Technology

The last few weeks have seen the release of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and Note 20, Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Z Flip 5G, Galaxy Watch 3, a couple tablets, and more — but the company still isn’t finished with events just yet. There will be yet another Samsung Unpacked virtual presentation on September 23rd at 10AM ET. This one is titled “Galaxy Unpacked for Every Fan,” which is a fairly obvious hint that it will mark the official reveal of the rumored Galaxy S20 Fan Edition. Most recently, the unannounced phone was found on Verizon’s website by Android Police. Leaks and rumors have suggested it will retain some hardware specs of the standard S20 — like a 120Hz display and Snapdragon 865 processor — but will make downgrades elsewhere (like a 1080p resolution) to help drive down the price b...

Oracle has reportedly won a deal to manage TikTok’s US cloud operations. Oracle had been rumored to be part of the bidding process to acquire TikTok, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the company has been selected as a “trusted tech partner” instead. This is different from an outright sale, and appears to suggest Oracle will be helping run TikTok’s US operations with its own cloud technologies. News of an Oracle deal comes just an hour after Microsoft revealed it was no longer acquiring TikTok after its bid was rejected by TikTok owner ByteDance. Microsoft had been pursuing a deal to buy TikTok’s operations in the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It’s clear talks have swayed away from a full acquisition, with Oracle reportedly winning the bid to be a technology partner instea...

Influencers, brace yourselves: Instagram may be considering charging a fee to add links to photo captions, a patent application suggests. Mike Murphy discovered it as part of his (fascinating!) weekly roundup of tech patents over at Protocol. The patent application, which Instagram parent company Facebook first submitted back in 2016, shows a pop-up appearing when the user adds a URL to a caption, asking if the user wants to pay $2 to make the link live. The patent application (titled “adding paid links to media captions in a social networking system”) describes how the system would work: “If the online system detects the text content of the caption includes a string of link text identifying an address, the online system prompts the posting user to pay a fee in exchange for generating a li...

Apple’s first big fall event is happening on Tuesday, September 15th, but it may be much different than previous September events. Let’s address the elephant in the room up front: it doesn’t seem like there will be new iPhones. Typically, Apple’s September events mark the arrival of Apple’s latest and greatest smartphones, but you shouldn’t expect to see them on Tuesday, according to The Verge’s editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and other well-connected journalists. And Apple has already said that the new iPhones won’t go on sale during their usual late-September timeframe. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting things to look forward to, though, since the Apple rumor mill has been as active as ever. The event’s “Time Flies” moniker suggests we’ll see Apple Watches at the very least. An...

OK so I got out of my rerun rut and binged Away on Netflix over Labor Day and… I really wanted to like it! The acting was so good, and it looked beautiful, but the script just strained credibility at every turn. It got off to a promising start with an incident aboard the spacecraft that makes the rest of the crew question whether first-time commander Emma Green (Hilary Swank) is really up to the long haul mission of guiding them to Mars. And there are great performances from a top-notch cast. I just wish the writers had resisted the urge to include the standard rom-com tensions and the endless Eureka! moments (ex: person on Earth gets a static electricity shock and realizes it may be the key to helping the space crew out of its latest mishap!), and we could have done away entirely wi...

Facebook will remove from its platform false claims that the wildfires in Oregon were deliberately started by certain groups, according to policy communications director Andy Stone. The decision is consistent with Facebook’s efforts “to remove content that could lead to imminent harm,” Stone said on Twitter Saturday, adding that the platform was taking the action following confirmation from law enforcement that the rumors were “forcing local fire and police agencies to divert resources from fighting the fires and protecting the public,” Stone tweeted. He did not indicate how many posts or accounts would be affected. This is consistent with our past efforts to remove content that could lead to imminent harm given the possible risk to human life as the fires rage on. (2/2) — Andy Stone (@and...

This story is part of a group of stories called Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you’re looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. Staples is once again discounting Apple’s AirPods Pro earbuds to $200, knocking $50 off the usual retail price from now until September 19th. The retail chain held a similar weeklong promotion in August, but inventory sold out within a day. Because this is the lowest price the earbuds have seen, this deal will likely sell out quickly. The AirPods Pro offer a customizable fit that includes three different silicone tip sizes, making the earbuds more flexible compared to the standard AirPods, which have...

SoftBank is reportedly is preparing to sell chipmaker ARM to Nvidia as early as next week in a deal worth more than $40 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. Rumors of the deal began circulating in July, and Nvidia has been reported to be the only suitor in concrete discussions with SoftBank. The deal, if it goes forward, would be one of the largest ever in the chip sector and would likely face intense regulatory scrutiny. According to the WSJ, the companies have been in “exclusive” talks for weeks. SoftBank bought ARM in 2016 for $31 billion. The British company’s chips power mobile device processors for companies including Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm. ARM has likely only increased in value since the SoftBank acquisition, with Microsoft making an ARM-based Surface and a version of W...

The first orbital mission for rocket launch startup Astra ended without its Rocket 3.1 reaching orbit. The rocket successfully lifted off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska at about 11:19PM ET Friday, but the company said its guidance system “introduced some slight oscillation into the flight,” which caused the rocket to drift from its planned trajectory. The flight safety system shut down the engines, and the rocket fell back to the ground. It wasn’t carrying any payloads. A spectator caught the launch on video, showing the rocket’s ascent. In the footage, the rocket’s engine shuts off mid-flight and a few moments later, you can see flames as the rocket hits the ground. The company’s stated objective with this flight was to have a nominal first stage burn, which apparently didn’...

Sony is holding a special PlayStation 5 event next week. The company will broadcast a 40-minute “digital showcase” on Wednesday, September 16th that will include updates from first-party Sony game studios and third-party partners. Sony is pitching the event as “one more look at some of the great games coming to PS5 at launch (and beyond!)” before the console launches. It’s also likely we’ll get a release date and price for the PlayStation 5. Microsoft was originally planning to announce its Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X launch plans and pricing next week, before the $299 price of the Series S leaked. Sony opened up pre-registration for PS5 preorders last month, but the company still hasn’t shared a date for official preorders or pricing and release date information. It looks increasingly...

A Google Groups Material Design revamp that’s been in beta for several months will become the default for all users starting next week, the company announced in a blog post. The new interface, which has several “highly requested features,” according to Google, includes a new mobile design, updated collaborative inboxes, and replaces tags and categories in groups with labels. The mobile redesign of Groups will do away with the old and surprisingly outdated look and give it an appearance closer to the desktop version. It also will make it easier to browse and search for groups on mobile, manage membership settings and read group conversations. Labels will allow users to filter and search for messages in a group. The update to collaborative inboxes, which allow teams to use a Google Group as ...

Borderlands 3 is the latest game to adopt an encouraging trend — giving gamers a next-gen upgrade without making them pay for it — and in this case, it’s one that’ll be extremely welcome to console gamers who have 4K TV sets. The image above (and embedded in the tweet below) has all the details, but just in case you can’t make out the fine print the primary news is this: on PS5 and Xbox Series X, the game will now run at 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, both higher and smoother than any console can run Borderlands 3 today. Last year, Digital Foundry found that even the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X only managed to run the game your choice of 3200 x 1800 resolution and 30 fps, or 1080p at 60fps, making you sacrifice either resolution or a smooth frame rate, and performance wasn’t necessarily...