Technology

TikTok has blocked several hashtags related to the QAnon conspiracy theory, but won’t be removing the videos using the hashtags from its platform, the BBC reported. The video sharing app has blocked the terms “QAnon,” “QAnonTruth” and the related phrase “Out of Shadows,” which are used by QAnon believers. But as the BBC reports, the QAnon videos themselves could still appear among TikTok’s For You suggestions or in users’ feeds, even if the hashtags are no longer visible. TikTok did not immediately reply to a request for comment Saturday. Other platforms have taken a harder stance against QAnon material; earlier this week Twitter announced it was banning 7,000 accounts, blocking QAnon-related links, and put restrictions on 150,000 more accounts. Twitter will no longer promote the accounts ...

Baseball is back. But the MLB will look a little different in the COVID-19 world, with empty stadiums full of silent cardboard cutouts instead of thousands of screaming fans in an effort to avoid spreading the virus. That is unless you’re watching on Fox Sports. Starting this weekend, the network will not only be piping in fake fan audio, but it’ll also be filling the stands with digitally rendered fans for its MLB broadcasts, starting with this Saturday’s Yankees-Nationals game. “We believe the crowd and seeing people in seats is part of a broadcast.” All 30 MLB teams will be relying on fake fan noise in the actual stadiums (sourced from Sony’s MLB: The Show games), along with the usual in-stadium announcers, walk-up music, and other aspects of pomp and circumstance that accompany a Major...

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 app has arrived in the Play Store, and a look at its features shows new gestures to silence alarms, take a picture, or answer an incoming call, 9to5Google reported (via XDA Developers) Rotating your wrist while wearing the watch will allow you to mute alarms as well as incoming calls, and clenching and unclenching your fist will answer a call. To take a photo or video with the Camera Controller app, make a fist, then open your hand. Gesturing will allow users of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 to answer calls and mute alarmsXDA Developers And exploration of the app confirms new watch faces will be coming to the Galaxy Watch 3. According to 9to5Google, users will be able to shuffle through the different watch faces automatically. Details about the Galaxy Watch 3 — incl...

With Major League Baseball’s season shortened to just 60 games this year, Amazon won’t be broadcasting any New York Yankees games this season, Bloomberg reported. Amazon was slated to stream 21 Yankees games beginning April 17th with several high-profile games —including three against the Boston Red Sox— on the list. Amazon Prime members in New York state, northeast Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and central New Jersey would have been able to stream all 21 games. But the Yankees’ YES Network has opted to keep those games for its channel, and MLB rules limit streaming games that are shown on regional sports networks like YES. “Given the unique circumstances surrounding this season, YES Network will televise all New York Yankees games not airing on the national networks,” Amazon said in a statem...

In a free-wheeling interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his Twitter direct messages are mostly made up of memes, and he isn’t overly worried about them being hacked. Musk’s was one of more than 100 high-profile Twitter accounts compromised as part of a July 15th Bitcoin scam. The company has said the attackers may have downloaded the private direct messages and personal information of some people in the process, although Twitter said none of those were “verified” accounts, as Musk’s is. “I’m not that concerned about my DMs being made public,” Musk told Dowd. “I mean, we can probably cherry pick some section of my DMs that sound bad out of context but overall my DMs mostly consist of swapping memes.” During the conversation with Dowd, Musk said he h...

Nintendo’s Switch Pro controller is fantastic, but it’s also kind of big. If you struggle to get a good grip on it or if you simply want a smaller controller to tuck into your bag, PowerA’s new Nano Enhanced wireless controller for the Switch (also compatible with Windows 10) is a good solution. It’s a more compact version that shaves about a third off the size of Nintendo’s official controller. Most of its design and features are faithful, including USB-C charging, motion controls, and LED lights on its bottom to indicate connectivity status. On the downside, it lacks rumble support and NFC for Amiibo. The Nano is $49.99, which is significantly less than the $69 Switch Pro, and it comes in two colorways: black with gray details around the sticks and triggers or gray with neon blue and red...

