Technology

A week after their broken-down negotiations spilled into the public, Google and Roku still haven’t been able to reach a deal to renew YouTube TV’s presence on the huge streaming platform. But Google has come up with something of a workaround in the meantime: it’s going to let people access YouTube TV directly from the main YouTube app. YouTube users will start seeing a “Go to YouTube TV” option in the main YouTube app over the next few days. When they select that, they’ll then be switched over to the standard YouTube TV user experience. This option is coming to Roku devices first — where it’s currently most needed — but will also come to YouTube on other platforms as well. Image: YouTube In essence, Google has basically stuffed the YouTube TV app into YouTube itself, a solution that seems ...

Many of us are excited that COVID-19 vaccines are now widely available in the US, and it seems like Google Assistant is joining in. In fact, it’s got a song to share about it (via Android Police). You can listen to the song yourself by asking Google Assistant to “sing the vaccine song,” but I’ve also recorded it. Take a listen. Okay, hmm… where to start? I’ll give the music some props. It’s got a fun beat with a kind of crispy-sounding snare. I’d also call the synths “tastefully restrained.” Assistant will also, I discovered, sing the song in either a male- or female-sounding voice, depending on your settings. The range! Unfortunately, the lyrics aren’t great. If you’re not able to listen, here’s a sample: To be fair, the subject matter doesn’t lend itself well to song. Yeah, the pre...

It’s a good year for old, crappy phones. The dusty old phone in your desk drawer running Android frozen-dessert-something-or-other — the one that might have a cracked screen — saw its stock go up recently with two generous trade-in promotions. T-Mobile and Verizon are both offering to take your old, damaged phone off your hands and replace it with a shiny new 5G model. There are a couple of reasons for this generosity. Verizon, in particular, has written some big checks to pay for new C-band frequencies — highly desirable spectrum for 5G that offers good range and speed. The company has reassured its shareholders that the hefty expenditure will help grow its customer base and increase the amount of money it makes on existing accounts. It told investors at its March analyst event that “with...

Impossible Burgers will be making their way onto school menus across the US. The meatless burger just received the Child Nutrition Label from the USDA, which could make it easier for public schools to serve the product because the Impossible Burgers will be eligible for national school lunch funding. Impossible Foods hopes to offer up protein-packed lunches that don’t generate as much greenhouse gases as red meat. But slapping branding on foods served up to kids can still be harmful, even if the meals might be better for the environment. “Companies should really keep their branding out” “Just on principle, we believe that schools should be commercial free,” says Marlene Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. “Companies should rea...

As the first week of the Epic v. Apple trial comes to a close, Apple is picking a fight over one of Epic’s witnesses. The fight centers on testimony from Lori Wright, Microsoft’s vice president of Xbox business development, who testified about the distinction between “general purpose” and “special purpose” devices on Wednesday in favor of Epic’s claim. Wright’s testimony set off a day of confusion over whether Microsoft actually makes money selling Xbox hardware. Apple is now asking the judge for an “adverse credibility finding,” basically a determination that Wright’s testimony can’t be trusted because of irregularities in document production. In a new filing, Apple argued that some of the documents referred to in Wright’s testimony weren’t produced in advance, and the entire testimony sh...

In a new statement posted on its website, WhatsApp says users won’t lose any functionality if they fail to accept its new privacy policy by May 15th. “No one will have their accounts deleted or lose functionality of WhatsApp on May 15th because of this update,” the FAQ now reads. That’s different from what the page originally said when it was posted in February, when it warned that failing to accept the new terms by the May deadline would mean users would lose functionality. “We’ve extended the effective date to May 15th,” the page said at the time. “If you haven’t accepted by then, WhatsApp will not delete your account. However, you won’t have full functionality of WhatsApp until you accept. For a short time, you’ll be able to receive calls and notifications, but won’t be able to read or ...

New cars are getting more expensive thanks to the global semiconductor shortage. And the price of used cars is going up, too. About 13 percent of people who bought a new car in the US in April paid above sticker price, according to Jessica Caldwell, director of insights at Edmunds. Last year, only 8 percent of buyers paid more. New vehicle prices have been on the rise for a while now, but the shortage is only worsening the trend. Automakers are temporarily shutting down production lines around the world. The chips they are able to source are going into the most popular new vehicles — the ones that make the most money. To make matters worse, demand for new cars and trucks is increasing, leading to markups. This has pushed more consumers to the used vehicle market, which is… driving up price...

TikTok announced two new integrations for its app on Thursday: sharing audio back into TikTok using the new Sound Kit, and using your TikTok account to log in to other apps with Login Kit. Developers can apply to use the new SDKs to insert the short-form video app’s content in even more places, but they may open the company and its users to new privacy concerns. The basic features of Login Kit will sound familiar. Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat already offer similar integrations to speed up the logging in process. Like those other versions, TikTok says that using Login Kit will allow users to securely log in to other apps, but also let developers offer TikTok content inside those apps, like adding videos to a dating profile. Using Login with TikTok also requires you to allow whatever app ...

Sonova, a Swiss company best known for its medical audio products like hearing aids and cochlear implants, is buying the consumer electronics division of German firm Sennheiser. That means Sonova is taking over Sennheiser’s portfolio of consumer headphones, wireless earbuds, and soundbars, moving into an expanding market for personal audio equipment. Sennheiser announced it was looking for a buyer for its consumer business in mid-February “amid strong competitive pressure.” Although the company’s consumer products hit record sales in 2019, the firm still lost money with profit margins “under pressure” from global rivals. It cut 650 jobs and said “all options are open” to help the division. Sennheiser’s brand (and products) will live on Now the company has found a buyer in Sonova. In a join...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published its long-awaited report on how manufacturers limit product repairs. The “Nixing the Fix” report details a host of repair restrictions, especially those imposed by mobile phone and car manufacturers. The anticompetitive practices covered by the FTC range from limited availability of spare parts and diagnostic software to designs that make repairs more difficult than they need to be. In response, the FTC wants to develop new laws and rules surrounding repairs, but it also wants better enforcement of existing legislation like the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA). While debates around right to repair rules in the EU have tended to focus on the environmental impact of sending broken devices to landfills, the FTC’s report leads with the impacts t...

Video site LiveLeak, best known for hosting gruesome footage that mainstream rivals wouldn’t touch, has shut down after fifteen years in operation. In its place is “ItemFix,” a site that bans users from uploading media containing “excessive violence or gory content.” In a blog post, LiveLeak founder Hayden Hewitt did not give an explicit reason for the site’s closure, saying only that: “The world has changed a lot over these last few years, the Internet alongside it, and we as people.” In a video posted on his YouTube channel Trigger Warning, Hewitt offered no further details, but said that maintaining LiveLeak had become a struggle, and that he and his team “just didn’t have it in us to carry on fighting.” “Everything’s different now, everything moves on,” says Hewitt, before adding in an...

David DeVore was seven years old in 2008 when a trip to the dentist left him feeling “funny” afterward. His dad, David Sr., recorded his son’s post-anesthesia musings (“Is this real life?” “You have four eyes” “I feel funny”), and when he uploaded it to YouTube a few months later — intending to share it with friends and family — the video went viral within a few days. Now, 140 million views and 11 years later, David After Dentist is becoming the latest mid-2000s meme to go up for auction as an NFT. “It kind of feels like 2009 all over again,” the elder DeVore said in an interview with The Verge. “NFTs are like the wild west right now, it’s like back when we went viral and social media was in its infancy.” The auction for the David NFT goes live today, and DeVore said he expects it will con...