/Recent content on JoltVibHugo -- gohugo.ioenSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-director-and-star-of-morris-from-america-talk-racial-sensitivity-and-teen-pillow-sex.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-director-and-star-of-morris-from-america-talk-racial-sensitivity-and-teen-pillow-sex.htmlTasha Robinson: This film started out as autobiography. When did it become a story about black racial identity? Chad Hartigan: It was before writing anything. The way I work is, I compile ideas in my head until I have about six solid scenes, and then I feel like I can sit down to a blank page and start writing. In the process of coming up with scenes, it just popped into my head, "/news/a-silent-voice-shows-why-kyoto-animation-is-one-of-the-top-animation-studios.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-silent-voice-shows-why-kyoto-animation-is-one-of-the-top-animation-studios.htmlKyoto Animation’s work isn’t quite like anyone else’s. The style of its animation and storytelling separate the studio from the majority of other Japanese companies. It’s known for high production values compared to its contemporaries; Kyoto’s smooth, intricate animation is used for both subtle and spectacular sequences while having very stylized, but realistically detailed backgrounds. Kyoto Animation (often abbreviated KyoAni) gets more distinctive results than most studios in part because unlike in much of the Japanese animation industry, its animators are salaried employees./news/a-visit-to-the-human-factory.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-visit-to-the-human-factory.htmlWill Jackson, CEO of robotics company Engineered Arts, says he isn’t sure what’s worse: the angry emails that accuse him of building machines that will one day overthrow humanity or the speculative ones enquiring if the sender can fuck the robots. “Everybody wants to see a humanoid robot,” Jackson says. “They love to imagine all these things that are going to happen. Part of what we do is fulfilling that desire./news/activision-and-meta-sued-by-families-of-uvalde-school-shooting-victims.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/activision-and-meta-sued-by-families-of-uvalde-school-shooting-victims.htmlThe families of the victims killed in the Uvalde, Texas school shooting are suing Meta and Call of Duty developer Activision over allegations that they promoted the use of firearms to underage boys. The lawsuit claims both companies “knowingly exposed the Shooter to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems, and trained him to use it.” It’s the kind of claim we’ve seen unsuccessfully thrown at video game companies numerous times in the past./news/all-our-coverage-of-the-panic-playdate-handheld-page-2.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/all-our-coverage-of-the-panic-playdate-handheld-page-2.htmlPanic made its name through high-end Mac software, but more recently, the company moved into gaming, publishing indie hit Firewatch and the upcoming Untitled Goose Game. Now, the developer is expanding its work in games and moving in a very unexpected direction. Today, Panic unveiled Playdate, a tiny, yellow Game Boy-like device with a black-and-white screen, a few chunky buttons, and... a hand crank for controlling quirky games developed by indie stars like Keita Takahashi and Zach Gage./news/all-the-airpods-models-compared-airpods-airpods-pro-and-airpods-max.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/all-the-airpods-models-compared-airpods-airpods-pro-and-airpods-max.htmlAt its “Far Out” event on Wednesday, Apple introduced a new pair of AirPods Pro alongside the upcoming iPhone 14 lineup and long-rumored Apple Watch Ultra. The second-gen AirPods Pro are set to arrive on September 23rd, bringing with them a new H2 chip that Apple claims should cancel “up to twice as much noise” as its predecessor, as well as swipe-based controls and a number of other features. This means that, as of this week, the official AirPods lineup consists of the following models: the second-gen AirPods, the third-gen AirPods, the second-gen AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max./news/amazon-s-fire-hd-10-tablet-is-nearly-50-percent-off-for-prime-members.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-fire-hd-10-tablet-is-nearly-50-percent-off-for-prime-members.htmlLet’s face it: Apple’s slates seem to get all the attention when talking tablets (and understandably so). However, you don’t necessarily need to spend $1,000 on an iPad Pro or even $350 on an entry-level model if all you need is a cheap entertainment device for watching The Boys, reading, or burning through your latest audiobook. Amazon’s latest Fire HD 10 tablet will get the job done for a lot less — especially since it’s currently on sale for Amazon Prime subscribers for an all-time low of $74./news/andy-weir-on-his-follow-up-to-the-martian-and-using-realistic-science-in-fiction.