Technology

Retail robots that can scan shelves and update inventory have been one of the most visible faces of automation in recent years, but the success of such machines is far from guaranteed. According to The Wall Street Journal, Walmart — one of the biggest adopters of this technology — is ending a contract that saw shelf-scanning robots appear in some 500 of its stores. Apparently, the retailer found that humans could do the job just as well. Walmart began using robots supplied by Bossa Nova Robotics in 2017, with initial deployments in 50 locations. The mobile robots would simplify routine work in stores, said the company, using machine vision to scan shelves and identify what products needed restocking. Earlier this year, Bossa Nova said it planned to expand to 1,000 Walmart stores. Why exact...

TikTok and Sony Music Entertainment have reached a licensing deal that will keep bringing songs from the record group’s roster of hit artists to the shortform video app. Neither company would tell The Verge any real details about what this means for TikTok users. For the most part, it seems like things will largely stay the same. But that’s still an important development: TikTok has been working toward cutting new details with the major record groups since it exploded in popularity to ensure that it doesn’t lose some of the world’s top songs, and this appears to be the first deal locked in. Sony has had some big wins come from TikTok TikTok is paying “a significant increase” over its previous licensing deal, according to Bloomberg. The companies are also supposed to work together on ways t...

“Baby Shark” has now crossed 7.043 billion views — which officially makes the kid-friendly, adult-terrorizing earworm the most-watched YouTube video ever. It’s been over three years since Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” took that crown, but parents won’t be surprised to see the music industry’s greatest hit laid low by the Pinkfong empire: we’ve been taking 2020 one day and one video at a time. “This is news?” says my wife. “Please don’t play it. Please don’t play it.” Of course, it’s too late. “Baby Shark” is practically a core memory at this point; even with my speakers muted, it’s already playing in our brains. What might surprise you is just how dramatically “Baby Shark” flew up the charts. When I checked in on YouTube’s most popular videos last April, the video only had 2.5 ...

Amazon may be looking to handle its own deliveries to rural areas rather than relying on the US Postal Service, according to several job postings, The Information reported on Monday. The e-commerce behemoth would rely on shipping hubs in rural areas under a plan called “wagon wheel,” a reference to Amazon’s hub-and-spoke supply chain. In Amazon’s terminology, a wagon wheel station provides support for smaller shipping facilities, according to The Information. Several since-deleted job postings The Information discovered described “a new delivery business … that will support Amazon’s rural communities.” Amazon spent $15 billion on fulfillment costs in the third quarter When or where the program would be launched is not clear. But Amazon executives said on the company’s third quarter e...

AMC Entertainment didn’t try to hide the immense financial duress the company has faced the last several months and the increasingly uncertain future that lies ahead if AMC can’t find new ways to make cash. The company posted a revenue of $119.5 million in its third quarter, down 91 percent year over year. The same quarter last year brought in more than $1 billion. AMC noted in its earnings that it’s “operating approximately 539 of its 600 domestic locations,” as of October 2020, but cities like New York City and Los Angeles remain big obstacles. The issue is getting people into those theaters on a consistent basis without any big movies to encourage attendance. On Monday, the company also filed new documents stating it was trying to sell 20 million class A shares in an attempt to secure j...

The 2020 presidential election is nearly upon us, and the hours leading up to it are full of unknown, eldritch horrors. The old gods are awakening, and the pollsters are sharpening their needles. Or at least it feels that way. Because so many bad things have happened in America this year, every day can feel like navigating a field chock-full of unexploded ordnance — and all there is to do, really, is put on a mask and vote. Personally, I feel like I’m T-posing at the end of the world. So I’ve leaned into compiling a playlist of anime fight scenes on YouTube: they’re power fantasies that always end with the good guys winning. It’s been helping a little. Many of my colleagues have come up with their own, unique ways to deal with the fact that reality has lately become surreal. Here are a few...

