Technology news

As the Arizona Senate election heats up ahead of November, Democratic candidate Mark Kelly’s team launched its own Snapchat account on Wednesday, including the first custom Snapchat AR lens from a Senate campaign.
Retired NASA astronaut Kelly is running in a hotly contended special election in Arizona to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. John McCain’s term through 2022. The seat is currently held by Sen. Martha McSally, who is running in opposition to Kelly on the Republican t

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Department of Justice has submitted a proposal to weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a rule that protects websites and apps from liability for third-party content. The proposal would make it riskier for sites to remove offensive content and would remove sites’ immunity for hosting material related to terrorism, child sex abuse, or cyber-stalking. It would also remove some protections for sites that don’t sufficiently

I had to see it, so you have to as well. | Image: Fall Guys I hate to bring you this news, but underneath a Fall Guy’s playful, gelatinous exterior, the very being that comprises it is deeply disturbing. It has hidden abs, nipples, a human skull, and long taffy-like optic nerves, among other horrific anatomical anomalies, according to a tweet from the game’s developer.
It gets worse, though. Fall Guys are six feet tall, taller than many human beings. Looking at its general bone stru

Image: Warner Media HBO Max is getting a new TV series called Peacemaker, a spinoff of the upcoming Suicide Squad sequel directed by James Gunn. The show will focus on the origins of its titular character, Peacemaker, played by John Cena.
The streaming service has ordered eight episodes with production slated to begin in early 2021. Not much is known about the plot, but Warner Bros. says the show is set in the same world as The Suicide Squad, which is set to debut in theaters on August 6th, 202

Photo by Jeff Swensen / Getty Images Facebook will reject ads from Donald Trump and Joe Biden claiming victory before the winner of the US election is declared.The change is an update to a policy CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on September 3rd, which banned political ads the week before the election, as reported by Fast Company. That policy would not have stopped Trump or Biden from running ads directly after the election. Either presidential candidate could have started claiming victory at 12:0

2018’s Spider-Man is headed to the PlayStation 5, but buying it won’t be straightforward. Sony has confirmed to Kotaku that Spider-Man Remastered — the updated PS5 version — won’t be sold as a standalone title or offered as a free upgrade for existing Spider-Man owners. Instead, the only way to buy it will be as part of the $69.99 Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition bundle, which couples the PS5 version of the upcoming spinoff with Spider-Man Remastered. (Mil

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Sega Akihabara 2nd, the multifloor haven filled with arcade cabinets and gacha games, closed in late August after being open for 17 years. The building served as perhaps the most recognizable landmark in Tokyo’s vibrant, gadget-filled Akihabara hub that attracts plenty of tourists. If you’ve played one of the great Yakuza games, you’ve probably spent time playing Sega arcade games in a virtual version of Sega’s Akihabara 2nd, or some

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Amazon is launching a new environmental program called Climate Pledge Friendly that will label certain products that meet one of 19 certifications for sustainability. The goal is to help climate-conscious consumers make a better decision about whether to buy one product over another by letting them know when a brand has made an effort to reduce its carbon footprint. Amazon says more than 25,000 products should now display the program’s label.“Clim

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After rolling out audio tweets for iOS in June, Twitter is now experimenting with the idea of letting people record and send voice messages through direct messages. Alex Ackerman-Greenberg, product manager for direct messages at Twitter, let me know that the company will be testing voice DMs soon. Brazil will be the first country included in that test. He shared the news... through a 20-second voice message. “We know people want more options for how

Tesla cars are located next to a new Tesla charging station of the latest generation on the Euref Campus Berlin.  | Photo by Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images Tesla plans for its future electric vehicles to be able to both suck up power and spit it back out into the grid. Tesla didn’t specify when this capability would be available when CEO Elon Musk made the announcement during Tesla’s much-anticipated Battery Day event in Palo Alto, California.“A Powerwall

Rocket League goes free to play today, and Epic will give you $10 to spend in the Epic Games Store if you redeem the free game there. You can nab the deal between now and October 23rd at 11AM ET. The coupon expires on November 1st at 3PM ET.
The company has not said why it is doing this promotion, but it’s likely trying to pull PC gamers away from Steam, convincing them to switch to the Epic Games Store instead. Rocket League has now been delisted from Steam, but you can still play your co

Image: Google Just yesterday, WinFuture shared leaked specs for the Pixel 5, which reportedly has a a Snapdragon 765G CPU, a six-inch 2340 x 1080 OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 4,080mAh battery, and more. Today, WinFuture is back with another set of leaks, this time revealing potential specs for the upcoming Pixel 4A 5G, and there will apparently be a lot of similarities between the two devices.
For one thing, the Pixel 4A 5G’s resolution is supposed

