Technology

For the past ten years, Tim Cook’s greatest accomplishment as Apple CEO has been vastly more of the same. More iPhones, more iPhone accessories, more apps, and so much more money. While the Mac and iPad have occasionally fallen into disrepair, the company keeps coming back with new reasons to buy its greatest hits every year — and this year’s iPhone 13 event is a near-perfect case study in how far refinement can take you. As my colleague Jon Porter points out, the iPhone 13 is effectively the iPhone 12S, an iterative, incremental update to last year’s phones instead of something that feels brand new. Almost everything got better But oh, what an update. What company wouldn’t dream of being able to say they improved the processing power AND the battery life AND the cameras AND the displays A...

Samsung Display is following through on its promise to ramp up OLED production. The company has begun mass-producing laptop-sized 90Hz OLED panels, which will appear in multiple upcoming 14-inch laptops from Asus. “The demand for laptops is increasing steadily as working from home and remote learning become the new norm,” Asus Vice General Manager Y.C. Chen said in a statement. “OLED displays can meet consumers’ various needs as they’re using laptops for school, virtual meetings, video streaming, gaming, and more.” In a statement, Samsung Display said, “The 90Hz OLED panel offers more options for consumers who are looking to enjoy high-performance content on their laptops. With our innovative OLEDs, we’re further pioneering and leading the market in display technologies that offer superior...

For many who follow tech news closely, Apple’s event on Tuesday had a few big surprises — not because there were completely unexpected announcements, but because we didn’t see things we really thought we’d be getting. Rumors that had enough smoke to be almost a sure-fire thing in previous years ended up falling flat. For example: The Apple Watch was rumored to get a complete redesign, featuring flat edges and a flat screen. We saw this design in renders, reportedly leaked CAD files (which act as a 3D blueprint for products), and even heard that it’d be happening from noted Apple reporter Mark Gurman two days before the event. While the Apple Watch that showed up on stage does have some design tweaks, it looks nothing like what we were expecting. The Series 7 has a refined version of the sa...

SpaceX launched four private citizens to space on Wednesday, kicking off the first-ever crewed mission to orbit without any professional astronauts on board. Dubbed Inspiration4, the mission marks the latest private foray into space as companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX compete to normalize space travel for paying tourists, not just government astronauts. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on time at 8:02PM ET from the company’s 39A launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, soaring from Florida’s east coast under clear night skies. Inside the capsule is billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, a trained pilot and founder of payment-processing firm Shift4 Payments, and three others he picked and paid for to ride with him: Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant and cancer surviv...

The newest list of emojis is out and will be arriving on our devices sometime in the near future. The Unicode Consortium, which sets the bar for text and symbols across the web, released its 2021’s edition of standards, titled Unicode 14.0, on Tuesday. Along with the introduction of up-to-date characters, scripts and symbols, yesterday’s release includes 37 new emojis based on proposals received by the organization, as well as 75 new skin tone variations. Leading the lineup are variations of the classic emoji face that include a face-melting into a puddle and another one that peeks out with one eye covered. Other offerings seem to be designed with current internet slang in mind, such as in the case of a green troll yielding a club. Meanwhile, a hand with the index finger and thumb crossed ...

A NASA astronaut will break the record for the longest American spaceflight, following an extension to his time at the International Space Station that will span until next March. Astronaut Mark Vande Hei has been in space since April 9 on a trip that was originally scheduled to last only six months before NASA announced that it would tack an additional six months onto his stay. The space agency also extended the stay of Russian astronaut Pyotr Dubrov, who arrived alongside Vande Hei and another astronaut named Oleg Novitskiy on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. The change comes as a result of a movie that’s being filmed at the ISS in October. Director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild will go to space, accompanied by astronaut Anton Shkaplerov. After two weeks, Shipenko and Peresild...

The refreshed Apple TV 4K hit shelves in April, but the anticipated tvOS 15 update that introduces exciting updates to the Apple TV experience was previously only available in beta. That will change next week: Apple has confirmed tvOS 15 will become widely available to everyone on September 20th. Apple confirmed to The Verge that the tvOS 15 update will go live the same day as its other operating system updates, which include iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8. The tvOS 15 update brings a number of new features to the Apple TV experience. SharePlay is arguably the most exciting addition to the experience and will allow FaceTime users to stream titles together in sync across their Apple devices, including on Apple TV. However, Apple confirmed in August that the feature would be delayed on iOS...

The refreshed Apple TV 4K hit shelves in April, but the anticipated tvOS 15 update that introduces exciting updates to the Apple TV experience was previously only available in beta. That will change next week: Apple has confirmed tvOS 15 will become widely available to everyone on September 20th. Apple confirmed to The Verge that the tvOS 15 update will go live the same day as its other operating system updates, which include iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8. The tvOS 15 update brings a number of new features to the Apple TV experience. SharePlay is arguably the most exciting addition to the experience and will allow FaceTime users to stream titles together in sync across their Apple devices, including on Apple TV. However, Apple confirmed in August that the feature would be delayed on iOS...

Did the Nintendo Switch’s surprise Bluetooth audio update yesterday make your handheld worse instead of better? That’s what happened to me: instead of inviting me to the magical world of wireless audio, it repeatedly failed to detect my headsets and connect to them reliably. Worse, it suddenly took more than 30 seconds to wake my Switch from sleep! That’s a huge pain in the ass, considering one of the Switch’s single greatest strengths is how you can instantly jump back into a game. But after a whole bunch of testing, I think I know what’s going on — and if you’re seeing the same thing, a full Switch shutdown seems to offer a partial fix. It’s not quite that simple, though, so read on for the details. The Nintendo Switch Bluetooth pairing problem To pair a Bluetooth headset, you’re suppose...

Did the Nintendo Switch’s surprise Bluetooth audio update yesterday make your handheld worse instead of better? That’s what happened to me: instead of inviting me to the magical world of wireless audio, it repeatedly failed to detect my headsets and connect to them reliably. Worse, it suddenly took more than 30 seconds to wake my Switch from sleep! That’s a huge pain in the ass, considering one of the Switch’s single greatest strengths is how you can instantly jump back into a game. But after a whole bunch of testing, I think I know what’s going on — and if you’re seeing the same thing, a full Switch shutdown seems to offer a partial fix. It’s not quite that simple, though, so read on for the details. The Nintendo Switch Bluetooth pairing problem To pair a Bluetooth headset, you’re suppose...

Whether you’re trading in your old iPhone for a discount on a new one, selling it, giving it away, or recycling it, you’re going to want to erase all of your data first. Not only do you want to keep personal information from falling into the wrong hands, but let’s face it: nobody’s going to want a phone with your old selfies on it. After you’ve transferred all of your data to a new phone (or, if you’re not getting a new phone, backed your data up), here’s how to wipe your iPhone: Get rid of a few identifiable features Disable “Find My iPhone” by going to “Settings” > “Find My” > “Find My Phone” and toggling “Find My Phone” and “Find My Network” to off. Unpair any devices from your phone, including your Apple Watch. Toggle iMessages off (just in case). Sign out of your Apple ID Select...