Technology

Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have cautioned that the first batch of vaccines created against the virus might not be the last. Like all viruses, this one would mutate, and eventually, those mutations could make the virus different enough that a different vaccine would be needed to combat it. Only two months into the vaccination campaign, researchers are preparing for that inevitability. There’s early evidence from South Africa that both the Novavax and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine candidates are not as effective against a variant form of the virus first identified in the country, called B.1.351. The shots still offer some defense and still protect against hospitalization and death. Preliminary research indicates that the COVID-19 vaccines already authorized in t...

Zack Snyder’s Justice League — known to fans as the mythical “Snyder Cut” — hits HBO Max on March 18th, and Warner Bros. is celebrating the at-home blockbuster relaunch in a unique way: with customized, themed $130 Snyder Cut meal boxes. Described as “a first-of-its-kind, immersive, at-home dining experience” for customers in the US and the UK, Warner Bros. is teaming up with Wonderland Restaurants (a self-described “creative & innovation studio for the food and beverage industry”) to create the kits. Wonderland Restaurants is also currently working on Park Row, an upcoming high-end DC Comics-themed restaurant in London that was announced in early 2020. The meal kits are designed to resemble the film’s MacGuffin-y Mother Boxes and cost $130 for a kit for two or $260 for four (shipping ...

Netflix is launching a global test today on Android devices that will allow subscribers to set a timer for their viewing period. The new feature lets people choose between four timer settings: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or end of whatever people are watching. After the selected time limit comes to an end, the Netflix app will stop. This should, in theory, help conserve battery life on Android devices while also ensuring that episodes don’t continue to auto-play. (Fall asleep to Bridgerton without worrying about where you left off!) Although the test is limited to select users globally with Android devices right now, Netflix will explore bringing it to other devices, including TV sets and desktops, depending on how widely the product is adapted and if subscribers seem to like it, a...

Samsung Electronics has reported its fourth-quarter earnings, confirming that the company made more money in 2020 than the year before despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Operating profit was up to 35.99 trillion won ($32.1 billion) off 236.81 trillion won ($211.5 billion) in revenue for the year, increases of 29.6 percent and 2.78 percent respectively. Samsung says its fourth-quarter results were helped by its “company-wide efforts to ensure a stable supply of products and services globally” in the pandemic environment. Quarterly profit was up 26.4 percent year-on-year, largely driven by the display and memory businesses, though the latter was down quarter to quarter. Samsung’s display business had its highest ever quarterly earnings, which the company mainly attributes to hi...

Linking your WhatsApp account to your computer’s web browser or desktop app is getting a little more secure. Soon, if you’ve got biometric authentication enabled on your phone, you’ll have to unlock the app before you can link your account. The company says the new system is intended to ensure that should someone else gain access to your phone, they won’t be able to link your account to their web browser (which, in turn, would allow them to see any messages you send or receive). To be clear: WhatsApp (and Facebook) aren’t getting access to your fingerprints or facial recognition scans The new system will be enabled by default on any iPhone devices running iOS 14 with either Touch ID or Face ID, and any Android devices that have biometric authentication enabled. That means users will have t...

Vivaldi is releasing version 3.6 of the Vivaldi browser with a great and terrible power today: you can now create two-level tab stacks, so that grouped tabs can become pseudo-workspaces for whatever you get up to in your browser. Vivaldi first introduced the feature as an experiment in December 2020, but now you can officially indulge in two levels of too many tabs. Creating two-level stacked tabs is as easy as holding down the Command or Windows key, selecting whatever tabs you want to be in the stack, and then right-clicking and selecting “New Tab stack” from the drop down menu. You can also achieve the same effect by dragging and holding one tab over another. Clicking on the newly formed tab stack (signified with a white outline) reveals the second row of tabs nestled inside. Tab stacks...

Thanks to its latest update, the Google Camera app now lets you permanently turn off its Auto Night Sight feature on devices that automatically enable the low-light photography mode, 9to5Google reports. The feature is available with version 8.1.200 of the app, which started rolling out on Monday. Additionally, the update lets you disable the mode from the app’s flash settings. When Google released the Pixel 4A 5G and Pixel 5 last year, it tweaked their camera apps to enable Night Sight mode automatically in low-light conditions. But using the feature means photos take longer to capture, so there’ll inevitably be occasions when you don’t want it to automatically come on. Annoyingly, as 9to5Google notes, the toggle to turn this feature off (on the bottom right of the Camera app) would previo...

Cyberpunk 2077 creator CD Projekt Red would kindly like modders to stop making Keanu Reeves into a sex object. Following a fan mod that allowed players to have sex with Reeves’ character, Johnny Silverhand, the developer told PC Gamer that user-generated content cannot be “harmful towards others” — especially when it comes to mods. “In the case of model swaps, especially those that involve explicit situations, it can be perceived as such by the people who lent us their appearance for the purpose of creating characters in Cyberpunk 2077,” the developer said. It’s worth noting that Reeves’ character does have an in-game sex scene, though it plays out from his perspective. As Johnny, the player has sex with a blonde woman who inexplicably dumps good liquor onto her white top to a backdrop of ...

Apple says there are now more than 1 billion active iPhones, an enormous milestone for the company that speaks to the phones’ continued success and longevity. There are now 1.65 billion Apple devices in active use overall, Tim Cook said during Apple’s earnings call this afternoon. The milestone had been approaching for a while. Apple sold its billionth iPhone in 2016, and in January 2019, Apple said that it had hit 900 million active iPhone users. Apple counts a device as active if it has engaged with an Apple service within the past 90 days, a spokesperson told The Verge. The stat would suggest that a substantial number of the iPhones ever sold remain in active use, at least by Apple’s definition. BNN Bloomberg reported last year that analysts believed Apple would be approaching its 1.9 b...

Garmin has released a new smartwatch called the Lily, and its main selling point is that Garmin claims it’s designed by women, for women. The Sport Edition, which is made of aluminum and has a silicone band, costs $199, while the stainless steel Classic Edition is $250 and comes with a leather band. Garmin claims it’s “the smartwatch women have been waiting for,” which seems based on its size and design, which is very fashion-forward. However, as reviewer Lily Katz from Android Authority points out in her review of the Lily, the watch may have given up a few important features to achieve those looks. To its credit, the Lily looks very much like a regular watch.Image: Garmin One of the Lily’s main selling points is that it’s small. It’s circular, with a diameter of 34.5mm, whereas the small...

Apple’s new privacy feature requiring developers ask for permission to track iOS users for ad targeting is at last going live in the next iOS 14 beta with a planned full release some time this spring for non-beta users, the company tells The Verge. The announcement coincides with Data Privacy Day, as well as a speech on privacy from Apple CEO Tim Cook later today at the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference in Brussels. Apple initially planned for the feature to go live with the launch of iOS 14 last fall, but it delayed its implementation to 2021 in September of last year to give developers more time to comply. Today’s announcement narrows the launch window to this spring, but Apple is not commenting further on when exactly we might see it to go live for everyone. Called App T...

Discord has banned the r/WallStreetBets server, the company confirmed to The Verge. Reddit’s WallStreetBets subreddit is the driver of an unprecedented rally of GameStop stock, and has received a great deal of attention in the press as the stock continues to soar. Discord says it did not ban the server for financial fraud — rather, it was banned because it continued to allow “hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.” The Verge gained access to the server and can confirm the claim that users of the channel were spamming hateful language, including racial slurs. Here is Discord’s full statement: The server has been on our Trust & Safety team’s radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violenc...