Apple’s upcoming “One More Thing” event, announced this morning and scheduled for November 10th, will be a major break with tradition in more ways than one: it will be the first time the company unveils an Apple laptop featuring its own custom Arm-based CPUs. Apple plans to debut three new laptops next week, one 13-inch MacBook Air and two different-sized MacBook Pro models (13-inches and 16-inches) that ditch Intel processors, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. We had a strong inkling that this event — coming on the heels of an iPhone-specific one last month and one dedicated to the latest Apple Watch and iPads back in September — would be when Apple debuts its Arm-based Macs, which the company confirmed after years of swirling rumors back at WWDC this past summer. Bu...

The pandemic has taken many things from the world — but mostly it’s stolen events. Every hang is a potential death sentence. Thankfully, Twitch, at least, has gone virtual: it announced today that its flagship conference, TwitchCon, will be happening online this year. Oh, and it’s not called TwitchCon. It’s now GlitchCon, and it’s happening on November 14th. “Important announcement from Twitch,” the ad begins, “Numerous glitches have been observed on Twitch.” In this particular universe, those glitches were caused by — yes — “a portal to another dimension.” Which is fun! If GlitchCon is anything like the analog version, it’ll show off the site’s artists, cosplayers, and communities. TwitchCon is the streaming platform’s signature event, and its main function is to bring its numerous, dispa...

The COVID-19 exposure notification app used in England and Wales failed to warn users if they were in close contact with potentially infectious COVID-19 patients. Because of the error, thousands of people were not told to quarantine even when they should have been, according to the Sunday Times, which first reported the flaw. The app was launched on September 24th, and there have been 19 million downloads since. It’s built using Google and Apple’s Bluetooth Low Energy-based system, which monitors nearby phones. If someone tests positive for COVID-19, their app can alert the phones that they were in contact with. The UK originally planned to use its own app, sidestepping the Google and Apple system, but reversed course in June. Since its launch, the app flagged few users for possible exposu...

Gabe Newell, president of Valve, the video game company behind the Half-Life series and game marketplace Steam, is thanking the country of New Zealand for its hospitality by launching a gnome into space with aerospace company Rocket Lab in mid-November. Newell decided to stay in New Zealand at the start of the pandemic and is donating a dollar to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Starship Children’s Hospital for every viewer who watches the satellite launch livestream or the online recording within 24 hours of launch. This soon-to-be astronaut gnome is actually a 150mm tall model of “Garden Gnome” or “Gnome Chompski,” an item that first appeared in Half-Life 2: Episode Two but achieved meme status following the speedruns and travelogues (like this charmingly detailed one written by for...

Spotify’s going to test letting artists and labels influence more of what its algorithm promotes. The company announced today a new test for all artists and labels on the platform where they can decide to promote any music that’s important to them. So, for example, if Fleetwood Mac wanted to promote “Dreams” after it went viral on TikTok, they could decide to do so, and Spotify’s algorithm would consider that request when building a radio session or when a listener enters autoplay. Of course, this could apply to any song, including tracks that might be new or that artists want to put extra promotional push behind. “We want to be able to provide tools that help our artists leverage those moments, so they can be more in control of their success on Spotify and more in charge of their careers,...

OnePlus has revealed a wild-looking Cyberpunk 2077-themed 8T, and it looks radically different from the standard OnePlus 8T. Disappointingly, though, the Cyberpunk 2077-themed phone is only available to preorder in China at the moment, where it costs CNY 3,999 (a little less than $600). The phone has a lot of cosmetic touches to match the visual tone of the upcoming game, such as striking yellow accents and a Cyberpunk 2077 logo on the bottom of the phone. But the thing I can’t stop looking at is its giant camera module, which encompasses much of the width of the back of the phone. Just look at that camera module.Image: OnePlus The software gets some Cyberpunk 2077-themed touches as well, including a custom wallpaper. The phone also has two special camera filters, “Night City” and “North C...