Technology

Jaguar Land Rover announced a software update this week that offers deep Alexa integration for newer vehicle models (via Bloomberg). The update is available to over 200,000 Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles outfitted with the company’s Pivi Pro 3.0 or later infotainment system via an over-the-air update. This comes after Amazon’s efforts early last year to open up some of Alexa’s AI to allow car manufacturers to better integrate Alexa into their vehicles. Competition is already hot for Amazon in the automotive space Alexa in Jaguars and Land Rovers will be usable without the need of a smartphone and will be able to assist drivers hands-free with playing music, navigating to various points of interest, and everything else Alexa is capable of like announcing news and weather. You can also turn ...

On Thursday evening, blockchain platform OpenSea launched a new system that will help users clear out unclaimed sale offers, set to roll out over the next two weeks. In an announcement post, CEO Devin Finzer described the changes as made to “ensure old, inactive listings expire.” The move comes after a bug that allowed attackers to exploit old contracts to buy tokens for hundreds of thousands of dollars below market price. In one particularly attention-getting case in January, a Bored Ape Yacht Club token was purchased for less than $2,000 and resold immediately for over $192,000. The bug was a result of how OpenSea’s platform interacts with the Ethereum blockchain, often saving gas fees by listing offers locally rather than coding them into the broader chain. An oversight in that system a...

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman is typically a reliable source for Apple rumors, so we’re listening when he says the company is targeting March 8th for a spring event to show off a new low-cost iPhone SE with 5G, as well as a refreshed iPad Air that adds a new CPU and 5G for cellular-equipped models. Rumors of an update for the iPhone SE have been around since before the iPhone 13 launched, and now Bloomberg says we should expect to see a faster chip and improved cameras inside a shell that’s similar to the existing model that has a 4.7-inch screen. The current iPhone SE was introduced in 2020, and its $399 price is the same now as it was on launch day, so an A15 CPU and 5G could make it a much better value. There’s no word on the fate of Touch ID, but without a design update, that seems un...

All right, listen. This is not for those of you with Dewey Decimal mental filing systems or expertly curated music playlists that easily identify the music contained therein. But hear me out: we need music browser tabs in our music player apps. I can’t, unfortunately, take credit for this proposed — and tremendously useful! — addition to our music player interfaces. It was actually The Verge’s deputy editor Dan Seifert who first tweeted the idea, which I enthusiastically threw my support behind. We’re not the only two nerds who think this would be a handy feature, either. Wearables reviewer Victoria Song chimed in that she, too, would like a tabs-like feature in her music players. (A good and correct opinion.) i need browser tabs in my music player app so i can remember what i want to list...

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where we discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories. This week on the show, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, Ashley Carman, and Alex Heath discuss Meta’s rough week: Facebook reported its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally, along with lower-than-expected ad growth that sent its stock plunging roughly 20 percent. The crew discusses the takeaways from Meta’s earnings report and the company’s struggle to keep younger users on its platforms. The crew also discusses Spotify’s response to the Joe Rogan controversy. This week, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the company’s choice to work with Rogan and tried to explain why he believes Spotify is a combination o...

Popular fitness club Les Mills is punching and kicking its way into the metaverse with a new VR game, BODYCOMBAT VR. The $29.99 game is an extension of an existing workout series that combines shadowboxing with martial arts and is available on the Meta Quest platform. The game was developed by VR studio Odder Labs and is led by Les Mills BODYCOMBAT directors Rachael Newsham and Dan Cohen. According to Les Mills’ press release, the game incorporates classic boxing moves like jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, as well as squats and slips to dodge walls. Other moves include grabbing targets to slam into a user’s knee. Levels are set against “intergalactic deserts and neo-city skylines” and set to curated playlists. Players earn points for both technique and effort. There are 25 training sessions spa...

This week’s freezing temperatures and winter storms in Texas led to far fewer power outages than a similar freeze last year. But worryingly, a handful of Texas counties with high rates of power outages also have high numbers of people who need power for medical devices, according to a new analysis by the data group CrisisReady. Losing electricity in bitter cold is always dangerous, but it’s particularly scary for people who rely on it to keep medical devices like ventilators running. The new analysis pulled federal data on Medicare beneficiaries to identify counties with high numbers of people using electricity-dependent medical equipment. It found that six such counties had more than 1 percent of the population out of power at one point during the storm. Lamar County — home to under 50,00...

The US Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday the creation of a new body, the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), to investigate major cybersecurity events. The 15-person board will be comprised of a mixture of senior officials from agencies like the NSA, FBI and CISA, and governmental departments including the Department of Defense and Department of Justice, along with private sector executives from companies including Google, Microsoft, and Verizon. “The Biden-Harris administration has taken bold steps to meaningfully improve our cybersecurity resilience,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “At the president’s direction, DHS is establishing the Cyber Safety Review Board to thoroughly assess past events, ask the hard questions, and drive improvements acro...

Disney is seeking to bring onboard an NFT expert who will aid in the company’s ventures into the space. Referred to as a manager of business development, the hire will “help lead Disney’s efforts in the NFT space including monitoring the evolving marketplace, setting category strategy and managing key partners,” according to the job description. Additional NFT-related duties will include developing distribution strategies, identifying and securing revenue opportunities and maintaining relationships in the technology sector. Candidates are expected to have a minimum of five years of experience in licensing or business development, along with a “passion for digital and NFT categories.” Additional open positions at Disney that deal with NFTs are a director of sales and digital marketing, a cu...