Last month Amazon started allowing its Alexa voice assistant to control smart home thermostats. Now, Amazon's virtual assistant will be compatible with two major brands: Honeywell and Google-owned Nest. Both companies' Wi-Fi-connected thermostats, which are usually controlled by … | Continue reading
Amazon's newest hardware product might look like a compressed version of the tall Echo speaker, but its place in your home will likely be very different. Today the company unveiled Echo Dot, which is basically an Echo without the big speaker housing. Instead, you either plug the … | Continue reading
Let's be honest, the Geneva Motor Show is a beauty contest above all else. None of the cars here move, very few are ever allowed to even make a sound, and the majority of press coverage is built around their appearance. This is why every new car here has to look new, and it's als … | Continue reading
This week I've been kicking the tires of the finest, most exclusive, and most exotic cars at the Geneva Motor Show, and I've spotted two emerging trends: cheap oil is bringing huge gas guzzlers back into fashion, and Google's Android Auto is falling behind Apple's CarPlay. Androi … | Continue reading
Amazon and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are making a film about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. The film, titled K Troop, is still in the early phases of development, but Amazon has secured the rights to the movie and Gordon-Levitt will produce it, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Gord … | Continue reading
Google today announced new initiatives aimed at curbing the spread of the Zika virus in Brazil and Latin America with enhanced mapping data and more detailed online information about the mosquito-borne virus.In a blog post published today, the search giant announced that it has p … | Continue reading
Multiple short bursts of radio waves have been found coming from a single location far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy, Cornell astronomers have discovered. It's the first time researchers have found these enigmatic "fast radio bursts" to repeat, indicating that the waves are coming … | Continue reading
While humans and squirrels alike are known for their skills on water skis, the record time for fastest ski was set by a beetle.That’s right, as it turns out, waterlily beetles can "water ski," too — on their claws. A team of scientists led by Manu Prakash, a professor and researc … | Continue reading
Since last year, Hyundai has been trickling out news about the Ioniq — the hybrid it hopes can dethrone the Toyota Prius.Now we've seen it in person at the Geneva Motor Show. The car is unique in the industry because it uses three different powertrains on one platform: hybrid, pl … | Continue reading
Sony is dropping the price on all three packages of its PlayStation Vue streaming TV service by $10, the company announced today. It's also adding ESPN, Disney, and ABC channels after a content deal was first announced back in November. With the new price drops, which will impact … | Continue reading
Last week, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) confirmed that it's planning to introduce semi-closed cockpits in Formula One starting in 2017. But today, in a new issue of Auto (the federation's trade publication), the FIA finally showed off a real-world version o … | Continue reading
The €2.4 million Bugatti Chiron will make money for Bugatti, and thus, parent company Volkswagen, according to Bugatti President Wolfgang Dürheimer during an interview with The Verge at the Geneva Motor Show today."We did our homework in every dimension," says Dürheimer. "This ca … | Continue reading
Over the last year and a half a number of prominent voices in the Bitcoin community have been warning that the system needed to make fundamental changes to its core software code to avoid being overwhelmed by the continued growth of Bitcoin transactions. There was strong disagree … | Continue reading
Verizon is forming a joint venture with Hearst to develop content for millennials to watch on their smartphones, according to The New York Times. The newly formed Verizon Hearst Media Partners will launch RatedRed.com, a channel for "millennials from the heartland" that will offe … | Continue reading
Voice calls are coming to Slack, and they begin rolling out in beta today. Testing will start in Slack's desktop apps and in Chrome. Someone with administrative privileges has to enable them, but once they're turned on, a phone icon should appear throughout the app, allowing anyo … | Continue reading
The Wintergartan Marble Machine, built by Swedish musician Martin Molin, is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Comprising 3,000 wooden pieces, and using 2,000 marbles, the elaborate music-box looks like a loom met a cotton gin and the two started making beautiful music togeth … | Continue reading
