Technology

Facebook last month shut off the ability for Australian users and media organizations to share news links in the country, and now it seems the company’s extraordinary measure has resulted in a compromise for the most interested parties as media giant News Corp has struck a licensing deal with the social network. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal is a multi-year one that gives Facebook’s news platform access to major News Corp Australia properties, including news.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, and Sky News. Google similarly struck a deal with News Corp last month, as the threat of a new Australia law regulating tech company payments to news organizations loomed overhead. Facebook’s news shutdown in Australia wasn’t designed specifically to increase pressure on News Corp. Instea...

India is reportedly moving forward with a sweeping ban on cryptocurrencies. According to Reuters, the country’s legislature will introduce a bill that criminalizes trading, mining, issuing, transferring, or possessing cryptocurrency. The bill is likely to pass if it’s introduced, giving India some of the world’s strictest digital currency laws. Under the plan, people who own these digital assets would have six months to liquidate their holdings. Reuters’ source, a government official, didn’t specify the punishment for breaking the rules after that. But a 2019 government panel recommended a jail sentence of up to 10 years for cryptocurrency-related offenses. The official says the discussions are in their “final stages,” although there’s no strict timeline for introducing the bill. The India...

Bird says it will spend $150 million on a major expansion in Europe. The Santa Monica-based scooter sharing company announced that it will bring its battery-powered two-wheelers to 50 new cities on the continent in the coming months, in addition to growing its fleet in its current markets. The move comes as scooter sharing continues to perform strongly in Europe amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To help oversee this new initiative, Bird is promoting to two employees to its executive team: Renaud Fages is named head of global operations; and Brendan O’Driscoll will be head of product, growth and data, overseeing both Bird’s global product strategy and its implementation. “Europe is playing a leading role” “Europe is playing a leading role not only in embracing micro-EVs, but in redesignin...

Not everyone takes advantage of the “switch” aspect of the Nintendo Switch, and for them, the smaller, easier-to-carry Switch Lite is a worthwhile alternative. A few retailers are now tossing in a free $20 gift card when you purchase Nintendo’s more compact handheld. Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop are all offering the deal, and all Switch Lite colors are eligible. So regardless of whether you prefer gray, yellow, blue, or coral, you’ll end up with an extra $20 to spend at the retailer you’re buying it from. By going with the Lite model, you lose the ability to dock the Switch to a TV, and features like HD rumble are also omitted from the smaller hardware. But at least you get a better d-pad and sturdier design in exchange. And the downsized screen is the same resolution, so some people thi...

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A Jewish GitHub employee who was fired for warning co-workers in Slack to stay safe from Nazis during the January 6th attack on the US Capitol has declined to take his job back after an offer from the company, GitHub told TechCrunch. “We offered the employee his job back immediately after reviewing the investigation findings, and he declined,” a GitHub spokesperson said to TechCrunch. GitHub shared the same statement with The Verge. “Me and the company reached an amicable resolution,” the employee said in a statement to TechCrunch. “I appreciate that they have denounced white supremacy and the dangers it poses to everybody.” The terms of the resolution are unclear, but the employee had “previously told me he was seeking damages or some other form of reconciliation,” TechCrunch said. GitHub...

Microsoft is fixing the issue where trying to use certain printers would freak out your Windows 10 computer and cause it to blue screen. If you (or your IT department) have been dealing with the issue, today’s update should let you get back to printing. In the update notes, Microsoft says that the issue only affected “certain printers using some apps,” but doesn’t clarify which. It seemed to impact some printers from Kyocera, Ricoh, and Zebra, and if you owned one it’s the type of error that would be extremely annoying — or worse, workflow-breaking, if printing’s a need and not something you just do occasionally. If this issue has been affecting you, you can download the update by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update, and clicking Check for Updates. Hopefu...

BMW is pulling the curtain back on its next iteration of iDrive, the software and infotainment platform that has served as the centerpiece of the automaker’s in-car experience for the last 20 years. The eighth version of iDrive will mostly live on a new “curved” display that starts behind the steering wheel and extends halfway across the dashboard. This involves merging the 12.3-inch instrument cluster and the central 14.9-inch infotainment screen into a single unit angled toward the driver. The size of the screen will vary, depending on the vehicle, but the screen will have the appearance of “floating,” the automaker said. The new iDrive will make its debut later this year in BMW’s new iX electric SUV, as well as the BMW i4 electric sedan. The brain of this car will also be a significant ...

This year, multiple companies primarily known for gaming laptops have been branching out into the portable business and productivity sector. It’s a crowded field already, but Razer made quite a splash with its excellent Razer Book 13, which has an elegant chassis, a 16:10 screen, and just a touch of its company’s signature RGB lighting. In this review I’m looking at the Summit Series, which is MSI’s attempt to enter the same space. The series includes the Summit E line — which includes discrete GPU options and is priced to compete with top dogs like Dell’s XPS 15 — and the Summit B line, which starts at $999 and sits squarely in the midrange market. Verge Score 7 out of 10 Good Stuff Lightweight Nice businessy-looking chassis Good 11th Gen processor Bad Stuff Dim display Not-great battery ...

Microsoft Teams is currently down worldwide. Microsoft says it’s attempting to bring the service back online after “a recent change to an authentication system” took some Microsoft 365 services down. “We’re rolling back the update to mitigate impact,” says Microsoft’s 365 status account, but the roll back is “taking longer than expected.” The issues started around 3:30PM ET, and Microsoft quickly confirmed they are affecting users worldwide. This is the first major Microsoft Teams outage since the service went down back in September, alongside other Microsoft 365 services like Office 365 and Outlook. Microsoft also blamed its previous outage on a configuration change. Azure Active Directory also appears to be experiencing issues as part of this outage, and Microsoft’s Xbox prepaid codes ar...

I get it — despite all the warnings about climate change, you or someone you know has big Scrooge McDuck-sized dollar signs in their eyes after realizing a pinch of blockchain is all you need to turn a JPG image into cold hard cash, and now you’re casting about for something — anything — to turn into an NFT while the initial gold rush lasts. Then, you spot it: something that doesn’t exactly belong to you. You’re not going to sell that, right? And yet that’s kinda what indie game developer Jason Rohrer is attempting to do, according to Kotaku: sell NFT copies of 155 digital paintings that he originally commissioned for his game The Castle Doctrine as individual artworks online. Which… I mean maybe he’s legally got the rights, even though NFTs didn’t exist back then? Except Rohrer isn’...