-The most exciting part of iOS 14 isn’t picture-in-picture video display or the app library — it’s widgets.Instead of once-boring app icons for your calendar or clock that might get placed in a utilities folder, the new wave of widgets let you spice up your homepage with anything from custom notes to astronomy and weather reports. Those options have existed on Android devices for years, but their sudden arrival on the iPhone has created a kind of gold rush, with users combining

Photo by Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an ambitious executive order Wednesday that would ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles in the state starting in 2035, the Desert Sun reports. The order is part of a package of policy changes aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions as California deals with a rash of deadly wildfires.The executive order would not prohibit Californians from owning gas-powered vehicles, nor fro

Expandable storage on the Xbox Series X. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft has previously detailed the new Xbox Series X controller and optional 1TB expansion cards, and now we’ve been able to get a closer look at both. After taking a first look at the Xbox Series X earlier this month, The Verge now has a working Xbox Series X unit with a 1TB expansion card and Microsoft’s updated controller. We’ll have a full preview of the Xbox Series X soon, but for now let’

Image: Sling TV Sling TV is joining the quarantine-era watch party bandwagon with a unique edge over the streaming services that got there first: live TV. The new feature, called Sling Watch Party,makes Sling the first pay-TV provider to add a co-watching feature to its platform, doing so to infuse some much-needed social interaction to the now-solemn act of watching TV alone in your house or apartment during COVID-19.Sling’s take on this is still in beta for now, and it’s only avai

Google Google Maps will soon include information on COVID-19 spread in states, counties, and some cities. Toggling on the “COVID” layer in the app will show the seven-day average number of confirmed cases in each area per 100,000 people. Areas of the map will be color-coded based on case rate, and a label shows if cases are going up or down. The feature will roll out on Android and iOS this week. Image: Google
The layer is designed to help people “make more informed decisions

Every founder dreams of building a substantial company. For those who make it through the myriad challenges, it typically results in an exit. If it’s through an acquisition, that can mean cashing in your equity, paying back investors and rewarding long-time employees, but it also usually results in a loss of power and a substantially reduced role.
Some founders hang around for a while before leaving after an agreed-upon time period, while others depart right away because there is simply no

In a predictable fashion, Disney is delaying Black Widow to 2021 as the company continues to navigate the current theatrical landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic. This marks the first time since 2009 that a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie hasn’t been released in a calendar year.Black Widow will now open on May 7th, 2021 — more than one year after it was originally scheduled to be released. Like with other Marvel delays, Black Widow’s new date pushes Shang-Chi and the Legend o

Dan Seifert / The Verge Samsung got US FDA clearance for its electrocardiogram (EKG) monitoring app in August, but today the functionality is finally rolling out to the company’s latest smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 3, as well as the Galaxy Active 2 from late 2019.Previously limited to South Korea, the app now lets users in the US monitor their heart rhythm for irregularities and check for atrial fibrillation (Afib). You’ll be able to use it yourself in the “ECG Monitor”

French startup Kard has added $3.5 million (€3 million) to its seed round. The company already raised the same amount last year, which means that Kard has raised $7 million (€6 million) in total for its seed round.
Founders Futureis leading the round, with Laurence Krieger, Michael Vaughan, Jon Oringerand Iris Mittenaere also participating.
Kardis building a challenger bank specifically designed for teenagers. When you create an account, you receive your own IBAN and a Mastercard debit

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok is putting new restrictions on weight loss ads as the app increasingly comes under criticism for promoting dangerous diets. The new policy bans ads for fasting apps and weight loss supplements. It also puts increased restrictions on other weight loss-related ads, like limiting ads for “weight management products” to users over 18 years old and not allowing those ads to “promote a negative body image or negative relationship with f

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You’ve played Fall Guys, right? The sleeper hit of The Summer That Wasn’t from developer Mediatonic? If you haven’t, well, I suggest you give it a shot, if only because it was the second biggest game this month on Twitch — and the second largest debut there this year. (Valorant’s launch in April was bigger, but Fall Guys did manage to beat out Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the second spot.) It sold 7 million copies on Ste

Zoom’s latest update will let you pin or spotlight multiple videos during a call.| Image: Zoom via Mashable Zoom has added new accessibility features that should make the videoconference app easier to use for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or who have visual impairments.
As reported by Mashable and USA Today, the first change to the app is the ability to pin or spotlight multiple videos at once, instead of just one as is currently allowed. This will let people who require sign

