The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Government-backed hackers based in North Korea are targeting individual security researchers through a number of means including a “novel social engineering method,” Google’s Threat Analysis Group is reporting. The campaign has reportedly been ongoing for several months, and worryingly appears to exploit unpatched Windows 10 and Chrome vulnerabilities.Although Google doesn’t say exactly what the aim of the hacking campaign is, it notes that the targets are working on “vulnerability research and development.” This suggests the attackers may be trying to learn more about non-public vulnerabilities that they can use in future state-sponsored attacks.Hackers set up a network of Twitter accounts and a cybersecurity blogAccording to... Continue reading…

Celeste was one of the most acclaimed games of 2018, but what you may not have known is that the tightly designed platformer was an expanded version of a smaller project developed in four days at a game jam. Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry created the original Celeste for the Pico-8 platform, and now that version has a sequel called Celeste 2: Lani’s Trek.The developers, now including composer Lena Raine, say that this game took just three days to make. The release is to celebrate the third anniversary of Celeste’s release.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Someone has gotten their hands on a database full of Facebook users’ phone numbers, and is now selling that data using a Telegram bot, according to a report by Motherboard. The security researcher who found this vulnerability, Alon Gal, says that the person who runs the bot claims to have the information of 533 million users, which came from a Facebook vulnerability that was patched in 2019.With many databases, some amount of technical skill is required to find any useful data. And there often has to be an interaction between the person with the database and the person trying to get information out of it, as the database’s “owner” isn’t going to just give someone else all that valuable data. Making a Telegram bot, however, solves both... Continue reading…

Image: Apple’s App Store It looks like Amazon is rolling a new app icon on iOS, and unlike countless other recent app redesigns, it isn’t just a logo dropped inside a white background! Rejoice! The new icon cleverly takes cues from perhaps Amazon’s most recognizable “product” — its shipping boxes and their bright blue tape.Here it is — in the app’s listing on Apple’s UK App Store. (There are a few other reports of others seeing the icon on their devices as well.) Whoever worked on this new app design, which will be instantly recognizable on your home screen, deserves a raise.Correction: We’ve updated the headline to clarify that the new design is an icon, not a logo. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The fast-growing encrypted messaging app is making itself increasingly vulnerable to abuse. Current and former employees are sounding the alarm. Continue reading…

Grindr will be fined 100 million Norwegian kroner, or about $11.7 million, by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority for illegally sharing private information about Grindr users to advertisers, according to The New York Times.Last January, the Norwegian Consumer Council filed three complaints against Grindr for sharing personal information, including users’ locations and information about the device they were using, with advertisers. (One of those advertisers was MoPub, Twitter’s mobile ads company.) Associating that information with an individual could potentially indicate that person’s sexual orientation without their consent, and now, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority is taking action against Grindr for the practice.Grindr... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amnesty International has launched a new campaign against facial recognition titled Ban The Scan — and is launching with a demand for New York City to halt police and government use of the technology.Amnesty argues facial recognition is incompatible with basic privacy rights, and will exacerbate structural racism in policing tactics. “New Yorkers should be able to go out about their daily lives without being tracked by facial recognition,” said Matt Mahmoudi, an AI and human rights researcher with Amnesty. “Other major cities across the US have already banned facial recognition, and New York must do the same.”“The NYPD has used facial recognition to track tens of thousands of New Yorkers”Amnesty is joined in the New York portion of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook’s News tab will go live in the UK on January 26th in its first launch outside the US. The company says the section will offer a mix of curated and personalized news stories, but for select publishers the bigger news is that it will see Facebook paying them to license their content.Although Facebook declined to give information on the amount it expects to pay publishers, a spokesperson said the company plans to invest “substantial” amounts over a number of years. These payments are expected to mainly go to publishers whose content isn’t already on Facebook — for instance, like content that’s normally paywalled. The Guardian previously reported that some publishers expect these payments to be worth millions of pounds a year.A... Continue reading…

