Tech

Source: The Verge Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com, is scaling back its contributions to the WordPress open-source project, according to an announcement on Thursday. The company says it’s decreasing contributions to “match” the amount of time companies like WP Engine spend on the ecosystem, further escalating the tension between Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and…

Source: The Verge Fortnite Festival, the game’s Rock Band-like music mode where you play along with real songs, is getting local multiplayer for up to four people on PlayStation and Xbox on January 14th. Currently, you can only play Fortnite Festival multiplayer online, but with this change, you’ll be able to get your former Rock…

Source: The Verge Godox, a company known for its professional photography gear like flashes and reflective umbrellas, has announced a new lighting product for smartphones. Its MA5R is a magnetic power bank with an array of diffused color-changing LEDs on the back that can improve phone photography while keeping battery anxiety in check. It’s priced…

Source: The Verge Tesla issued a recall for over 200,000 electric vehicles due to an issue with its latest computer hardware that can short circuit and disable some safety features including the rearview camera. Tesla submitted the recall on January 6th, which acknowledges faulty computers are in some of the most recent builds of Model…

Source: The Verge Sure, President-elect Donald Trump is probably going to try to blow up efforts to tackle climate change as soon as he steps into office. There still isn’t enough renewable energy available to reach US climate goals or even meet skyrocketing electricity demand from AI. And time is running out to spend down…

Source: The Verge Barrett’s hypothetical: “Congress tells Jeff Bezos that he has to divest from The Washington Post.” Hypothetical Jeff Bezos cannot catch a break. Justice Barrett poses this example, then asks whether Post readers could sue if Congress banned the Post unless he divested, trying to pick apart the different rights of corporations and…

Source: The Verge As wildfires continue to devastate parts of Los Angeles County, hundreds of thousands of residents are without power as utility crews work to restore connectivity. Mobile carriers are also taking action to keep their services online and provide relief to affected residents. Here’s how major carriers are responding. In an update on…

Source: The Verge The Yeedi Cube doesn’t have the modularity and extremities of some of the cool new robot vacuums we’ve seen at CES 2025, but the self-emptying, self-cleaning mopping robovac is also much more reasonably priced. It’s even cheaper today at Amazon, where you can buy it for $299.99 ($260 off) when you clip…

Source: The Verge For me, skateboarding has always been about getting into a flow state. Much like playing Tetris, I’m at my best when I’m skating almost subconsciously, not thinking and acting in the moment. It’s not an easy zone to get into, and music has always been my shortcut. So the greatest compliment I…

Source: The Verge Schools across the US and Canada are warning parents that a data breach may have leaked information for students and employees. The K-12 operations platform PowerSchool, which supports over 60 million students and has over 18,000 customers worldwide, suffered a breach that could’ve exposed names and addresses of students and educators and,…