Technology

Electric vehicles are set to play a critical role in our clean energy future, but in order for everyone to reap the benefits of EVs, they’ll need access to chargers. While the Build Back Better bill suffered a major setback over the weekend that could mean significantly less funding for the transition to electric vehicles, there’s still hope that the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in November could bring EV charging infrastructure to places that have been left out until now. That could make it easier for drivers from marginalized communities to switch to electric vehicles, while also cleaning up the air in their neighborhoods. The way charging stations are spread out now is neither equitable nor convenient The way charging stations are spread out now is neither equitable nor convenie...

Steve Ballmer wanted Microsoft’s Cortana AI to be called “Bingo” so it would be more Microsoft-branded, according to the Big Bets newsletter. That’s according to former Microsoft product manager Sandeep Paruchuri, who recounted the story of how Microsoft’s AI assistant got its name to writer Alice Newton Rex as part of a deep dive into Cortana’s origins. While we’ve gotten a pretty good idea of Microsoft’s ambitious vision for the AI assistant in the years since it leaked then launched, Paruchuri and Rex gave the inside story of how Cortana was named, pitched to management, and the clash that happened between dreams and reality. Also included are interesting details about how the assistant became one of the main advertising points for the doomed Windows Phone platform. Cortana was supposed...

Ever lose your mouse cursor? It’s not hard to do when you’ve sitting in front of multiple monitors or perhaps a super-ultrawide or maybe even a monstrous TV — but Microsoft has an amazing keyboard shortcut that can instantly surface your cursor, and I recently found it purely by accident. I was tapping away on my keyboard when all of a sudden my screens dimmed — except for one tiny disc of light. It turns out I’d accidentally double-pressed Ctrl, which triggers the Find My Mouse feature in Microsoft’s excellent optional PowerToys. Here’s what that looks like up close: Find My Mouse in action.GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge And here’s a rough idea of what it looks like with my triple-monitor rig: Sorry about the lower quality; I should have turned off HDR video on my phone.GIF by Sean Hol...

Christie’s has officially revealed that it has raked in nearly $150 million USD in revenue purely from NFT sales this year. The auction house recently took to Twitter to announce that 2021 marked the highest total revenue for Christie’s in the past five years. The total global sales for 2021 hit $7.1 billion USD. In terms of private sales, 2021 saw a record year for Christie’s with $1.7 billion USD with four works of art sold for over $50 million USD leading private sales to increase by 108% from 2019. Christie’s saw two of their most valuable works sell for upwards of $90 million USD each. Basquiat‘s In This Case sold for $93.1 million USD while Picasso‘s Femme assise près d’une fenêtre sold for $103.4 million USD. In terms of NFTs, Christie’s noted that it was the first to launch the new...

Meta is taking legal action against the bad actors who allegedly impersonated Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram to conduct a phishing scam. The company claims that since 2019, the defendants created over 39,000 websites in an attempt to replicate Meta’s services, subsequently deceiving users and collecting their login information. In the post on its blog, Meta explains that the defendants used a relay service, Ngrok, to send internet traffic to the phony login pages they created, all while concealing their identity and location. Those who clicked the phishing link were brought to a login page that resembled Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or WhatsApp. When the user attempted to log in, defendants would collect their victims’ usernames and passwords. “Meta blocks and shares phish...

Bad news, Matrix fans: Warner Bros. isn’t going to be releasing The Matrix Resurrections early on HBO Max like it did for Dune. Instead, the highly anticipated fourth film in The Matrix franchise will make its streaming debut on December 22nd at 3:01AM ET / 12:01AM PT — meaning you’ll either have to stay up pretty late to catch the movie when it first comes out or (more sensibly) wait until Wednesday night. The news isn’t entirely surprising given that HBO Max usually releases new episodes and movies at 3:01AM ET (or the equivalent time in other time zones) the date that they come out. Still, the company has broken its pattern a few times when it comes to major HBO Max releases: Dune, as noted earlier, hit the service a few hours ahead of its October 22nd release date by streaming at 6PM E...