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/andy-weir-on-his-follow-up-to-the-martian-and-using-realistic-science-in-fiction.htmlWhen Andy Weir first began publishing The Martian on his website, he had little inkling that it would become one of the year’s best-known, most celebrated science fiction novels, or a best-seller later adapted into a popular, Oscar-nominated thriller starring Matt Damon. Later this year, Weir will publish his long-awaited second novel, Artemis, a crime thriller set on the Moon. Weir is a guest at San Diego Comic-Con this week, and I spoke with him about tackling the sky-high expectations of following up a blockbuster novel, realism in science fiction, and what makes him optimistic for the future./news/apple-and-epic-both-lost-today.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-and-epic-both-lost-today.htmlIt was May 11th, the seventh day of the Epic v. Apple trial, that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers hit upon a compromise neither company had asked for. She asked Epic’s economist, David Evans, if it would be sufficient to kill Apple’s anti-steering rules — the ones Apple uses to keep developers from even telling you that there’s a perfectly good external website where you can purchase your subscription instead of inside the app itself./news/apple-is-creating-medical-clinics-to-offer-employees-healthcare-and-test-products.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-is-creating-medical-clinics-to-offer-employees-healthcare-and-test-products.htmlApple is preparing to open medical clinics to provide healthcare for its employees and their families in Cupertino this spring, according to a new report by CNBC. The tech company has launched a website for the clinics, which will operate under the name AC Wellness. Currently, Apple has one Wellness Center in its headquarters in Cupertino that employs a handful of doctors, chiropractors, dietitians, and physical therapists. According to CNBC, there will be two clinics in Santa Clara County, and AC Wellness has already posted job listings for primary and acute care physicians, nurse practitioners, phlebotomists, and an exercise coach./news/apple-removed-a-popular-quran-app-in-china.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-removed-a-popular-quran-app-in-china.htmlWe’re required to comply with local laws, and at times there are complex issues about which we may disagree with governments and other stakeholders on the right path forward. With dialogue, and a belief in the power of engagement, we try to find the solution that best serves our users—their privacy, their ability to express themselves, and their access to reliable information and helpful technology.  ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2lfZn1wfZRoaWtvYm1%2FdoOOmqeppJVivra%2BwKdkppmamrKlecCpp2aqlaK8t7HDZpqhoZ6W/news/apple-s-m3-ultra-mac-studio-could-have-a-32-core-cpu-and-up-to-80-gpu-cores.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-m3-ultra-mac-studio-could-have-a-32-core-cpu-and-up-to-80-gpu-cores.htmlApple is reportedly testing an M3 Ultra chip with a significant CPU bump from 24 cores in the M2 Ultra to 32 cores in the next generation version of the chip, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. Developer logs reportedly also show a base configuration with 64 GPU cores and a top-end version with 80 GPU cores for Apple’s big desktop chip. You can get an M2 Ultra Mac with a 60-core or 76-core GPU right now, making the next version of the chip a more modest improvement, from a graphics-processing standpoint, versus last year’s leap./news/arcade-donkey-kong-re-released-for-first-time-on-nintendo-switch.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/arcade-donkey-kong-re-released-for-first-time-on-nintendo-switch.htmlThe arcade version of Donkey Kong is a pretty big deal in retro gaming circles, as seen in the classic documentary King of Kong. Until today, though, it was impossible to legally acquire or sell an arcade-perfect version of the game without tracking down an actual arcade cabinet, reportedly due to complex legal issues over authorship of the code. Now those issues appear to have been resolved: Nintendo just put out Donkey Kong on the Switch for $7./news/author-ruthanna-emrys-is-publishing-her-own-cosmic-horror-series.