Technology

Until now, if you wanted to include more than one image in a single post on Reddit, it’s been a chore. Most users, especially on mobile, had to drop links to external photo-sharing sites like Imgur into a post or reply. But today, Reddit is adding a new feature called Image Gallery, which lets you combine multiple images or GIFs into a single post, even if you’re on mobile. Previously, redditors had one way to upload multiple images directly to the site if they were using a desktop computer with the Reddit redesign enabled. Using the Fancy Pants Editor (yes, that’s what it’s called), users could select multiple images and drag them into the post or select the small image icon and highlight which images to add. Reddit’s new image galleries will now allow you to post up to 20 images or GIFs ...

The EU’s second-highest court has overturned a ruling that ordered Apple to pay a record €13 billion ($14.9 billion) in back taxes to the Irish government. The ruling was originally made by the European Commission in 2016 and was seen as a significant win for Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief. Vestager concluded that a “sweetheart deal” from the Irish government meant the iPhone-maker paid an effective tax rate of less than 1 percent, a uniquely preferential deal that counted as “illegal state aid.” Tim Cook said the 2016 ruling was ‘political crap’ “Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies — this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said Vestager in 2016. “The Commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which ena...

Let’s spend a few minutes today catching up on the antitrust inquiries into Google. There are investigations related to competition underway against most of the biggest tech giants – Apple, Facebook, and Amazon face similar inquiries, and their CEOS are scheduled to join Sundar Pichai for a virtual hearing with the House of Representatives later this month. But there’s reason to believe the case against Google will land the soonest of any of them — in May, the New York Times reported that charges could come “as early as this summer.” Scrutiny into the company’s business practices has since accelerated. Politico reported last week that California, which sat out an investigation led by 48 attorneys general, is preparing to mount its own inquiry into Google’s competition practices. As Leah Ny...

Google is investing $4.5 billion for a 7.73 percent stake in Jio Platforms, an Indian internet giant that offers broadband, mobile services, and online commerce platforms, the company announced today. The investment, which is pending regulatory review, is part of Google’s commitment to invest around $10 billion in India over the next five to seven years. It follows a similar move from Facebook to invest $5.7 billion for a 9.9 percent stake in the company earlier this year. Jio Platforms is the tech subsidiary of Reliance Industries. As part of today’s announcement, Google says that it is working with Jio on an “entry-level affordable smartphone.” Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said this work will involve creating a customized version of Android designed for low-cost, entry-leve...

US truck maker Navistar is joining forces with TuSimple, a leading autonomous vehicle startup, to build a self-driving semi truck that can operate without a human driver on highways and local roads. As part of the deal, Navistar is taking a minority stake in TuSimple — though neither company would disclose the size of Navistar’s investment. TuSimple recently unveiled its plans to build out a coast-to-coast freight-hauling business using a fleet of camera-and-LIDAR equipped autonomous class 8 tractor trailers. Now the company has a manufacturing partner to help it realize its dream of robot semi trucks criss-crossing across the nation. “This is a major key component, of course, of being able to bring autonomy to the market,” TuSimple president Cheng Lu told The Verge. “This is a major key c...

Nissan has long been a leader in electric vehicle sales, despite really only having one EV — the functional-if-uninspiring Nissan Leaf hatchback — on the market. That changed today with the introduction of a new mid-sized SUV with up to 300 miles of range called the Ariya. First unveiled last year as a concept, the Ariya is scheduled to go on sale in Japan in mid-2021, followed by the US and Canada later in the year. Pricing will start around $40,000, which is only a few thousand dollars more than the current average selling price of a vehicle in the US. Buyers of Nissan’s electric and hybrid vehicles are still eligible for the full $7,500 federal tax credit and various state incentives, which depending on where people live could help reduce the cost by up to $10,000 in the US. The Ariya w...

Sony is ordering at least 50 percent more PlayStation 5 consoles than it had originally planned to ship this year, according to reports in the Japanese press. While the company was expecting to produce around six million consoles in 2020, Nikkei says that the figure is now at about nine million, while Bloomberg says it could reach 10 million. Both publications put the raised expectations down to increased demand for at-home entertainment in the age of the coronavirus. If Sony could sell anywhere near that total number of PS5 consoles through the end of the year, it would mark a major increase on its predecessor; the PS4 launched in November 2013 and had sold through 4.2 million units by the end of the following month. New Oculus headset entering production this month: Nikkei Facebook is al...

Graphcore, a well-funded and ambitious British chip designer that focuses solely on AI applications, has unveiled what it says is the world’s most complex chip: the Colossus MK2 or GC200 IPU. The processor has 59.4 billion transistors and offers an eight times performance increase from the company’s Colossus MK1, says Graphcore. It boasts more than the 54 billion transistors found in Nvidia’s A100, which previously held the title as the world’s largest processor, and which the American firm announced earlier this year. The 7nm GC200 boasts 59.4 billion transistors Each GC200 chip has 1,472 independent processor cores and 8,832 separate parallel threads, all supported by 900MB of in-processor RAM. Graphcore will be making the GC200 available via its new IPU Machine, the M2000, which contain...

Oppo has long been a leader in engineering fast-charging solutions — it developed the tech behind the Dash Charge system used in OnePlus phones, for example, and has achieved even faster results in many of its own devices. Today, the company is taking a further step forward with the announcement of a 125W system that it claims is the most advanced in the industry. The headline figures of the system are that it can charge a 4,000mAh phone battery in 20 minutes and up to 41 percent in 5 minutes. If accurate, this would beat Oppo’s own record for fast-charging a battery of that size by around 10 minutes. This isn’t simply a matter of building a big power adapter and plugging it into a regular phone — the charger, cable, and battery itself need to be designed together for safety and efficiency...

Kobo is introducing a new entry-level e-reader to its lineup, the $99.99 Nia, which slots in beneath the $119.99 Clara HD model (which is sticking around). While both models have a 6-inch display, the Nia’s $20 savings come with slightly worse specs in a few areas compared to its slightly pricier sibling. Specifically, the Nia has a slightly lower-resolution display (212 ppi, versus 300 ppi on the Clara HD), a standard backlight (versus the Clara HD’s color temperature-changing options), and weighs 8 grams (about a quarter of an ounce) heavier. The Clara HD also has a painted finish, while the Nia does not. Image: Kobo But the comparison to Kobo’s own products is less important than how the Nia matches up against Amazon’s Kindle lineup. And while the $99.99 Nia costs $10 more than Amazon’s...

This week on the Vergecast interview series, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, about the Facebook ad boycott and Facebook’s civil rights audit that was released to the public. Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, is one of the groups leading the ad boycott against Facebook and other social media companies in response to hate speech on those platforms. In the interview, Robinson talks about how the boycott campaign came together; his history pushing Facebook on issues of hate speech and civil rights; and meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and fellow leaders of the boycott to discuss the Facebook civil rights audit and how the company can improve the platform. Below is a lightly edited excerpt of the conve...

Every new streaming service is looking for standout features to differentiate themselves from the competition, and Peacock’s features try to combine three different types of experiences in one app: a traditional streaming interface, a curation of small, short-form newsy moments, and “live TV.” But after a few days with the Peacock app, what became very apparent to me is the app isn’t as robust as Comcast’s ambitions for it. Depending on how people watch Peacock, they’ll be presented with two different viewing options. For people using Peacock on a TV, the app will automatically open up in “Browse,” the main streaming portal. A version of Browse being used on an iPhone XR can be seen in the left image below. For people using a mobile device or tablet, Peacock will open up in “Trending,” whi...