John Ternus, Apple’s new senior vice president of hardware engineering | Photo: Apple Apple’s hardware team is getting its biggest shakeup in nearly a decade, as Dan Riccio — who served as the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering since 2012 — transitions to “a new role” at the company. He’ll be replaced as Apple’s head hardware engineer by John Ternus, who led the hardware team designing the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, in addition to working on Apple’s M1 chips. Ternus has been vice president of hardware engineering at Apple since 2013.The role of senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple is a key one: the position reports directly to CEO Tim Cook and is responsible for leading the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod engineering teams. Ternus’ new role will put him in charge of the company’s hardware... Continue reading…

President Joe Biden will start the process of phasing out the federal government’s use of gas-powered vehicles and replacing them with ones that run on electricity. The announcement is the fulfillment of a promise Biden made on the campaign trail to swap government fleet vehicles with American-made EVs.“The federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we’re going to replace with clean electric vehicles made right here in America, by American workers,” Biden said during a briefing Monday announcing his “Buy American” executive order.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon is enabling a new feature today that allows Alexa to proactively complete tasks around the house, such as turning off lights, based on your habits and frequent requests.Alexa has been able to sense these habits and ask about them since 2018 — the company calls them “hunches” — but before this update, Alexa would ask permission before acting on something like lowering the thermostat before you went to bed. If the new proactive hunches are enabled, though, Alexa will skip asking for permission for a task and just do it.While proactive hunches seem like they could make Alexa a lot more useful, having granular controls over what Alexa can automatically act on will be important. An Amazon support article seems to suggest you can... Continue reading…

Nerf’s got a new trick up its sleeve: Hasbro’s latest foam-flinging sidearms can curve their shots, possibly letting you hit targets you can’t even see. (Think Angelina Jolie or James McAvoy in Wanted but with bouncy balls instead of bullets.)That’s because each of Nerf’s three new Rival Curve blasters has an adjustable barrel you can twist to change the angle of your shot: left or right to shoot around corners, up to shoot straight, or down to lob balls over cover. Feeling skeptical? I would also be looking at this CG, especially considering MythBusters all but proved you can’t bend a real-life bullet over a decade ago. But you actually can curve toy projectiles like these foam balls. In fact, companies like Hasbro have... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When most people look out their windows in the morning, they likely aren’t expecting to be surprised by a chest freezer-sized box that’s feeding a 5G antenna, but that’s the exact experience some Houston residents have been having. Verizon has been installing the boxes as part of its 5G network rollout since at least 2019, and from the reporting done by the Houston Chronicle, it seems as if it’s been anything but smooth.The boxes are known as “ground fixtures,” and they supply power and data to 5G antennas that are placed on utility poles nearby. The ones gracing people’s front window views are being set up to build out Verizon’s 5G home internet service. It’s well-known at this point that, while millimeter-wave tech is blazing-fast, it... Continue reading…

Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images When pharmacist Erin McCreary moved to Pennsylvania in 2018, she didn’t anticipate ever having to administer vaccines. She’d taken a vaccination certification course back in pharmacy school six years earlier, but it wasn’t part of her job description as an infectious diseases pharmacist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. That’s why she wasn’t concerned about the state pharmacy board rule that pharmacists had to file their certificate within two years of receiving it or they’d have to take the course again.“Well, now, of course, COVID-19 happened,” McCreary told The Verge. She wanted to sign up to help with COVID-19 vaccination efforts, so she emailed the board asking if they could waive the requirement. “I have my... Continue reading…

Image: OnLeaks / Voice Sony is reportedly set to bring back its “Compact” line of phones in 2021 with a new Xperia Compact model. It will offer a 5.5-inch display and dimensions more in line with Apple’s (relatively) diminutive iPhone 12 mini rather than the increasingly large phones that Sony has offered for the last few years.The new device, according to noted phone leaker OnLeaks, who has also posted renders of the upcoming phone over at Voice, would feature dimensions of 140 x 68.9 x 8.9 mm (5.5 x 2.71 x 0.35 inches), making it just a bit bigger than the iPhone 12 mini (which measures 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4 mm or 5.18 x 2.53 x 0.29 inches).The new Xperia Compact is also said to offer an 8-megapixel selfie camera in a teardrop notch, a dual-camera setup with... Continue reading…