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/author-ruthanna-emrys-is-publishing-her-own-cosmic-horror-series.htmlEarlier this year, I picked up Ruthanna Emrys’ debut novel, Winter Tide, a tale based on the exhaustively canvassed cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft. Along with a previous novelette called The Litany of Earth, it subverts Lovecraft’s notorious racism by making his monsters — which were often thinly veiled stand-ins for people of color — sympathetic protagonists. In the 1920s, the US government locks ancient Deep Ones in internment camps, including the series’ protagonist Aphra Marsha./news/best-buy-revamps-its-200-per-year-tech-support-subscription.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/best-buy-revamps-its-200-per-year-tech-support-subscription.htmlBest Buy has launched a new $200 per year subscription version of its Geek Squad service called Total Tech Support, which — despite the name — is anything but total, and is probably also a questionable value for tech support. Geek Squad’s limitations aside, this is actually an improved version of an existing Best Buy tech support subscription that offered less coverage for the same price. The new service offers subscribers 24/7 tech support over the phone or online, for most tech products in the home (even if they weren’t purchased from Best Buy)./news/bill-gates-voted-for-marijuana-legalization-in-washington.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bill-gates-voted-for-marijuana-legalization-in-washington.htmlBill Gates wants to see Washington state experiment with legal pot. According to BuzzFeed, Gates voted in favor of his state's 2012 referendum to legalize marijuana, feeling that some states should assess the policy before a similar plan is implemented at a federal level. "It’s an experiment, and it’s probably good to have a couple states try it out to see before you make that national policy," Gates tells BuzzFeed. Though Gates didn't actually think that the 2012 referendum would pass, he's interested to see what happens now that its full effects are approaching./news/blackberry-to-retreat-from-consumer-market-lay-off-4-500-employees.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/blackberry-to-retreat-from-consumer-market-lay-off-4-500-employees.htmlAs rumored earlier this week, BlackBerry is to lay off 4,500 employees, around 40 percent of its workforce, and retreat from the consumer market. The layoff news comes in an unexpected early earnings guidance release, in which the struggling manufacturer reveals it expects to book losses totalling almost $1 billion in the most recent quarter. The Z10 launch has been a disaster for BlackBerry The massive loss is mainly attributable to the disastrous sales performance of the company's Z10 smartphone, its first to run its new BlackBerry 10 OS./news/bloomberg-hired-fyre-festival-promoters-to-make-his-campaign-memes.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bloomberg-hired-fyre-festival-promoters-to-make-his-campaign-memes.htmlJerry Media, the promoter behind the botched Fyre Festival, is working with the presidential campaign of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in an effort to make the 77-year-old candidate look cool, The New York Times reports. The Meme 2020 project, led by Mick Purzycki, executive director of Jerry Media, has enlisted influencers with large followings to create content for the campaign and promote it to their audiences. A Bloomberg campaign spokesperson did not provide answers to emailed questions from The Verge about the ad campaign, but offered a prepared statement: “Mike Bloomberg 2020 has teamed up with social creators to collaborate with the campaign, including the meme world./news/buy-an-ipad-mini-2-while-you-still-can.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/buy-an-ipad-mini-2-while-you-still-can.htmlPhil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, spent roughly 29 seconds talking about the brand new iPad mini 3 today. Schiller is a man who's normally eager to showcase his company's latest hardware achievements, but this afternoon he sped over the 7.9-inch tablet in record time. There was a single slide dedicated to what's gone into the "upgraded" iPad mini. Apart from the addition of Touch ID, nothing looked different from last year./news/childish-gambino-s-sober-music-video-is-a-stoner-romance.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/childish-gambino-s-sober-music-video-is-a-stoner-romance.htmlFor most people, Donald Glover is a comedian and actor who happens to have a gift for killer one-liners, which he happens to use on stage under the name Childish Gambino. But maybe his side gig deserves more credit: the new video for his single, "Sober," hits all the right notes. There's a romance, dance moves, fast food — and, small spoiler, an unexpectedly melancholy ending. