coin offering. Harris, the SEC claims, sold cryptocurrency tokens via his Twitter account and encouraged his followers to invest in the 2017 FLiK ICO — all the while falsely claiming to be a part owner. 
According to the SEC, the ICO was (surprise!)

While the coronavirus has accelerated the dealmaking pace for many early-stage startups, activity has not come without adaptation.
Remote investment struggles for investors were clear from the get go: it’s challenging to invest millions in someone you have never met, and there’s not a lot to learn from “off-the-cuff” conversations that are calendared days in advance. Some investors said the pandemic was forcing them to stick with people they know in categories where they

Apple today revealed that, after stubbornly refusing to allow cloud gaming apps like Google Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud onto the App Store, it’s now revising those policies to allow them entry — though the policies are still very restrictive. The new rules have a whole section devoted to streaming games and how they’ll fit into the App Store ecosystem. They permit services to have App Store catalog apps, and access to Apple’s payment apparatus, but every game has

The Xbox Series S might have leaked earlier this week before being officially unveiled, but Microsoft was hiding it in plain sight months ago. Xbox chief Phil Spencer appeared in multiple interviews in July, ahead of Microsoft’s Xbox games showcase, and he hid an Xbox Series S on the shelves behind him.
The official Xbox account revealed the elaborate prank today, and Spencer added that the Xbox Series S appeared in at least three YouTube video interviews during July. While it might sound

The Xbox Series S might have leaked earlier this week before being officially unveiled, but Microsoft was hiding it in plain sight months ago. Xbox chief Phil Spencer appeared in multiple interviews in July, ahead of Microsoft’s Xbox games showcase, and he hid an Xbox Series S on the shelves behind him.
The official Xbox account revealed the elaborate prank today, and Spencer added that the Xbox Series S appeared in at least three YouTube video interviews during July. While it might sound

Apple’smaking App Store changes, China might stop TikTok’s acquisition and we talk to Polish venture capitalists about the startup scene. This is your Daily Crunch for September 11, 2020.
The big story: Apple revises App Store rules
Apple announced a bunch of changes to its App Store guidelines today, with details about how it will support new iOS features like App Clips and much more.
For one thing, it sounds like the App Store will now support game-streaming services like Microsoft

The COVID-19 pandemic has perplexed data scientists and creators of machine learning tools as the sudden and major change in consumer behavior has made predictions based on historical data nearly useless. There is also very little point in trying to train new prediction models during the crisis, as one simply cannot predict chaos. While these challenges could shake our perception of what artificial intelligence really is (and is not), they might also foster the development of tools that co

Photo by Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic TikTok star Addison Rae Easterling has been cast as the lead role in a new, gender-swapped version of 1999 teen romantic comedy She’s All That, called He’s All That. Easterling, with over 60 million followers, is the second most popular Tik Tok user in the world (after Charli D’Amelio), but He’s All That will mark her film debut.The upcoming reboot is being produced by Miramax, Variety reports, which made the original film over 20 years a

We’re coming down to the wire folks. Disrupt 2020 officially opens its virtual doors September 14 for five super-charged days of everything the early-stage startup community needs to build better, faster, stronger. Going virtual translates into a global reach making this our largest Disrupt ever. Yowza!
There’s a lot going on during this Disrupt — talk about a vast understatement — including a jam-packed agenda (with time zone-friendly programming for attendees in Europe