Technology

Google reached a settlement with a fired employee who the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claims was let go from the company for his workplace activism, Bloomberg reports. The employee, Laurence Berland, was fired in 2019 allegedly for violating Google’s data security policies. He had been a vocal critic of Google’s work with the US Customs and Border Protection and was terminated amid internal organizing. The settlement was approved in July by the NLRB, though the terms haven’t been revealed, according to Bloomberg. Google hasn’t replied to a request for comment from The Verge. The NLRB has accused Google of violating labor law in firing Berland and four other workers in 2019 over organizing activities and is still battling Google over those accusations. One employee, Kathryn Spiers...

For nearly 30 years, Nerf has been synonymous with foam — foam balls, foam darts, and foam arrows blasted across playgrounds or over cubicle walls. For its new awesome-looking Hyper blasters, Nerf brand owner Hasbro had something different in mind. To increase their performance and capacity, it charged a small team of engineers to develop a smaller projectile using a new material. They came up with a tiny ball made of thermoplastic elastomer; effectively, rubber instead of foam. Before they could perfect that ball, the company’s designers had to build a new set of blasters to actually fire those projectiles, too. The $30 Hyper Rush-40, $40 Siege-50, and $70 Mach-100 were developed at the same time as the new rounds, they told me on a conference call. That might be why they don’t work parti...

Would you rather be a failure or a fraud? Judging by the opening statements in Elizabeth Holmes’ wire fraud trial, those seem to be Holmes’ options. Here’s Robert Leach, assistant U.S. attorney, who is prosecuting the case against Holmes: “This is a case about fraud, about lying and cheating to get money,” Leach says. “That’s a crime on Main Street and a crime in Silicon Valley.” But according to Lance Wade, Holmes’ attorney, Holmes is just another failed startup leader: “In the end, Theranos failed. And Ms. Holmes walked away with nothing. But failure is not a crime.” “Out of time and out of money, Elizabeth Holmes decided to lie.” Now, by the time the first day of the trial ended, the first witness had only just been introduced. There are plenty more witnesses and apparently just a whole...

Today, Google released the final Android 12 beta before the OS properly launches, and with it a few of the visual changes and features we saw back when Android 12 was announced. Some of the notable inclusions in Beta 5 are the lovely geometric clock widgets, a redesigned calculator, and a new lock screen shortcut. The clock app has also gotten some tweaks, according to 9to5Google, with an updated design, new animations, and (of course) colors that are responsive to your phone’s theme. Grid View <img src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1CTN0fT6pqcKbZ-WKQlIhRwcW8w=/250×250/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22835766/Screenshot_20210908_173434.png" alt="The flower-like analog clock option.“> The flower-like analog clock option. <img src="https:/...

Twitter is launching Communities, its rival to Facebook Groups and Reddit, for tweeting with others who share specific interests. Starting Wednesday, Twitter users can be invited to an initial batch of Communities that include #AstroTwitter, #DogTwitter, #SkincareTwitter, and #SoleFood (a group for sneaker enthusiasts). Once people join a Community, they can tweet directly to other members rather than to just their followers. Only members of a Community can like or reply to tweets sent by other members. Similar to how groups on Facebook and Reddit’s subreddits work, each Twitter Community will have its own moderators who are able to set rules and invite or remove people. Twitter invited a handful of users to create the first Communities and will let anyone apply to create their own on its ...

Microsoft is starting to test a new firmware update for existing Xbox One, Xbox Elite 2, and Xbox Adaptive Controllers today that will bring some important improvements to existing hardware. The biggest addition is the ability to quickly switch between paired devices on an Xbox controller, and Microsoft is also adding Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) to improve input latency on older controllers. This new firmware update includes Bluetooth Low Energy support for compatible controllers. Most of Microsoft’s existing Xbox One controllers include Bluetooth support for use on smartphones or PCs, but the controllers connect to Xbox consoles through the Xbox Wireless protocol. This new firmware will now make it easier to switch between the two, allowing the controllers to remember your Bluetooth phone...