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnam1fZnxyfI5wbGttaWp%2BcK%2FHoqOdoaOdeqitzJugp6ddqLyjsdFmraKclaQ%3D/news/corsair-voyager-a1600-review-a-fancy-but-flawed-showpiece.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/corsair-voyager-a1600-review-a-fancy-but-flawed-showpiece.htmlCorsair makes a lot of things that PC gamers need: RAM, storage, mice and keyboards, headsets, and more. The company also owns Elgato, the brand behind the Stream Deck command center. And now, perhaps inevitably, it makes a laptop: the Voyager A1600. Corsair whipped up the design in-house, and it’s packed with Corsair parts and features: Corsair RAM and solid-state drives, iCue support to sync your RGB LED effects across Corsair accessories, and a built-in low-latency Slipstream receiver inside that pairs with Corsair gaming mice, keyboards, and headsets./news/corsair-s-new-rainbow-keyboards-use-rapid-fire-cherry-mx-speed-switches.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/corsair-s-new-rainbow-keyboards-use-rapid-fire-cherry-mx-speed-switches.htmlCorsair released three Rapid Fire mechanical keyboards today, all of which use the new Cherry MX Speed switches. These switches are noteworthy because of how small a distance a key needs to be pushed down for an action to be realized — only 1.2mm — and because of their 45g actuation force. By comparison, Logitech's Romer-G switches have a 1.55mm actuation distance and an actuation force of 45g. Corsair's keyboards also feature a per-key colored LED backlighting./news/could-this-buick-challenge-the-subaru-outback-for-wagon-supremacy.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/could-this-buick-challenge-the-subaru-outback-for-wagon-supremacy.htmlIt’s been more than 20 years since Buick sold a wagon, the last being the iconic Roadmaster that was discontinued in 1996. But there’s a new wagon from the company now: it’s the 2018 Buick Regal TourX and, awkward name aside, it looks pretty fantastic in photos. The TourX is one half of the new Regal family, which ditches the sports sedan look in favor of a wagon and a five-door sportback./news/creative-founder-sim-wong-hoo-the-man-behind-sound-blaster-has-died.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/creative-founder-sim-wong-hoo-the-man-behind-sound-blaster-has-died.htmlCreative Technologies founder, CEO and chairman Sim Wong Hoo has died, his company has confirmed. He “passed away peacefully on 4 January 2023,” according to a press release. He was 67 years old. It might seem hard for younger readers to believe, but there was a time that computer sound wasn’t guaranteed. If you wanted to plug in headphones or speakers that could do more than bloops or bleeps, you probably needed a sound card — and none were as successful as Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster./news/david-attenborough-will-narrate-a-new-series-of-blue-planet-this-year.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/david-attenborough-will-narrate-a-new-series-of-blue-planet-this-year.htmlFollowing the success of Planet Earth II (coming soon to a Snapchat app near you), the BBC has announced its latest nature-doc extravaganza: a sequel to the award-winning series The Blue Planet. As the name suggests, the show will focus on the variety of wildlife found in the Earth’s seas and oceans. Blue Planet II will air in the UK later this year (hitting US screens some time after presumably), and will feature the narrating talents of naturalist icon David Attenborough./news/dead-by-daylight-is-getting-a-free-ps5-and-xbox-series-x-update-and-a-graphical-overhaul.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dead-by-daylight-is-getting-a-free-ps5-and-xbox-series-x-update-and-a-graphical-overhaul.htmlDead by Daylight is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X this year, and not just as a technicality: developer Behaviour Interactive says the next-gen console versions will not only run at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, but that it’s aiming to create a “remastered edition of the game” as well. Players who purchased the game on current-gen will receive a free next-gen upgrade The PS5 and Series X ports won’t be the only ones to receive a graphical update, Behavior promises./news/deadpool-is-officially-the-highest-grossing-r-rated-movie-ever.