Of all the virtual reality headsets out there, the HTC Vive feels most like what science fiction visionaries promised us in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Yes, every single product evokes the same set of comparisons: jacking into the Matrix, hanging out on the Holodeck. These are always wron … | Continue reading
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly gave his first post-flight interviews in Kazakhstan today, after wrapping up a 340-day stay on the International Space Station. Kelly has only been back on Earth for a little over 12 hours now, but the former ISS commander briefly discussed what it's li … | Continue reading
Google today released an experimental payments app called Hands Free, a service that lets you pay for items in stores without taking your phone out. The iOS and Android app relies on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and location services to determine when you're nearby a participating retailer … | Continue reading
Uber announced today that it was expanding its carpool service to the East Bay cities of Oakland, Berkeley, and Alameda, in a bid to appeal to residents who want to use the ride-hail service to commute to work in San Francisco. UberPool, in which riders pay a cheaper fare to shar … | Continue reading
Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt will chair a new advisory board for the Department of Defense, according to a statement from the department released today. The Defense Innovation Advisory Board will comprise up to 12 people from the private sector, meant to use their exp … | Continue reading
Washington's Museum of Flight has been restoring the very first Boeing 727 for years, a tri-jet airliner that hasn't flown in a quarter century. The aircraft, tail number N7001U, is making its very last flight today — a "ferry" flight, where the plane was made just airworthy enou … | Continue reading
Republicans have been nipping at Tom Wheeler's heels since he won the net neutrality fight, but he's not worried. Speaking to The Verge, Wheeler shrugged off the idea that he received "some kind of secret instructions" from President Obama. "[That idea] been around for more than … | Continue reading
In the afterglow of Super Tuesday, one question is on the lips of wonks and commentators across the nation: Did we just witness Chris Christie's soul pry open the governor's lips and escape, discarding his flesh like a human locust shell? And if so, is Chris Christie's soul, at t … | Continue reading
YouTube is launching a global production program and partnering with the United Nations in an effort to highlight and support women's voices across the platform. The video networks will invest in videos created by female filmmakers through the global YouTube Spaces program, which … | Continue reading
The blood-red Italian sports car in front, the super expensive one that goes really fast, is a Lamborghini. In spite of being Ferrari's signature color, red is also a standard option from Lamborghini, the other Italian super sports car manufacturer with a glorious history and a p … | Continue reading
The use of electronic cigarettes on commercial airplanes is now banned under a new rule finalized by the US Department of Transportation, which applies to all domestic and foreign carriers with flights scheduled to and from the US. The ban applies to all e-cigarettes, including e … | Continue reading
Apple is testing a small change to iOS that'll remind people with a company phone that their company may be watching. On Reddit, user MaGNeTiX posted screenshots of a new message that showed up on their iPhone after updating to the latest iOS 9.3 beta. On the lock screen, a perma … | Continue reading
Researchers have found a new way to hijack some police drones, as first reported by Wired. The attack was developed by IBM researcher Nils Rodday, who will present his findings at the RSA conference this week. By exploiting vulnerabilities in a drone's telemetry system, Rodday wa … | Continue reading
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will each give keynote addresses at this year's SXSW, festival organizers have just announced. The yearly festival, which features live music, film screenings, and hosts the tech industry, begins next week in Austin, Texas.Pres … | Continue reading
The Department of Defense is inviting hackers to look for vulnerabilites in its network, analyze the security of its public-facing webpages, and attempt to break into its systems. The program, "Hack the Pentagon," is the federal government’s first bug bounty program and will be m … | Continue reading
Here's a tip if you want to listen to Kanye's The Life of Pablo but your free trial on Tidal has expired: Go to Pornhub. The album is streaming there (click with caution, unless you're in a relaxed environment). The stream has apparently been up for around five days already, but … | Continue reading
