Technology

Before the pandemic, many companies were already using the videoconferencing app Zoom for business meetings, interviews, and other purposes. These days, many individuals facing long days without contact with friends and family have moved to Zoom for face-to-face and group get-togethers. This is a quick guide for those who haven’t tried Zoom yet or who aren’t yet familiar with its features (or who have used it with friends but want to start initiating their own meetings). It featuring tips on how to get started using the free version. One thing to keep in mind: while one-to-one video calls can go as long as you want, any group calls on Zoom are limited to 40 minutes. If you want to have longer talks without interruption (and want a few extra features), you can either pay for Zoom’s Pro plan...

The US Army is trialing a new technology that could “fundamentally change how military canines are deployed in the future” — a pair of augmented reality goggles for dogs. Dogs are put to many uses in modern militaries, from detecting explosives and searching for targets to accompanying infantry patrols in dangerous areas. Usually, handlers issue commands to their dogs using hand signals or laser pointers, but these techniques require line of sight with the dog, limiting how far canines can stray from their humans. AR reality goggles, though, could let military dogs operate at a distance without handlers losing control. The goggles have a built-in camera that transmits live footage remotely, and a heads-up display that can be used to show commands to the dogs. A dog could be directed to sea...

Yelp plans to alert users when a business on its platform has been accused of racist conduct, the company announced in a blog post. When someone associated with a business is accused of or is the target of racist behavior, Yelp will apply its general public attention alert. But if there’s “resounding evidence of egregious, racist actions” by a business owner or employees, such as using racist symbols or slurs, Yelp will apply a “business accused of racist behavior alert” and link to a credible news source to provide users more information. Image: Yelp “As the nation reckons with issues of systemic racism, we’ve seen in the last few months that there is a clear need to warn consumers about businesses associated with egregious, racially charged actions to help people make more informed spend...

Following an earlier leak of the OnePlus 8T from the front, we now have a pretty good idea of what the phone will look like around the back as well. CEO Pete Lau has posted an official picture of the Aquamarine Green colorway to the OnePlus forums, while leaker Ishan Agarwal has followed up with more renders including the Lunar Silver variant. Lau says that the glossy green cover is the result of four months’ experimentation to land on the right finish. “This version takes advantage of diffuse reflection, a form of light refraction that scatters light in an expansive array of angles and directions, to produce a clean, gleaming surface that effectively mitigates the buildup of fingerprints,” he writes. “Throughout development, we tried and tested hundreds of films before landing on the idea...

A new leak has provided extensive details about what Apple could announce at its October 13th event. In line with previous rumors, the leaker Kang predicts we’ll see Apple announce four new iPhone models at its event, but says we’ll also see a new HomePod mini smart speaker. They also provide a host of extra details and release information for the iPhone 12 lineup. According to AppleTrack, Kang has a reliable track record, and accurately predicted several of Apple’s WWDC and September event announcements this year. Kang says Apple will announce four new iPhones next week: an iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. All four will reportedly feature 5G support, including mmWave in the US. The Super Retina XDR display which was previously exclusive to the iPhone 11’s P...

IBM is splitting into two public companies, with a spin-off handling the firm’s legacy IT infrastructure work, allowing IBM to focus on new high-margin businesses, particularly cloud services and AI. The 109-year-old company announced the news this week, which follows CEO Arvind Krishna’s longterm plan to streamline the sprawling business. Krishna took the reins of IBM in April 2020 after working on its $34 billion acquisition of open source software firm Red Hat from 2018 onwards. Red Hat’s software is key to IBM’s new hybrid cloud offerings. The split is just the latest divestment of unfavorable businesses in IBM’s long history In a call with analysts, Krishna presented the split as the latest in a long line of divestments by IBM, as the company has sought to find more profitable ground ...

