Technology

A prolonged, global outage of Facebook’s apps has the company’s engineers scrambling to fix the issue at one of its data centers in California, according to two people familiar with the situation. The outage, which began around 11:40AM ET on Monday, has brought down all of Facebook’s apps — including Instagram and WhatsApp — globally, affecting billions of users and millions of advertisers. Inside Facebook, the outage has also broken nearly all of the internal systems employees use to communicate and work. Several employees told The Verge they’ve resorted to talking through their work-provided Outlook email accounts since Facebook mainly runs on an internal version of the social network that is currently not accessible. While employees can email each other, they can’t send or receive email...

Jeff Bezos‘ space travel company, Blue Origin, announced on Monday that Star Trek actor William Shatner will travel to space on Blue Origin’s next flight. The actor will travel alongside Audrey Powers, the company’s vice president of mission and flight operations, Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Fries. “I’ve heard about space for a long time now,” Shatner said in a press release. “I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle.” Shatner has long resided in space as the fictional character Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek. The actor first took on the role in the 1960s television series, before going on to star in seven Star Trek films. Bezos, who is a fan of the franchise, made a cameo in the popular 2016 sci-fi film Star Trek Beyond.  At 90 years old...

Volvo, the Swedish luxury car maker owned by China’s Geely, announced its plan for an initial public offering as it seeks to raise more cash to accelerate its transition to a fully electric car company. The announcement follows the news last week that Polestar, the electric car company that is a joint venture between Volvo and Geely, would be going public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. That deal values Polestar at roughly $20 billion, despite selling only two models — a hybrid luxury coupe and an all-electric fastback sedan. Volvo is choosing a more traditional route by proceeding with an IPO in Stockholm that could value the company at upwards of $25 billion. Volvo said it aims to raise about 25 billion kronor, equivalent to $2.86 billion Volvo said it aim...

Google has provided a budgeting feature in its Play Store that allows Android users to establish a monthly maximum they want to spend on digital content. This applies to apps, games, movies, TV shows, music, ebooks, and so on. As you get close to reaching your budget limit, you’ll see an alert that you’re nearing it — or have gone over the amount you specified. You access it like this: Open the Play Store on your Android device, tap on your personal icon on the upper right side, and select “Payments & subscriptions.” From there, select “Budget & history.” You’ll see the amount you spent during the current month. Choose the “Set budget” option and enter the amount you’re comfortable spending on your apps, music, movies, TV shows, and ebooks for a month. Then hit “Save.” Your budget ...

Netflix is officially bringing its shuffle feature to its Android mobile users. The company originally began testing the Play Something feature back in April, but it’s officially launching the feature globally on Android today. The tool — which lets Netflix choose something for you to watch — is now available on TV and Android mobile devices, but it’s not supported on iOS just yet. Netflix said that it will begin testing the shuffle function on iOS in the coming months, though. Separately, Netflix is also launching its Fast Laughs feature — which rolled out on iOS earlier this year — on Android mobile devices today in select markets, including the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Malaysia, Philippines, and the UK. The tool works like a highlight reel of funny clips from its series an...

Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the company over a whistleblower’s accusations and its handling of research data suggesting Instagram is harmful to teens, the company’s entire network of services suddenly went offline. On Twitter, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone says, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.” A peek at Down Detector (or your Twitter feed) reveals the problems are widespread. While it’s unclear exactly why the platforms are unreachable for so many people, their DNS records show that, like last week’s Slack outage, the problem is apparently DNS (it’s always DNS). Cloudflare senior vice preside...

Dyson’s last vacuum cleaner, the oddly-named 360 Heurist, skipped a US release, apparently because its design was ill-suited to the layout of American homes. But it looks like the company is planning to launch a new robovac in the US soon, after filing details of an unannounced product with the FCC. Photos in the filing seem to show a new design that is wider and flatter than its predecessors, with a squared-off rear and bulkier charging base. The unnamed robovac comes in the same striking nickel blue color as its predecessor, and has tank treads and a detachable dust bin, just like Dyson’s previous forays into this product category. It also looks like the device (labelled RB03) has the Heurist’s 360-degree camera with LED lighting ring. Those LEDs are important, as they ensure the device ...

I use a fairly simple metric to determine which artificially intelligent voice assistant is the best for controlling my smart home: Which one do I swear at the least? Apple’s Siri, who turns 10 today, wins hands down. This is slightly to do with the fact it rarely spews useless information at me when it didn’t understand what I was asking (*cough* Google) and definitely because it never asks if I want to buy something (you know who you are). But mainly, it’s because as a smart home controller, Siri is seriously fast. Siri, you say? That same Siri whose lagginess is legendary in its native iPhone home? Yes, that’s the one. Bring Siri into your home, put the power of an Apple TV 4K or HomePod (maxi or mini) behind it as a HomeKit hub, and the snappiness with which the AI does what you comman...

In recent months you may have heard about something called the metaverse. Maybe you’ve read that the metaverse is going to replace the internet. Maybe we’re all supposed to live there. Maybe Facebook (or Epic, or Roblox, or dozens of smaller companies) is trying to take it over. And maybe it’s got something to do with NFTs? Unlike a lot of things The Verge covers, the metaverse is tough to explain for one reason: it doesn’t necessarily exist. It’s partly a dream for the future of the internet and partly a neat way to encapsulate some current trends in online infrastructure, including the growth of real-time 3D worlds. But let’s get to the fun part. Will you start checking your Facebook feed in Fortnite with a pair of augmented reality glasses? Will your friends invite you to cyber-brunch i...

The 2021 League of Legends World Championship (aka Worlds) kicks off tomorrow, October 5th, marking the beginning of a month-long tournament where 22 of the best League of Legends teams will face off to take home the Summoner’s Cup. While Worlds is one of the biggest esports competitions on the planet, League of Legends isn’t exactly the easiest game to start watching. This time of year is one of the best times to jump in, though, as you get to see the best teams at their peak. If you want to learn more about the game — or are a longtime fan who just wants to know more about Worlds before it starts — we’ve put together this primer for you. What is Worlds? Worlds is the concluding tournament in the League of Legends esports year. Teams from around the globe have qualified for the event afte...

Amazon is launching a new gifting feature today that will allow subscribers to its Prime service to send gifts to others using only an email address or phone number — no address required. Gift-givers have to be Amazon Prime members, the program is limited to the continental US, and it can only be used on mobile devices for the time being. And even though Amazon has built in some safeguards— the gift-giver never gets access to the recipient’s mailing address— this sounds like a bad idea that is ripe for abuse by scammers, stalkers, and those who take pleasure in the online harassment of others. Here’s how the new feature works: Gift-giver wants to surprise recipient with a present but doesn’t know recipient’s mailing address. Gift-giver does, however, have either recipient’s email address o...

One month ago, we laid out a list of eight obvious things Apple could do to prove it puts App Store users ahead of profits. Today I learned the company acted on at least one of these ideas: Apple will now let you directly report a scammy app from its listing in the App Store with a new-and-improved version of its “Report a Problem” button. As Richard Mazkewich and scam hunter Kosta Eleftheriou point out on Twitter, the button has not only returned to individual app listings for the first time in years, it now includes a dedicated “Report a scam or fraud” option in the drop-down menu. Until iOS 15, the only way you could find this button was to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the Apps or Games tab in the App Store, get kicked out to a website where you’d need to re-sign in. Then yo...