In the latest instance of iOS 14’s beta mode tattling on unexpected app behavior, some users reported that they were seeing the green “camera on” indicator while using Instagram when they were just scrolling through their feeds, not taking a photo or video. Casually browsing Instagram when suddenly the new iOS 14 camera/microphone indicator comes on. Then control panel ratted out the app behind it. This is going to change things. #iOS14 pic.twitter.com/EnTIRsqq3R — KevDoy (@KevDoy) July 17, 2020 An Instagram spokesperson said in an email to The Verge that the behavior was a bug and that it’s being fixed. The app’s Create Mode is accessible from the Instagram camera which could set off the camera indicator, and swiping into the app’s Camera from Feed may also trip it up. “We only access you...

On January 8th, I asked The Verge’s science team to keep an eye on early reports of a new virus that had recently emerged in China. When I dropped an article about that new virus from The Washington Post in Slack, someone joked that 2020 was off to a strong start, clearly jinxing the entire year for the rest of humanity. Whoops. Jokes aside, this past decade, year, six and a half months has featured a disturbing flood of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news. More than half a year in and not only do we still not know when this will all end, we’re also seeing a tsunami of new cases in the US and record-high hospitalizations. There’s so much we still don’t know, but we do know that this is going to keep going for a long, long time. We’ve got to pace ourselves if we’re going to make it. ...

A congressional hearing with the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple has been rescheduled for noon Eastern time on Wednesday. Originally scheduled for Monday, the hearing was bumped back a few days to allow members of Congress to pay respects to the late Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17th. Lewis will lie in state at the US Capitol next week. The House Judiciary Committee hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai will focus on the various antitrust issues each CEO’s company is dealing with. It’s part of a yearlong investigation into the tech sector’s anti-competitive behavior. The hearing will be conducted remotely to adhere to coronavirus social distancing guidelines. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is not expected to testify despite a push late las...

If you’ve ever wanted to build a real and working Windows 95 PC inside Minecraft, now is the time. A new VM Computers mod has been created for Minecraft that allows players to order computer parts from a satellite orbiting around a Minecraft world and build a computer that actually boots Windows 95 and a variety of other operating systems. The mod uses VirtualBox, free and open-source virtual machine software, to run operating systems like Windows 95. Within Minecraft you simply place a PC case block and then use it to create virtual hard drives to install operating systems from ISO files. Doom running on a Minecraft PC.uDrunkMate on Reddit Naturally, the Minecraft community has been experimenting with the VM Computers mod, and someone has managed to get Doom running within Minecraft as a ...

Earlier this week, we got our first look at what appeared to be a new Oculus Quest virtual reality headset thanks to an apparent marketing image shared on Twitter. Since then, more images — including ones of the device in the wild, and a rumored release date — have appeared online, indicating the headset could launch soon. The new images posted on Friday reinforce that this new Quest may look pretty similar to its successor but could come in a black-and-white color scheme. Take a look for yourself at these images shared on Reddit: Image: Tjtaco123 on Reddit The existence of these units, which appear to be some kind of testing devices, suggests the device could come out sooner rather than later. That sooner timeframe was reinforced by Twitter leaker WalkingCat, who shared the first marketin...

A tribute book for Satoru Iwata, the beloved president and CEO of Nintendo who died in 2015, is getting an English release this spring, publisher VIZ Media announced today. The book, Ask Iwata, is a translation of Iwata-San, which was first published in Japan last year. “In this motivational collection, Satoru Iwata addresses diverse subjects such as locating bottlenecks, how success breeds resistance to change, and why programmers should never say no,” according to a summary of the book that VIZ Media shared with The Verge. “Drawn from the ‘Iwata Asks’ series of interviews with key contributors to Nintendo games and hardware, and featuring conversations with renowned Mario franchise creator Shigeru Miyamoto and creator of Earthbound Shigesato Itoi, Ask Iwata offers game fans and business ...