Technology

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured its first sampling of rocky Mars material last week after its first attempt in August mysteriously turned up empty. The new rock sample, about the size of a small cigar, checks off a crucial first step in a broader decade-long effort to bring humanity’s first Martian samples back to Earth in pristine condition. The rover’s successful sample grab happened last Wednesday at 5:36PM ET, digging into a rock scientists nicknamed “Rochette.” Using a hollow, tube-like drill bit that traps rocky material inside, Perseverance drilled a hole a few inches deep using a rotary-percussive drill installed at the end of its seven-foot sampling arm. A twisting mechanism inside the drill bit snapped the rock core off of Rochette and kept it snug inside a sample tube. To con...

Bendable glass was supposed to unlock a future straight out of science fiction: phones that fold. But the actual glass we got wound up relying on factory-installed plastic screen protectors to avoid shattering when you fold it. Now, LG wants to cut out the middleman by improving the plastic instead: the company just announced its “Real Folding Window,” a cover material it claims will be as hard as glass but without the whole cracking issue. More PET, less glass What’s the secret? Well, LG doesn’t quite say in its press release, only that it’s a “new material” that it uses to coat both sides of a sheet of plastic film — PET film, to be precise. (PET is probably best known as the plastic in your soda bottle.) The idea is that if you apply that coating to the plastic and then apply that cover...

Ford has hired away Apple’s car chief, Doug Field, to become its chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer. “Field will lead Ford’s efforts to develop the next-gen Blue Oval Intelligence tech stack to deliver smart, connected vehicles and services that improve over time through constant updates,” according to Ford’s press release. He’ll report to Ford’s president and CEO, Jim Farley. Field was a VP of special projects at Apple, where he was the de facto head of the company’s confused efforts to make an autonomous electric car — known as Project Titan. He had a previous stint at Apple where he was once the VP of Mac hardware engineering, but he left the company in 2013 to become Tesla’s chief vehicle engineer, where he helped oversee troublesome development of the Model 3 sedan...

Twitter has announced that it’s testing edge-to-edge media in tweets on iOS, creating a more full-screen, almost Instagram-like experience for the photos and videos in your timeline. In an email to The Verge, Twitter writes that it’s testing the change because it wants to better support conversations that are both visual and text-based. You can get a sense of what that looks like in a video posted to Twitter’s support account: Now testing on iOS: Edge to edge Tweets that span the width of the timeline so your photos, GIFs, and videos can have more room to shine. pic.twitter.com/luAHoPjjlY — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 7, 2021 This change, if it rolls out beyond a select group of iOS users, also helps Twitter address concerns over image cropping that it’s been dealing with o...

People are spending more time watching videos on TikTok than they are on YouTube, according to a study published by app analytics firm App Annie. The report indicates that as of June, TikTok streaming in the U.S. has surpassed that of YouTube. Viewers on TikTok clocked in an average stream of over 24 hours of content per month on the app, exceeding YouTube’s average monthly watch time of 22 hours and 40 minutes, according to the report. The expanding gap between the two platforms is even greater in the U.K., where TikTok users are watching almost 26 hours of the bite-size videos each month, but spending less than 16 hours on YouTube. In addition to its increased popularity during the pandemic, TikTok viewership is likely boosted by the ability to livestream on the app. App Annie referred t...

Apple has had a lot going on lately: we did a whole episode about the controversial child protection photo-scanning features, which have now been delayed. A law in South Korea might force the company to change how App Store payments work; the company settled a Japanese case about the App Store recently, as well as a class-action lawsuit in this country. The verdict in the Epic trial will arrive and there are renewed questions about Apple’s relationship with the Chinese government. And, of course, it is September — the month when new iPhones usually come out. But in the background, Verge senior reporter Zoë Schiffer has spent the past few months publishing story after story about unhappy Apple employees, who are starting to talk to the press more and more about what working at Apple is like...