As cool as videoconferencing hardware can look, it’s often exorbitantly expensive — the $2,000 Series One Desk 27 for Google Meet being a perfect example. Luckily, alongside that expensive Meet machine, Google also announced its “Designed for Google Meet” program and a more affordable first entry, the Rayz Rally Pro. It’s a $200 Nest Mini-like phone speaker that doubles as a microphone for Google Meet calls. The Rayz Rally Pro comes in a gray-tone fabric-covered body that looks a bit like Google’s smart speakers but with a phone dock carveout. The speaker dock comes in two varieties: a Lightning connector iPhone model and a Google Pixel version that should work with any USB-C phone. Both versions can work as a Bluetooth speaker, omnidirectional microphone, and 20W passthrough fast-charging...

Walking up to a podium in San Francisco this summer, Kevin Paffrath grabs the microphone. “Hodl that AMC,” he says with a smile, gazing out at the few dozen or so people, predominantly young men, attending the rally, a reference to the “meme stock” moment from earlier this year. Paffrath, better known as MeetKevin on YouTube, is running to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom in California’s recall election this month. It’s rare that a gubernatorial candidate would lead off a speech with such a painfully online reference, but that’s part of Paffrath’s appeal. He’s branded himself as the candidate for the r/wallstreetbets crowd — and so far, it’s working. As of publication, he’s the top polling Democrat at 8 percent. Since 2017, Paffrath has made YouTube videos full-time from his home in Ventura, strea...

Walking up to a podium in San Francisco this summer, Kevin Paffrath grabs the microphone. “Hodl that AMC,” he says with a smile, gazing out at the few dozen or so people, predominantly young men, attending the rally, a reference to the “meme stock” moment from earlier this year. Paffrath, better known as MeetKevin on YouTube, is running to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom in California’s recall election this month. It’s rare that a gubernatorial candidate would lead off a speech with such a painfully online reference, but that’s part of Paffrath’s appeal. He’s branded himself as the candidate for the r/wallstreetbets crowd — and so far, it’s working. As of publication, he’s the top polling Democrat at 8 percent. Since 2017, Paffrath has made YouTube videos full-time from his home in Ventura, strea...

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase seems to have some issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over a planned feature that lets people lend cryptocurrency through its platform. In a Medium post on Tuesday, Coinbase’s chief legal officer wrote that the regulatory agency threatened to sue the company if it launched the feature. Coinbase’s CEO posted a Twitter thread on Tuesday evening saying that the SEC wasn’t clear about what it wanted. According to Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, the company told the SEC about its new Lend feature as a courtesy but didn’t anticipate pushback, based on his impression that similar features exist on other platforms. However, according to Armstrong, the SEC informed the company that the lend feature would be considered a security, meaning it wo...

Fitness company Whoop has a new tracker that squishes five LEDs, four photodiodes, a pulse oximeter, skin temperature sensor, and more into a package that is 33 percent smaller than its predecessor — all while still offering five days of battery life. But a particular change to the tracker’s battery chemistry is one of the biggest reasons Whoop was able to do all this in the first place. The change was pioneered by a Silicon Valley company called Sila Nanotechnologies, which was co-founded in 2011 by Gene Berdichevsky, one of Tesla’s earliest employees. And it’s one that, if it scales up, could help break some of the biggest limitations currently facing lithium-ion technology. On paper, it’s a simple change: the battery’s anode is now made of silicon instead of graphite, which allows for g...

The James Webb Space Telescope, humanity’s next big space-bound eye on the cosmos, has a new launch date of December 18th, NASA announced on Wednesday. It’s the latest among dozens of other delays for a telescope that was originally planned to go to space as early as 2007. The $8.8 billion observatory, named after NASA’s second administrator, is a tennis court-sized successor to NASA’s famed Hubble telescope. Its 18 hexagonal gold-plated mirrors will allow the spacecraft to view distant planets and the far reaches of the universe with a level of detail that far surpasses Hubble’s capabilities. Astronomers have been looking forward to the telescope’s launch for years, but its development has been set back by years of delays, development challenges, and cost overruns. NASA and Northrop Grumm...