Technology

Spotify first released its Spotify Kids app in October last year, and now it’s introducing two new features to give parents more control over what their kids consume. Starting today, parents can access their child’s listening history and also block specific content. The app is also expanding its rollout to Japan and Germany today, officially making it available in 14 markets. To access the settings, parents need to go to the “Grown Ups” section and select which child’s account history they want to view. From there, they can see their kid’s listening history, which contains every track their child streamed on the app over the past three months. From this same section, they can also select tracks to block by tapping the block icon next to the content. The blocked content is linked to each ch...

SteelSeries has announced the Nimbus Plus, a new controller designed for gaming on Apple devices. The Nimbus Plus improves on its predecessor with some new features, such as clickable joysticks, a claimed 50-hour battery life, and ultra-responsive triggers. Like its predecessor, the Nimbus Plus charges via a Lightning connector and has a Made for iPhone (MFi) certification. The licensing program allows third-party devices to take advantage of features available on Apple’s hardware, such as optimized button mapping. The Nimbus Plus is basically an iOS version of SteelSeries’ Stratus Duo The Nimbus Plus will come bundled with a mount for the controller, which you can use to game on your iPhone easily. A SteelSeries spokesperson told The Verge that the Nimbus Plus “will allow users to play to...

Huawei is rereleasing its flagship phone from last year as the P30 Pro “New Edition.” The device now ships with Android 10 preinstalled, and it’s got a new silver color option that was previously only available on the P40 Pro. Otherwise, this is an identical device to last year’s phone, meaning it has a 6.47-inch OLED display, four rear cameras, and, crucially, comes with a full suite of Google’s apps and services. Emphasizing its compatibility with Google’s apps and services, an image of the phone on Huawei’s German website advertises that the phone allows you to (via Google Translate) “use top-apps as usual,” “use Android as usual,” and get “security updates as usual.” The phone is available in a new silver colorscheme, and Huawei is advertising that it can be used “as usual.”Image: Huaw...

Hackers have registered domains posing as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet-related URLs, according to a new report from Check Point Research. As significantly more people are using these videoconferencing services during the COVID-19 pandemic, the domains could be used to pose as official links, potentially tricking people into downloading malware or accidentally giving a bad actor access to personal information. In just the last three weeks, for example, 2,449 Zoom-related domains have been registered, and Check Point Research determined that 32 of those domains are malicious and 320 are “suspicious.” And in one instance of attempted phishing, hackers sent an email that looks like an official email from Microsoft Teams, but a button in the email to “open” Teams was actually a malici...

LG has a new dual-screen phone on the way, with a main display that swivels sideways to reveal a secondary screen underneath, the Korean Herald reports. The phone, which ETNews reports is codenamed “Wing,” will reportedly have a main 6.8-inch display alongside a smaller 4-inch screen with a 1:1 aspect ratio. It’s expected to cost a bit more than the new Velvet phone when it arrives later this year. This wouldn’t be the first swivel phone that LG has released. Over a decade ago it released several phones using this form-factor, including the LB1500 and LU1400. In addition to their rotating displays, the other major selling point of these “DMB phones” was that they had the hardware to receive digital TV broadcasts. Unsurprisingly the hardware was basic by modern standards. Their main, non-to...

In a likely effort to stop the videoconferencing powerhouse that is Zoom, Google has expanded its Meet communications app to be available to anyone with a Gmail account (previously, it had only been open to those with for-pay G Suite or education accounts). You will be able to meet with up to 100 people and there is currently no time limit; after September 30th, meetings will be limited to 60 minutes. You don’t have to do anything to get the app: it automatically appears in your Gmail app as a small “Meet” section in the left-hand column, right below your list of categories. As is Google’s habit, it is slowly rolling out the app to Gmail users over the next few weeks: a colleague with Gmail reported that he got the app last week, and I found it sitting in my Gmail account over the weekend,...

I’m reviewing two very different computers right now: the new 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro and the new 2020 Surface Go 2. You can click the links in the previous sentences for some first impressions and if you’ve got specific questions for the review, feel free to email me and I’ll do my best to address as many as I can later this week. These are very different computers because the MacBook is powerful and meant for “pros” (whatever that means anymore) and the Surface Go is itty-bitty and meant to maximize portability for when you are out and about (whatever that means anymore). They also have different answers to the age-old question, “where does the computer go in a computer?” For the Mac, it’s under the keyboard; for the Surface, it’s behind the screen. (The Surface Book 3 has an even...

The broadcaster of the world’s longest-running cartoon has said it will have to switch to reruns from next week due to disruption to production caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Sazae-san, an anime series that airs every Sunday night and has been shown since 1969, won’t get any new episodes in the near future; as of this Sunday, Fuji TV will start to broadcast two-year-old reruns. Based on a manga series by Machiko Hasegawa, Sazae-san is one of the longest-running TV shows in history, with more than 2,500 episodes — each consisting of three separate stories. The plot, such as it is, revolves around the titular Japanese woman and her family going through the motions of life. With so many episodes, there’s space for the show to depict many traditional customs and events that take place in ...

Twitch is now selling official gift cards you can use to buy items on the popular streaming platform, the company announced today. Despite being a free service, Twitch offers a number of ways you can spend money, including buying subscriptions to channels and paying for Twitch’s “Bits” virtual currency, and the new gift cards can be put towards those purchases. You can buy the gift cards here. They’re available in $25, $50, $100, and $200 denominations, and they can be sent over email or text message. You can only get them digitally at the moment, but they’ll be available at Best Buy and GameStop “soon,” according to Twitch’s announcement blog. They’re also only available to US residents for now, but “we are looking to offer them in other countries soon,” according to Twitch.

Slack announced a redesigned iPhone app with a new navigation bar at the bottom of the app in update notes today. However, it seems the redesign is still rolling out, even if you’ve updated to the latest version of the app — myself and another Verge colleague don’t have it yet, for example. The new look appears to bring the iPhone app in line with the Android redesign that rolled out on May 5th. “Previously, it was complicated to get to the four main things people do on mobile,” Slack said in the App Store update notes. “We’ve fixed this with a new nifty navigation bar at the bottom of the app containing: a Home view for your sidebar, DMs, (still listed most recent first), Mentions (for quickly catching up), and You (because you’re great) (and also because setting your status/preferences o...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that he’s reopening his company’s car factory in California in violation of a local shelter-in-place order, as The Verge previously reported. Musk said he’ll be on the company’s production line this week. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me,” he wrote. Musk spent parts of the weekend railing against the order, which was put in place in mid-March by Alameda County officials in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The order restricted all but “essential businesses” from performing anything other than the most minimal operations, like processing payroll. After initially fighting the order, Tesla shut down the factory on March 23rd. Musk has argued that the statewide stay-at-home order put in place by governor Gavin Newsom left room for Tesla...

No one knows exactly what the Democratic National Convention will look like this year, with social distancing restrictions still in place in Wisconsin and across the country. It’s already been moved to the end of the summer, and top Democrats like Nancy Pelosi have suggested holding it in a gigantic empty stadium to curb the spread of disease. But Monday, Lis Smith, former advisor for the Pete Buttigieg campaign, touted a new idea that I’m quite fond of: replicating Travis Scott’s April Fortnite performance but with a gigantic hologram of Joe Biden. “Stefan Smith, who did digital work for Pete Buttigieg, cited the other day how Travis Scott’s takeover of Fortnite… that was a really creative way to think about it,” Lis Smith said Monday. “If we could do that with Joe Biden — Joe Biden...