Technology

A federal criminal probe is looking into allegations of misconduct by a former NASA official who abruptly resigned from his position at the agency in May, The Wall Street Journal reports. Prosecutors are investigating if the official illegally disclosed information to Boeing about how to compete to build NASA’s new human lunar lander, the report states. The target of the probe is Doug Loverro, who was NASA’s associate administrator for human spaceflight for around six months. On May 19th, Loverro suddenly left NASA just a week before two of the agency’s astronauts were set to launch on a historic mission with SpaceX to the International Space Station. At the time, Loverro said that he had taken a “risk” early in the year. “The risks we take, whether technical, political, or personal, all h...

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has issued a series of public comments on his personal Twitter account regarding the legal fight the Fortnite creator initiated with Apple yesterday, following the iPhone maker’s removal of the game from the App Store. In the four-part thread, Sweeney says the fight isn’t about money. Rather, he says Epic is fighting for “the basic freedoms of all consumers and developers.” “At the most basic level, we’re fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly,” Sweeney tweeted. “The primary opposing argument is: ‘Smartphone markers can do whatever they want.’ This as an awful notion. We all h...

Facebook is launching a new events feature that will let page owners and event organizers create paid online events to try to fill the gap created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the social media giant announced on Friday. But there’s one catch: the platform is going to earn those pages and businesses less on iOS, as Facebook says Apple is refusing to waive its standard App Store fees or allow the company to use its own in-app payment processing system it says would help the event organizers keep more of the money they generate. Apple denied Facebook’s request to waive fees for small businesses “We asked Apple to reduce its 30% App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19. Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests an...

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DC Universe’s original content — a list that includes Titans, Swamp Thing, Stargirl, and Young Justice — is heading to HBO Max, according to DC chief creative officer and publisher Jim Lee in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. The news comes as WarnerMedia is in the process of a larger reorganization at DC Comics, which was also hit by a wave of layoffs this week. The writing has been on the wall for DC Universe (at least in its current form) ever since HBO Max launched. Fragmenting content from one of WarnerMedia’s strongest brands across two streaming services and expecting that fans would be willing to shell out both $14.99 a month for HBO Max and $7.99 a month for DC Universe was never a realistic strategy. There were also signs that the end was near: two of DC Universe’s most p...

If you’re in an important videoconferencing session and you are getting an infodump that you know you won’t remember, it can be very useful to have a transcription of that session. Video and audio recordings are all well and good, but a text version of your meeting can be a lot easier to search if you’re looking for that one specific bit of data inside of an hour’s worth of conversation. There are a number of third-party apps out there that provide AI transcribing for recorded audio, such as Rev and Otter.ai. They also offer extra features, such as the ability to simultaneously listen to the audio and watch for places that need correction or to integrate directly with other apps such as Zoom. However, these are subscription services with fees. If free is what you’re looking for, then there...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ashraf Ismail, the former creative director for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, has been fired by Ubisoft, Bloomberg reports. Ismail stepped down from his role and took a leave of absence in June after a fan accused Ismail of lying about his marital status in order to pursue a romantic relationship with her. “As a result of investigations, Ashraf Ismail has been dismissed from Ubisoft and is no longer an employee,” a spokesman for Ubisoft told The Verge. Kotaku also viewed an internal message sent to employees confirming the company had terminated Ismail’s employment following an external investigation. Ubisoft has been under scrutiny since June when dozens of people spoke out on social media about the company’s toxic work culture, which a… Continue...

Rebranding streaming services is very in these days across a number of entertainment industries, and EA is jumping on the trend by rebranding its EA Access and Origin Access services simply as EA Play. There are no financial changes for customers, nor does the rebranding require any additional effort for people to play games under their current subscription. The company describes the rebrand as “an important step in streamlining our services to ensure that being an EA Play member is the best way to play,” in a new blog post. EA Access currently runs for $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year. Origin Access is the same price, with Origin Access Premier running $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Streamlining is the key word; think of the effort… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money...

Around two years ago, artist and designer Dick Hogg saw a GIF of a banana going through an MRI machine. Seeing the different layers of the fruit was mesmerizing. It inspired him. Not long after, Hogg called up his game design partner, Ricky Haggett, and said simply, “I really want to make a game that does this.” Now, the pair is ready to show off the result: I Am Dead, a cute and colorful game that’s launching on the Nintendo Switch and PC later this year. It’s essentially a puzzle game. You play as Morris Lupton, the newly deceased curator of a museum in a small British island, who uses his ghostly powers to see into objects and learn more about their owners. (He also gets some help from his dog who, obviously, is also a ghost.) Lupton… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make M...

Samsung’s latest smartwatch is fine but awfully familiar 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.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you weren’t watching tech news yesterday, you missed an entire afternoon’s worth of cramming handfuls of popcorn in your mouth as you stared wide-eyed at the screen wondering what madness was coming next. It was A Day. Epic baited both Apple and Google into banning Fortnite from their respective app stores and did so with a full game plan in mind — including an in-game anti-Apple video event and two very public lawsuits. Beyond Epic, I have many tech topics to weigh in on from this week that I haven’t had a chance to tackle because I’ve been working on our review and video for the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra — hit me up if you have questions you’d like to see addressed in that. But before we get to the Battle Royale between these three… Continue re...

Image: Games Done Quick Games Done Quick’s (GDQ) next big speedrunning marathon for charity will kick off on August 16th at 11:30AM ET / 7:30AM PT on Twitch. This year’s summer GDQ will be a bit different than past years due to the pandemic: instead of taking place in a giant room filled with people, it will be entirely virtual. But just because the event is online doesn’t mean it should be any less interesting than past years. The schedule is packed with runs, like a Hollow Knight race on Monday, Virtual Boy Wario Land Any% on Wednesday, and Super Smash Bros. 64 Break the Targets All Characters Blindfolded (!!) on Saturday. There’s sure to be some more hidden gems in there. After all, half the fun of GDQ for me is just tuning into the stream whenever I can… Continue reading… ...