Technology

So I have utterly failed at trying not to watch Hannibal right before bed; it definitely makes for weird dreams but it’s so good. I’m about halfway through season 2 now and getting very nervous for some of the characters I don’t remember from Silence of the Lambs and/or Red Dragon. I also have Promising Young Woman queued up and trying to avoid spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier until I can watch the first episode. Honestly too much good streaming content to keep up. That said, though, I am very excited by this week’s lineup because we have new trailers, plural, for In the Heights, the movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway play (he also wrote another one you may have heard of, about Alexander Hamilton). Directed by Jon M. Chu, who directed Crazy Rich Asians, t...

Apple has been ordered to pay $308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications after a federal jury in Texas found the company had infringed on a technology patent related to digital rights management, Bloomberg reported. PMC had sued Apple over its FairPlay technology, used to distribute encrypted content from iTunes, Apple Music, and its App Store. PMC, which is a patent licensing firm, originally sued Apple in 2015, claiming the tech giant had infringed seven of its patents. Apple successfully challenged the case to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, but an appeals court reversed the patent board’s decision last March, and the case went to trial. Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge on Sunday, but told Bloomberg it would appeal the ruling. “Cases li...

Christopher Nolan’s time-shifting thriller Tenet will debut on HBO Max May 1st, just a few months after the director called it the “worst streaming service.” Tenet was scheduled to be released in theaters last July, but had its opening date delayed several times because of the coronavirus pandemic. It debuted in theaters outside the US, including Canada, France, Japan, and the UK in August, and in US theaters in September. Nolan, long a proponent of watching movies on the big screen, was bluntly critical of Warner Bros.’ decision to release all of its 2021 films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. He said in a statement that “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio ...

In the next week, Utah’s governor will decide whether to make all phones and tablets in the state filter pornography… sort of. The bill, which passed Utah’s legislature earlier this month, would require mobile devices to “automatically enable a filter capable of blocking material that is harmful to minors.” Gov. Spencer Cox has said he will “carefully consider” signing it by the March 25th deadline. But the rule won’t change anything in the immediate future — a fact one lawmaker even cited as a benefit. In theory, Utah’s H.B. 72 mandates active adult content filters on all smartphones and tablets sold in Utah. Phone makers would provide a passcode to let buyers disable the filter, although it’s not clear if they’d need to verify the buyer’s age beforehand. If a filter isn’t automatic...

Elon Musk said Saturday if Tesla vehicles were used to spy in China, the company would be shut down, Reuters reported. Musk made the remark while speaking via video link to the China Development Forum, addressing reports that China has barred its military and government personnel from using Tesla vehicles over security concerns. “There’s a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information,” Musk told the forum. “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.” The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that people who work for China’s military, government agencies and “state-owned enterprises in sensitive industries” were prohibited from driving Teslas. China is concerned that Tesla’s exterior cameras, which constantly record footage, could be us...

The first person I knew personally who got their COVID-19 vaccine was my grandma, and the news that a shot was officially in her arm was the best thing I’d heard since the pandemic began. Since then, more and more of my family and friends (and their families) have been vaccinated, and the jolt of happiness is still just as exhilarating. I get emotional hearing about people I don’t know getting vaccinated, too. Turns out, I’m a huge softie when it comes to people getting protected from a deadly disease! Social media is full of post-jab selfies that will make me tear up a little during the workday. And this week, my wonderful co-worker Kait Sanchez pointed me in the direction of another way to soak up the joy of the newly vaccinated: the Google reviews of COVID-19 vaccination sites. Normally...

The consumer protection agency in Brazil’s São Paulo state has fined Apple $2 million for failing to include chargers within iPhone 12 boxes, according to 9to5 Mac. Procon-SP says Apple engaged in “misleading advertising, selling a device without the charger and unfair terms.” Apple announced in October that the iPhone 12 and would not come with chargers or earbuds in their boxes, citing environmental concerns. By only including a USB-C to Lightning cable with iPhone 12 and other new models, Apple said it would be able to reduce the raw materials for each iPhone it sells, in addition to reducing the size of the phones’ boxes. Critics suggested the change had more to do with allowing Apple to reduce shipping costs, and environmental experts said the impact on the environment would likely be...

The Hong Guang Mini EV edged out Tesla’s Model 3 as the top-selling electric vehicle in the world in January and February, not a small feat for the relatively new hatchback. More than 36,000 of the tiny cars sold in January, compared to about 21,500 Model 3s, and the Hong Guang sold just over 20,000 units last month, compared to just under 13,700 Tesla 3s. The diminutive vehicle is made under a joint partnership between China’s state-owned SAIC Motor, Wuling Motors, and US carmaker General Motors, and is locally referred to simply as Wuling. The Hong Guang Mini EV sells in China only for 28,800 yuan, or about $4,500. It claims to get 170 kilometers (roughly 106 miles) per charge, and can reach a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour or 62 miles per hour (so no drag racing in this thing). It...

A hacking group is demanding $50 million from Acer, Bleeping Computer reported, in what appears to be one of the biggest ransomware demands to date. According to Bleeping Computer, the attackers may have gained access to the Taiwanese computer manufacturer’s network via a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability. The REvil group that carried out a ransomware attack on Travelex last year is believed to be behind the Acer breach as well. Bleeping Computer said REvil is giving Acer until March 28th to pay the ransom or it will leak the data it claims to have collected. Microsoft recently released several security updates to fix vulnerabilities for exploits found in its Exchange software, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether the Acer breach was connected. Acer did not acknowledge whether it had bee...

Twitter is planning to establish a legal entity in Turkey to continue operating there under the country’s controversial internet law that took effect last year, the company announced late Friday. Under the law, social media companies that have more than 1 million users must store Turkish users’ data in the country. Such companies also are required to designate an official representative in Turkey, who must answer requests to take down content that violates privacy within 48 hours. If the companies refuse to comply, they could face fines, advertising bans, and eventually bandwidth reductions that could make the platforms unusable. “We remain committed to protecting the voices and data of people in Turkey who use Twitter. We will continue to be transparent about how we handle requests from g...

Comics have never been bigger: with Marvel TV shows, DC movies, and indie adaptations growing by the day, comic books have never been more prominent in pop culture. This ongoing Verge column recommends comic series new and old, whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer. Sometimes the art and narrative of a comic go hand-in-hand. A horror story might be full of lots of black and reds, while a superhero comic is brighter and cleaner. Paranoia Killer goes in a different direction. The series is a dark thriller, full of violence and serious subject matter, but with a visual style reminiscent of a Nickelodeon cartoon. Somehow, it still works. What is it? Paranoia Killer is a brand-new series — so far, only the first of four parts is available — that centers on Nathalie Laertes, an FBI agent f...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said in a news release Friday that cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has paid $6.5 million to settle regulators’ claims that it reported misleading transaction data. According to the CFTC, between January 2015 and September 2018 “Coinbase recklessly delivered false, misleading, or inaccurate reports concerning transactions in digital assets.” The agency alleges that two trading programs operated by Coinbase generated orders that traded with each other, which could have misled traders about the trading volume on the exchange now called Coinbase Pro. The CFTC also fined Coinbase for what are known as “wash trades” in the Litecoin cryptocurrency and bitcoin that were conducted by a former Coinbase employee on Coinbase’s GDAX platform. Wa...