Wind turbines pictured during evening light on November 23rd, 2020, in Oschersleben, Germany. | Photo by Florian Gaertner / Photothek via Getty Images Renewable energy became the biggest source of electricity in the European Union in 2020, beating fossil fuels for the first time. Germany and Spain also hit that milestone individually last year — so did the UK, which officially left the EU in January 2020.Renewables powered 38 percent of electricity in the EU last year, according to a report released today by energy think tanks Ember and Agora Energiewende. That gives renewable energy a narrow lead over fossil fuel-fired generation, which accounted for 37 percent of Europe’s electricity. The remaining quarter comes from nuclear energy.“An important milestone in Europe’s clean energy transition”The rise of renewables is good news for the health of the planet. Still, renewable energy... Continue reading…

Verizon’s 5G UW delivers truly impressive speeds. | Verizon Verizon is extending access to its fast mmWave 5G network to its prepaid customers for the first time. A new unlimited plan starts at $75 a month — $10 more than the standard unlimited prepaid plan — and includes access to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network. Previously, 5G UW access was limited to postpaid customers on certain unlimited plans. All prepaid and postpaid plans continue to include access to Verizon’s slower Nationwide 5G network, which is currently only a bit faster than LTE.The 5G UW network does offer impressive speeds, but it’s limited by very short signal range. Currently, Verizon offers the service in parts of 64 cities, so if you’re thinking about upgrading to a plan that includes UW, you’ll definitely want to c... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple is adding celebrity-guided walking workouts to Fitness Plus today, with new walks to be added every Monday through the end of April. The new feature, called “Time to Walk,” pairs music and inspirational monologues from famous musicians, athletes, and actors with the exercise tracking that Apple Watch and Fitness Plus are known for.Today’s launch includes walks with Shawn Mendes, Dolly Parton, Draymond Green, and Uzo Aduba. Apple says each Time to Walk episode features “personal, life shaping moments” from each influential person’s life and career, along with lessons, memories, and moments of levity. The celebrities will also introduce a playlist of songs after their talk to keep the motivation going for the rest of your walk and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has launched its Birdwatch program, meant to address misinformation on the platform by allowing users to fact-check tweets, the company announced Monday. Users in the pilot program, which will only include about 1,000 users in the US to start, will eventually be able to add notes to tweets to provide context.For now, users participating in the pilot can write notes on individual tweets, but the notes won’t be publicly visible on Twitter itself, only on the public Birdwatch website. Pilot users can also rate notes submitted by other participants in the program there.Here’s an example of what a tweet with the Birdwatch notes would look like: Image: Twitter An example of what tweets with Birdwatch notes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After pressure from activist group Sleeping Giants, Amazon has banned groups tied to the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters militia movements from its AmazonSmile charity program, the company tells The Verge. Members of the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters have been arrested for their suspected involvement in the January 6th attack of the US Capitol.Through its AmazonSmile program, Amazon donates 0.5 percent of eligible purchases on the site to a user’s chosen charity. Users can pick from more than 1 million charities — a list that, until recently, included the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters groups. AmazonSmile’s participation agreement says that groups that engage in or support hate, terrorism, or violence aren’t eligible... Continue reading…

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge When it comes to whether MagSafe-enabled iPhones are safe around pacemakers or other implanted medical devices, Apple and medical device makers have the same advice: it should be okay, but it’s best not to risk it.MacRumors spotted an update to one of Apple’s support documents, where the company advises that iPhones should be kept at least six inches away from a pacemaker or implanted defibrillator during normal use and a foot away if the device is actively using wireless charging (via 9to5Mac).This advice isn’t specific to the MagSafe phones. Apple says the additional magnets shouldn’t make the phones any more likely to turn off your implanted medical device than any other phone, a sentiment Medtronic, the manufacturer of such... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Facebook is aiming to improve transparency around political advertising on its platform by opening up more data to independent researchers, including targeting information on more than 1.3 million ads that ran in the three months prior to the US election on November 3rd of last year. Researchers interested in studying the ads can apply for access to the Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) platform here.The move is significant because Facebook has long resisted willfully allowing access to data around political advertising, often citing user privacy. The company has gone so far as to even disable third-party web plugins, like ProPublica’s Facebook Political Ad Collector tool, that collect such data without Facebook’s express... Continue reading…

Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The market, like Soylent Green, is made of people. That’s never more clear than when there’s something bonkers happening — like what’s happened with video game retailer GameStop’s stock since last September. Back then, it was trading at around $6.68; by this morning, however, it was trading at $146.97. (Since that astounding high, it fell to $61.13 as of 12:26PM EST.) What happened?For that, check out this wild story from Bloomberg, which reported exactly how the subreddit r/WallStreetBets grabbed hold of a huge opportunity — found, naturally, in the mass shorting of GameStop stock. As writer Brandon Kochkodin explains, the stage for the rise was set in 2019, when two important things happened. “One was Michael Burry — of Big Short... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk 2077’s big new 1.1 patch has introduced a game-breaking bug. Eurogamer reports that the “Down on the Street” quest appears to be broken for some players. The quest includes a holocall that’s supposed to trigger progress through the main part of Cyberpunk 2077’s storyline. Unfortunately, some players are reporting that the call remains silent, and it blocks progress of the game.Developer CD Projekt Red has published a workaround for the issue, but it requires players to have an earlier save of the game to try to get the holocall to work correctly. Here are the steps:

Image: 7-11 If you reside in Dallas County, Texas, you have a chance to spend the night in what I think is the ultimate gamer’s paradise: a 7-Eleven complete with snacks, a Slurpee machine, and the hard-to-find PS5 available to use during your stay.Starting February 1st, residents who are 18 years or older will have the chance to spend $11 for one night in the utopia for gamers before it opens to the public. However, the rules are a bit strict as two gamers from the same household who book the experience through Airbnb’s website will have the chance to spend the night. Only two dates are available: February 26th and February 28th.During their stay, two lucky guests will have access to the store, which has a futuristic gaming aesthetic, and it is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A consumer advocacy group in Europe has filed the latest lawsuit against Apple saying the company intentionally throttled older iPhones in Italy. First reported by TechCrunch, the potential class-action lawsuit seeks €60 million (roughly $73 million) in compensation — or about €60 per device — for owners of iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus models sold in Italy between 2014 and 2020. Euroconsumers, an umbrella advocacy organization in the EU that includes Italy’s Altroconsumo, says the €60 compensation is the average amount consumers paid to replace their devices’ batteries.“When consumers buy Apple iPhones, they expect sustainable quality products. Unfortunately, that is not what happened with the iPhone 6 series” Els Bruggeman, head... Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify isn’t limiting its audio ambitions to podcasts and music. Today the company announced it’s furthering its audiobook experiments with the release of nine new audiobooks available exclusively in the app. As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, among the works, which are all part of the public domain, are David Dobrik narrating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Forest Whitaker reading Frederick Douglass’ memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave; and Hilary Swank narrating Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. It’s also releasing an accompanying audio series called Sitting with the Classics on Spotify, a show in which Harvard professor Glenda Carpio explains the stories’ histories and narratives for a modern... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The competition for streaming services is playing out in the same way the tech industry has over the past decade: a small handful of big names, backed by a lot of money.But for every Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and Hulu, there are a dozen smaller, more obscure streaming services — many of which you’ve likely never heard of. In fact, let’s see if you can tell the difference between the names of real streaming platforms and ones we’ve made up.Take the quiz on The VergeFor every household streamer — Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus — there are a dozen that few users would likely recognize. How many people can explain what Xumo, Tubi, Vudu, and Pluto TV are? How about Acorn TV, Ovid, and Popcornflix?But all of these obscure services... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’ve found yourself wanting some peace and quiet, whether it’s from the upstairs neighbor’s kid stomping around above you or just to silence other distractions, today’s marquee deal has your name written all over it. The Sony WH-1000XM4 are $72 off at Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers — matching the lowest price yet that we’ve seen happen a few times now. We first saw this price drop occur during Prime Day last October, and it went on to become one of the most popular deals of 2020.This model is almost identical to the previous generation (WH-1000XM3), with its similarly sublime audio quality and noise cancellation effect. What’s new in this set, though, is a sensor that automatically pauses music when you remove them, then... Continue reading…

Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images AMC Theatres has raised nearly $1 billion in funding since December 14th, staving off bankruptcy for several more months, the company announced today. The announcement comes just days after several major studios, including Paramount, Sony, and Disney’s Fox, all delayed many of their films to the latter half of the year.In total, AMC raised $917 million, according to public documents. More than half of that capital arrives in the form of equity that comes with selling 164.7 million new common shares. AMC raised another $411 million in incremental debt that is scheduled to be paid off by mid-2023, according to the filing. As such, AMC Theatres executives now believe they have a new “financial runway” that extends “deep into 2021.”“This... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WWE Network, the standalone video service from World Wrestling Entertainment, won’t be going it alone for much longer — at least in the United States. Today, WWE and NBCUniversal announced that the service, which offers live streams of pay-per-view events, a large roster of original shows, and a massive vault of past WWE programming, will be integrated into Peacock starting in March. The US version of the WWE Network app will be shut down as part of the deal, which The Wall Street Journal is putting at over $1 billion.The new tag team results in positives on both sides: WWE will find itself with a wider streaming audience after seemingly hitting a ceiling on WWE Network growth, and Peacock gets a differentiator in the... Continue reading…

8BitDo is best known for its affordable retro controllers, but its latest product is quite a bit more ambitious. It’s a wireless arcade stick for the Nintendo Switch and PCs, simply called the 8BitDo Arcade Stick, and at $89.99 it’s now the most expensive controller in the company’s lineup.Arcade sticks can be pretty pricey, though. Hori sells a $199.99 PlayStation-licensed PS4 model, for example, so 8BitDo is still at the more accessible end of the market if you do want an arcade stick. And if you do want one for the PC or Switch, I think this one is actually a great place to start.8BitDo’s stick is specifically designed for the Switch and PC (via XInput), and it manages to feel native to both platforms thanks to a neat little trick:... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Microsoft has a habit of reigniting the Mac vs. PC conflict for its Surface ads, and this time it’s going after Apple’s Touch Bar. In a new TV commercial, aired during Sunday night’s NFL championship games, Microsoft pits Apple’s MacBook Pro against the company’s Surface Pro 7. It’s a chance for Microsoft to mock Apple’s Touch Bar in a TV commercial for the first time.“Mac gave me this little bar, but why can’t they just give me a whole touchscreen?” asks a boy comparing the two laptops. That’s something that some MacBook Pro users have been calling for, or just the removal of the Touch Bar altogether. Apple is now reportedly planning a redesign for the MacBook Pro later this year, with the Touch Bar rumored to be replaced by physical... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix has detailed an upgrade to its Android app which should reduce buffering and make audio sound better and easier to hear over background noise. It’s been made possible thanks to the adoption of the xHE-AAC codec, which a Netflix blog post says should “improve intelligibility in noisy environments, adapt to variable cellular connections, and scale to studio-quality.” Netflix’s use of the codec was announced earlier this month, and is available on devices running Android 9 and above.xHE-AAC uses metadata to solve a few different audio problems people have when watching shows on mobile devices. Netflix explains this is often a problem of loud background noise making content hard to hear, combined with weak and tinny phone speakers... Continue reading…

Google workers across the world are coming together to form a global union alliance. The newly formed coalition, called Alpha Global, is comprised of 13 different unions representing workers in 10 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.The announcement comes weeks after workers in the US and Canada launched the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a minority union affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. AWU grew from 230 members to more than 700 within a week after it launched.Alpha Global is affiliated with the UNI Global Union, a federation of labor unions representing 20 million people worldwide, including workers at Amazon.“We know that organizing for justice at a global company like... Continue reading…

