Technology

Google is going it alone with its proposed advertising technology to replace third-party cookies. Every major browser that uses the open source Chromium project has declined to use it, and it’s unclear what that will mean for the future of advertising on the web. A couple of weeks ago, Google announced it was beginning to test a new ad technology inside Google Chrome called the Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC. It uses an algorithm to look at your browser history and place you in a group of people with similar browsing histories so that advertisers can target you. It’s more private than cookies, but it’s also complicated and has some potential privacy implications of its own if it’s not implemented right. Google Chrome is built on an open source project, and so FLoC was implemented a...

As Vergecast listeners know, I am a sucker for car phone mounts and chargers. They are a perfect gadget for the modern age — a design problem with no perfect solution, price points that usually land at the higher end of the impulse-buy zone, and completely well-suited for targeted Instagram ads. “People who have bought a Qi-based car mount in the last year,” the marketing director of a tiny accessory company sternly instructs the Facebook ad-targeting system. “Find them and relentlessly pressure them into buying our product which is at best marginally better than the one they have.” Reader, it works. All of this means I was very excited when Apple added MagSafe charging to the new iPhone 12 line. A series of magnets aligns a wireless charger to the back of the phone, and has enough attachm...

The concept of “selling out” might be over, but Gen Z teens will still roast you for posting cringe — as the pop-punk band Tramp Stamp is finding out. According to people on TikTok, Twitter, and Reddit, Tramp Stamp are “industry plants.” The giveaway? Their social media is too good. An “industry plant,” Rolling Stone helpfully explains, “is an artist who has label backing but presents themself as self-made.” In 2019, the band’s guitarist, Caroline Baker, appeared in MusicRow: she signed to Prescription songs, owned by Dr. Luke, aka Lukasz Gottwald. Reddit resurfaced that report this week. The Redditors also found that the lead singer, Marisa Marino, also has a Prescription deal. Oh yeah, and per the credits on their YouTube video, the Tramp Stamps have a deal with Kobalt Music Group, which...

Apple has officially announced its “Spring Loaded” event for April 20th, its first major product announcement of 2021. Unlike a lot of Apple’s events, its spring events tend to be a bit more scattershot: one year might see high-end iPads, another a more education-focused event, or a launch of a comprehensive service strategy. This year, rumors are pointing to a refreshed iPad Pro lineup, potentially with Apple’s first Mini LED panels — which would bring a big jump forward for the company’s tablet displays. But we could also see new AirPods, the company’s long-rumored AirTag trackers, a new iPad Mini, and more. The proceeding should kick off at 1PM ET on Tuesday, but if you’re looking for an early preview, here’s what you can probably expect to show up. iPad Pro It’s been over a year since ...

Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), the awkwardly-named-but-interesting smart home partnership between Apple, Amazon, Google, and over 170 other companies that’s supposed to make everything more compatible should finally start showing some results later this year. According to a webinar hosted by the Zigbee Alliance earlier this week, companies participating in the program will be able to get smart home devices certified for the standard by late 2021, which means we might see some things on shelves for the holiday shopping season. That first wave of devices will include things like lighting, blinds, HVAC controls, TVs, door locks, garage door openers, security systems, and Wi-Fi routers. The CHIP standard is built around three technologies: Bluetooth LE for setup, WiFi for high-bandwidt...

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Some weeks aren’t so great on the tech deals front. Thankfully, this hasn’t been one of those weeks. Each day, our deals roundups have been full of fresh discounts, like the best-ever price on Amazon’s new Echo Show 10 smart display that can rotate to follow your movements around the room or $100 off a 27-inch 1440p gaming monitor from LG. There are a few other deals to look through below, and they’re all good, so I won’t waste much more of your time. But in case you’re looking for a Mother’s Day gift, our gift guide (which is gorgeous, might I say) is full of ideas. Apple’s top-shelf wireless earbuds, the AirPods Pro, are down to $197 at Amazon and Walmart, over $50 less than the MSRP and about $20 less than typical pricing. Apple is expected to refresh its non-Pro AirPods very soon, but ...

On Friday, General Motors and LG Chem are expected to announce a new $2.3 billion battery factory to be located in Spring Hill, Tennessee, say reports from Nikkei, Reuters, and AP. It would be the second US battery joint venture for the American and South Korean giants, after the pair first announced a $2.3 billion battery cell manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio back in 2019. The Spring Hill batteries will be used for the Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV, say sources speaking to Reuters. GM already announced that Lyriq will be powered by GM’s new scalable battery architecture called Ultium. Batteries based on Ultium would offer power ranging from 50 to 200 kWh that could allow for a driving range of 400 miles or more. The Cadillac Lyriq will be assembled at a Spring Hill plant starting next...

Amazon Kindle owners can now set the lockscreen image to the cover of the book they’re reading. The long overdue Display Cover feature, first spotted by Engadget, was previously only available after jailbreaking your device (and a popular motivator to do so). Amazon says that it works with “most books, magazines, comics, and Manga.” The Display Cover feature is only supported on some Kindle devices without ads. These devices include the Kindle (8th, 10th generation), Kindle Paperwhite (7th, 10th gen), Kindle Oasis (8th, 9th, 10th gen), and Kindle Voyage (7th gen). If you can’t recall which Kindle you have then click here to identify it. Promotions on ad-supported devices can be disabled for $20, or by calling into customer support and asking real nicely, according to many reports on reddit...

The words “Swiss design” conjure images of luxury watch movements and delicately sculpted eyeglasses, not hulking e-bikes with thickly welded frames and face-melting power. Stromer is here to challenge those assumptions and force a rethink of how its Swiss-made electric bikes, with top speeds of 45 km/h (28 mph), can disrupt urban transportation for the benefit of residents. I’ve certainly seen the light after testing a new 2021 edition ST2, Stromer’s first e-bike with a carbon belt drive. Broadly speaking, US cities have all of the fast e-bikes and no bicycle infrastructure, whereas European cities have all of the protective infrastructure and few fast e-bikes. It’s exceedingly rare to see fast e-bikes known as speed-pedelecs in my Amsterdam home, for example, where half of all new bikes ...

Amazon tried to use its power to coerce Ecobee into using its smart home products to collect user data by threatening Ecobee’s ability to sell its products on Amazon, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. As of now, Ecobee’s products can still be purchased on Amazon, but the WSJ claims that negotiations between Ecobee and Amazon are ongoing. According to the WSJ, the online retail giant asked Ecobee to share data from its Alexa-enabled smart thermostats, even when the customer wasn’t actively using the voice assistant. Ecobee reportedly refused to have its devices constantly report back to Amazon about the state of the user’s home, including data on which doors were locked or unlocked and the set temperature. The reasoning being that enabling its devices to report this data t...

Researchers at Purdue University say they have created the whitest paint on record. In fact, they’ve now crafted an ultra-white paint twice: in October, they announced a white paint that was capable of reflecting 95.5 percent of sunlight. But they decided to outdo themselves with a new formulation, announced today, that reflects up to 98.1 percent of sunlight. The thing about a very white paint is that, along with reflecting light, it also rejects heat. As any goth who has spent the day on the beach knows, black absorbs light and will heat up. The hope with an ultra-white paint is that it could be used on buildings to keep them cooler without air conditioning. The science of the paint comes down to a high concentration of barium sulfate, a compound that’s already used in paints and photogr...