Technology

IFTTT, a perennial favorite of smart home tinkerers everywhere, is going Pro. That means paid subscriptions for faster and more sophisticated IFTTT applets that can query more data sources to trigger multiple actions in the home. The free version will stick around but is now limited to just three applets — only Pro subscribers will be able to create unlimited personal applets. Historically, you could create as many IFTTT applets as you wanted, although these were limited to one trigger controlling one action. For example, If the Ring doorbell is pushed, an applet can then pause the music playing out of a Sonos speaker. Now IFTTT can be configured to pause the music and light up the doorway light and send an SMS message whenever that doorbell is pressed, all from a single applet configurati...

The 2020 NFL season kicks off tomorrow, despite the ominous threat of COVID-19 lurking around just about every corner. (It remains to be seen whether the precautions the league has been taking will be effective.) For fans who have been practicing social distancing, the season’s beginning might feel bittersweet: it’s great that football is back, but it does suck to not be able to safely watch games with your pals in person. But that doesn’t mean you have to watch ‘em alone. Verizon is launching a new feature on its Yahoo Sports app, called Watch Together, which will let you live-stream NFL games with up to three of your friends over video chat. You won’t need to be a Verizon customer to watch games for free, but you will need to watch on a smartphone or a table. (Streaming rights, you know?...

Last September, Amazon announced a voice assistant alliance ahead of its yearly fall event with the goal to ensure smart devices are compatible with multiple digital assistants concurrently. Nearly a year later, the coalition has over 70 companies pledging support, including Facebook, Garmin, and Xiaomi, which recently joined. Yet, Amazon’s biggest rivals in the voice assistant space — Apple, Google, and Samsung — have yet to join. Amazon’s Voice Interoperability Initiative’s goal is to have companies create smart devices that support multiple voice assistants like Alexa or Cortana concurrently. But without Apple, Google, and Samsung’s voice assistants (Siri, Google Assistant, and Bixby), the biggest competitors to Alexa, the idea feels empty. They’ve got 70+ companies on board, but it see...

Alongside an influx of next-gen console news, Microsoft also confirmed today that it will raise its pricing for Xbox Game Pass for PC from $4.99 per month to $9.99 a month starting on September 17th. Existing members on the introductory price will still pay the same rate through the next billing cycle, so if you subscribe before September 17th, Microsoft will not change the price on you abruptly. We’re retiring the introductory price on the 17th, but if you’re already a member, you’ll pay the same rate through the next billing cycle. look out for a notification on the 17th to get more details — Xbox Game Pass For PC (@XboxGamePassPC) September 9, 2020 A price increase for any subscription service is never fun, but even at $9.99 a month, Xbox Game Pass for PC still offers ...

The Portland City Council has passed the toughest facial recognition ban in the US, blocking both public and private use of the technology. Other cities such as Boston, San Francisco, and Oakland have passed laws barring public institutions from using facial recognition, but Portland is the first to prohibit private use. The ban passed unanimously, according to CNET, CNN, and OneZero. The new law is actually established as two ordinances. The one prohibiting public use of facial recognition (PDF here) is now in effect, and city bureaus must complete an assessment of their facial recognition usage within 90 days. The ordinance prohibiting private use (PDF here) takes effect on January 1st, 2021. “Portlanders should never be in fear of having their right of privacy be exploited” “Portlanders...

International travelers arriving in the United States will reportedly no longer go through enhanced health screenings at the airport. The planned change in policy, first reported by Yahoo News, is expected to go into effect on September 14th. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been screening travelers coming into the US from certain countries since January when it started flagging anyone coming from or through Wuhan, China. The screening involves a temperature check and symptom check. Travelers are also expected to provide information that could be used for contact tracing in the event they were exposed to someone with COVID-19. The White House ordered the change in practice, according to Yahoo News. US Customs and Border Protection told The Verge to contact the Depar...

Google’s Fundo — a service that allows creators to host paid, ticketed virtual meet-and-greet events — is expanding from a limited test into a full-fledged product that anyone can use starting today. Developed by Google’s Area 120 incubator, Fundo (which is not the name of an adorable floppy-eared dog) was launched in a limited beta last summer for several hundred “trusted testers,” according to Variety. It’s now available for anyone to use. Fundo (also not a wacky new artificial cheese product) was originally meant as a virtual photo booth-style service. Fans could wait in a digital line, chat briefly with the celebrity or creator, and get “photos” with them, just like a real-life meet-and-greet. The service provides creators with an easy way to run these kinds of events, complete with vi...

Waze, the Google-owned navigation and mapping service, will lay off 5 percent of its global workforce, or about 30 people out of 555 total employees, the company’s CEO said in an email to employees. Waze will also close several of its offices in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions as it seeks to refocus its business on certain markets. Waze said the layoffs were partly due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has emptied roadways around the world and sent many cities into lockdown. As shelter-in-place and working from home become the new norm, fewer people are using Waze for their daily navigation needs. Fewer eyeballs on the app means less advertising revenue for the company. Waze, which was acquired by Google in 2013 for a reported $1.1 billion, has seen a dip in both monthly active...

Lucid Motors unveiled its first vehicle, the Lucid Air electric sedan, at a virtual event from the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. The sedan will get up to 517 miles of range, can hit a quarter-mile in under 10 seconds, packs over 1,000 horsepower, and will have a base price of “under $80,000” (as long as the federal government sees fit to continue to give out tax credits to EV buyers). The Lucid Air is over a decade in the making. Founded as Atieva in 2007, the company got its start making high performance batteries for all the Formula E racing teams. It changed its name to Lucid Motors in 2016 with the promise to to make a midsized sedan that feels like a massive, roomy flagship vehicle. The vehicle was supposed to be unveiled at the New York Auto Show earlier this year, but got d...

Apple’s “Sign In with Apple” login system will no longer work with Epic Games accounts as soon as September 11th, Epic said today. The new restriction is another casualty of Apple and Epic’s ongoing spat. If you currently use “Sign In with Apple” for your Epic account, Epic says you’ll need to update your account with new login credentials before September 11th to retain access. Epic has put together a guide on how to make that update if you need to do so. Epic also says that it may be able to recover your account manually after the “Sign in with Apple” option goes away, but you’ll have to contact the studio directly. Apple requires developers to use its single sign-on system if they offer any other third-party options and want their apps in the App Store — presumably a driving factor behi...

The number of high school and middle school students using e-cigarettes dropped off this year, declining from last year’s record high. Just under 20 percent of high schoolers and about 5 percent of middle schoolers said that they currently used the products, according to the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which was conducted between January and March. Last year, 27.5 percent of high school students and 10.5 percent of middle school students said they used e-cigarettes. “Although the decline in e-cigarette use among our Nation’s youth is a notable public health achievement, our work is far from over,” said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a press release. Teen use of a drug usually declines when that substance starts to seem riskier, ...

I still don’t know what I think about Ronald Reagan sending players to do war crimes, but I’m certainly on board with the epic shipboarding combat I just saw in the first multiplayer reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. While we don’t see the ship’s actual armaments in play (it’s not clear if you can control them), the rest of the map seems incredibly dynamic: zip line from ship to ship, commandeer gunboats, jump around in jet skis, take down a helicopter with an RPG. You can even engage underwater, or so the trailer suggests. And that’s just one of several maps Activision revealed in the trailer today. Here’s how it describes each of the first five maps: Armada Based on Operation Azorian, U.S. and Soviet forces arrive in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean in search of ...