Vox Media today announced it’s entering an agreement to acquire Hot Pod, the preeminent publication covering the podcasting industry, founded by Nicholas Quah in 2014. At Vox Media, Hot Pod will become part of The Verge, with Quah deepening his long-running relationship with New York and Vulture as a full-time podcast critic. Senior reporter Ashley Carman will take over as lead writer of Hot Pod for The Verge, expanding Carman’s must-read coverage of podcasting and audio. The acquisition also marks The Verge’s first paid product as it will continue to publish Hot Pod’s weekly subscriber-only newsletter Hot Pod Insider, laying the groundwork for more paid Verge products in the future. “I can’t think of a better home for Hot Pod than The Verge,” says The Verge’s editor-in-chief Nilay Patel. ...

Vox Media today announced it’s entering an agreement to acquire Hot Pod, the preeminent publication covering the podcasting industry, founded by Nicholas Quah in 2014. At Vox Media, Hot Pod will become part of The Verge, with Quah deepening his long-running relationship with New York and Vulture as a full-time podcast critic. Senior reporter Ashley Carman will take over as lead writer of Hot Pod for The Verge, expanding Carman’s must-read coverage of podcasting and audio. The acquisition also marks The Verge’s first paid product as it will continue to publish Hot Pod’s weekly subscriber-only newsletter Hot Pod Insider, laying the groundwork for more paid Verge products in the future. “I can’t think of a better home for Hot Pod than The Verge,” says The Verge’s editor-in-chief Nilay Patel. ...

People who own a PS5 console with a disc drive can enjoy some small but noteworthy discounts on exclusive games at Walmart, GameStop, and Amazon. You can get up to $25 off of the Demon’s Souls remake, while Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is $10 off. The new version of Demon’s Souls made for the PS5 was developed by Bluepoint Games, the same studio that tackled the remastering of classics like Shadow of the Colossus, the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, and more. Demon’s Souls for PS5 features overhauled graphics and a new orchestral recording of the original soundtrack. And, of course, this one will satisfy if you like difficult games. Normally $70, it’s $45 at Walmart and Amazon, while GameStop is selling it for $50. Demon’s Souls Remake $45 $70 36% off A remake of the 2009 game Demon’s S...

People who own a PS5 console with a disc drive can enjoy some small but noteworthy discounts on exclusive games at Walmart, GameStop, and Amazon. You can get up to $25 off of the Demon’s Souls remake, while Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is $10 off. The new version of Demon’s Souls made for the PS5 was developed by Bluepoint Games, the same studio that tackled the remastering of classics like Shadow of the Colossus, the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, and more. Demon’s Souls for PS5 features overhauled graphics and a new orchestral recording of the original soundtrack. And, of course, this one will satisfy if you like difficult games. Normally $70, it’s $45 at Walmart and Amazon, while GameStop is selling it for $50. Demon’s Souls Remake $45 $70 36% off A remake of the 2009 game Demon’s S...

Mobileye, the Intel-owned company that specializes in chips for vision-based autonomous vehicles, announced that it will launch a robotaxi service in Germany in 2022. It’s the latest big move by a company seeking to buck the trend in AV development by becoming both a supplier of autonomous driving technology as well as a fleet operator and service provider. The taxi service will be operated in partnership with German rental car company Sixt and Moovit, an Israel-based startup that specializes in mobility data that was recently acquired by Intel for $900 million. Customers can hail a ride through either Sixt’s or Mobileye’s app. But it won’t be a full-fledged robotaxi service at launch But it won’t be a full-fledged robotaxi service at launch. Mobileye says it will begin “early rider testin...

Mobileye, the Intel-owned company that specializes in chips for vision-based autonomous vehicles, announced that it will launch a robotaxi service in Germany in 2022. It’s the latest big move by a company seeking to buck the trend in AV development by becoming both a supplier of autonomous driving technology as well as a fleet operator and service provider. The taxi service will be operated in partnership with German rental car company Sixt and Moovit, an Israel-based startup that specializes in mobility data that was recently acquired by Intel for $900 million. Customers can hail a ride through either Sixt’s or Mobileye’s app. But it won’t be a full-fledged robotaxi service at launch But it won’t be a full-fledged robotaxi service at launch. Mobileye says it will begin “early rider testin...