This morning Spotify rolled out another way for users to discover new music. It's called Fresh Finds, and it's the official launch of a feature that has actually been on the platform since last year, but wasn't heavily promoted or prominently featured until today.Fresh finds is a … | Continue reading
Hello! My name is Dieter Bohn and I have problems. My main problem is that I look around at my fellow humans and see them dealing with little problems that shouldn't be problems. I see tangled cables, messy computer interfaces, and wildly confusing living room TV setups. For what … | Continue reading
The Mazda Miata is an awesome little sports car. Perhaps the only way to make it better is to send it off to the espresso-filled engineers at Abarth to juice all the go-faster bits.The result is the Abarth 124 Spider, a 170-horsepower, rear-wheel drive drop-top that should delive … | Continue reading
The Maserati Quattroporte is a large sports saloon that can accommodate and transport four people in sumptuous luxury. To do that, it needs a big and powerful V8 engine. You know what doesn't need a 4.7-liter V8? A motorcycle. But for Ludovic Lazareth, designer of the Lazareth LM … | Continue reading
The first trailer for Nina, a biopic largely centered around Nina Simone's relationship with her former nurse-turned-manager Clifton Henderson, is finally here. The movie, which was directed by Cynthia Mort, will star Zoe Saldana as Simone. David Oyelowo (Selma) will play Henders … | Continue reading
As last year began, the app developer Pixite held its company retreat at a converted Old West movie set outside of Palm Springs. They spent a few days dreaming about the future while eating barbecue and sipping whisky in the sun. But 2015 was not a good year, and by last month th … | Continue reading
The return of Mass Effect will have to wait a bit longer. While the next game in the space opera RPG series, Mass Effect: Andromeda, was originally scheduled to launch some time during the holiday 2016 window, according to EA CFO Blake Jorgensen it won't be coming until next year … | Continue reading
You might remember that Forza Motorsport 6 was announced at a car show — NAIAS in Detroit last January — and now, Microsoft's Turn 10 Studios is doing it again: it just announced that there's a new Forza game in the works, and the hyper-limited Lamborghini Centenario, announced i … | Continue reading
Brazil is set to release Facebook's vice president for Latin America from police detention, following a court order calling his arrest "unlawful coercion," according to AFP. Facebook executive Diego Dzodan was arrested in Brazil yesterday after the company failed, for about two m … | Continue reading
Ellen DeGeneres is unveiling a new trailer for Finding Dory on her show this morning, and it's the most substantive look yet at Disney and Pixar's long-awaited aquatic sequel. (The movie's first trailer was released back in November.) The follow-up to 2003's beloved Finding Nemo … | Continue reading
The Bentley Mulsanne is perhaps the most elegant way to be chauffeured around, insulated from the hoi polloi. There's plenty of legroom, massaging seats, and curtains to close out the world and get some privacy, or perhaps just a nap on your way to an important business meeting.B … | Continue reading
Despite getting largely negative reviews in the days since its premiere, Netflix's Fuller House has just been renewed for a second season. That means the whole gang will be back for another go at some point next year.Netflix made the announcement on Twitter this morning:Your list … | Continue reading
Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Re/code by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Re/code.Apple has drawn a line in the sand over keeping its customers’ iPhones encrypted and … | Continue reading
Samsung's mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, has 5 million registered and processed $500 million in transactions since its launch in August 2015. Considering Samsung Pay is available on every flagship Galaxy device in both the US and South Korea, that's not a particularly impr … | Continue reading
Early on in Terrence Malick’s new film Knight of Cups, Rick — a self-indulgent screenwriter with a failed marriage behind him who soothes his existential ails with a parade of random models, actresses, and high-fiving Hollywood buddies — is shaken from sleep by a massive earthqua … | Continue reading
Activision has just launched a new feature for Call of Duty: Black Ops III called the "live event viewer," which allows players to tune into e-sports matches from directly within the game. Those matches, naturally, will be from the newly launched Call of Duty World League, with w … | Continue reading