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/deadpool-is-officially-the-highest-grossing-r-rated-movie-ever.htmlDeadpool, in a development few could have seen coming, is now the top-earning R-rated movie in cinema history. The unlikely hit, starring Ryan Reynolds as the "Merc with a Mouth," has so far earned $746 million dollars globally, putting it ahead of 2003's The Matrix Reloaded, which earned $742 million worldwide during its run. Deadpool has been setting records left and right Deadpool's success in theaters and with critics has surprised everyone./news/dell-s-super-thin-aluminum-venue-8-7000-is-a-surprisingly-solid-android-tablet.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dell-s-super-thin-aluminum-venue-8-7000-is-a-surprisingly-solid-android-tablet.htmlThe display is the most important part of any tablet, and it’s a good thing the screen on the Dell is a stunner. It’s packed with pixels — 2560 down and 1600 across, to be precise — and is very bright and saturated. Almost too much so: the colors practically scream off the panel, similar to Samsung screens from a couple years ago (the Venue 8 used an OLED panel, so that isn’t hugely surprising)./news/diablo-ii-resurrected-is-launching-in-september.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/diablo-ii-resurrected-is-launching-in-september.htmlThe remastered take on arguably the best Diablo game is launching this fall. At E3 Blizzard announced that Diablo II: Resurrected will be available on September 23rd. It’s coming to the PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. Blizzard says that, if you’re playing on capable hardware, the game “supports up to 4K resolution and includes fully remastered 7.1 Dolby Surround audio.” That said, you can also go retro, with an option to play in the original 800x600 resolution./news/dish-and-directv-ceos-have-reportedly-discussed-merger.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dish-and-directv-ceos-have-reportedly-discussed-merger.htmlAs the two largest US cable companies look to push through a huge merger, the urge to consolidate seems to be spreading to the satellite TV industry. Bloomberg reports that Charlie Ergen, chairman of Dish, recently approached DirecTV CEO Mike White to discuss a potential merger. Comcast's proposed buyout of Time Warner Cable reportedly pushed Ergen to get in touch with White. But DirecTV's chief is said to be reluctant about any deal, fearing that an attempt to combine the satellite providers would quickly be shot down by regulars./news/donald-mustard-the-former-head-of-fortnite-s-story-is-working-for-the-russo-brothers-producti.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/donald-mustard-the-former-head-of-fortnite-s-story-is-working-for-the-russo-brothers-producti.htmlDonald Mustard, the former head of Fortnite’s story, is working for the Russo brothers’ production company. Axios reports that Mustard is now a “partner” at the company, AGBO, but it’s unclear exactly what he’ll be doing in the role. Mustard announced he was retiring from Epic Games in September. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2tfZn5wfZZoaWxxZmqFeYCOnaanmZyZeq7B0q2Yq5xdqbWmecWoqaadomK1pq3DZqafZZakv7W6yK2crGWjqbyzxYyiqmavn6e4qrrGZp2oql2ptaZ50a6qrKddl7%2BwwMeeqaxloKe8pcHCraCopl2YvK68wA%3D%3D/news/don-t-look-up-narrowly-misses-becoming-netflix-s-all-time-best-film-debut.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/don-t-look-up-narrowly-misses-becoming-netflix-s-all-time-best-film-debut.htmlDon’t Look Up is Netflix’s second most popular film debut to date, coming in around 4 million viewing hours short of Netflix’s crown jewel Red Notice. The new film racked up nearly 360 million hours of viewing during its first 28 days on the service, per Netflix’s Top 10 portal for tracking its most successful titles. Red Notice, meanwhile, tallied 364 million hours during its first four weeks on Netflix, while Bird Box holds third place with 282 million hours viewed./news/duke-nukem-is-getting-a-movie-from-some-guys-who-could-actually-pull-it-off.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/duke-nukem-is-getting-a-movie-from-some-guys-who-could-actually-pull-it-off.htmlI wouldn’t be surprised if you have no idea who Duke Nukem even is — that’s how hard the classic video game franchise cratered a decade ago. Today, the character is mostly known as a punchline for video game vaporware jokes, about how Duke Nukem Forever spent 14 years in development hell only to become a huge flop. And yet for years now, Duke’s corporate owners have been whispering that a movie is coming, culminating in The Hollywood Reporter’s story today: Legendary Entertainment has tapped Cobra Kai creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg to actually produce a feature film./news/e-cigarette-users-are-reporting-seizures-to-the-fda.