Technology

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks at the United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit on September 23, 2019 in New York City.  | Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images The United Kingdom will ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles by 2030, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today. It will also ban the sale of new hybrid cars by 2035. Johnson made the announcement tonight as part of a new ten-point plan for a “green industrial revolution.” This is the second time Johnson has moved up the deadline. The original plan was to stop sales of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040. Back in February, Johnson moved the target to 2035. He’s come under increasing pressure to crack down on gas-guzzling cars in order to meet the UK’s broader goal of eliminating emissions ...

Photo: GitHub GitHub has reinstated an open-source tool for downloading YouTube videos, and it’s changed its policies to make similar copyright-related takedowns less likely. Yesterday, the Microsoft-owned software repository reversed its removal of YouTube-dl, which lets users save local copies of streaming videos from YouTube and many other sites. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) demanded that GitHub remove YouTube-dl in late October. It alleged that the tool “was designed and is marketed” for illegally saving copyrighted music, violating Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. GitHub initially agreed, but its decision drew criticism from journalists and software developers. As TechDirt chronicled, YouTube-dl is… Continue reading… You Deserv...

One year ago, Google Stadia charged three ways to try its new cloud gaming service: you had to buy $130 worth of hardware, pay $10 a month for the service, and buy many of its games. But starting on November 19th — Stadia’s anniversary — Google will let you play Destiny 2 without paying a cent. It might be the single-biggest test for Stadia yet. Don’t expect much, and you might be impressed Destiny 2 is already a free-to-play game on consoles and Windows PCs, so it’s not like Google is handing out free copies of a full-priced game. If you get invested, you’ll still need to buy the expansions yourself. You won’t be able to play with your friends on other platforms because Stadia’s copy of Destiny 2 doesn’t support cross-platform… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money Even...

Photo by DAVID GANNON/AFP via Getty Images Tesla, Uber, Rivian, Lucid Motors, and others have joined forces to create a new lobbying group for electric vehicles on Capitol Hill. The group, which is called the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), says its mission is that 100 percent of new car sales are electric by 2030. Some states are already moving in that direction. California recently announced its plans to ban the sale of combustion-engine vehicles by 2035. New Jersey has said it is interested in doing the same. However, the new industry group won’t push states to require its residents to only purchase EVs, but rather it supports policies to incentivize their sale. “point-of-sale consumer incentives” One of its five missions outlined in its announcement is… Continue ...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is wrapping up 2020 with what it claims are major performance enhancements to the company’s Google Chrome browser. “This month’s update represents the largest gain in Chrome performance in years,” Matt Waddell, Chrome’s director of product, wrote in a blog post. Sounds pretty exciting on the surface, no? Waddell says a slew of under-the-hood changes and optimizations have led to boosts to Chrome on several fronts. The first has to do with tabs. Chrome now will prioritize your active tab over the others in the background, “reducing CPU usage by up to 5x and extending battery life by up to 1.25 hours (based on our internal benchmarks).” Google goes into greater detail on just what it’s doing to keep tabs in check (hint: it involves… Contin...

An interview with Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.

Image: Instacart Electronics retailer Best Buy and on-demand delivery platform Instacart announced a partnership on Tuesday that will see Instacart power same-day delivery of Best Buy in every state in the US, covering nearly every Best Buy location throughout the country. The partnership is a big deal for Instacart, which has gradually expanded beyond its initial grocery delivery ambitions to include delivery of all manner of goods from many types of different retailers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for delivery of everything from home supplies to groceries to hot meals has skyrocketed, giving Instacart and its rivals huge revenue boosts and the means to continue expanding. For Best Buy, it’s a way to tap into the ease of on-demand delivery… Continue reading… You Dese...

The holidays are approaching — and the retailers are in tight competition for your dollars. In order to convince you that they’re the place to buy from, they are not just dropping prices on their products; they’re making it a lot easier to have those products shipped and to return them if the person you bought the laptop or gaming console or phone for doesn’t like it. In fact, most retailers are offering special holiday season policies for shipping and returns, recognizing that a) most shoppers are spending a great deal right now and wouldn’t mind saving a bit on shipping, b) many people will start getting nervous about getting their packages before the holidays so faster shipping is better (and free faster shipping is better yet), and… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Mo...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new computer, phone, game console, or backpack and finding out that you could have gotten it for a lot cheaper somewhere else. In order to keep customers happy — and prevent them from going elsewhere — many retailers offer price-matching policies where they promise to match a lower price that you’ve found elsewhere. They will also sometimes match themselves if you buy something that goes down in price a week later. What follows are the price-matching policies for a variety of major retailers. There are a few things to make note of here. First, all price-matching policies have a number of rules attached to them. We’ve summarized some of the rules here, but you’d be advised to go to the links that… Co...

Adobe is releasing Arm versions of Photoshop for Windows and macOS today. The beta releases will allow owners of a Surface Pro X or Apple’s new M1-powered MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini to run Photoshop natively on their devices. Currently, Photoshop runs emulated on Windows on ARM, or through Apple’s Rosetta translation on macOS. Native versions of Photoshop for both Windows and macOS should greatly improve performance, just in time for Apple to release its first Arm-powered Macs. While performance might be improved, as the app is in beta there are a lot of tools missing. Features like content-aware fill, patch tool, healing brush, and many more are not available in the beta versions currently. Adobe lists a number of known… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money...

Google Maps can now give predicted delivery times for food orders in select markets. | Image: Google Google has announced a handful of improvements coming to Google Maps including updates to its COVID overlay, takeout ordering features, and real-time crowdedness information for public transport. Alongside them, the company says the Google Assistant driving mode, which gives you access to features like voice controls for music while you’re driving, is launching in preview in the US. The Google Assistant driving mode was first announced back at Google I/O 2019 and was spotted rolling out on some Android devices last month. The mode offers voice controls for features like phone calls and media playback from inside the Maps navigation screen, so you can access them while keeping your eyes on t...

Amazon Pharmacy will offer a range of prescription, though no Schedule II medications, including most opioids. | Image: Amazon Amazon is making its biggest push into the healthcare industry yet with the launch today of Amazon Pharmacy: a new service offering home delivery for prescription medication. Customers can sign up to the new store by creating a ”secure pharmacy profile,” with the option of adding information about their health insurance, any outstanding medical issues like allergies, and any regular prescriptions. The store will offer a range of “generic and brand-name drugs,” reports CNBC, including “commonly prescribed drugs like insulin, triamcinolone steroid creams, metformin for controlling blood sugar, and sumatriptan for migraines.” Notably, the pharmacy will not sell Schedu...