Technology

Amazon and HBO-owner WarnerMedia finally came to an agreement this week to bring HBO Max to Amazon Fire TV devices, nearly six months after the streaming service first launched. But as part of that agreement, Amazon will be removing HBO from Amazon’s Prime Video Channels selection starting next year, according to CNBC. Amazon Prime Video Channels let you subscribe to individual streaming channels for a monthly fee and watch them on Amazon. But the HBO Prime Video Channel has some differences from HBO Max. HBO Max offers everything you’d get with a normal HBO subscription as well as additional movies, shows, and original series. As WarnerMedia is trying to build its subscriber base for HBO Max, it seems the company wants to remove some… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Mon...

Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Airbnb’s chief trust officer Sean Joyce left the company after just six months in 2019 because the former FBI deputy director took issue with the company’s data sharing practices in China, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. For years, Airbnb has disclosed that it shares information such as phone numbers and email addresses with the Chinese government when a user books a rental in China. That happens whether the user is a Chinese citizen or a foreign visitor — a policy that’s required from all hospitality businesses operating in the country. Joyce, who Airbnb hired in May 2019 to protect the platform’s users, was concerned with Airbnb’s willingness to share data. Joyce also objected to the scope...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Employees at Tesla’s Fremont plant are “essential workers” and therefore exempt from new statewide COVID-19 health orders, CNBC reported. The California Department of Public Health says manufacturing is considered an “essential workforce” — and that applies to Tesla’s manufacturing, too. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced new measures such as a “limited stay-at-home order” to slow new coronavirus cases in the state. The rules, which take effect Saturday, prohibit non-essential work and personal gatherings between 10PM and 5AM. The carmaker fought previous, stricter shelter-in-place orders in the spring. In March, Alameda County officials initially told the company it was not exempt from an order requiring nonessential businesses… Contin...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will transfer the @POTUS account to President-elect Joe Biden when he’s sworn in on Inauguration Day, the company told Politico. Twitter will transfer the account to Biden even if President Donald Trump hasn’t conceded — which he still hasn’t done, despite the election widely being called for Biden earlier this month. “Twitter is actively preparing to support the transition of White House institutional Twitter accounts on January 20th, 2021,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “As we did for the presidential transition in 2017, this process is being done in close consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration.” Other presidential accounts, including @whitehouse, @VP, and @FLOTUS, will be… Contin...

HBO’s upcoming TV adaptation of The Last of Us just took a big step forward in actually happening: the network has given the show a series order, with series creator Neil Druckmann working as both a writer and executive producer alongside Craig Mazin (Chernobyl). HBO’s Carolyn Strauss, who executive produced both Game of Thrones and Chernobyl, will also serve as an executive producer on The Last of Us. Per the official synopsis, the TV series seems to be adapting the first game in the series: “The story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal,… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money ...

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images President-elect Joe Biden is preparing to take over from President Donald Trump, but his transition team isn’t getting the level of cybersecurity support usually provided by outgoing administrations, according to The Wall Street Journal. That could mean Biden’s team is more vulnerable to cyberattacks than if it had the full support and resources of the federal government. Typically, a departing administration would help the transition team with things like setting up government email accounts and making sure those accounts are protected, reports The Wall Street Journal. But the Trump administration has stopped federal agencies from providing that support, leaving the Biden transition team to take care of its own cybersecurity. The team… Continue readi...

This illustration shows the rear of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft in orbit above Earth with its deployable solar panels extended. As the world’s latest ocean-monitoring satellite, it is launching on Nov. 21, 2020, to collect the most accurate data yet on global sea level and how our oceans are rising in response to climate change.  | Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA plans to launch a satellite tomorrow that will follow the effects of climate change on the world’s oceans and gather data to improve weather forecasts. The satellite will continue NASA’s three decades-long work to document rising sea levels and will give scientists a more precise view of the coastlines than they’ve ever had from space. “The best front seat view on the oceans is from space” “The best front seat vie...

Game of Thrones editors may not have caught a coffee cup, and editors missed a water bottle in a Downton Abbey promotion photo, but my favorite accidental addition to a show is the crew member who made their way into the most recent Mandalorian episode. The crew member — we have to assume they’re a crew member, but The Verge has reached out to Disney for more information — appears at approximately 18:54 in The Mandalorian’s “Chapter 12” episode. Consider this your warning for light spoilers ahead. The scene in question features Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), Cara Dune (Gina Carano), the Mandalorian (aka, Din Djarin, played by Pedro Pascal), and the blue criminal from the series’ very first episode taking on a batch of stormtroopers…. Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money E...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Last week on The Vergecast, the crew spent some time discussing Apple’s announcement of new Mac computers with its own Arm-based processor chip, which Apple is calling the M1. This week, Vergecast co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn got their hands on the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with the M1 chips for review and brought their findings to this week’s episode. Nilay and Dieter also bring in deputy editor Dan Seifert and editor Chris Welch to discuss their experiences with the new computers in regards to performance, battery life, and running iOS apps on macOS. But before they got into all of that, The Vergecast starts the discussion with an interview with legendary tech reviewer Walt Mossberg, who was able to try out the new… Continue reading&h...

A major Super Smash Bros. tournament is canceling plans to move online amid the coronavirus pandemic, following a legal order by Nintendo. As Polygon reports, The Big House — typically one of the year’s biggest Smash competitions — announced yesterday that it’s shutting down its early December event and offering refunds. “The Big House is heartbroken to share we’ve received a cease and desist from Nintendo,” the organizers wrote on Twitter. “We are forced to comply with the order and cancel The Big House Online.” Nintendo objected to the organizers using Slippi, a software tool that makes Super Smash Bros. Melee playable online. The 2001 GameCube title is a mainstay in competitive Super Smash Bros., and translating its hyper-fast-paced… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Mo...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has added support for the 988 emergency mental health services number more than a year and a half ahead of the Federal Communications Commission’s deadline, the company announced on Friday. T-Mobile customers who dial 988 will be connected to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) and its network of crisis centers across the US. T-Mobile says it is the first carrier in the US to make 988 available to its customers. T-Mobile chief technology officer Abdul Saad said in a statement that making the shorter emergency number available to customers was “a matter of urgency for us, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and the holiday season approaches.” In 2019, the FCC released a report suggesting a three-digit… Continue r...

Amazon is adding new X-Ray features to its music streaming service, which let you see extra pieces of trivia about the music you’re listening to. The feature is available in the US and UK across “tens of millions” of songs, and Amazon says it’s looking to expand this list over time. X-Ray isn’t an entirely new feature for Amazon. It’s already available on the company’s Prime Video streaming service where it shows information like which actors are in a current scene, and it’s previously been able to show real-time lyrics for songs in Amazon Music. What’s new are the additional pieces of trivia the feature now shows about tracks. These range from interesting tidbits about an artist’s backstory to more perfunctory information about when a… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Mo...