Live Studio, TikTok’s new livestreaming app for Windows, supposedly uses code from the free livestreaming program Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) (via Protocol). This would typically not pose an issue when done properly because OBS is open source — however, TikTok purportedly fails to adhere to OBS’ licensing requirements. The situation unraveled on Twitter after a user posted screenshots of what appears to be Live Studio’s code. The programmer who originally took the screenshots alleges that the app “is an illegal fork of OBS” and also claims that TikTok used OBS and then slapped its own user interface on top. As another user points out, if TikTok does make use of OBS’ code, the platform is required to make the source code publicly available in accordance with the GNU General Public Licen...

Google’s insistence on cloud-based controls for its networking products has occasionally caused issues, even though it was supposed to make life with OnHub routers simple. Now it will be a reason pushing anyone still using the OnHub to find a replacement by the end of next year when Google’s apps stop allowing owners to change the settings on their devices. An email went out to users, and a support page revealed the changeover is scheduled for December 19th, 2022 (via Droid-Life). When it still seemed unusual for Google and Amazon to make their own hardware, Google teamed up with TP-Link and, eventually, Asus to build OnHub routers that made a point of blending in seamlessly with the rest of your house. They had slick mobile apps to simplify setup and controls, plus a style that blended in...

If you were saving up Ethereum for a set of Discreet Music NFTs, we’ve got bad news. In an interview with Crypto Syllabus (conducted by longtime tech critic Evgeny Morozov, of all people), Eno outed himself as a skeptic of cryptocurrency — and NFTs in particular. “NFTs seem to me just a way for artists to get a little piece of the action from global capitalism, our own cute little version of financialization,” Eno told Morozov. “How sweet — now artists can become little capitalist assholes as well.” Best known for his pioneering ambient work and prolific producer credits, Eno seems like the perfect artist for the NFT era. He’s spent decades making art with an eye towards technology and its social implications, often made available as software or limited-edition product drops. Eno was a par...

I’ve always been a light sleeper, and that has not improved over the last few years. So I thought I was the perfect person to try out the latest version of the QuietOn active noise-canceling earbuds. The QuietOn 3 earbuds, which cost $239, are the third iteration of these devices. They are smaller than the previous version, the QuietOn 2, but the basic functionality is the same. Unlike other “help to sleep” earbuds such as the Bose Sleepbuds II, they don’t generate white noise, or play quiet music, or let you hear rain or other soothing sounds. The idea is simply to eliminate low-frequency noises, such as the hum of a nearby appliance, that may keep you from sleeping while allowing you to still hear an alarm clock going off. According to the company’s website, the buds are equipped with ac...

EV startup Canoo is losing three top executives, including its chief technology officer Peter Savagian, as part of an apparent shakeup of its leadership team. Savagian, the former chief engineer of General Motors EV1 electric car, will leave Canoo by the end of the year, according to the last line of a press release published Monday. The two others are some of Canoo’s remaining co-founders, two current employees who spoke to The Verge on the condition of anonymity, though they weren’t named in the press release: Bill Strickland, the head of Canoo’s vehicle programs and a longtime Ford executive, and Alexi Charbonneau, who worked at both SpaceX and Tesla and oversaw Canoo’s powertrain division. Strickland and Charbonneau did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Canoo did not...

iOS 15 has brought with it a number of features that don’t affect your privacy, your efficiency, or your fitness. They’re — well, just nice. One of them is the new ability to change the background of the mobile version of Safari so that when you open a new page, you’re looking at something beautiful or wildly colorful. Or just nice. The process is almost ridiculously simple. Here’s how to do it: Once you’re in the Safari app, you’re going to open a new page. Not sure how to do that? Look for the double square in the bottom-right corner and tap on that. You’ll see thumbnails of all the pages currently open in Safari. (If there are loads of them, you may want to take this opportunity to get rid of a few.) Tap on the plus sign in the lower-left corner. To start a new page, tap on the double s...