Elon Musk’s private space company is hoping for a better performance of the giant rocket, which is the most powerful ever to fly.

Sony’s next “PSP,” the PlayStation Portal, is one odd little device. It can only stream games from your PlayStation 5 – beyond that, it’s a $200 doorstop. In this episode, Cherlynn and Devindra chat with CNET’s Scott Stein about the Portal and the many ways it baffles us. While it does manage to stream games from the PS5 just fine, it’s also expensive, clunky and lacks basic features like Bluetooth audio support. It’s really only meant for the most diehard PS5 owners (and even they should probably wait for a sale).Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you'...

Apple has announced it will begin supporting the RCS messaging standard at some point next year. RCS, or Rich Communication Services, was developed by the mobile industry as an upgrade on SMS and MMS. But Apple has been resistant to adopt it both because it prefers its home-grown iMessage platform, and because it’s not secure by default. It doesn’t help that Google has used RCS as a cudgel in its own text-message–bubble-color culture war with the iPhone maker.In a statement, presumably typed through gritted teeth, Apple said RCS would offer better interoperability compared to SMS and MMS...

In May 2022, just months before Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hit the platform with a $150 million fine and consent decree that imposed stipulations for safeguarding users' personal data. The ruling was imposed after the FTC found that Twitter had violated a previous consent decree by inappropriately sharing user phone numbers and email addresses with advertisers.After acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk went to court in an attempt to overturn that consent decree, arguing that the FTC had increased scrutiny on X and pressured a third-party assessor to find...

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The LinkedIn-like job search tool that X has been experimenting with is now live. A beta version of the feature launched in August to verified users, but the web version of the tool is now open to everyone on X, with iOS and Android availability expected “soon,” according to the company.The job search feature appears to already be populated with open positions at numerous tech companies, including those run by Elon Musk. There are currently roles listed for SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink, as well as X and Musk’s newest venture, x.ai.While Musk previously promised “we will make sure that...

IBM is pulling back from X after its ads were placed alongside pro-Nazi content on the platform. The company says it has suspended all ads from the network after nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters reported that it found ads for IBM and several other tech giants next to pro-Nazi memes and other posts promoting Hitler.“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation,” the company said in a statement. Comcast, whose ads were also highlighted by Media Matters, told the...

In less than twenty-four hours, SpaceX will attempt to launch Starship to space for the second time. The official launch window opens at 7:00 AM CST on Saturday and lasts for just twenty minutes – and no, that’s not a typo. SpaceX will start its live webcast tomorrow around 35 minutes prior to liftoff and […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Image: Apple Monarch co-creators Chris Black and Matt Fraction and director Matt Shakman open up about why their new MonsterVerse series is so focused on ordinary humans. Continue reading…

The Lofree Flow is a low-profile keyboard that types and sounds like a full-height one. Continue reading…

Wattpad announced today “Premium Picks,” a new offering that gives Premium and Premium+ subscribers monthly access to five free Wattpad Originals—the recently launched freemium model where select authors can choose to monetize chapters. Instead of paying to unlock content, members are now given five Wattpad Originals each month at no additional cost. The selection is […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Illustration: The Verge The social network failed to hit the growth targets its new owner set in 2019. But were they ever compatible with what Tumblr does best? Continue reading…

Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge Tires are the most important safety component on a car, yet there’s increasing research that they’re doing a good deal of harm, too. Slowly, surely, one mote of black dust at a time, tires are leaving their mark on the environment. According to researchers at Imperial College London, our cars and trucks emit 6 million tons of tire wear particles every year, transportation detritus that goes into the air, the land, and the water. That’s a massive figure that ignores the nearly 250 million tires that are disposed of annually in North America...

This morning at Scaleway’s ai-PULSE conference, French billionaire and Iliad CEO Xavier Niel gave some extra details about his plans for an AI research lab based in Paris. This new lab called Kyutai will be a privately-funded nonprofit working on artificial general intelligence. It will work with PhD students, postdocs and researchers on research papers […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Ehsan Vaghefi, CEO and co-founder of Toku, grew up with a blind father who lost eyesight at the age of four due to congenital glaucoma. As a result of this, his dad was involved with the Blind Foundation in his home country of Iran. Vaghefi says most of his childhood friends were either blind or […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

After taking over Twitter last year, Elon Musk famously yanked API access from third-party apps and changed API pricing tiers to make it difficult for researchers to access and study the platform’s data. Now the company he’s since renamed X has backtracked in the European Union where legal obligations in the bloc’s Digital Services Act […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

What price privacy? End-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging app Signal has put out an interesting overview of the costs required to develop and maintain its pro-privacy systems which shield user data from tracking by default. The blog post, penned by Signal president Meredith Whittaker and developer Joshua Lund, reveals it’s currently spends around $14 million per […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Pricepally, a Nigerian online grocery store for fresh produce and packaged food, has raised $1.3 million seed funding, backed by Samurai Incubate; a Japanese VC that also participated in the startup’s 2021 pre-seed round, SOSV, ELEA, Hi2 Global, Chui Ventures and ex-Unilever executive David Mureithi. Following the new funding, the startup joins a handful of […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Instafest, the app which went viral last year before Spotify Wrapped was officially unveiled, now lets you create a music festival poster based on artists that you have in a particular playlist. The app’s developer,  Anshay Saboo, has added more themes and customization options as well. Users can create a music festival poster through a […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A traditional button in place of a cutout. | Image: Bellroy Two months after some case makers were wrong-footed by Apple’s decision to replace the mute switch with an Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, Bellroy has released an updated range of cases. Unlike the first run, which had a cutout over the Action Button that could make it hard to reach in and press, the new designs have a more standard integrated button.“The new design includes another button on the case to give the same functionality and experience as the actual device. It’s a lot more natural and seamless,” says...

India’s central bank has enforced several measures to cool down high growth in consumer credit in a move that will impact consumer spending and many startups in the South Asian market, industry executives said. The Reserve Bank of India raised risk weights on unsecured personal loans, credit card, consumer durable loans by banks and non-banking financial companies […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Image: Valve Valve’s new Steam Deck OLED just went on sale today, but there are goodies for the original LCD model, too — the company is now rolling out a stable build of SteamOS 3.5.5 with a hefty list of fixes and upgrades. Some of the biggest are ones we’ve already seen in a September beta, like support for VRR and HDR external displays, the ability to tweak your screen’s color and undervolt your processor with new firmware, and a graphics driver update with a big performance improvement for Starfield (though it still looks like mud in cities). But there’s one thing on the list I...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has adjusted its ad-friendly content guidelines to allow breastfeeding videos with nudity — but only in cases when a child is present — as well as videos with twerking, grinding, and other “sensual” types of dancing. The platform updated its guidelines on Thursday with the changes, which will carry over to gaming videos as well.Previously, breastfeeding videos on YouTube that showed a visible areola were not eligible to earn ad revenue. Similarly, choreography videos that showed twerking, grinding, or in which the dancer wore minimal...

BrightDrop, the commercial EV subsidiary of General Motors that launched in 2021, is being swallowed up by its parent company. GM said Thursday that BrightDrop — a “startup” that spun out of the automaker’s Global Innovation organization to become a wholly owned subsidiary — will become part of GM. BrightDrop CEO Travis Katz, who was […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Microsoft’s Ignite 2023 event came with a lot of updates, and AI product reveals and expansions were front and center as the company laid out its updated vision for IT professionals. As our own Devin Coldewey wrote in October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made it clear that the company is all-in on AI, and […]© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.