Technology

Hublot is taking another crack at the smartwatch market with the Hublot Big Bang e, a high-end watch running Wear OS that will set you back thousands of dollars. The Big Bang e comes in two variations: titanium, which retails for $5,200, and black ceramic, priced at $5,800. Both include a 42mm OLED high-definition touchscreen covered with sapphire crystal along with a Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and a 300mAh battery. The watch includes a few extra features beyond those typically found in the Android-based operating system. The Big Bang e has its own watchfaces with some additional abilities, such as one that keeps track of the lunar calendar and another that changes color throughout the day as part of the #HuboltLovesArt initiative. Image: Hublot Hublot also...

Sega has now revealed full details of its just-announced Game Gear Micro portable console — or, I should say, consoles. It turns out that the four color variants are different systems each with four different games preloaded, no doubt in an attempt to drive collectors to buy them all. Here’s what you get on each. The black model comes with: Sonic the Hedgehog Puyo Puyo 2 Out Run Royal Stone The blue variant includes: Sonic Chaos Gunstar Heroes Sylvan Tale Baku Baku Animal The yellow Game Gear Micro has: Shining Force Gaiden: Ensei – Jashin no Kuni he Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict Nazopuyo Aruru no Ru And the red version is preloaded with: Revelations: The Demon Slayer Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible Special The GG Shinobi Columns The hardware itsel...

You can try out the Android 11 developer preview software right now if you have a Pixel 2 or later, but it’s understandable if the idea of flashing your device to install the OS is intimidating. It can be a tricky process, and the steps differ slightly depending on what phone you have and what kind of computer you’re going to use to download the software. But now that process has been streamlined by Google. Google recently released the Android Flash Tool, a web application that handles most of the steps of flashing for you. There are a few steps that you’ll need to do yourself before the new software can be installed, which we’ll walk you through below, but Google’s tool basically eliminates most of the hassle and complexity that makes it easy to mess up. There are a few important notes to...

President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting social media companies faced its first legal challenge Tuesday, claiming that Trump violated the companies’ rights to free speech. In its lawsuit, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) called Trump’s order “retaliatory” because it specifically attacked Twitter for using its First Amendment right to comment and moderate the president’s tweets. By attacking Twitter, the organization claimed that Trump’s order could discourage other platforms from exercising their free speech rights to moderate the president’s posts out of fear of retaliation from the federal government. “The Executive Order is designed to deter social media services from fighting misinformation, voter suppression, and the stoking of violence on their platforms,” CDT’...

Apple’s iCloud service experienced an outage on Tuesday evening, causing errors with account sign-in, iCloud Mail, and web apps via iCloud.com. The issues began shortly after 7PM ET, when user-reported issues began pouring in on Downdetector.com and across Twitter. Apple acknowledged the issue on its system status website, as well on its Apple Support Twitter account. Many users started seeing similar error messages, including one that says, “The application you have selected does not exist.” MacRumors reported that some other Apple services, like Apple Pay and the company’s web-based app-specific password generator, were also experiencing issues, although Apple never acknowledged as much on its system status page. As of 8:30PM ET, Apple’s system status page says the issues affecting iClou...

Sega is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year with another retro console, and it looks like it might be the tiniest yet. The Game Gear Micro is a revival of Sega’s 8-bit handheld system that tried (and failed) to overcome Nintendo’s Game Boy. More news is set to drop later today via Japanese gaming news outlet Famitsu. The promo shots show that the system will unsurprisingly run at least one of the (pretty good!) Game Gear Sonic the Hedgehog titles. An image initially hidden in the Game Gear Micro landing page also revealed that the system will come in four colors — black, blue, yellow, and red — and be released in Japan on October 6th this year for 4,980 yen, or about $46. We’ll update this story when we have more information. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for D...

Zoom had a blockbuster quarter as its app became the hottest videoconferencing service of the pandemic. In an earnings report today, Zoom reported making $328 million in revenue during its February–April quarter. That’s up far more than double from the same time last year, when it made $122 million, and it comes in well above the $200 million that Zoom expected it would make when it issued guidance just a few months ago. Zoom doesn’t say exactly how many people used its software over the past few months, but the company claims it added an “unprecedented number of free participants,” including more than 100,000 K-12 schools. Zoom now has around 265,400 customers with more than 10 employees, a number that’s grown 354 percent, the company says, and it added 175,000 licenses for new customers....

A Tesla employee has tested positive for COVID-19 at the company’s solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York, according to an employee at the factory who spoke to The Verge on the condition of anonymity. It’s the fourth known Tesla employee to test positive for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus but the first since the company reopened its US factories in May. One employee from Panasonic, which shares space with Tesla at its New York and Nevada factories, also tested positive back in March before the shutdowns. Tesla quietly reopened the New York facility on May 19th after the state gave the region the green light, according to a new letter to local officials first reported on Friday by Buffalo Business First. But the company is not back at full production capacity and won’t be for...

Amazon-backed EV startup Rivian has laid off about 40 employees at its engineering and design center in Plymouth, Michigan, The Verge has learned. The cuts, which the company has confirmed to The Verge, were made across departments and included engineers, recruiters, and others, according to two former employees. The company has also made a number of new executive hires, and has replaced its first chief operating officer. Rivian has been on a hiring spree over the last year fueled by $3 billion worth of investments from Amazon, Ford, T. Rowe Price, and others. The startup currently employs a little more than 2,000 people overall, meaning the layoffs account for roughly 2 percent of its workforce. The former employees say they believe the cuts were related to the stresses of the COVID-19 pa...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held an extended conference with employees today, addressing accusations that Facebook allowed election misinformation and veiled promotions of violence from President Donald Trump. While Zuckerberg said he should have offered more transparency to employees, he stood by what he called a “pretty thorough” evaluation of Trump’s posts, saying the choice to avoid labeling or removing them was difficult but correct. According to a recording obtained by The Verge, Zuckerberg described being upset by Trump’s recent posts, one of which warned protesters that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” But “I knew that I needed to separate out my personal opinion … from what our policy is and the principles of the platform we’re running are — knowing that the ...

Google may be close to launching its next streaming TV device, and now XDA Developers has got its hands on marketing material that gives us our first real glimpse at what that device might look like. The report says the Android TV-powered dongle is codenamed “Sabrina,” and past reports have revealed it will come with a remote and a proper software interface, so you no longer have to rely on pushing shows and movies to your TV using Chromecast and a phone or tablet. The device looks a bit like a Chromecast Ultra, although less circular in design. Other screenshots obtained by XDA Developers show off pink, white, and black color options. The report also says the marketing video from which the images were grabbed shows off the top half of the remote and its dedicated Google Assistant button. ...

The protest was peaceful. Then the police shot tear gas. At least 10 canisters went off, according to The Guardian’s Julia Carrie Wong. Officers clad in riot gear ordered protesters to go home before the 8PM curfew. Then they arrested 40 people. This was the scene that aired on Fox KTVU and NBC News, which featured aerial footage of tear gas and mayhem as people ran from the police. But it’s not the full story. Before the warnings, and tear gas, and handcuffs, the protest had been peaceful for hours. “Mainstream media is pushing a narrative about these ‘riots’ we had,” said Brianna Boyd, a 20-year-old protestor. “They’re trying to dampen the message by not showing the peaceful protests.” Officers threw tear gas and flash-bang grenades The event, organized by students at Oakland Technical H...