Technology

You would think a dating app that knows your sexuality and HIV status would take thorough precautions to keep that info protected, but Grindr has disappointed the world once again — this time, with a gobsmackingly egregious security vulnerability that could have let literally anyone who could guess your email address into your user account. Luckily, French security researcher Wassime Bouimadaghene discovered the vulnerability, perhaps before it could be exploited, and it’s now been fixed. Unluckily for Grindr, the company ignored his disclosures — until security researcher Troy Hunt (of Have I Been Pwned) and journalist Zack Whittaker (of TechCrunch) each confirmed the issue and wrote about it. The details need to be seen to be believed (so please look at the image above) but the short ver...

Nintendo revealed on Thursday that Steve and Alex from Minecraft will be added to the character roster in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch, and now we’re getting the full reveal: they’ll arrive on October 13th, and there’s a whole video you can watch where longtime Smash series director Masahiro Sakurai shows off their new moves, including the ability to build your own platforms out of blocks! See it above. The video reveals that you’ll effectively have six different Minecraft characters to choose from, because Steve and Alex have three different skins each: Plus, there’s a Zombie and an Enderman at around 4 min into the video. You’ll be able to harvest materials from the walls and ground with your various tools to craft upgrades on the fly, and the materials you get depe...

In a move that, I’m sure, has absolutely no relation to anything going on in the world today, Apple has quietly updated its “Face with Medical Mask” emoji with friendlier eyes, eyebrows, and rosy cheeks. Before, it looked a little lethargic. Now, it’s almost happy? You can practically imagine a smile underneath. Except you don’t have to imagine. Wait for it: GIF: Emojipedia As Emojipedia points out, the new emoji is literally Apple’s existing “Smiling Face” with a mask on top. Do you think the artist was imagining a frown under there? Probably not. Juxtaposition: Emojipedia It’s just the latest way that emoji have evolved to express the anguish of 2020 — even as other emoji are getting delayed until 2021. It’s also the latest way that Korea appears to have a jump on the United States where...

James Bond may not avert his next death until 2021, but apparently Paul W.S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter movie will still hit the big screen this year: the just-posted official teaser trailer for the movie confirms that it’ll arrive this December, “only in theaters.” At just 13 seconds of footage, it’s not much of a teaser — and where are the swords? Milla Jovovich mans a minigun, and her squad has a couple rifles at their disposal. But as our sister site Polygon points out, it does give us a glimpse at a Black Diablos, which is just the sort of gigantic sand-loving Triceratops-esque mega-beasts that the teaser seems to show. Don’t worry about those swords, by the way. As the movie’s synopsis makes clear, Jovovich and co will trade their guns for blades before long: When an unexpected sandst...

This story is part of a group of stories called Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you’re looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. Welcome to the weekend. Amazon Prime Day 2020 kicks off in less than two weeks, starting on Tuesday, October 13th and lasting through the 14th. That’s two days to get some of the best deals that we’ll see all year. We’re prepping behind the scenes for the event to make sure you’re able to get exactly what you’re looking for. But for now, I’m going to highlight a few of this week’s best deals that are still going on. OnePlus 8 $699 $799 13% off Prices taken at time of publishing. The OnePlus 8 saw a r...

Well, the coronavirus made it all the way to the White House. In a country that still maintains the highest numbers of cases in the world, that’s not a huge surprise. The White House might be an exclusive, highly-guarded venue, but viruses generally can squeeze their way onto any guest list — all they have to do is slide past the velvet rope as someone’s plus one. That’s the thing about this virus. It doesn’t matter if you’re a college football player, a nurse, a grocery store clerk, or the President. If the virus gets the chance to introduce itself to your body, it will probably take it. Unfortunately, a lot of our normal lives are spent in situations where the virus could turn into a social butterfly. Normally, we work in offices or factories or job sites. We go to school. We pack into y...

There’s one really strong argument in favor of buying the ZenBook Flip S: the screen. This $1,449 2-in-1 has a 4K OLED panel, and it’s one of the best displays you can get on a 13-inch notebook. OLED panels — which made a name for themselves in high-end TVs but are growing more popular in laptops as well — can deliver a stunning picture compared to IPS LCD displays. But all those pixels suck up a heck of a lot of battery, and companies sometimes slap them on laptops that can’t fully fill their power needs. That’s particularly true in thin-and-light 13-inch machines, which are working with really limited space for a battery. And it’s how you end up with releases like the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook, a gorgeous OLED device that can’t make it five hours on one charge. The ZenBook Flip (which yo...

An Apple patent application published yesterday reveals an idea for a foldable smartphone that would include a “self-healing” display cover, allowing the device to repair dents or scratches covering the screen. The application, spotted by Patently Apple, was originally filed by Apple in January. As Apple wrote in the patent application, the proposed concept’s display would allow the device to repair itself without the user having to manually intervene. In theory, the foldable’s self-healing could activate automatically, such as when the device is being charged or on a predetermined schedule, and it would use heat, light, or electric current to repair a protective layer above the screen. The patent application also says the hypothetical device’s screen cover may include a layer of elastomer...

No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, has been pushed back an entire year. It will now arrive on April 2nd, 2021, the film’s producers confirmed today. Originally, the film was supposed to arrive in April 2020, before getting delayed to this November due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new delay gives the world five more months to potentially recover and for people to decide when they’re willing to brave theaters again. MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, today announced the release of NO TIME TO DIE, the 25th film in the James Bond series, will be delayed until 2 April 2021 in order to be seen by a worldwide theatrical audience. pic.twitter.com/NqHlU24Ho3 — James Bond (@007) October 2, 2020 Of course, Bond isn’t alone: many big tentpole films have ...

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has published the results of an employee survey undertaken by the company over the summer following allegations of endemic harassment and toxicity, and the results are eye-opening. In the anonymous survey of nearly 14,000 employees, one in four respondents said that they had either witnessed or experienced workplace misconduct themselves in the past two years, and one in five said that they didn’t feel “fully respected or safe in the work environment.” The results also noted that women and non-binary employees witnessed or were more likely to experience or witness harassment than men. Women and non-binary employees were more likely to experience harassment Ubisoft says that the survey — which was conducted by a third-party research firm, and the results of which ...

Update October 2nd, 10:00PM ET: Just 2 seconds before liftoff, SpaceX stopped the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, without giving a clear indication of what went wrong. The next opportunity for SpaceX to fly is Saturday evening, though a launch date hasn’t been confirmed yet. Original Story: Late Friday night, SpaceX is slated to launch a new upgraded GPS satellite for the US Space Force from Cape Canaveral, Florida — the latest spacecraft intended to help modernize the current GPS fleet. This will be the fourth GPS satellite of its kind to launch in the last three years, and the third one to be launched by SpaceX. The satellite going up on this flight is GPS III SV04, which will become one of the 31 primary GPS satellites in orbit. This vehicle is part of a new block of GPS III spacecraft i...

Two members of a console hacking and piracy organization known as Team Xecuter have been arrested and charged with fraud, one of whom is named Gary Bowser. French national Max Louarn and Bowser, originally from Canada but arrested in the Dominican Republic, allegedly led the group, which makes a line of tools for cracking locked-down gaming hardware. Team Xecuter is a sophisticated operation known best for its Nintendo hacks, including a USB device called the SX Pro that allows the Nintendo Switch to run pirated games. The group’s for-profit motive has made it controversial in the modding and emulation communities, reports Ars Technica, because those communities tend to focus on open-source efforts and shy away from selling products that could draw the attention of both console makers and ...