Technology

You know what you did. Or do you? Until recently, TikTok wouldn’t necessarily explain why it removed one of your videos from the platform. You’d simply be told that it violated the company’s “community guidelines” somehow. But today, TikTok is announcing that it will give you at least a vague idea of why your video is gone, by naming the specific policy it fell afoul of. That’s pretty similar to how other companies do it. Here’s what TikTok’s new content violation notifications look like. The only real change is the name of the specific policy.Image: TikTok As before, you’ll be able to submit an appeal. Maybe you’ll have some idea what you’re appealing now. TikTok says it’s been experimenting with these notifications for a few months, and that appeals have actually gone down by 14 percent....

You can now buy the Pixel 4A from Google for just $9 per month over 24 months as part of the new Google Fi phone subscription program. That monthly cost means you’d pay just just $216 for the phone, a substantial savings over its $349 upfront price. After you’ve made all 24 payments, you own the phone. You can also elect to add in a $6 per month device protection plan, meaning your monthly subscription cost is $15. That protection plan covers up to two incidents of accidental damage and one loss or theft claim in a year. (Loss and theft replacement isn’t available to New York state residents, however.) At $15 per month over 24 months, you’d pay $360 for the Pixel 4A over the course of the subscription, which is only $11 more than the phone’s typical $349 upfront cost. But if you were hopin...

We’ve all been there. You’re craving a McFlurry, or a Shamrock Shake. You drive to McDonald’s, excited to fill yourself up with cold and sugary goodness. But when you finally make it to the counter, you hear those dreaded, devastating words: “The ice cream machine is broken.” A few hours ago, a 24-year-old software engineer launched McBroken, a website that aims to end such incidents once and for all. The site displays a map of every McDonald’s location in the US, denoted by clusters of dots. Locations with a working ice-cream machine get a green dot; locations without one, a red dot. A column on the right compiles statistics — currently, 7.54 percent of McDonald’s ice-cream machines in the US are broken, as are 15.22 percent of those in New York. Rashiq Zahid came up with McBroken over th...

Uber and Lyft were ordered by California’s court of appeals to classify their drivers as employees. In a 74-page opinion, the court affirmed the injunction that was issued on August 10th requiring Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as employees within 30 days. But it’s unlikely this ruling will go into effect before California voters weigh in on a ballot measure, Prop 22, that would exempt Uber, Lyft and other gig economy companies from the state law making it more difficult to classify workers as independent contractors. The injunction won’t go into effect until 30 days after the appeals ruling The injunction won’t go into effect until 30 days after the appeals ruling. Still, it’s a sign that Uber and Lyft have a lot riding on the passage of Prop 22. The companies, along with DoorDas...

Just last month, a stunning report showed how Amazon fulfillment centers across the country saw rising injury rates between 2016 and 2019, sourced from internal company data. And now, proposed legislation in Washington state would mean Amazon could pay a higher workers’ compensation premium than other warehouse-owning companies next year. To make this happen, the state wants to put warehouses that function like Amazon’s into a separate risk classification. While the proposed classification for “fulfillment centers” doesn’t say the word Amazon anywhere, how they are defined seems to fit the description of the company: Have an online marketplace to sell their own merchandise and third-party sellers’ merchandise; Sell their own name brand merchandise retail online; Offer warehousing and order...

The Food and Drug Administration approved remdesivir to treat COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. The drug, manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Gilead, is the first approved COVID-19 treatment in the United States. Remdesivir, now marketed under the brand name Veklury, was authorized for emergency use by the FDA in May. That emergency authorization indicated that the FDA thought the benefits of using the drug outweighed the risks, even though there was no clear evidence showing that it helped patients with COVID-19 at the time. “The FDA is committed to expediting the development and availability of COVID-19 treatments during this unprecedented public health emergency,” said FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn in a statement. The drug works by preventing viruses from making copies of themse...

Quibi will shut down for good “on or around December 1st,” according to a new blog posted on the company’s support site. The announcement comes one day after company executives declared Quibi was shutting down for good. It’s unclear where Quibi’s content will be available after the app shuts down. The company does recommend, however, following the Quibi hashtag on Twitter for any news about its library catalog. Earlier today, co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg told CNBC the company is currently trying to find buyers for its shows. It’s unclear how many of those shows Quibi owns the rights to, or for how long, but Katzenberg said he believes there are interested parties. Quibi’s executives are currently in the process of trying to wind down the company and figure out how to get investors back pa...

The sounds of the theremin, once the instrument of the future, have now been tingling our spines for 100 years. In commemoration, Moog is introducing its new limited-edition Claravox Centennial, named for theremin virtuosa Clara Rockmore. Moog says the Claravox offers “the highest quality control and sound available in a theremin.” With two modes, Traditional and Modern, it enables thereminists to switch between heterodyne analog and digital oscillators. It has the same wave-shaping circuit as Moog’s Etherwave Pro theremin, and DIN MIDI, USB, and CV inputs and outputs for connection to DAWs and use as a controller. It’s also lovely just to look at, with a walnut cabinet, brass antennas, and plenty of knobs to fiddle with. Electronic instruments, and their inventors and players, are some of...

A security researcher claims he hacked President Donald Trump’s Twitter account earlier this month, guessing that his password was “maga2020!” and possibly posting a tweet where Trump appeared to take a satirical article seriously. Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant and magazine Vrij Nederland reported the news earlier today, citing screenshots and interviews with the researcher, Victor Gevers. But when reached for comment, both Twitter and the White House vigorously denied the claim. “We’ve seen no evidence to corroborate this claim, including from the article published in the Netherlands today,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Verge. “We proactively implemented account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the United States, including f...

Apple is expanding its new “Express” retail format to more locations, according to Reuters. The Express stores have a wall of plexiglass-protected sales counters and some shelves with accessories right at the front of the store. The new format should allow customers to pick up orders (such as the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, which launch tomorrow) while respecting COVID-19 safety guidelines. There are about 20 Express stores in the US and Europe right now, and Apple is planning to have 50 across both countries by the end of October, Apple senior vice president of retail and people Deirdre O’Brien said to Reuters. You can see a list of which stores have Express storefronts in this list complied by 9to5Mac. Apple temporarily closed all of its retail stores outside of China in mid-March due to the C...

This week, Tesla began pushing its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) update to a select group of customers, and the first reactions are now beginning to roll in. The software, which enables drivers to use many of Autopilot’s advanced driver-assist features on local, non-highway streets, is still in beta. As such, it requires constant monitoring while in operation. Or as Tesla warns in its introductory language, “it may do the wrong thing at the worse time.” Frankly, this looks terrifying — not because it seems erratic or malfunctioning, but because of the way it will inevitably be misused. Early reactions to the software update range from “that was a little scary” to full-throated enthusiasm for CEO Elon Musk’s willingness to let his customers beta-test features that aren’t ready for wide release....

Quibi co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg admitted he was wrong for comments he made in May blaming the entirely of the company’s failing on the coronavirus pandemic. He’s ready to accept the blame for Quibi’s collapse. “It [wasn’t] fair,” Katzenberg told CNBC earlier today. That chat with CNBC was the first interview he and CEO Meg Whitman did after announcing Quibi was shutting down. “It was a bit of a quippy answer — a flippant answer — at the time. But other companies have faced the challenges of COVID and have managed to find a path. I think Meg and I believe in owning our miss. Simply to blame it on COVID is not fair, and not something either of us want to do.” Both Katzenberg and Whitman clearly wanted to get one point across in that interview: this failure is ours. The two executives are...