Newell during a recent interview with 1 News. | Image: 1 News Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell talks about Valve’s exploration of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for gaming and beyond, in an interview with New Zealand’s 1 News. Although Newell admits that the idea of having your brain interface directly with a computer sounds “indistinguishable from science fiction,” he says developers would be making a “silly mistake” if they ignore the area.Newell says that Valve is currently working with OpenBCI headsets to develop open-source software with the aim of making it easier for developers to understand the signals coming from people’s brains. At its most basic, this could allow software to understand whether a player is enjoying a game, and adjust the experience accordingly. For example,... Continue reading…

Google Google is launching an initiative to provide more than $150 million to promote education and equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines, the company announced today. It’s going to make some Google facilities — buildings, parking lots, and open spaces — available as vaccination clinics, with plans to open sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kirkland, Washington, and New York City first, and expand nationally as vaccines become more widely available.Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai says in a blog post that the company would give $100 million in ad grants to the CDC Foundation, the World Health Organization, and other nonprofits. It also plans to invest $50 million in partnerships with public health agencies to help get... Continue reading…

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images ESPN Plus says it will issue partial refunds to customers who paid for a UFC pay-per-view event Saturday only to run into technical problems.Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier was the headline match of the UFC 257 main card, which was set to get underway at about 10PM ET Saturday. To watch, ESPN Plus subscribers, who pay $59.99 per year for the streaming service, also paid $69.99 for Saturday’s event. But users in the US began reporting a blackout on the ESPN Plus app Saturday evening that lasted through some of the earlier fights on the main card.A spokesperson for Disney, which owns ESPN, said in an email to The Verge on Sunday that the company was “aware that a technical issue prevented a portion of users from accessing the early... Continue reading…

Godzilla vs. Kong | Warner Bros. I finally finished Ted Lasso last night and I get why everyone loved it so much. I was totally prepared to not like the earnest, goofy Ted but Jason Sudeikis won me over. I won’t spoil in case you haven’t seen it, but Ted Lasso has plenty of plot developments you expect will turn out a certain way —because we’ve been conditioned to have plots drawn out as long as possible and with as much unnecessary drama as possible— but then the characters behave like actual people! They’re smart and funny and nuanced and I can’t wait to see them again in Season 2.But look what just dropped this morning: The Godzilla vs. Kong trailer! Let’s goooooGodzilla vs. Kong The trailer for the long-awaited flick about the showdown between Kong and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is suing a former employee for allegedly stealing company information, CNBC reported. The company says software engineer Alex Khatilov stole files from Tesla’s internal network related to its Warp Drive software, used to automated many of the company’s business processes. Tesla alleges in the lawsuit that Khatilov moved files to his personal Dropbox account, and that he was one of only a few Tesla employees who had access to the files.According to the lawsuit, Khatilov told Tesla investigators he “forgot” about moving the files to his personal Dropbox when they confronted him. He told the New York Post in an interview that he had unintentionally moved the files to Dropbox, and, had been unaware that Tesla had filed a lawsuit... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber has laid off about 185 Postmates workers, and plans to further integrate Postmates’ infrastructure within its Uber Eats segment, The New York Times reported. Uber acquired Postmates in July for $2.65 billion, following a failed attempt to buy rival food delivery service Grubhub.Meal delivery has been one bright spot for Uber amid the pandemic, as bookings in its Uber Eats division rose 135 percent year-over-year in the third quarter while its ride-hailing segment dropped 50 percent over the same time period. It’s consolidated other parts of the company in a bid to become profitable by the end of 2021, selling its autonomous vehicles segment to Aurora Innovation in December, the same month it sold its Uber Elevate flying taxi... Continue reading…