Image: Instagram Instagram Reels is doubling the length of videos in a new update, allowing users to make 30-second videos instead of 15 seconds.
Reels’ biggest competitor, TikTok, lets people record videos up to a minute in length. Instagram is also extending the timer from three to 10 seconds, and people will also be able to trim and delete any clip in an attempt to make the editing process smoother.Although Instagram hasn’t said much about how many people are using Reels, it&rsqu

Google Google is introducing a new Workday routine that makes Google Assistant audibly remind you of calendar events and, notably, to take moments for self-care throughout the day.Since most of us are still stuck working from home, it can be easy to forget about caring for your physical and mental needs. So in addition to ensuring you make every meeting in that busy calendar, the routine comes configured to remind you to do a few small but important things in between, like getting water and sta

The history of smartphones is riddled with absolutely awful phone names. The Acer Liquid Zest Plus, the HTC ChaCha, the LG G8X ThinQ, the iPhone 11 Pro Max, the Sony Xperia 1 II. And of course, the legendary Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, a breathtaking display of buzzwords, numbers, and letters that somehow form the full name of one of 2011’s better Android phones.But almost nine years to the day, there is a new champion for all-time worst Android phone name: the newly announced Veriz

Facebook has taken down a China-based network of fake accounts that used AI-generated faces to spread government propaganda across the platform, according to research by analytics firm Graphika. The social network announced on Tuesday that it had removed 155 accounts, 11 Pages, nine Groups, and six Instagram accounts for “coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign or government entity.” The fake accounts predominantly focused on Southeast Asia, where they posted ab

An unknown piece of space debris was detected near the International Space Station, NASA said yesterday. The station executed an “avoidance maneuver” on Tuesday night to get out of the way of the debris, boosting its orbit around Earth. “At no time was the crew in any danger,” NASA wrote in a blog post.The station is preparing to avoid a piece of unknown space debris being tracked by @NASA_Johnson flight controllers and @US_SpaceCom. The Exp 63 crew has relocated to its S

It’s been a long road for Palantir as it has submitted amendment after amendment with the SEC related to its S-1 filing over the past two months. But after weeks of back and forth, it’s official: Palantir’s S-1 has been marked effective, which means that it has been accepted by the SEC and its target market the NYSE, and should be ready to go as the company heads toward a public direct listing.
The company will begin trading on Wednesday, September 30th, under the ticker PLTR.

The Game Awards, an annual award show hosted by Geoff Keighley, is returning December 10th. This year’s festivities are taking a “multi-city approach,” offering streams from studios in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo, albeit without in-person audiences.The event will also introduce a new award, Innovation in Accessibility, to honor developers “pushing the medium forward by adding features, technology, and content to help games be played and enjoyed by an even wider audienc

Last night Robinhood, the American fintech unicorn that provides free securities trading services to consumers via an app, announced that it raised an additional $460 million in its previously known Series G. That round is now worth $660 million at an $11.7 billion post-money valuation.
A little over a month ago Robinhoodannounced that it had raised a $200 million Series G, bringing its valuation to $11.2 billion at the time.The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every mornin

At Amazon, you can save $15 on the total cost of an Apple Watch Series 6 or Apple Watch SE. It’s not a huge discount, but per a deal post at AppleInsider, Amazon is the only place where you can actually save money on Apple’s latest smartwatches. This price drop for the new watches brings the Series 6 (GPS, 40mm) down to $384.99 and the cheaper SE in the bigger size (GPS, 44mm) down to $299.99.If you want the Series 6 or SE with cellular added to the Watch, you can also save up to $15

It’s not uncommon in the car industry for competitor brands to work together to develop common technologies. However, in the following case, it seems that Geely, the Chinese carmaker that also owns Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus, is just going to sell its tech directly to its rivals. According to a Financial Times report, Geely has created a new process for building electric vehicles, which it hopes will be one of a handful of platforms that will dominate the industry in the coming years. The

Samsung already makes three different kinds of Galaxy S20 phones: a regular, a Plus, and an Ultra. Now you can add a fourth to that mix, the Galaxy S20 FE — the FE stands for “Fan Edition.” It’s an S20 with some of the more expensive parts removed but keeping some of the key features that matter. It will also come in six different colors. Available October 2nd, it will sell for $699 for the sub-6 variant on T-Mobile, AT&T, and unlocked and $749 for the mmWave version