Technology

Microsoft has announced the Surface Go 2, an upgrade to 2018’s Surface Go, and this new version packs a lot of new features, including a larger 10.5-inch display, a camera app for the rear-facing camera, and improved battery life. The Surface Go 2 also starts at $399.99, making it affordable enough for people who may just want a cheap Windows computing machine without the more expensive bells and whistles of a Surface Pro or Surface Pro X. The Surface Go has a lot of competition, however, and its rivals have similar screen sizes and lower prices. Apple’s $329 entry-level iPad was updated last year with a 10.2-inch screen size and a connector that lets you attach a Smart Keyboard to it. Amazon refreshed the Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet in 2019 as well, and that costs just $149.99. Samsung annou...

The biggest story of today is the creeping sense that April was in many ways another lost month in the COVID-19 response, with the average number of new cases rising slightly throughout the month to around 29,500 per day. Large swathes of the country are preparing to re-open for business even as all signs point to the likelihood that, for all of our collective efforts to send the novel coronavirus into decline, it merely plateaued. Charlie Warzel raised the grim and yet wholly plausible prospect that Americans will simply normalize COVID-19 deaths the way they have normalized deaths from gun violence. A few hours later the president all but confirmed it. Around here we’re generally most interested in the push and pull between platforms and governments. But everything the platforms are work...

HyperX teamed up with popular mechanical keyboard maker Ducky to make a new limited edition colorway of its compact, 60 percent-sized Ducky One 2 Mini. In addition to splashing this keyboard with a matte black frame surrounding the keys and a glossy cherry red hosing on the bottom, it utilizes HyperX’s Red linear mechanical key switches. Each of those switches is covered in Ducky’s durable keycaps, which are said to maintain their grippy texture and their key label despite long-term use. This model costs $109.99, and you can pick it up through HyperX’s online store starting on Tuesday, May 12th. Only a total of 3,700 units will be made. Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge In terms of niceties, the One 2 Mini has plenty of them. This keyboard plugs in via a USB-C to USB Type-A cable, so i...

Twitter is showing some iOS and web users a new interface to make it easier to follow threaded conversations, the company has announced. A gif published by Twitter’s Support account shows the new test interface in action, with lines and indents making it much easier to see who’s responding to who in a Twitter thread. The functionality first came to Twitter’s prototype app twttr last year, and builds upon the iOS update released back in January. The changes are an attempt to make back and forth conversations “easier to read and follow,” according to the company. Current Twitter conversations can quickly become crowded and difficult to understand, especially when dozens of users are responding to each individual tweet in a conversation. It means that even a high-profile interview with Twitte...

Tinder is going to launch its own in-app, one-on-one video chats later this year. Match Group, the brand’s parent company, announced the feature in its earnings release today. Details are scarce, but the fact that Tinder is even going to release this feature is big news. This would be one of the largest feature introductions for the brand, and an especially impressive undertaking considering Tinder has millions of users, and video calls can be places ripe for abuse. The company couldn’t share additional details with The Verge. Harassment and abuse could be difficult to screen for on video, as opposed to text-based messaging. But presumably, the team is either building its own offensive image detection system or looking to a third party to provide one. Users will also have to get used to th...

Space tourism venture Virgin Galactic lost $60 million in the first quarter of 2020, down from the $73 million net loss it suffered at the end of last year, according to the company’s earnings statement today. The company says it earned revenue of just $238,000 this first quarter by “providing engineering services.” Along with these earnings results, Virgin Galactic is announcing that 400 people put down refundable deposits to fly on the company’s tourist spaceplane in the future. The full cost to fly on the vehicle is $250,000, but through a new initiative, Virgin Galactic allowed aspiring astronauts to put down just $1,000 to reserve a seat on a future flight. The company says those deposits represent “over $100 million of potential future revenue upon full ticket payment.” The deposits ...