143 spacecraft inside Falcon 9’s payload fairing | SpaceX SpaceX launched a batch of 143 spacecraft to space from Florida on Sunday morning under the company’s new cost-cutting SmallSat Rideshare Program, breaking the record for the most satellites lofted into space on a single launch.The Transporter-1 mission kicks off a potentially lucrative business line for SpaceX, which unveiled in 2019 its SmallSat Rideshare Program, essentially a carpool for dozens of satellites of different shapes and sizes. The program offers relatively cheap access to space for small satellite companies starting at $1 million for the first 485 pounds.Much like a rideshare Uber, a company’s small satellite can hitch a ride to space with other spacecraft instead of buying an entire rocket at a much higher price.After... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft’s flagship Xbox Series X is one of the most powerful gaming consoles available right now. If you are having difficulty finding it, Target has restocked the Xbox Series X today, so you may want to check it out while supplies last. Given the challenge it has been to secure a unit, inventory will likely not last long.Although no walk-in purchases are available, you will have the option to either have it shipped to your home or request an in-store pickup.Like every major hardware launch, the demand for the Xbox Series X and its competitor, the PlayStation 5, is through the roof, and the usual problems of supply and demand are exacerbated by the fact that both next-gen consoles launched during a pandemic. Many retailers have... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Italy’s data privacy authority has ordered video sharing app TikTok to temporarily block the accounts of any users whose ages can’t be confirmed, Reuters reported. The order comes after the death of a 10-year-old girl in Palermo, whose parents told authorities their daughter was participating in a “blackout challenge” she saw on the app. The child died of asphyxiation, and authorities are investigating whether anyone invited her to try the challenge.The Italian Data Protection Authority ordered TikTok to block unverified users in Italy until at least February 15th. The company told The Guardian it had not found content on its platform which would have encouraged the child to participate in the challenge, but said it was cooperating... Continue reading…

Image: HBO The year is kicking off with what’s becoming a loose tradition: a documentary about a renowned ‘90s athlete that aims to shade in a more complete picture. This time around, it’s Tiger, a two-part HBO Sports documentary about golf superstar Tiger Woods. Like The Last Dance, which chronicled Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls while reflecting on his entire career, Tiger attempts to complicate the prevailing narrative of a legend defined by his meteoric rise and equally steep fall.Even if you didn’t know golf, you probably knew about Tiger Woods. If you came of age in the ‘90s or early aughts, it was impossible to not know about the man who brought raucous, Michael Jordan-levels of celebrity to golf — a sport so... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook says some users were logged out of their accounts unexpectedly Friday due to a “configuration change,” and the issue has been fixed as of Saturday morning.“On January 22, a configuration change caused some people to be logged out of their Facebook accounts. We investigated the issue and fixed it for everyone earlier today. We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in an email to The Verge.

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images A year ago this week, The Verge published our first story about the virus. It was January 21. The first case had arrived in the US. We’d only heard of about 300 cases reported in China and six deaths.We still knew there was a chance it could get bad. “It’s bringing back SARS flashbacks for me,” coronavirus expert Timothy Sheahan told Verge reporter Nicole Wetsman at the time. The 2002 SARS outbreak taught researchers speed, but was only a deadly teaser to the still-unnamed pandemic that was about to begin.One year and almost 1,000 coronavirus-related articles later, we’ve passed more grim milestones than we ever should have. More than 97 million people have contracted the virus and 2.1 million people have died. In just one year, more... Continue reading…

Image: Vizio In news that’s likely to be devastating to people who are looking for any and all reasons to upgrade their TV, CBS announced that Super Bowl LV won’t be broadcast in 4K HDR. The decision was made because of complications caused by the pandemic. This likely isn’t going over too well with all of the TV manufacturers that use the Super Bowl as the moment to clear out 2020 models at a big discount. But there are other reasons to seize these deals while they’re around.There’s more 4K content than ever, with HBO Max’s Wonder Woman 1984 being one of the big new releases to support 4K HDR. One of the TVs mentioned below has HDMI 2.1 ports, giving it the ability to display certain PS5 and Xbox Series X games at 4K resolution with up to 120... Continue reading…

Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images Longtime TV and radio host Larry King died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87. Ora Media, which King co-founded in 2012, confirmed the news in a tweet to the @KingsThings Twitter account. A cause of death was not immediately available Saturday, but he had reportedly been hospitalized recently with COVID-19.“Larry always viewed his interview subjects as the true stars of his programs,” the statement from Ora reads. “Whether he was interviewing a U.S. president, foreign leader, celebrity, scandal-ridden personage, or an everyman, Larry liked to ask short, direct, and uncomplicated questions.”

Brian Alldridge’s pill bottle design. | Image: Brian Alldridge Stitching together a pill bottle prototype Continue reading…