Technology

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the best and easiest ways to keep your online accounts secure. They work by issuing an authentication code on your phone when somebody tries to access the account; if that person doesn’t have the code, they (or you) don’t get in. By using a 2FA app, such as Google Authenticator or Authy, you can prevent somebody from accessing your data by getting your password. (You can have a code texted to you, but that is considered far less secure due to the rise of so-called SIM hacking.) There is, of course, a catch. Because 2FA uses a key specific to your phone, if you lose or break your phone, you can’t simply reinstall the app on your new phone and go on from there. You need to transfer the key code for that phone as well as the app itself. Different auth...

On Monday, Dana Simmons came downstairs to find her 12-year-old son, Lazare, in tears. He’d completed the first assignment for his seventh-grade history class on Edgenuity, an online platform for virtual learning. He’d received a 50 out of 100. That wasn’t on a practice test — it was his real grade. “He was like, I’m gonna have to get a 100 on all the rest of this to make up for this,” said Simmons in a phone interview with The Verge. “He was totally dejected.” At first, Simmons tried to console her son. “I was like well, you know, some teachers grade really harshly at the beginning,” said Simmons, who is a history professor herself. Then, Lazare clarified that he’d received his grade less than a second after submitting his answers. A teacher couldn’t have read his response in that time, S...

For Disney Plus subscribers who don’t want to pay an extra $30 to watch Mulan when it drops on September 4th, the company has announced it will be free to all customers on December 4th. A new description on Mulan’s Disney Plus page notes that it will be available to all subscribers on December 4th, 2020. An FAQ page for Mulan on Disney Plus also states that “Premier Access offer will be available until November 2, 2020,” but it’s unclear exactly what that means for people who want to purchase Mulan between November 2nd and December 4th. The Verge has reached out to Disney for more information. With just three months between the film’s initial release and when it becomes available to general subscribers, Mulan has one of the shortest windows in Disney history. Usually it takes many months b...

Verizon is spending nearly $1.9 billion to catch up on 5G spectrum, as the biggest carriers race to roll out higher-speed connections nationwide. This morning, the Federal Communications Commission revealed the winners of an auction for licenses to valuable spectrum that’s especially useful for 5G. Verizon was the biggest spender by far. Dish came in second, spending $912 million. Charter, Comcast, and Cox all spent hundreds of millions on spectrum as well. Companies spent big on this auction because the spectrum, in the 3.5GHz band, can be used for higher-speed 5G deployments. Verizon, in particular, has been in a tough spot: its 5G strategy so far has largely relied on millimeter-wave deployments. Those offer the highest-speed connections, but they only work at extremely short ranges — s...

Nearly nine months after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released, John Boyega is opening up about the way his character and his role in the films were treated by Disney. In a new lengthy interview with GQ, Boyega spoke about the disappointing direction Lucasfilm and Disney took his character — a Black Stormtrooper who abandons his role within the evil First Order to join a group of fighters in the Resistance — by the end of the third film in the trilogy. Many of the issues Boyega brings up are complaints that Star Wars fans and critics also had with the direction of his character, specifically how Finn was sidelined, and never given a chance to flourish while other characters, like Daisy Ridley’s Rey and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, did. “What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a b...

Microsoft is planning to release some significant changes to its built-in touch keyboard for Windows 10. The updated touch keyboard design builds on the company’s work with Windows 10X, bringing new key press animations, sounds, and all the all-important ability to search for and insert animated GIFs. Microsoft called this the WonderBar for Windows 10X, and the new design in Windows 10 also includes better layouts that are optimized for typing, and the ability to move the cursor in through the space bar on the touch keyboard. This is very similar to how iOS lets you operate the cursor, by placing a finger on the space bar and sliding left, right, up, and down to navigate around. The new cursor support with the spacebar. Windows 10’s new GIF picker for the touch keyboard. Microsoft is also ...

In August 2019, after the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, conspiracy theories about what had happened ran rampant on social networks. The theories did not necessarily originate there, but the networks did their part to amplify them, and the confusion that followed was dubbed “the disinformation World Cup.” At the center of the maelstrom was Twitter, where various baseless theories about Epstein’s death dominated the discussion. One reason why is that enough people tweet the same hashtag on Twitter, it almost always shows up on the app’s tab of “trending topics,” no matter how deranged. During the Epstein mania, for example, #ClintonBodyCount trended, and President Trump — who is known to trawl Twitter trends for material — retweeted an account that soug...

TikTok’s high-profile search for a US buyer is hitting a roadblock after weeks of public negotiations and months of national security debates. A string of reports from Reuters, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal describes a growing stalemate over the algorithm behind TikTok’s For You page, arguably the most important piece of software the company has. That algorithm has become a sticking point between the US and China, and what happens to that algorithm now seems like the central issue for any possible deal. First publicly confirmed on August 2nd, the proposed TikTok acquisition comes in response to months of escalating concerns about Chinese ownership of an app used by millions of Americans. Microsoft, Oracle, and Triller have all put in bids to purchase TikTok’s operations in the US,...

Samsung has a new fitness tracker on the way called the Galaxy Fit 2. It’s an updated version of the original Galaxy Fit band that offers a larger display and more battery life — much more battery life, in fact. Samsung is promising that the new model can last for at least 15 days on a single charge and up to three weeks depending on your settings. That’s a big jump over the original model, which Samsung promised would get barely a week of usage off a single charge. That battery life is also a dramatic increase over competing trackers, like the upcoming Fitbit Inspire 2, which only lasts for up to 10 days on a charge. Most trackers generally offer a week or so of battery life, making Samsung’s a big improvement — assuming it holds up. In case the two to three weeks of battery life wasn’t a...

Twitch’s Watch Parties function is rolling out to everyone today, giving streamers and their subscribers around the world the ability to watch Amazon’s library of movies and TV shows together. It’s not just for families; as long as everyone has an Amazon Prime account, a streamer can now host a “public” movie viewing with all of their fans. Watch parties have taken off in general over the last few months as people stuck at home figure out ways to make watching TV shows and movies more social and interactive. Unlike apps like Scener, which allows people to stream Netflix, Disney Plus, and HBO titles with friends in the United States, Twitch’s Watch Parties is specifically built for Amazon Prime Video. Ah, the smell of corporate synergy in the morning. Watch Parties is currently not availabl...

Later this fall, Alienware, MSI, Asus, and Acer will each release a 25-inch 1080p monitor made for competitive gaming with an incredibly fast 360Hz refresh rate. Additionally, they’ll be the first monitors to include Nvidia’s Reflex Latency Analyzer feature that aims to help gamers accurately measure and reduce latency from their mouse, display, and PC. Nvidia discussed this feature at its launch event yesterday for its new RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 graphics cards. The end goal is that, by reducing latency, the odds of getting a shot off first in competitive play should greatly increase in your favor. And along with fast refresh rate and minimal latency, the monitor’s G-Sync feature will ensure that it doesn’t show any screen tearing or blur while playing your games at a fast clip. Each bra...

You’ll be able to get your hands on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 very soon. Samsung recently shared a lot more about its new foldable phone, which you can read right here. Preorders are now available, whether you’re looking for an unlocked model or hoping to upgrade with your carrier. And the phone will be available in less than two weeks’ time on Friday, September 18th. Like the original Galaxy Fold, its successor is by no means affordable. It costs $1,999.99 unlocked, though you can break it down to comparatively smaller monthly payments if you buy it on a payment plan or pay each month through your carrier. Samsung is making the decisions somewhat easy with the Z Fold 2. There’s only one configuration available with 256GB of storage built in. And if you want 5G service, the Z Fold 2 ...