Technology

Netflix’s last decade turned a video rental startup into streaming’s king. The next decade will see executives doing everything in their power to keep the crown. Yesterday, Netflix announced its second quarter earnings to investors, and executives spent much of the call addressing what they have planned for the next few years, including continued international expansion and ambitious bets on new content. While some executives might play coy about their conquest plans, Hastings didn’t shy away from wanting Netflix to be the streamer that makes people forget about everyone else. “We want to have so many hits that when you come to Netflix you can just go from hit to hit to hit and never have to think about any of those other services,” Hastings said on the call. “We want to be your primary, y...

On Friday evening, Twitter issued its first full blog post about what happened after the biggest security lapse in the company’s history, one that led to attackers getting hold of some of the highest profile Twitter accounts in the world — including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, President Barack Obama, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Kanye West, Michael Bloomberg, and more. The bad news: Twitter has now revealed that the attackers may indeed have downloaded the private direct messages (DMs) of up to 8 individuals while conducting their Bitcoin scam, and were able to see “personal information” including phone numbers and email addresses for every account they targeted. That’s because Twitter has confirmed that attackers attempted to download the entire “...

Netflix has announced its most expensive movie yet: a $200 million spy thriller called The Grey Man, starring Ryan Gosling (as the titular assassin / former spy) and Chris Evans (as the villainous CIA agent tasked with hunting him down) and directed by Joe and Anthony Russo (in their first film since Avengers: Endgame, the most lucrative film ever made), via Deadline. The film is based on Mark Greaney’s The Gray Man series of books about Court Gentry (aka “The Grey Man”) who is an assassin, former CIA operative, and “a legend in the covert realm.” Netflix’s hope is that the upcoming film will spawn a spy thriller franchise for the streaming site that will see Gosling return for future films as The Grey Man — sort of like its own version of the long-running James Bond franchise, which focus...

All indications point to Samsung introducing its next set of true wireless earbuds at the company’s Unpacked event next month. We’ve already seen them, and they’ll reportedly be branded as the Galaxy Buds Live. (It’s truly foolish of Samsung to not just own the design and call them the Galaxy Beans, but I digress.) Now, new images and a video posted by Twitter user h0x0d give us an even closer look at the Buds Live — and how they’ll look when worn. In the below marketing video, you’ll see a tag line that suggests the Galaxy Buds Live might feature active noise cancellation. “Keep the noise out. Let the sound in.” The buds don’t have silicone tips or an in-ear seal, so I’m curious as to how Samsung achieved ANC if it turns out to be there. In the follow-up photo, you can see that there are ...

Reporters are starting to piece together the behind-the-scenes events of the unprecedented Twitter attack on Wednesday almost as fast as the official investigators themselves. And the clearest idea of what may have happened two days ago — when roughly 130 accounts were compromised using internal company tools — comes courtesy of The New York Times this afternoon. Reporters Nathaniel Popper and Kate Conger tell the stories of four individuals involved in the hack and how exactly it spiraled out of control and resulted in the takeovers of some of the platforms most high-profile and sensitive accounts. The Times’ report says the central hacker got access to Twitter systems via Slack messages The Times report says the attack can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGu...

Fortnite’s newest in-game emote is a collaborative one. Epic Games this evening announced the launch of “The Renegade,” the viral TikTok dance created by Atlanta teenager Jalaiah Harmon. The Twitter account for Fortnite openly cites Harmon, writing, “Go, go, go, go, let’s go and bust out some [fire] moves by @jalaiah.” It’s not clear whether Epic and Harmon struck some type of licensing deal, but it’s a possibility considering the developer’s rocky legal history with dance emotes. Throughout Fortnite’s meteoric rise starting in the fall of 2017, the game has featured a number of real-world dances copied from pop culture. Sometimes the emotes were inspired by dances on old television shows, like the default dance inspired by Scrubs actor Donald Faison. But quite often these dances were inve...

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was supposed to kick off Marvel Studios’ big television universe on Disney Plus in August, but the show’s debut has officially been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The delay comes after the show was forced to pause production back in May because of the pandemic, The Verge has confirmed. Disney does not have a new premiere date for the show, but it’s hoping to share updates on it soon. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was set to pick up where Avengers: Endgame ended. Steve Rogers’ Captain America seems to have essentially retired after living a different life in an alternate timeline, and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) picks up the shield in his place. Although we don’t have a full-length trailer for the show, Disney did debut a brief teaser in F...

Popular chat service Discord experienced widespread server outages today. The issues started at around 5PM ET, and lasted nearly an hour. Patreon, Deliveroo, GitLab, Zendesk, Medium, and many other sites were also down, and Cloudflare acknowledged issues with its network affected various apps and sites. “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented,” says Cloudflare. Discord also had “all engineers on deck investigating the issue,” and its own problems were related to the Cloudflare outage. Users are currently having trouble disconnecting to Discord due to an upstream internet issue. We’ve got all engineers on deck investigating the issue pic.twitter.com/GvtxKanokl — Discord (@discord) July 17, 2020 This is the second major outage for Discord this year, after the serv...

American Airlines announced on Friday that it is making the check-in process completely touchless, even for passengers who have to check bags. But the company continues to book passengers into middle seats, so it’s ultimately a small gesture that only slightly reduces the chance of exposure to the novel coronavirus. Starting Friday, passengers flying with American Airlines will have to set the number of bags they’re bringing ahead of time on the company’s app or website. Then when they show up at the airport, they just scan their mobile boarding pass at a kiosk to instantly print the bag tags — no touchscreen interactions required. The passengers can then drop those bags before heading to their gate. American Airlines frames this a “new technology” that “enhance[s] the customer experience,...

Electronic Arts has decided to pull all references to the Washington Redskins name and logo from its upcoming Madden NFL 21 game releasing next month. The move follows the landmark decision from team leadership earlier this week to change the Redskins name and overhaul its brand in response to years of protests and criticism from activists and corporate sponsors over its racist history. The news of EA’s plans to update Madden for its August 25th release was first reported by Kotaku on Friday. “We are pleased to see Washington’s decision to change their team name and visual identity,” an EA spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. “We are quickly working to update Madden NFL 21 to feature a generic Washington team, while we await final word on the updated team name and logo design.” The update ...

Samsung has announced that its latest Galaxy Book S is now available to purchase. It’s the first device to offer Intel’s new “Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology.” Previous Galaxy Book S models have run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform. The new Intel processors (referred to as “Lakefield”) are designed to power ultralight devices; we’re also expecting to see them in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold and the dual-screen Surface Neo. They’re essentially Intel’s answer to ARM. The way these things work is that Intel combines one powerful core with four lower-power cores (for a total of five cores and five threads) on a single die. That allows smaller devices to offer a multithread-capable structure without requiring a hefty amount of power or decimating battery life. Intel debuted two 7W ...

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are tentatively scheduled to return to Earth inside SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon capsule on August 2nd. It’s the same Crew Dragon vehicle that launched the astronauts to space at the end of May — marking the first time a privately made spacecraft had carried people to orbit. For now, NASA plans for the duo, currently on board the International Space Station, to board the Crew Dragon on August 1st. They’ll then be back on the ground sometime the next day, according to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, who noted that weather will be a major factor in the return date. The departure will cap off a two-month stay on the ISS for Behnken and Hurley. While in space, they’ve both been very busy, with Behnken conducting numerous spacewalks to swap out aging ...