Technology

Twitter has introduced a Live Shopping feature so people can shop looks and products during live broadcasts. In a blog post, the company said that the new feature will allow users to check out the Shoppable Banner and Shop Tab on the Live event’s page, toggle back and forth between the Latest Tab and the Shop Tab throughout the live stream and continue to watch the livestream on the merchant’s website within an in-app browser. The company will be trialing the Live Shopping feature during an upcoming livestream hosted in partnership with Walmart and Jason Derulo. The event starts at 7 p.m. ET on November 28, and will feature electronics, home goods, apparel, seasonal décor and more. “Livestreaming on Twitter gives businesses the power to engage with their most influential fans, and adding t...

Tile popularized marking items and tracking them from your phone with its small Bluetooth tags, but is suddenly facing more competition from giants like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung. Now the company that started out of an incubator and crowdfunding campaign has announced it will be acquired by Life360, which calls itself a “leading family safety platform.” The deal is valued at $205 million and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022. Tile has developed its product line over the years with a variety of different trackers, as well as partnerships with other companies to use its technology. It also has a subscription service, Tile Premium, with extra features, battery replacements, and even offers insurance against potential losses. However, the game may have changed once App...

Food delivery platform DoorDash has agreed to pay $5.3 million to the city of San Francisco to settle allegations it failed to provide healthcare and paid sick leave to some 4,500 delivery drivers, as the city requires. The company did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, most of which will be used to reimburse drivers who made deliveries in the city between 2016 and 2020, before a new state law covering gig workers took effect. California’s gig workers law, which voters approved in November 2020 as ballot measure Proposition 22, allows companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash to treat workers as independent contractors, not employees. A judge ruled in August that the law was unconstitutional, but it remains in effect pending an appeal by the companies. “We believe (DoorDash cour...

So far, Elizabeth Holmes’ defense has been at pains to show us that Theranos had a real device and worked with real pharmaceutical companies. That actually hasn’t been in question, particularly in the time period the defense was asking about. Still, the point seems to be hey, look, some things at Theranos were real. But today, in her wire fraud trial, we saw a science-y presentation — not actual science, just the marketing version. We saw the guts of Theranos devices. We heard about the company iterating on the device. We saw emails with pharma companies. Theranos’ work with drug companies was never in question; we saw money Theranos made from that work early in the prosecution’s case, with comptroller Danise Yam. The issue with drug companies has been the “validation” reports that Therano...

As Black Friday approaches, several retailers are already offering significant discounts — and Walmart is no exception. Right now, the retail giant is dropping early Black Friday deals on everything from the AirPods Pro to the most popular TVs and streaming devices. We’ve featured a few of these items in our guide to early Black Friday deals, however, the list below highlights all of the best sales Walmart is offering across several categories rather than just a few. It’s perfect, then, for anybody who plans on shopping primarily at Walmart. The store will continue to publish more deals as we get closer to the big day, with many of the better deals going live on November 22nd, according to a recent online circular. If you subscribe to Walmart Plus, the retailer’s equivalent to Amazon Prime...

Ironically, if you’re looking for a great Apple deal this Black Friday season, you shouldn’t shop at Apple. That’s because Apple doesn’t typically offer discounts on its new products in-store or on its website, at least outside of the occasional educational discount. Don’t fear, however, as there are plenty of reliable third-party retailers like Amazon, B&H Photo, and Best Buy that do. Even better, these retailers have already started discounting some of the most popular Apple products ahead of Black Friday, dropping prices on everything from the latest MacBook Pro to the Apple Watch Series 7. Below, we’ve rounded up the best deals we’ve found by category, and we’ll continue to update this piece as more deals are published. Also, if you’re looking to save even more, make sure to check ...

GoDaddy has suffered a security breach that gave an attacker access to more than 1 million email addresses belonging to the company’s active and inactive Managed WordPress users, according to a disclosure it filed with the SEC on Monday. The company says the attacker gained access to a provisioning system (meant to set up and automatically configure new sites when customers create them) in early September by “using a compromised password.” GoDaddy says that it noticed the intrusion on November 17th and immediately locked the attacker out before beginning an investigation and contacting law enforcement. The compromised password gave the attacker access to emails and much more The hackers had access to more than just the email addresses — they could also see the original WordPress admin pass...

Twitter is introducing aliases for participants in its Birdwatch moderation tool so they don’t have to include their usernames in notes they leave on others’ tweets, the company announced in a blog post Monday. The social media platform launched the pilot of Birdwatch in January as a way to crowdsource fact-checking on tweets that might contain misleading or inaccurate information. But the company said contributors in the pilot Birdwatch program “overwhelmingly voiced a preference for contributing under aliases. This preference was strongest for women and Black contributors.” Introducing Birdwatch aliases! We want everyone to feel comfortable contributing to Birdwatch, and aliases let you write and rate notes without sharing your Twitter username. pic.twitter.com/ROlbpYvT7u — Birdwatch (@b...

Last year, it seemed like the Oura Ring was everywhere. Researchers were studying whether the smart ring (and other wearables) could one day detect illness, and right on cue, the NBA announced it bought 2,000 Oura Rings to monitor athletes. Prince Harry has been a fan for years, and celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Kim Kardashian West have also been spotted wearing the sleep tracker. That’s already a lot of buzz for a niche gadget, but the third-generation Oura Ring also adds ambitious new features like period prediction and blood oxygen. The question is whether it’s worth committing to a $299 smart ring that now requires a monthly subscription. Verge Score 7.5 out of 10 Good Stuff Emphasizes rest and recovery Comfortable to wear all day Ambitious health tracking features Bad Stuff Se...

New video footage from NASA‘s Perseverance Mars rover of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter‘s 13th flight on September 4 provides “the most detailed look yet of the rotorcraft in action,” NASA said in a statement. Ingenuity’s 160.5-second Flight 13 stands out as one of the rotorcraft’s most complicated fights to date, as the helicopter flew into varied terrain within the “Séítah” geological feature and captured images of an outcrop from several different angles for the rover team. Taken from 26 feet in the air, the new images supplement previous photos captured during Flight 12. The video of the flight, which was captured by the rover’s two-camera Mastcam-Z, provides two angles of the rotorcraft’s movement. The first shows the four-pound helicopter’s large-scale flight profile, while the second...

Roku serves as a gateway to access various streaming services, but now, a report from The Wall Street Journal reveals that the service wants to develop over 50 original series in the next two years, expanding the original content that it already has on its free Roku Channel. As noted by the WSJ, 155 million people have access to Roku devices, and about half tune into the Roku Channel, a hub for ad-supported TV shows, movies, and live news. The service added Roku Originals to the Roku Channel earlier this year, a large portion of which actually come from Quibi, the short-lived streaming service that shut down last year. Apparently, the set of 50 new shows also include some that the service acquired from Quibi that never premiered. Roku could spend $500,000 to $5 million for scripted episode...

Analogue Pocket preorders will start shipping on December 13th. In a brief blog post, Analogue, manufacturers of the retro handheld Pocket, wrote, “Due to unprecedented shipping congestion, your order will ship and be delivered between December 14th – December 30th.” If you’re unable to accept delivery during that window, the company also outlined steps you can take to defer shipping until after January 3rd, 2022. Customers who preordered the Pocket will receive an email with more information. The Analogue Pocket, which has the ability to play cartridges from the Game Boy family and the Sega Game Gear, was delayed numerous times due to global electronics component shortages brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other handhelds like the Steam Deck and the Playdate faced similar dela...