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Apple's music exec connections may extend beyond the likes of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre . Variety sources have claimed that Sony Music chairman Doug Morris is leaving the publisher at the end of March to help run a new label, 12 Tone, that will have a "partnership" with Apple. What this involves isn't clear, but former Def Jam chief Steve Bartels would join the team. We've asked Apple if it can comment. As Variety noted, this would represent a reunion of sorts for Morris and Iovine. They technically worked together (if not closely) at Universal Music Group, where Morris was chairman and Iovine ran the Interscope label. That probably wasn't an influencing factor, but the two execs will certainly be familiar with each other. There is a chance this could involve exclusive music -- Apple is fond of exclusives , after all. Whatever it entails, Morris' involvement could represent a major victory. Morris is one of the music industry's biggest business...

Chrome on Chromebooks and Windows-2-in-1 devices is on its way to becoming more like its sibling on mobile. As lucasban has posted on Reddit, the pull-to-refresh gesture is now available on the browser's developer channel for those platforms. While the feature might not make that much of a difference as it does on mobile -- Chrome for those devices has a pretty accessible refresh button -- the iOS/Android version's touch control will still make a great addition for the touchscreen laptop-tablet hybrids. As we mentioned, though, the feature has only made its way as far as the developer channel. If you do have access to it for Chrome OS and Windows, you'll still have to activate the gesture via the hidden flag chrome://flags/#pull-to-refresh. Based on previous reports, Google's Chrome team has been working on bringing the gesture to Chromebooks since at least mid-2017. Hopefully, it won't take them too long to release the feature to the public. Pull-to-Refresh...

The surging price of bitcoin (among others) in 2017 led more than a few companies to hop on the cryptocurrency bandwagon with hopes of striking it rich almost overnight. Many of their initial coin offerings seemed dodgy from the outset... and it turns out they were. Bitcoin.com has conducted a study of ICOs tracked by Tokendata, and a whopping 46 percent of the 902 crowdsale-based virtual currencies have already failed. Of these, 142 never got enough funding; another 276 have either slowly faded away or were out and out scams . The number of casualties might be higher in practice. Another 113 ICOs have either stopped talking on social networks (a good sign interest has died) or have so few adopters that success is very unlikely. And the survivors aren't necessarily doing much better. Only a "handful" raised over $10 million, which left an uphill battle for the rest. It doesn't take much divination to understand why many of these virtual coins fell flat. Excludi...

Automakers testing their self-driving cars on California roads might be able to go fully autonomous as soon as April, according to the state's DMV. Instead of putting someone behind the wheel to take over in certain circumstances, such as when the self-driving system isn't working as well as it should, the companies will be required to link their cars to remote operators. Those remote drivers' job is to keep an eye on multiple cars and to take over their controls if and when needed. The automakers are allowed to hire third-party companies to handle remote operation. Some of them, though, including Waymo and Nissan, have already developed their own remote-driving technologies -- Nissan even built a monitoring center for its driverless taxi's tests, which will begin in March and take place in Tokyo. Even if they pass on developing their own remote-driving technology, the companies will still have to comply with quite a lengthy list of requirements to be able to ge...

After reports and studies revealed that browsers' private modes aren't that secure , MIT graduate student Frank Wang decided to take things into his own hands. He and his team from MIT CSAIL and Harvard have created a tool called Veil, which you could use on a public computer -- or on a private one on top of using incognito mode and Tor if you have big secrets to keep or if you've just become paranoid after years of hearing about hacks and cyberattacks. Wang said in a statement: "Veil was motivated by all this research that was done previously in the security community that said, 'Private-browsing modes are leaky -- Here are 10 different ways that they leak. We asked, 'What is the fundamental problem?' And the fundamental problem is that [the browser] collects this information, and then the browser does its best effort to fix it. But at the end of the day, no matter what the browser's best effort is, it still collects it. We might as well not co...

Apple Pay Cash may not be limited to Americans for much longer. Users in Brazil , Ireland and Spain have all reported seeing the peer-to-peer payment service show up in iOS' Messages app, suggesting that launches in their countries (and potentially more) are just around the bend. Apple hasn't officially announced anything yet, but it's hard to imagine the company asking people to configure the feature and letting it sit unused for more than a short while. Despite the apparently imminent expansion, it's doubtful that Apple Pay Cash will allow money transfers between countries. As 9to5Mac observed , competing services typically limit you to paying others on your home turf -- the stiff fees alone would discourage across-the-border payments. An international rollout could be crucial to generating some momentum for Apple's fledgling offering. Rivals like Venmo might be US-only, but others have a broader reach -- Skype's PayPal-based Send Money feature is av...

