Technology

Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley had some company on their historic flight to space today: a stuffed dinosaur tucked into one of the seats on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The toy was spotted during preparations for launch on Wednesday and Saturday, and geophysicist Mika McKinnon quickly identified it on Twitter as seeming to be a TY Flippables Tremor Dinosaur. On Saturday shortly after the astronauts entered orbit, SpaceX’s store featured a new item called a ‘Demo 2 Dinosaur Plush Toy’ for $25. This particular toy’s backstory hasn’t been revealed yet, but toys like this have flown with astronauts and cosmonauts for years. When the toy starts floating, it indicates to the buckled-in passengers that they’ve reached zero-g and are experiencing weightlessness. A plush Earth flew on the uncrewed...

After nearly two decades of effort, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, successfully launched its first two people into orbit, ushering in a new age of human spaceflight in the United States. The flight marked the first time astronauts have launched into orbit from American soil in nearly a decade, and SpaceX is now the first company to send passengers to orbit on a privately made vehicle. The two astronauts — veteran NASA fliers Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley — rode into space inside SpaceX’s new automated spacecraft called the Crew Dragon, a capsule designed to take people to and from the International Space Station. Strapped inside the sleek, gumdrop-shaped capsule, the duo lifted off on top of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:22PM ET on Saturday...

Memorial Day deals are a tough act to follow, and we’ve definitely seen the frequency of sales this week slow down a bit. Nevertheless, there are plenty of places where you can save on tech, video games, and more. We’ve put those below, and we’ll be back next week with more deals. If you’ve been thinking about buying a smart display, but you don’t need an abundance of extra features, like YouTube support or a built-in camera, the small Lenovo Smart Clock seen above might be a good choice. Best Buy is offering the Smart Clock for $40, and this 50 percent discount is the best price that we’ve seen yet. In addition to having Google Assistant voice support and being able to show off your Google Photos catalog, it works with Spotify and other music streaming apps. The JBL Link isn’t like most o...

Zoom will add stronger encryption to its paid customers’ video calls, but isn’t planning to offer the enhanced security to all accounts, Reuters reported. A security consultant with the company told Reuters that it still wasn’t clear whether some accounts, such as nonprofit users, might qualify for the more secure calls. “Zoom’s approach to end-to-end encryption is very much a work in progress – everything from our draft cryptographic design, which was just published last week, to our continued discussions around which customers it would apply to,” a company spokesperson said in an email to The Verge. The videoconferencing platform has boomed in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, but has been plagued by myriad security issues. Those include Zoombombing, where an uninvited gu...

With less than 20 minutes to go before SpaceX’s first crewed flight, weather conditions remained miserable, forcing meteorologists at the Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron to deliver bad news to NASA and SpaceX. “It definitely hurts, especially when we have those hard requirements that when something hits, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Capt. Jason Fontenot, the space lift weather operations flight commander at the 45th Weather Squadron, said during a press call. “And we just kind of have to pass on the information, saying, ‘Even though we’re not at the launch window yet, this is very unlikely that we will see this take off today.’” Military personnel who work at the Squadron in Cape Canaveral, Florida are used to being the ones to call off the show. Fontenot and his team at Patrick ...

Microsoft is laying off dozens of journalists and editorial workers at its Microsoft News and MSN organizations. The layoffs are part of a bigger push by Microsoft to rely on artificial intelligence to pick news and content that’s presented on MSN.com, inside Microsoft’s Edge browser, and in the company’s various Microsoft News apps. Many of the affected workers are part of Microsoft’s SANE (search, ads, News, Edge) division, and are contracted as human editors to help pick stories. “Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement. “This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, re-deployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic.” While Microsoft says the layoffs ...

If you’re anything like us, over the past couple of months you’ve probably finished every “must watch” TV series on Netflix, cleaned your apartment from top to bottom, and completed every video game in your backlog. We get it: social distancing can get pretty boring. So if you’re finding yourself with a lot of time to kill, why not spend it on learning something completely new? With some basic supplies and online resources, it’s possible to learn a lot of cool and sometimes downright useful skills, like knitting, calligraphy, or even taking care of a bicycle. We’re a tech site (obviously) so we’re not claiming to be experts in all of the hobbies we’re recommending below. But what we are good at is locating a lot of very specific and nerdy information online, so where possible we’ve tried t...

SpaceX is about to make history as it attempts to launch its first passengers to space for NASA. Veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are set to launch on SpaceX’s new capsule, the Crew Dragon, which will take the pair to the International Space Station. It’s a big moment for the company, as it’ll mark the first time a private company has ever sent people into orbit. And with this launch taking place from Florida, it’ll be the first time in nearly a decade that people have launched to orbit from American soil since the end of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011. NASA’s coverage of the launch kicks off at 11AM ET, with takeoff scheduled for 3:22PM ET. There’s a lot of action leading up liftoff, so join us as we break it all down for you. Tune into our SpaceX launch live blog he...

Waymo’s self-driving cars are returning to Bay Area roads for the first time since the company halted its public testing in early March because of the coronavirus outbreak. The Alphabet-owned company plans to return its fleet of autonomous minivans to service starting June 8th, according to an email obtained by The Verge. Waymo’s self-driving cars will be put to use delivering packages for two Bay Area non-profits: illustrator Wendy McNaughton’s #DrawTogether, which provides art kits to Bay Area kids; and Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The company is the latest autonomous vehicle operator to discover that doing deliveries allows it to sidestep restrictions that would otherwise require them to keep their autonomous vehicles off the road. Waymo, along with the rest of Califo...

On Saturday, May 30th, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is set to become the first private spacecraft to carry humans into orbit. The launch, scheduled for 3:22PM ET, will also mark the first time in nearly a decade that NASA astronauts have launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. For NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, this will be their second attempt at this historic launch. The first launch attempt, on Wednesday, May 27th, was scrubbed due to poor weather conditions less than 17 minutes before launch. They’ll get another chance today. If today’s launch is delayed for any reason, the next launch attempt will be on Sunday, May 31st, at 3PM ET. NASA plans to cover today’s event live, starting at around 11AM ET. If all goes well, they’ll cover everything from launch preparations to ...

Google had been planning to unveil new features coming in Android 11 on June 3rd, but it has decided to delay the unveiling. In a tweet on Friday evening, Android’s developer account said that “We are excited to tell you more about Android 11, but now is not the time to celebrate.” Google says that it will “be back with more on Android 11, soon,” but did not say when that might be. Although Google doesn’t explicitly say why, the reason is very clear. The announcement comes as many American cities are filled with protests, looting, and fires. The response to the death of George Floyd in Minnesota has extended well beyond the conflict in Minneapolis. The Bay area where Google and most of its employees are based has seen major conflicts in both San Jose and Oakland the evening when Google mad...