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/e-cigarette-users-are-reporting-seizures-to-the-fda.htmlThe Food and Drug Administration just issued a special announcement about a new health risk that they worry may be linked to e-cigarettes: seizures. Since June 2018, the agency received what it called “a recent uptick” in reports where users describe having seizures that may be connected with their e-cigarette use. The FDA collects information about vape safety risks through their Safety Reporting Portal, where people who use e-cigarettes can share their experiences./news/ego-stroking-twitter-mirror-lets-celebrities-tweet-selfies-from-major-events.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ego-stroking-twitter-mirror-lets-celebrities-tweet-selfies-from-major-events.htmlThere's little doubt that Twitter is obsessed with celebrities. The company actively recruits high-profile users — last year's creation of the @pontifex handle for Pope Benedict XVI was a major coup, and Twitter's currently working hard to get Amy Poehler and Tina Fey on board. But once it has big celebrities in the fold, Twitter likes to do all it can to keep them happy and using the service. Take the Twitter Mirror, for example — The Wall Street Journal has just posted a look at one of the biggest ego-stroking innovations in some time./news/ellen-pao-is-finally-testifying-at-silicon-valley-s-trial-of-the-year.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ellen-pao-is-finally-testifying-at-silicon-valley-s-trial-of-the-year.htmlFor the past two weeks, Ellen Pao has been sitting quietly at the plaintiff’s table while her former colleagues at Kleiner Perkins have painted her as a prickly careerist, ill-equipped for the high-stakes sausagefest of venture capital financing in Silicon Valley. Yesterday, at long last, it was Pao’s turn to speak. She has not disappointed. Pao is now the CEO of Reddit. She is suing the venture capital firm for $16 million in damages, alleging gender discrimination and retaliation by Ajit Nazre, a Kleiner investor who was fired in 2012 for sexual harassment./news/elon-musk-and-top-ai-researchers-call-for-pause-on-giant-ai-experiments.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-and-top-ai-researchers-call-for-pause-on-giant-ai-experiments.htmlA number of well-known AI researchers — and Elon Musk — have signed an open letter calling on AI labs around the world to pause development of large-scale AI systems, citing fears over the “profound risks to society and humanity” they claim this software poses. The letter, published by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, notes that AI labs are currently locked in an “out-of-control race” to develop and deploy machine learning systems “that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control./news/elon-musk-wants-a-second-chance-to-fail-at-x.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-wants-a-second-chance-to-fail-at-x.htmlI understand the driving need to prove to people that you are right, which is why I am to some degree sympathetic to Elon Musk’s ill-advised plan to rename Twitter and turn it into his long-dreamed-of financial heavyweight. He wasn’t right when he tried to rename PayPal in 2000 and create an internet upstart in banking; he’s not right now, either. But that isn’t going to stop him from trying to Show Us./news/eminem-is-coming-to-fortnite-s-the-big-bang-event.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/eminem-is-coming-to-fortnite-s-the-big-bang-event.htmlThe leaks were true: Eminem is coming to Fortnite as part of the game’s Chapter 4 finale. Epic Games has confirmed Eminem will appear during the live finale, while players will get to purchase a few different skins modeled after the rapper. Fortnite’s finale event, called The Big Bang, kicks off on December 2nd at 2PM ET. In an updated page on Fortnite’s website, developers say you can “watch Eminem... as Eminem” during the event, which marks the end of the Fortnite OG chapter that brought the game back to its roots./news/epic-promises-more-fortnite-tournaments-in-2021-but-no-world-cup.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-promises-more-fortnite-tournaments-in-2021-but-no-world-cup.htmlWith the restrictions around travel and in-person events, Epic canceled the 2020 edition of the Fortnite World Cup back in April. Now, the developer says the esports spectacle won’t be taking place in 2021 either. “With so much still unknown about what is practical and safe, we do not plan to hold in-person events in 2021, including a Fortnite World Cup,” the company explained in a blog post. “We will continue to provide online competitions throughout 2021 with the hopes that physical events, in some form, can return at some point in the future./news/even-elden-ring-s-game-director-knows-erdtree-is-too-hard.