Why Apple is the world's most innovative company Robert Safian, Fast Company Apple may be one of the biggest companies in the world, but it still doesn't open up often about how it operates. A few times a year though, we catch a glimpse . Fast Company caught up with CEO Tim Cook back in January to chat Apple's recent run of new gear in an interview that published this week. Celebrating the Game Boy Camera, one of Nintendo's weirdest, most ingenious inventions Matt Gerardi, AV Club Following the success of Switch, AV Club takes a look back at one of Nintendo's weirdest projects . The tragedy of Erik Killmonger Adam Serwer, The Atlantic There have been a number of great reads on Black Panther already, but this piece examines the narrative through the lens of the antagonist. The workplace that Susan Fowler wrought Alyssa Bereznak, The Ringer A former Uber employee penned a memo about sexual harassment a year ago . So... where are we now?...

The support shared between readers in the comments section is one of the things we love most about the Engadget community . Over the years, we've known you to offer sage advice on everything from Chromecasts and cameras to drones and smartphones. In fact, our community's knowledge and insights are a reason why many of you participate in the comments. We truly value the time and detail you all spend in responding to questions from your fellow tech-obsessed commenters, which is why we've decided to bring back the much-missed "Ask Engadget" column. This week's question comes from a reader who is interested in a 4K monitor purchase but unsure of where to start. Weigh in with your advice in the comments -- and feel free to send your own questions along to ask@engadget.com! I'm considering buying a budget (sub-$500) 4K monitor for desk work. I am not concerned about color quality, refresh rate or any flashy gaming features. I just want a 4K monitor betwe...

Spring season is right around the corner, and that means it's time for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world's biggest phone show . This year, you can expect to be introduced to Samsung's next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S9 , as well as a slew of other handsets from big-name companies like BlackBerry and Nokia. Yes, you know you love BlackBerry and Nokia . Of course, we'll likely also come across a bunch of other tech products, such as wearables and others things that could be revealed at the show -- Facebook has a press conference, for instance. We're on the ground for the next week, which means you need to keep your eyes peeled to the site so you won't miss a thing from MWC 2018. Catch up on the latest news from MWC 2018 right here . via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2HKOfsu"

Last year's gaming controversy has turned into this year's legislative battleground. Fans were outraged when Star Wars: Battlefront II launched with buyable loot boxes that unbalanced multiplayer combat, and other games like Need For Speed: Payback and Destiny 2 had their own pay-to-win controversies. Eventually, loot boxes unsettled enough constituents to rile their representatives. Legislators in Hawaii, Washington and Illinois have introduced bills to either study loot boxes or restrict access to young players, but how effective will they be? What else can lawmakers do? Hawaii state Rep. Chris Lee, a gamer himself (he favors the Battlefield series and Rockstar Games' oeuvre), believes there's plenty to do. The Democrat introduced four bills last month: Two (one introduced to state House and one to the Senate) would restrict loot boxes in Hawaii to those older than 21, while another pair would force companies to disclose the odds of winning potential game ite...

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Welcome to the weekend. We're hours away from Samsung's big Galaxy S9 event, so catch up on this week's news and get ready for the liveblog starting at noon ET on Sunday. Rumors, leaks and hopefully no lies. Samsung Galaxy S9: What to expect from Unpacked 2018 Samsung is primed to unveil its latest flagship. Fortunately for anyone desperate to hear what's coming on February 25th, there's been no shortage of leaks and renders before the big day. Take a look at everything we know going into tomorrow's big reveal. And now Google Lens can spot different dog breeds. Android's official augmented reality toolkit is available to the public Google just released ARCore 1.0, letting anyone publish Android apps that take advantage of the toolkit to meld virtual objects with the real world. The 13 devices that support ARCore right now are common devices like Google's Pixel phones, Samsung's Galaxy S7/S8/Note 8 lin...

There was a short-lived hysteria Friday when it seemed like Google would grant a longstanding request to add built-in "dark mode" theming on stock Android, similar to the tweak OnePlus adds. Unfortunately, the team updated its tracker to explain that there was a misunderstanding, and it's not coming . For users who prefer custom themes they'll still need to root and add third-party tools to do it, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening. As a post in the thread explains, what the Android team will change in its "P" release is a new toggle that makes it easier for developers to test a night mode ( Twitter has one) in their apps. The function was already there, but now it's easier to access in Settings, so more apps may take advantage and save a little eye strain or potentially even energy on OLED-screened phones. Hi folks, you may remember me from the last three releases where it looked like Dark Mode was being added. Unfortunately, this bu...