Technology

French self-driving vehicle company EasyMile will add seatbelts to its shuttles in order to be able to once again carry passengers in the US. EasyMile’s shuttles were suspended by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in late February after an incident where a passenger fell out of her seat during a sudden stop in Columbus, Ohio. EasyMile’s shuttles, which operate on a trial basis in about a dozen US cities, will also feature more signage and audio announcements that warn passengers about the possibility of sudden stops, and the company says it will train the safety operators on the shuttles to “remind passengers to hold on with feet firmly on the floor” while they are in motion. These “corrective actions” are the result of a back-and-forth with the NHTSA and the local...

Kevin Mayer is leaving his post as the head of Disney’s streaming efforts to become the CEO of the shortform video app TikTok, Disney announced today. He will also become the COO of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance. “Kevin has had an extraordinary impact on our company over the years, most recently as head of our direct-to-consumer business,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek in a statement. Mayer starts at ByteDance on June 1st At ByteDance, Mayer will be responsible for “driving the global development of ByteDance, as well as overseeing corporate functions including corporate development, sales, marketing, public affairs, security, moderation, and legal,” according to ByteDance’s press release. “In his role as COO, Kevin will lead music, gaming, Helo, emerging businesses, and will serve as CEO of TikT...

BBC is launching a new experimental tool, BBC Together, that will let you watch or listen to BBC programming with others over the internet, with everyone seeing the same thing on-screen at the same time. It sounds a lot like Netflix Party but for BBC content. BBC Together works with any audio or video content from BBC iPlayer (which has on-demand video content from the BBC), BBC Sounds (which has on-demand audio content), Bitesize (which has educational content), BBC News, and BBC Sport, according to the BBC. You should be able to try it now on Taster, the BBC’s site for its experimental technologies. Share a link and your friends can watch with you Once you decide what you want to watch with others with BBC Together, you’ll be able to share a link with your friends so they can join in. If...

Asus has announced new videoconferencing hardware designed to run Google Meet meetings (via 9to5Google). The new gear includes a small computer that runs the calls, an external speaker, and, depending on which configuration you buy, you can also get a camera and a touch screen. The hardware could be useful for conference rooms in offices that rely on Google Meet as their videoconferencing tool of choice (once actually going into the office becomes more common, of course). The computer, which Asus calls the Google Meet Compute System, has an Intel Core i7 processor, a 128GB SSD, and a magnetic chassis so you can attach it to the included stand or more easily mount it out of sight, according to ASUS. It also has a number of ports, which you can see in the image below: With the Starter Kit an...

Elon Musk has always had a certain manic energy on Twitter, but in the past week, his output has taken a more troubling turn. Musk’s ongoing standoff with Alameda County health officials had inspired him to share a wave of disinformation, something he hasn’t backed off from even as much of it has been removed from the platforms themselves. But now, Musk seems to be moving into a more troubling part of the online sphere, and he risks taking a lot of his fans with him. Last night, Musk tweeted a confusing combination of the rose symbol for the Democratic Socialists of America and the red pill meme, a Matrix reference that has become a touchstone for anti-feminist communities online. It’s hard to say what Musk meant by all this, but it was clearly taken as a dog whistle by prominent red-pille...

President Donald Trump said he’s taking antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine and zinc because he believes the drugs could prevent COVID-19. “Here’s my evidence. I get a lot of positive calls about it,” he said today in a White House roundtable with restaurant executives. Trump said he’s been taking the drugs every day for a week and a half and that he has not had any COVID-19 symptoms. People close to the president, including one of Trump’s valets and Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, recently tested positive for the virus. Side effects include damage to part of the eye, life-threatening heart effects, and muscular weakness There is still no evidence that taking hydroxychloroquine can prevent someone from contracting or getting sick from the coronavirus. It’s a possibility...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday he is “worried” that other countries may be trying to imitate China’s approach to regulating the internet. “Just to be blunt about it, I think there is a model coming out of countries like China that tend to have very different values than Western countries that are more democratic,” Zuckerberg said during an hourlong video conversation Monday with European Union Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton. The Facebook CEO added that it was up to Western democratic countries to have a clear framework for data privacy. “We have a joint responsibility to help develop this,” he said. It was the latest instance of Zuckerberg citing the risks of a Chinese model of the internet spreading around the world. He made similar comments last year, saying it was import...

HTC appears to be close to releasing new wireless earbuds called the U Ear, and they look very similar to Apple’s AirPods. Photos of the earbuds leaked through regulatory agency filings in the US and Taiwan, which were spotted by Android Police. The U Ear have a very similar design to Apple’s AirPods, with glossy plastic, a rounded earbud tip, and a stem that extends down your ear. There seems to be two big differences: the charging pins are located on the front of the earbuds, instead of the end tips, and the earbuds are all black, unlike the AirPods, which only come in white. Though it’s always possible HTC could release other color options. HTC’s charging case takes inspiration from Apple’s earbuds, too. Both look like a compact and polished cube-shaped box. However, there’s a big diffe...

Podcast Addict, an Android podcast app with millions of users, was suspended over the weekend because it lists COVID-19 content. The app’s creator, Xavier Guillemane, tells The Verge that on Saturday, Google suspended and removed the ads from his nine-year-old app because it violated a new policy for developers that requires any app with a reference to COVID-19 to be “published, commissioned, or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations.” Guillemane’s app catalogs publicly available podcast RSS feeds, which he doesn’t control. The content includes news shows, talk shows, and a variety of programming that mentions the pandemic and virus. He says Google told him he’d need to address this problem and then republish his app under a different name to be reinstate...

Square employees will be able to work from home even after the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders end, Jack Dorsey told workers. The indefinite extension of the company’s remote work policy echoes a similar announcement from Twitter last week. Dorsey is CEO of both companies. “We want employees to be able to work where they feel most creative and productive,” a company spokesperson told The Verge. “Moving forward, Squares will be able to work from home permanently, even once offices begin to reopen. Over the past several weeks, we’ve learned a lot about what it takes for people to effectively perform roles outside of an office, and we will continue to learn as we go.” The new policy will apply to teams that are able to do their jobs remotely. Those that need to come into the office, like sec...

Apple’s upcoming iOS 14 could have a new augmented reality app that can read Apple-branded QR codes and might have new features baked into the Find My app, according iOS 14 files obtained by former TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine. That new AR app, called Gobi in these files, could be able to read both more traditional-looking QR codes and an interesting new circular design for QR codes, reports Constine. Constine also shared images of what those QR codes may look like: Image: Josh Constine “Files in Gobi included QRs that opened the Mac Pro and Apple Watch websites, the Star Wars: Rogue One movie in the iTunes Store, and one that opens the Starbucks Card sign-up flow,” says Constine. Code in the files also apparently suggests the Gobi app could use location data to let customers claim di...

Instagram is launching a new Guides feature today that lets creators curate content together in a single location, with the first ones set to focus on wellness content in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the first Guides include one from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention called “Mental Health and COVID-19,” which collects the group’s content into a single, easy-to-find place. Heads Together, a mental health group, has similar Guides that collect Instagram posts reminding viewers to be kind to each other, practice self care, and talk about how they feel. Starting today, you can check out Guides – a new way to discover recommendations on Instagram. We know people are struggling due to COVID-19, so the first Guides focus on wellness content from respected organizat...