Technology

One of the big rules on Facebook is that you have to use your real name. This policy has created some controversy over the years, since it makes life harder for some activists, and crime victims, and (most famously) drag queens. But Facebook has always said that the service works so well because you can trust that the person you’re talking to is actually your friend or family member, and not someone who is faking their identity to influence you toward some malign purpose. If you break that rule, you are engaging in what the company calls “inauthentic behavior,” which it defines as “the use of Facebook or Instagram assets (accounts, pages, groups, or events), to mislead people or Facebook: about the identity, purpose, or origin of the entity that they represent about the popularity of Faceb...

The official beta for the next version of Android is out now, and if you have a spare Pixel phone, I really do recommend you check it out. If you don’t, my recommendation is not to install it — betas are never a great idea on something you truly depend on, and your main phone is likely near the top of that list. I’ve been using a build close to what Google released today for a week and I haven’t had any catastrophic crashes, but there have been some bugs. I wrote up a lot of observations and made a video detailing the new features yesterday, but something I struggled to get across then and I think I’m going to struggle to get across now is how much better the texting experience really is. I say that even though essentially no apps fully support Google’s new pop-out “bubble” feature yet. It...

Our faces have never been more vulnerable. Facial recognition algorithms make it easy to identify individuals from a single snap — a fact that’s particularly relevant at a time of protest. But with the help of advances in machine learning, it’s also easier than ever to anonymize photos and videos, removing information that would otherwise identify people. The latest example of this is a new camera app called Anonymous Camera, that launches on the iOS App Store today. It’s the work of London AI startup Playground, whose founders built the app with the help of investigative journalists who wanted an easy way to record anonymous footage. Although it’s no silver bullet for privacy, Anonymous Camera offers the most comprehensive and easy-to-use features we’ve seen in an app of its kind. Anonymo...

Grado is no stranger to building headphones out of weird and wonderful materials. Alongside its regular excellent-sounding pairs, it’s made limited editions out of whiskey barrels (with design help from Elijah Wood no less), wood from a yoghurt mill, and even the pistons of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Now, it’s turning its attention to hemp, using it to produce a pair of Hemp Headphone Limited Edition cans costing, wait for it, $420. Puns are like farts: funny to make, potentially tragic to receive. “To be blunt,” Grado says, the headphones were a “joint effort.” “Fine rolled,” they’re a “slow burn” that you appreciate more as you listen. To anyone who came across my own pun-laden take on a recent Animal Crossing update — I am sorry. “A slow burn,” according to Grado.Image: Grado Anyway,...

Apple has removed Pocket Casts, the popular iOS and Android podcast client, from the App Store in China. The Cyberspace Administration of China has determined that it can be used to access content deemed illegal in the country, and has demanded that Apple remove the app as a result. It’s the second major podcast app to be removed from China’s App Store this month. “We believe podcasting is and should remain an open medium, free of government censorship,” Pocket Casts says in a statement posted to Twitter. “As such we won’t be censoring podcast content at their request. We understand this means that it’s unlikely that our iOS App will be available in China, but feel it’s a necessary step to take for any company that values the open distribution model that makes podcasting special.” Apple di...

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite now comes in two new colors, plum and and sage (via The Digital Reader). That means the Paperwhite is now available in four different colors — when Amazon revised the Paperwhite in November 2018, you could only get it in black, and Amazon introduced “twilight blue” last July. If you opt for a non-black Paperwhite, you should know that only the back of the device will be your chosen color. The front bezels will be black no matter which color option you pick. Amazon’s 2018 revision to the Paperwhite brought some nice new additions, including waterproofing and support for Audible audiobooks, which had previously been exclusive to the Amazon’s top-end Kindle Oasis. But it would have been nice to see Amazon make more changes to the Paperwhite in addition to launching ...

Here’s all the news about the Android 11 beta Contributors: Verge Staff Android 11 is on the way, bringing a bunch of new changes and features for phones and tablets. Google originally planned to release the beta during a reveal event on June 3rd, but the company delayed and ultimately canceled the event in favor of a quieter announcement. The public beta was released a week later, following a developer preview that was launched in February. The 11th major Android update includes some big features, including a new notification interface for text messages, better 5G support, and improved privacy features. The update also adds better support for foldable smartphones, optimizing for the growing device category, and a new power button menu with quick access to payment options and smart home co...

Tesla’s stock price hit $1,000 for the first time on Wednesday, meaning the Silicon Valley company has now passed Toyota in market capitalization and is the most valuable automaker in the world by that metric. This comes as at least six Tesla employees have tested positive for COVID-19 in California since CEO Elon Musk reopened the company’s facilities there last month — initially in violation of stay-home orders, and then with the blessing of local officials — according to new reports from The Washington Post and Electrek. An employee at Tesla’s Buffalo, New York solar panel factory also tested positive for COVID-19 after that facility reopened, as The Verge previously reported. Tesla employed 48,000 people worldwide at the end of 2019. It’s unclear how many have tested positive for COVID...

Amazon is announcing a one-year moratorium on allowing law enforcement to use its controversial Rekognition facial recognition platform, the e-commerce giant said on Wednesday. The news comes just two days after IBM said it would no longer offer, develop, or research facial recognition technology, citing potential human rights and privacy abuses and research indicating facial recognition tech, despite the advances provided by artificial intelligence, remains biased along lines of age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Much of the foundational work showing the flaws of modern facial recognition tech with regard to racial bias is thanks to Joy Buolamwini, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, and Timnit Gebru, a member at Microsoft Research. Buolamwini and Gebry co-authored a widely cited 2018 paper...

After nearly a month of back-and-forth, Grubhub has walked away from a potential acquisition from Uber and will instead merge with European company Just Eat Takeaway. The all-stock deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021. Uber was looking to buy Grubhub because the combined food ordering and delivery service would have rivaled, or maybe even surpassed, market leader DoorDash. An acquisition of Grubhub — which owns Eat24, Seamless, and MenuPages — would have been so significant that it was already drawing regulatory heat. Shortly after talks between the two companies were made public in May, a handful of US Senators alerted the country’s top antitrust officials asking for the potential deal to be scrutinized. Possible antitrust trouble was one reason Uber reportedly balked in...

Facebook is partially lifting its advertising ban on face masks and will now allow third-party businesses to advertise cloth masks and other non-medical face coverings like bandanas, the company announced on Wednesday. The company first instituted a site-wide ban on ads for all forms of face masks, including medical and respiratory masks, in March due to national shortages and concern for medical staff and other frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ban was also designed to protect against scams, misleading marketing, and other abuses, as Facebook could not reasonably vet every ad promoting face masks that began flooding online marketplaces in early March. As the spread of the novel coronavirus began accelerating throughout the US earlier this year, a surge in demand for clea...

Under normal circumstances, Google would have introduced its Pixel 4A smartphone by now. Last year’s Pixel 3A and 3A XL upended what consumers could expect from a $400 phone — especially in terms of camera performance. The company aggressively advertised that strength by comparing its midrange device to Apple’s pricey iPhones, which (at the time) couldn’t compare to Pixels when it came to low-light photography. Selling a great camera with Google’s excellent software at a price under $500 turned out to be a smart recipe. It’s generally believed that the Pixel 3A and 3A XL are among the more successful Google-branded phones to date. They were a bright spot between sluggish sales of the Pixel 3 and more recently the Pixel 4. (Last month, The Information published a report that said Google har...