Technology

Groups of conservative provocateurs, QAnon supporters, and others on social media have jumped on the release of the French coming-of-age film Cuties and a trending “Cancel Netflix” hashtag to associate the company with pedophilia. This isn’t the first time that people have tried to cancel Netflix. Republicans tried it in 2018 following Netflix’s confirmation that it had signed a multiyear deal with Barack and Michelle Obama to produce a series of titles. Earlier this year, people threatened to cancel Netflix over 365 Days, a movie that petitioners argued glorified sexual violence against women. And, at the same time that people are calling for others to cancel Netflix over Cuties, there’s a petition from fans of shows like Jessica Jones, The OA, and Anne with an E, hosting a “cancel Netfli...

Apple issued new App Store rules earlier today, permitting game streaming services like xCloud or Stadia to exist on iOS or iPadOS with a big catch. Apple wants companies like Microsoft to individually submit their games as separate apps using its streaming tech. Microsoft and Google are free to create a “catalog”-style app that collects and links out to all of these individual apps as well. Microsoft isn’t impressed. “This remains a bad experience for customers,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “Gamers want to jump directly into a game from their curated catalog within one app just like they do with movies or songs, and not be forced to download over 100 apps to play individual games from the cloud. We’re committed to putting gamers at the center of everything w...

I don’t think anyone expected an impressively thin gadget with two displays to be more repairable than single-screen smartphones, and iFixit’s teardown of Microsoft’s new Surface Duo confirms this is the case. The takeaway is that while the displays and rear glass can be swapped without too much stress, replacing anything else will be a tedious, risky process. As part of the teardown process, iFixit got this very cool X-ray shot of the Surface Duo. The innards of the left half look close enough to an iPad or any modern tablet, but iFixit says the right side “looks like nothing we remember seeing before — it’s almost a solid wall of circuit board, with a little window in the middle for the second battery.” There’s that engineering know-how of the Surface team. Image: iFixit But getting insi...

These days, it’s no longer surprising when a friend or acquaintance suddenly breaks into a rant on your Facebook feed. It can be triggered by anything from a politician’s tweet to a movie spoiler to the type of mask someone’s wearing (or whether they’re wearing one at all). If somebody on your Facebook feed has crossed what you consider to be a line, then you can use a number of methods to remove their posts — or them — from sight. You can unfriend them, block them, snooze them (so you won’t see anything from them for 30 days), or simply hide one of their entries. Here’s a rundown of how to accomplish each. Note: All of these directions are for the “new” version of Facebook on your desktop. Hide a post Let’s say somebody whom you otherwise like writes a rave review of a movie that you abso...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a huge game. It draws from live data feeds to model air traffic, weather patterns, and more. It’s also incredibly realistic: nearly every location you can think of in the real world is represented in the game — and that’s enough for most people. But if you want to really enhance your experience, there are mods. Beautiful, gorgeous mods. I did a brief tour of some of ‘em. Here are a few of my favorites. The Millennium Falcon and more That’s right. Modder Eggman28 has put together a roster of cool-ass ships — including your favorites from Star Wars and Star Trek — that you can drop into your copy of Flight Simulator 2020. (Eggman28 does, however, point out that the ships are… challenging to fly: “They are pretty rubbish to fly, have no working interio...

When McKenna Rogers landed a job on Pinterest’s finance team in 2018, she felt like she’d arrived. She loved the platform — so much that she’d used it to help plan her wedding. “Working there felt like a dream come true,” she says. The year before, Forbes included Pinterest in a list of companies where women most like to work. Three years later, stories from former employees about inequality and insensitivity have poked holes in Pinterest’s friendly aesthetic. In June, Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks came forward with allegations of racial discrimination at the company. Two months later, former COO Françoise Brougher sued Pinterest for gender discrimination and retaliation. She specifically called out the chief financial officer Todd Morgenfeld who’d allegedly made insensitive commen...

Disney is currently testing a new feature that will allow Disney Plus subscribers to create tiny private watch parties. Screenshots of the feature first started to appear on the Disney Plus subreddit yesterday. Seen below, the feature seemingly allows up to six people to join the party. Another screenshot shows a new icon that appears on a film or TV show’s title page, prompting the GroupWatch function. SonicTheOWTHEGEE The Verge confirmed that GroupWatch is currently being tested in Canada for some Disney Plus subscribers, but the company is expecting to roll the feature out to other markets this fall. The feature allows people to stream any movie or TV show on Disney Plus as long as all participants are Disney Plus subscribers. Disney is far from the first to create a private viewing par...

In July, amid increasing scrutiny from the Trump administration, TikTok announced a novel effort to build trust with regulators: a physical office known as the Transparency and Accountability Center. The center would allow visitors to learn about the company’s data storage and content moderation practices, and even to inspect the algorithms that power its core recommendation engine. “We believe all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators,” then-TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said at the time. “We will not wait for regulation to come.” Regulation came a few hours later. President Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he planned to ban TikTok from operating in the United States, and a few days later he did. The president set a deadline for B...

Amazon has been accused of price gouging on essential items like toilet paper and antibacterial soap in a report by consumer rights group Public Citizen. The report analyzed over a dozen products, including those sold by third-party sellers and items listed as “sold by Amazon.” It found that between the months of May and August, prices on some items more than quadrupled in price, seemingly breaking Amazon’s own Fair Pricing Policy. Responding to the report, Amazon said that there was “no place for price gouging” on its service, including on products it sells directly. “Our systems are designed to offers customers the best available online price and if we see an error, we work quickly to fix it,” a spokesperson said. But the report challenges Amazon’s claims that only third-party listings b...

Ubisoft just debuted another one of its Forward events, where the company previewed more upcoming titles and details on its fall lineup, including a better look at Immortals Fenyx Rising, the return of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, and the announcement of new games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake and the massively multiplayer Riders Republic. Here’s everything you need to know: Ubisoft CEO addresses the company’s problems with diversity, inclusion, racism, and sexual misconduct The most significant announcement Ubisoft made today was notably not part of the actual Forward event at all — Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot finally made a statement addressing the reports of racism, sexual misconduct, and a lack of diversity and inclusion that have apparently been a part of Ub...

Many AmazonBasics products that have been reported as fire hazards are still for sale on Amazon, according to an extensive investigation by CNN. Some of the stories about the dangerous products are harrowing. In one, a man went to the hospital after his chair caught fire while he was sleeping, apparently due to a melted USB cord. An AmazonBasics microwave caught fire when an eight-year-old heated up a macaroni and cheese cup. One man saw fire coming from an AmazonBasics surge protector while only a single phone charger was plugged into it — as his baby slept in a room nearby. Reports have apparently been piling up for years Reports have apparently been piling up for years. CNN counted at least 1,500 reviews since 2016 for more than 70 items that described “products exploding, catching on f...

The Trump administration is considering an unconventional pick for the next FCC commissioner, a senior adviser at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) who has played a significant role in the agency’s social media regulation agenda. The choice is still tentative, but if confirmed, the nomination would represent a significant blow to Republicans who favor a light-touch approach to telecom policy. Three sources close to the matter say Nathan Simington, a senior advisor at the NTIA within the commerce department, has emerged as a leading candidate to take over Republican Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s seat at the FCC. Simington is said to have helped draft the administration’s social media executive order, and his nomination would be a victory for Republicans wh...