Geek News

Motorola’s popular and inexpensive G series of phones is due for an update, and rumors increasingly point toward some new models arriving very soon. The latest leaks suggest the forthcoming Moto G6 could be released next month alongside two additional versions: a G6 Play and a G6 Plus. Pages on Fry’s website, which have since been pulled, indicated the phones would be released in the middle of the May. They’ll likely be announced sometime before that. The Moto G6 is expected to sit in the middle of the pack. It’ll have a 5.7-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, a resolution slightly above 1080p, 32GB of storage, a fingerprint reader on the front, and a dual-camera system on the back. According to AndroidHeadlines , it’ll run on a... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GyOPsp"

The Weeknd’s latest project, My Dear Melancholy, pulled in over 26 million streams in its first 24 hours on Apple Music, with the lead song “Call Out My Name” pulling in 6 million of those streams, the company tells The Verge . That in itself isn’t a record, but Apple Music’s numbers did beat out the single’s performance on Spotify, which pulled in nearly 3.5 million streams in the same period — the largest debut of 2018 on the service — according to Republic Records. To be clear: Spotify has over 120 million more users, had two exclusive music videos from the EP, and it was where The Weeknd pointed his fans to stream the album on social media. And this isn’t an anomaly either: this is the third time Apple Music has outperformed Spotify... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H6XnI1"

Amazon Music has tens of millions of active subscribers, the company tells The Verge . While analysts have often pointed to research that indicates it’s the third-largest company for on-demand streaming music (behind Spotify and Apple Music), Amazon has remained mum on confirming numbers . Amazon has two tiers of music subscription: Prime Music (free for Prime subscribers) and Music Unlimited , which has monthly fees ranging from $3.99 to $14.99 depending on the number of devices, users, and if you’re already an Amazon Prime member. While Prime Music offers around 2 million songs ad-free, Music Unlimited provides more songs, greater control, and it’s cheaper than competitors’ $9.99 monthly fee for a single account. Amazon launched Music... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2uI1ibL"

Animals Introducing the lazy way to make your yard into a pollinator haven. Around the world, bee populations have plummeted because of habitat loss and pesticide use. But green spaces within cities and towns can give bees a much-needed refuge. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2q0iOmC"

Google is introducing an updated Access Checker, a feature which lets you easily share a Drive file with someone, whether it’s two colleagues or a team of 30. The feature alerts you when you send an email, calendar invite, or another type of note that includes a Drive file, and will ask you if you want to change permission settings if the recipient doesn’t yet have access. When you’re emailing the file to various recipients, Access Checker will now also show you the names or email addresses that don’t currently have access to the file. Additionally, it also now supports files in a Team Drive, and will also anticipate who needs access to a file and default to sharing the file with those specific recipients only. If you’re a G Suite admin,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2q3ifaW"

This week on Why’d You Push That Button , Kaitlyn and I analyze fake Instagrams, aka finstagrams, to find some truth. We talk to a teen, a model, and a reporter to get answers about why people keep a finstagram. I don’t want to spoil anything, but we basically learned that finstagrams are probably the most authentic social media platform, aside from Venmo. You should know this by now, but you can find us anywhere you find podcasts, including on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play Music , and our RSS feed . Catch up on season 1 , too, if you missed out the first time. We’ve got the audio of this episode below, as well as a transcript with Daily Beast reporter Taylor Lorenz. Check it out. Ashley: All right. So we’re back, Kaitlyn and I are... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2q2342m"

Circuit Breaker Live goes live at 4PM ET today on YouTube. You should know this by now. Today’s show features lots of gadgets, of course, including tiny, non-smart phones and lots of smart garden attempts. YouTuber Sara Diestchy will also join Paul and Nilay in wading through the world of vlogger equipment. If you’ve ever wanted to be a YouTube star, you should probably watch this show. You can tune in here live to ask us questions, or you can always come back here or to YouTube to watch after it’s over! Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2Jh5L8g"

Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, went public this morning trading under ticker name SPOT, opening at $132 a share. That puts the company value at $23.5 billion. That’s on target with what CNBC reported last month when it said Spotify shares were traded on private markets were for as high as $132.50 a share. Spotify’s last valuation was at $8.4 billion when it raised a financing round of $400 million back in 2015. Sweden-based Spotify is available in 61 countries with an overall user base that includes ad-supported free listeners of 159 million, and 70 million paying users as of January 2018. The company was founded in 2006 by Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek, who remains its current CEO. For its public offering,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2Jgq9GT"

Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, went public this morning trading under ticker name SPOT, opening at $132 a share. That puts the company value at $23.5 billion. That’s on target with what CNBC reported last month, when it said Spotify shares were traded on private markets were for as high as $132.50 a share. Spotify’s last valuation was at $8.4 billion when it raised a financing round of $400 million back in 2015. Sweden-based Spotify is available in 61 countries with an overall user base that includes ad-supported free listeners of 159 million, and 70 million paying users as of January 2018. The company was founded in 2006 by Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek, who remains its current CEO. For its public offering,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GvdzRX"

DIY How to fight web trackers. As you explore the internet, trackers can follow you, recording data about your online activities. Use these browser extensions to stop them in their...tracks. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2q2xzob"

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two founders of a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) that raised more than $32 million from thousands of investors last year. It was also endorsed by professional boxer Floyd Mayweather and producer DJ Khaled. The SEC alleges that the two co-founders of Centra, Sohrab “Sam” Sharma and Robert Farkas, offered and sold fraudulent and unregistered investments via a digital token called CTR. According to the SEC, the pair allegedly claimed that the funds raised in the ICO would build financial products, including a Visa or Mastercard-backed debit card that can instantly convert cryptocurrencies into US dollars or other legal tender. The complaint also alleges that both men created... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H8ts2c"

We knew that Apple hadn’t changed much feature- or looks-wise on its newest iPad. And it turns out, not much has changed on the inside, either: iFixit published its teardown of the new device this morning, and the inside looks almost identical to the inside of last year’s iPad . iFixit notes that it’s even pretty similar to the first-generation iPad Air , from 2013. The takeaway from all this is that the new iPad isn’t going to be any easier to repair than prior generations, which were already borderline unrepairable. And while modern Apple products have never been known for being being repair-friendly — Apple likes to glue and lock-down as many pieces as possible, in part to get its devices so sturdy and thin — it stands out more on this... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2uGKjqf"

Mozilla has announced a new version of its Firefox browser for standalone virtual and augmented reality headsets. It’s called Firefox Reality, and Mozilla describes it as a cross-platform, open source, and privacy-friendly browser whose interface will be specialized for headsets. You can see an early demo of it working on the HTC Vive Focus, but it’s not available publicly yet, and Mozilla hasn’t specified which headsets will support it. The Firefox Reality demo makes it looks a lot like a traditional browser, albeit one that’s streamlined and floating in a virtual void. The video demonstrates someone navigating through pages and smoothly scrolling with a simple VR controller, but they seem to have a little trouble hitting small buttons... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GSiqjC"

Facebook released a small update to Messenger this morning that makes the app a bit better for sharing photos and videos. Most notably, it’s adding support for 720p video. Unfortunately, this can’t be captured right from within the app — for some reason, it seems the in-app camera will remain lower resolution — but you’ll be able to share higher-resolution footage as long as it’s been captured in advance, either from your camera roll or the News Feed. Messenger is also adding the ability to send 360-degree photos. Again, you’ll have to capture these photos outside of Messenger, but you’ll now be able to share them inside the app. Messenger will then convert them into images that can be dragged around to view the whole thing. Facebook... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2EfhFMg"