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/even-elden-ring-s-game-director-knows-erdtree-is-too-hard.htmlAs I work my way through Shadow of the Erdtree, the new DLC for Elden Ring, I can’t help but think that game director Hidetaka Miyazaki is trolling the shit outta me. Speaking with him at Summer Game Fest two weeks ago, Miyazaki said that Erdtree is “by far the biggest in scale in volume” than any other FromSoftware DLC before it. But he also said Erdtree is “about the same volume as the Limgrave part of the base game,” the starting area of Elden Ring, containing “slightly more content./news/facebook-adds-scheduled-posts-and-administrator-roles-for-pages.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-adds-scheduled-posts-and-administrator-roles-for-pages.htmlA pair of features has been added to Facebook Pages — the social network's service for businesses, organizations, and brands — to help users manage time and participant duties. Through the "Admin Roles" option from the Page's settings, managers can assign administrators one of five roles, each with different levels of access for updating pages, adding and removing posts and comments, viewing Insights, and more. Additionally, those with appropriate Page access can schedule posts for a future time and date./news/facebook-s-accounts-center-will-unify-login-and-payment-info-across-facebook-properties.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-s-accounts-center-will-unify-login-and-payment-info-across-facebook-properties.htmlFacebook is making it easier for people to post across Facebook properties and pay for purchases they make on all its platforms. The company’s new Accounts Center, which it announced as a test today, will let people cross-post content across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. It will also save payment information to pay for purchases on both Facebook and Instagram, although the Facebook Pay feature is coming later this year, the company says./news/final-fantasy-xvi-s-the-rising-tide-dlc-will-release-in-april.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/final-fantasy-xvi-s-the-rising-tide-dlc-will-release-in-april.html• Return to a quest giver immediately with the new “Quick Complete” function • Icon updates for important character quests • A new Skill Set feature, which allows players to save up to five unique Feat and Ability sets • Abilities and Accessories adjusted for easier use • New “Custom” controller type allows for freely customizable button layouts • Tone correction, screen effects, and more added to Photo Mode • Numerous new orchestrion rolls added/news/ford-recalls-50-000-car-charging-cables-over-fire-risk.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-recalls-50-000-car-charging-cables-over-fire-risk.htmlFord is recalling just over 50,000 charging cables for its plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles out of concern that they could lead to a fire, the company announced today. The 120-volt cables being recalled — which allow the cars to be plugged into a standard home outlet — were sold with certain Ford Focus Electrics, Fusion Energis, and C-Max Energis from the following years and assembly plants: Affected owners will be notified by mail, Ford says, and they’ll have to get a new 120-volt charge cord from a dealer./news/former-netflix-executive-convicted-of-money-laundering.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/former-netflix-executive-convicted-of-money-laundering.htmlMichael Kail, who was Netflix’s vice president of information technology operations from 2011 to 2014, was found guilty by a jury of money laundering, and wire and mail fraud. According to the DOJ, Kail used his position at the company to “unlock a stream of cash and stock kickbacks” for himself Netflix sued Kail in 2014 claiming he hid payments from vendors by directing them to his personal consulting company. According to the DOJ, Kail accepted bribes totaling more than $500,000, as well as stock options from nine tech companies that provided products or services to Netflix./news/fortnite-now-available-to-everyone-on-ios-via-geforce-now-cloud-streaming.