Including deals happening outside of Amazon, too Contributors: Verge Staff Amazon Prime Day 2020 is upon us, beginning at 12AM PT / 3AM ET Tuesday, October 13th, and lasting through 12AM PT / 3AM ET Wednesday, October 14th. You know the drill: Amazon is discounting a bunch of products, including tech, for its annual Prime Day that’s exclusive to people who are signed up for Amazon Prime. It usually takes place in July, but the global pandemic is the likely culprit as to why it was pushed to October. Whether you’re just browsing the wares or hoping to get all of your holiday shopping done before Black Friday and Cyber Monday come around, we’ve gone deep on the deals to provide the best offers available. You’ll find some of the lowest prices on gaming accessories, 4K televisions with OLED pa...

French audio tech company Devialet is known for its outlandish speakers, and now it’s getting into portable audio for the first time with a new pair of wireless earbuds. The company says its Gemini earbuds have been designed with “pressure balance architecture” for optimum sound quality. The Gemini buds offer three levels of active noise cancellation, a two-level transparency modes, and a feature that adapts the equalization to your ear in real time for consistent sound quality when on the go. Devialet’s Gemini app will also scan your ear to help find the right bud tip size. The earbud design is unmistakably reminiscent of Devialet’s iconic Phantom speakers, though obviously at a much smaller scale. Devialet says the buds should last eight hours on a charge, or six hours with ANC enabled, ...

The Roku Channel, Roku’s free streaming service that offers more than 100,000 ad-supported titles and 115 live TV channels, is now available to Amazon Fire TV users, the company announced today. And while it may seem odd that The Roku Channel would live on Fire TV devices — Amazon and Roku are direct competitors in set-top-box hardware — it might actually make a lot of sense. Neither Amazon nor Roku truly rely on hardware sales to boost their TV brands. Amazon’s gadgets have always been a gateway to Amazon’s services, and the company may just need more content to offer its Fire TV on top of its existing channels. Meanwhile, Roku makes the majority of its revenue through advertising and subscriptions, which is a big part of why it took so long for NBCUniversal’s Peacock to roll out on Roku....

Google is planning to build a gigantic new “Downtown West” campus in San Jose, and the company has shared renderings that give an idea of what that space could look like (via CNBC). Google intends to make the approximately 79-acre area feel less like a traditional corporate campus by creating a mixed-use development with office space, housing, parks, retail space, and more. One render is the image we’ve included at the top of this post, which represents something Google is calling the “Gateway.” The proposed space would have a plaza for pop-up events as well as an amphitheater that could be used by both Google and the broader community. Below is a render for a peaceful-looking area called the Creekside Walk, a walkway near a the VTA light rail corridor which would be “inspired and framed b...

When it comes to pre-built desktops, I’ve nearly bought an Alienware Aurora several times over the years, because the company’s toolless upgradable chassis and bang-for-the-buck has been pretty hard to beat. Now, the Alienware Aurora R11 and R10 Ryzen Edition have also become a way to get Nvidia’s extremely hard to find RTX 3080 and 3090 GPUs — and they’re like no RTX 3080 or 3090 you’ve seen. The boards and cooling have been tweaked by Alienware itself to be shorter than any RTX 3000-series card we’ve heard about yet, at just 267mm (10.5 inches) in length, the better to fit into smaller cases like the Aurora R11. Believe it or note, Nvidia’s own RTX 3080 Founder’s Edition is actually one of the smallest cards on the market at 285mm (11.2 inches) long, and this is even shorter. Plus, Alien...

Microsoft is working on a “direct browser-based solution” to bring xCloud to iOS early next year. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company has been developing a web version of xCloud to run on iOS and iPadOS devices, alongside continuing its work on an app that it hopes will also eventually run on Apple’s platform. Microsoft’s gaming chief, Phil Spencer, revealed the company’s browser-based xCloud work during a recent internal all-hands meeting. “We absolutely will end up on iOS,” said Spencer during the meeting, noting that he “feels good” about the company’s iOS progress. “We’ll end up on iPhones, and iPads with Game Pass.” Business Insider first reported the news of the web version for iOS. Apple has been blocking services like xCloud and Stadia from runni...