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We’ve known for a long time that dark mode / night mode apps can prolong battery life on smartphones with OLED screens. It’s true on Android, and it’s true with the iPhone. This is because the individual pixels have to do less work on dark areas of the screen, and …
Read More »Harley-Davidson debuts its first electric motorcycle, coming 2019
After toying with the idea for the better part of four years, Harley-Davidson this week showed off its first electric motorcycle at the Milan Motorcycle Show. The electric bike drops in 2019, but the company is holding back on to all the important specs about speed, range, and charging for …
Read More »Faraday Future says its main investor is ‘deliberately starving’ it into bankruptcy
California EV startup Faraday Future is arguing there’s hope of moving forward without its main financial backer, Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande, according to a new court filing in California. The clock is ticking, though, because Faraday Future is in fact on the brink of insolvency, just as co-founder Nick …
Read More »Sling TV growth slows dramatically amid HBO standoff and greater competition
The cheapest of the major internet TV streaming services, Sling TV isn’t drawing new subscribers quite like it used to. Yesterday, parent company Dish said Sling TV picked up only 26,000 new subscribers in the third quarter of 2018 and acknowledged that the service had drawn “fewer” customers compared to …
Read More »Disney announces a second live-action Star Wars show
Disney announced today that it is developing a second live-action Star Wars show for its upcoming, newly named streaming video platform, Disney+, with actor Diego Luna reprising the role of Rebel Alliance spy Cassian Andor. Andor was a pivotal character in the 2016 standalone Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. …
Read More »Amazon told employees it would continue to sell facial recognition software to law enforcement
Amazon has come under fire of late for the licensing of its controversial Rekognition system, a powerful piece of facial recognition software, to government and law enforcement agencies, with the most recent development involving revelations that Amazon met with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the summer to strike …
Read More »The White House used a doctored video to tell a lie
Yesterday, in Donald Trump’s first press conference following the midterm elections that swept a number of Democrats into Congress Tuesday night, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta had a contentious interaction with the president. Those few seconds have, in the intervening 24 hours, launched a nationwide conversation about doctored video. “They’re hundreds …
Read More »Disney’s long-awaited streaming service will be called Disney+
Disney has announced the name for its upcoming streaming service: Disney+, scheduled to launch in the US in “late 2019.” Along with the new branding, the company has also announced two more major shows that will be hitting the service. A second Star Wars spin-off will see Diego Luna reprise …
Read More »Walt Mossberg reacts to the new MacBook Air on The Vergecast
Another review week! Hosts of The Vergecast Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn reviewed Apple’s new iPad Pro and MacBook Air, and discuss their take on this week’s show. In addition, we call up our friend and former Verge executive editor Walt Mossberg — who has been a big proponent of …
Read More »HTC’s China-exclusive Vive Focus VR headset is now launching worldwide
HTC will start selling its standalone Vive Focus virtual reality headset worldwide today, after an initial launch in China earlier this year. The headset, which will cost $599 in the US, is aimed at business customers in 37 countries. It’s part of a larger attempt to make HTC VR headsets …
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