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The new Hangouts message that asks you to stop using Hangouts.

Remember when Google finally integrated SMS into Hangouts, bringing Google's beleaguered IM client a little closer to Apple's iMessage? It seems like Google is now backing away from this strategy. In the newest update, Hangouts 7.0, the app now pops up a dialog box suggesting that you stop using Hangouts for SMS and switch to Android's standalone SMS client, "Messenger."

Google apps usually pop up messages like this when Google is preparing to remove or stop working on a feature. Hangouts posted a similar message when it first integrated SMS, and again when it integrated Google Voice, telling users to switch to Hangouts from whatever they were currently using. The message to switch to the SMS app was predicted by a Phandroid rumor a month ago, which said that this was the first step toward removing SMS support from Hangouts. For now, Hangouts wouldn't be able to completely remove SMS support since Project Fi users rely on it, but it seems that users of other carriers will be pushed to the regular SMS app.

Besides threatening to remove a major feature, 7.0 adds a quick reply function, which lets you type out a reply right from the notification panel.

(credit: Lyft)

California drivers who sued Lyft in 2013 over whether they should be treated as employees or contractors have settled their closely watched lawsuit, court documents show.

According to a Tuesday proposed settlement, which is likely to be finalized by the San Francisco federal judge overseeing the case next, Lyft will pay $12.25 million and will re-word its labor agreement with its workers, making it harder for the company to fire drivers at any time. The plaintiffs’ lawyers will take 30 percent of that amount; the remainder will be divided among California-based drivers and go toward covering court fees. The changes to the terms of service will be applied nationwide.

The settlement in Cotter v. Lyft has no immediate legal impact on other cases brought by the same plaintiffs' lawyer, Shannon Liss-Riordan, who has introduced a slew of similar labor suits against GrubHub, DoorDash, Caviar, and Uber.

To get a detailed work up on your health, soon all you might have to do is work up a little sweat. A new wearable device that soaks in tiny volumes of perspiration from your brow or wrist can track multiple molecules leaking out of you in real-time, researchers report in Nature. The device could one day provide up-to-the-moment health reports, helping to spot conditions such as dehydration, chemical exposures, muscle fatigue, and chronic stress, and help manage diseases, such as diabetes, the authors suggest.

(credit: Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally)

“Sweat is very rich in information about an individual’s health,” lead author of the study Ali Javey, of University of California, Berkeley, told Ars. “It has a lot of different chemicals in it, different proteins, different metabolites, electrolytes,” he said. And by monitoring the concentration of some of those chemicals in beads of sweat, researchers can glean useful health information.

(credit: Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally)

For their first generation of sweat-scanning wearables, Javey and colleagues set up an array of off-the-shelf sensors that track sodium, potassium, glucose, lactate, and temperature. Monitoring electrolytes such as sodium and potassium may help track conditions like dehydration, Javey said. Lactate levels may be useful for tracking muscle fatigue, and glucose may help monitor blood sugar levels.

Ian Weddell @ Flickr

The DMC-12 was styled by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro. The gullwing doors suggested exotic performance that the underpowered car was never able to provide.

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The DeLorean DMC-12 might have been destined to pass quietly into obscurity, that is until its starring role in 1985's Back to the Future. A little more than 8,500 DMC-12s left DeLorean's factory in Northern Ireland between 1981 and 1983, until it all fell apart following founder John DeLorean's arrest by the FBI on charges of drug trafficking. But Doc Brown souped up his DeLorean with a flux capacitor, imbuing the DMC-12 with iconic status in the nerd canon. Soon, you'll be able to buy a brand new one—production is about to resume on this side of the Atlantic, in Humble, Texas.

The Texas-based DeLorean Motor Company—not directly related to its defunct predecessor—has been supplying parts and rebuilding or restoring DMC-12s for many years. Now it is able to build new cars as well, following changes to the laws governing low-volume auto manufacturers. The 2015 Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 rolled up a lot of different transportation-related bills, including one that now allows companies to build replica vehicles without having to satisfy modern safety regulations, as long as fewer than 325 are made each year.

Replica cars still have to meet current Environmental Protection Agency standards for emissions, so the DMC-12's old Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 is out. DMC's CEO told Houston's KPRC2 that the final price will depend upon whichever engine replaces the old unit, although new cars should still cost less than $100,000 (£70,000) There could even be an electric variant, although little has been heard about this version for some time now.

(credit: bluepoint951)

Despite claiming that the government's definition of "broadband" shouldn't have been increased to 25Mbps,Verizon is now phasing out its 25Mbps fiber service and making 50Mbps the default minimum.

A year ago, the Federal Communications Commission voted to boost the definition of broadband from 4Mbps downstream/1Mbps upstream to 25Mbps/3Mbps. The definition affects policy decisions and the FCC's annual assessment of whether broadband is being deployed to all Americans quickly enough. Verizon unsuccessfully lobbied the FCC to keep the old definition, saying that "a higher benchmark would serve no purpose in accurately assessing the availability of broadband."

Verizon still offers speeds as low as 512kbps downloads and 384kbps uploads in areas where it hasn't upgraded copper DSL lines to fiber. Verizon DSL goes up to 15Mbps/1Mbps, if you're close enough to Verizon Internet facilities. Mayors in 14 East Coast cities including New York City recently criticized Verizon for leaving many customers with copper only.