Sonos may be close to releasing a new soundbar called the Arc, as apparent marketing images of the device have been shared on Twitter by leaker and WinFuture writer Roland Quandt. The Arc appears to have up-firing speakers and could be considerably longer than the existing Sonos Beam soundbar. You can see the images for yourself in Quandt’s tweet, embedded below: The first image in the top-left shows just how much longer the Arc might be compared with the 25.6-inch Beam. And the image of the Arc’s internals in the lower-left appears to show the new soundbar will not only have two upward-firing speakers, but also two outward-firing ones and four front-firing ones. It’s unclear exactly how much the Arc might cost, but Quandt replied to his own tweet with a clue: “price: money, lots of it.” D...

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he expects longtime rival Apple will “open up” iOS and its platforms more in the future as a result of contention with developers and growing antitrust concern from regulators, according to an interview with Ek published on Tuesday by Bloomberg. Spotify filed a regulatory complaint with the European Union last year, calling Apple’s mandatory 30 percent App Store cut a “tax” that stifles innovation and unfairly benefits Apple against its competitors. Spotify also cited Apple’s control over system-level features like its Siri voice assistant, which at the time did not work with Spotify but naturally did integrate with Apple Music. The complaint resulted in an ongoing EU antitrust investigation. “Long term, we do expect Apple to open up.” While the two companies hav...

Google’s Stadia Controller will finally work wirelessly with laptops and desktops starting this week, the company announced today (via Engadget). Since the cloud gaming service’s November launch, the only way you could use your controller wirelessly was if you were playing Stadia on your TV with a Chromecast Ultra. You still can’t use the Stadia Controller wirelessly with an Android phone, though, and it’s not clear when that functionality might arrive. When used wirelessly, the Stadia controller connects to Google’s servers over Wi-Fi instead of connecting to the device in front of you over Bluetooth, like most other gaming controllers. Google says this helps the controller “deliver precise controls.” If you want to connect your Stadia controller wirelessly, you can follow Google’s suppor...

:Slack’s mobile apps have always valiantly tried to replicate the desktop and web experience with a single home screen and a reliance on swipe-based navigation and cumbersome menus. But a new update the company is rolling out on its Android beta channel is introducing a “simpler, more organized” Slack with major visual and user interface changes. The update’s biggest new feature is the navigation bar at the bottom that now lets you easily jump to various sections of the app without having to swipe, tap a tiny icon, or scan a menu of sometimes hard-to-read text. The bar includes a home screen for laying out all of your channels, and from there, you can swipe right to access other workspaces or left to go back to the last channel you were looking at. Next to the home tab is now a dedicated D...

Lenovo’s first gaming phone, the Lenovo Legion, has leaked in a series of promotional videos showing off the device. A “trusted” anonymous source provided the unreleased material, in addition to some new specs, to XDA Developers. There’s no guarantee that these videos will reflect the product’s final design, but they offer an interesting look at some features we may have to look forward to. Per XDA, the videos indicate that the phone will feature fast 90W wired charging (a slogan claims “30 minutes to 100%”) thanks to a beastly 5,000mAh dual-cell battery. We’re also looking at a USB-C charging port, a SIM card tray, and a data port (but no headphone jack) on the bottom; an additional USB-C on the side; speakers in the top and bottom bezel; and a microphone hole on the top. The back of the ...

If your region is under stay-at-home guidelines, it’s best to avoid using ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft. But not everyone has that option. And with both companies having suspended shared rides and carpooling during the pandemic as a safety precaution, some people who need rides are finding themselves left without more affordable, reduced-fare ways of getting to their destination. Lyft is trying to offer up one solution by expanding its “wait and save” ride option to cover “most” riders in the United States and Canada. The name says it all: if you’re willing to wait a longer-than-normal amount of time to be picked up, you’ll save on the cost of your trip. Drivers make their standard rate no matter what. “More riders than ever will see Wait and Save as an option in their Lyft app alongs...