Technology

Lyft is making face masks mandatory for drivers and passengers, the company announced Thursday. Using the app, drivers and passengers will be required to confirm that they are wearing a mask and are symptom-free. Those who don’t agree to the new policy will be barred from the platform. The news comes as Lyft is beginning to dig itself out of a financial hole brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak. The company said its ride-hailing business plummeted 75 percent by mid-April but has been slowing increasing since then. Lyft also laid off 17 percent of its workforce, or around 1,000 people. The news comes as Lyft is beginning to dig itself out of a financial hole brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak Uber is said to be close to revealing its own face mask requirement in the coming weeks, which CNN ...

Netflix is trying to become a dominant presence in the anime streaming space, but AT&T-owned WarnerMedia is leveraging its dedicated anime streaming service Crunchyroll to help sway subscribers over to HBO Max. HBO Max subscribers will be able to stream 17 different anime series currently available on Crunchyroll, including Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-(Director’s Cut), and Keep Your Hands off Eizouken. Crunchyroll will curate new anime content for HBO Max subscribers every three months, according to WarnerMedia, with popular series Hunter x Hunter and Death Note coming to HBO Max later this year. Some titles, like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, also stream on Netflix. While HBO Max won’t be the exclusive home — shows will run on both HBO...

Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2019, its biggest loss in three quarters. The company also reported $3.54 billion in revenue. Gross bookings in its ride-hailing business fell 3 percent, while bookings in its Uber Eats division were up more than 54 percent year over year, thanks to increased demand for food deliveries. Uber’s ride-hailing business has plummeted a result of widespread shutdown orders due to the pandemic. The company announced this week that it would lay off 3,700 full-time employees, or about 14 percent of its workforce. Another 400-plus employees from Uber’s Jump bike and scooter division will also be laid off as part of an investment deal with Lime, The Information reports. In a call with investors in March, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company’s gros...

Nine Democratic senators are calling on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to provide information on the firing of workers who called for greater protections from COVID-19. In a letter, the senators cite four workers who were fired after raising concerns about safety conditions at the company’s warehouses. Amazon has disputed that the firings were retaliatory, citing other policy violations. “Given the clear public history of these four workers’ advocacy on behalf of health and safety conditions for workers in Amazon warehouses preceding their terminations, and Amazon’s vague public statements regarding violations of ‘internal policies,’ we are seeking additional information to understand exactly what those internal policies are,” the senators wrote. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT)...

Nikon has made its entire curriculum of online photography classes free until the end of May. The classes were originally made free throughout April, but Nikon has now extended access for another month. All 10 classes available at the Nikon School can be streamed for free. The classes are normally priced anywhere between $15 and $50 each. Each class is taught by a professional photographer and provides in-depth lessons to help you get better at taking photos. Some courses cover Nikon-specific products, but many of them teach the fundamentals of photography, such as a course that teaches you how to photograph your children or pets or the basics of making a music video. So even if you don’t own a Nikon camera, many of these classes might still be worth a watch. If you’re interested in stream...

In October of last year, Google hired Javier Soltero to be the VP and GM of G Suite, its set of office apps and — importantly for today’s news — Google Meet and Google Chat. Now, the company is putting him in charge of yet another set of products: Messages, Duo, and the phone app on Android. The move puts all of Google’s major communication products under one umbrella: Soltero’s team. Soltero tells me that there are no immediate plans to change or integrate any of Google’s apps, so don’t get your hopes up for that (yet). “We believe people make choices around the products that they use for specific purposes,” Soltero says. Still, Google’s communications apps are in dire need of a more coherent and opinionated production development, and Soltero could very well be the right person to provid...

EA’s upcoming Madden NFL 21 is coming to the Xbox Series X, and owners of the game for the current-gen Xbox One will be able to upgrade to the Series X version for free, the company announced today at Microsoft’s gameplay reveal showcase. But there’s a catch: instead of using Microsoft’s Smart Delivery program to offer the free upgrade, EA will be running its own — far more limited — upgrade offer. At its core, EA’s deal has the same goal as Microsoft’s Smart Delivery program: to make sure that players don’t have to buy two copies of a game for the two separate consoles. But EA is adding a host of extra restrictions for its offer. Players must purchase Madden NFL 21 on Xbox One by December 31st, 2020 to be eligible to get a Series X upgrade, and they’ll only have until March 31st, 2021 to ...

Microsoft is detailing the first games that will support the company’s upcoming Smart Delivery program for cross-generation games between the Xbox Series X and Xbox One. Smart Delivery is Microsoft’s free upgrade program for the Xbox Series X that lets you buy an Xbox One version of a game and get the Xbox Series X version free of charge. It also means you can buy an Xbox Series X game with Smart Delivery and get the Xbox One version, too. It’s designed to prevent situations where you buy the latest and greatest game on Xbox One in the coming months and then have to repurchase it again for the Xbox Series X. Not every studio is going to participate in Smart Delivery, but it’s starting to look like a large majority will. Microsoft has detailed 13 new titles coming to the Xbox Series X today...

Microsoft is detailing the first games that will be optimized for its next-gen Xbox Series X console today. All of the games included in Microsoft’s Xbox 20/20 show will sport a new Xbox Series X Optimized badge, which signals that a game has been improved and optimized for the new console. Optimizations include 4K support at up to 120fps, DirectStorage support, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and faster load times. Effectively, when you see the Optimized badge, you know that a developer has done some work to ensure existing or new games work better on an Xbox Series X. You can read more about the Xbox Series X Optimized details here. Microsoft showcased 13 new games coming to Xbox Series X, including titles from Ubisoft, Deep Silver, and Bloober Team. All 13 games will sport the new Xbo...

Alamo Drafthouse wants to bring the feeling of independent movie rental stores to people in their homes, launching a video-on-demand service completely curated by Alamo Drafthouse employees. Alamo on Demand will include a library of films available to both rent and purchase, with titles selected and curated by the company’s programming team. The goal is to “champion innovative and exciting films” beyond the 41 locations its theaters exist in around the country. The theater chain partnered with Vista Cinema, a cinema management software company, to launch the service. Alamo Drafthouse is also partnering with studios like Sony Pictures Classics in the coming weeks to bring more films to the service on a consistent basis, and it’s “in discussions with all the other major studios,” according t...

Pittsburgh International Airport has put UVC fixtures on its floor-cleaning robots, making it the first airport in the US to test the use of the ultraviolet rays to scrub the coronavirus from surfaces. If effective, the UV-cleaning robots could be a model for other airports as they plan to reopen and try to persuade people to travel again. Allegheny County Airport CEO Christina Cassotis said the partnership with Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Robotics highlights how the burgeoning robotics sector in Pittsburgh works alongside the community to solve big-picture problems. “We have a whole innovation culture that is looking for ways to do things better, especially in the pandemic,” Cassotis said. “And one of the things that we recognized immediately is that while we have to manage the crisis day t...