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-now-available-to-everyone-on-ios-via-geforce-now-cloud-streaming.htmlAfter four months in closed beta, a touchscreen-optimized version of Fortnite is now available to stream via Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service on iOS and Android. It means iPhone users have another workaround to play one of the most popular games in the world after it was unceremoniously booted from the App Store in August 2020 for bypassing Apple’s in-app payment system. On iOS, GeForce Now is available via the browser, while Android owners can access it via an app./news/fortnite-season-4-arrives-with-an-answer-to-the-mystery-of-the-meteor.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-season-4-arrives-with-an-answer-to-the-mystery-of-the-meteor.htmlAt long last, developer Epic Games has revealed the nature of Fortnite’s mysterious meteor with the launch of season four today. Now that the meteor has crashed, it has left craters scattered across the island, transforming the game’s iconic map. The reveal brings to a close months of intense and often giddy theorizing among Fortnite’s massive player base, as Epic dropped in-game clues and other hints throughout season three that helped form a cohesive and unlikely narrative for a game that largely centers on competitive multiplayer./news/fortnite-s-new-soccer-skins-feature-big-teams-like-manchester-city-and-juventus.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-s-new-soccer-skins-feature-big-teams-like-manchester-city-and-juventus.htmlEpic has partnered with some of the biggest soccer clubs in the world for its latest set of Fortnite skins. Today, the developer unveiled the new “kickoff set,” which lets players swap between 23 different kits. There are some big names not featured — sorry, Bayern Munich fans — but the list is impressively global, with popular teams from Europe, alongside squads from the US, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. Here’s every club available:/news/games-done-quick-s-founder-is-stepping-down.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/games-done-quick-s-founder-is-stepping-down.htmlGames Done Quick (GDQ) started 13 years ago in Mike Uyama’s mother’s basement. It wasn’t supposed to. Uyama, the founder of the speedrunning charity event, had a nice venue all picked out and ready to go before coming to the horrific realization that forced him to decamp: the internet was too slow. “The original intent was to have it at MAGFest,” Uyama told The Verge over Zoom. “But their internet wasn’t good enough and my mom’s was, so that’s why we had it in my mom’s basement./news/go-read-this-the-verge-s-favorite-reads-from-all-over-the-web.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/go-read-this-the-verge-s-favorite-reads-from-all-over-the-web.htmlAre bitcoin miners causing major health problems? The sleepy town of Granbury, TX was in for a rude awakening when Marathon Digital Holdings opened a bitcoin mine — an operation that not only draws a lot of energy, but creates a tremendous amount of noise: “We’re living in a nightmare,” Sarah Rosenkranz says... As rock music blares from the speakers and other patrons chatter away, Rosenkranz pulls out her phone and clocks 72 decibels on a sound meter app — the same level that she records in Indigo’s bedroom in the dead of night./news/god-of-war-s-goofy-new-photo-mode-is-a-lot-of-fun.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/god-of-war-s-goofy-new-photo-mode-is-a-lot-of-fun.htmlI’ve always found built-in photo modes for games intimidating, much like a high-end DSLR camera. I don’t know the first thing about perspective or lighting, and fiddling with all of these various aspects of a video game screenshot just isn’t much fun. People can make amazing photos with these tools, but I, sadly, am not one of them. All I really want to do is make Kratos smile — thankfully that’s now an option./news/google-chromebooks-coming-this-june-from-samsung-and-acer.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-chromebooks-coming-this-june-from-samsung-and-acer.htmlForget Google's pilot Cr-48, the real Chromebooks are coming! Google has just announced that both Acer and Samsung will be launching their own Chrome OS-powered laptops next month. The two are virtually the same in the sense that they both are powered by dual-core Intel Atom processors, promise "all day computing," boast large Synaptics touchpads, and run the latest version of Chrome OS. However, there are some important differences between the two./news/google-is-now-blurring-sexually-explicit-images-by-default.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-now-blurring-sexually-explicit-images-by-default.htmlGoogle has rolled out a new SafeSearch feature that automatically blurs explicit (meaning violent, sexual, etc.) images in its results. This will occur for all users by default — including those who don’t have SafeSearch enabled. This setting was first announced back in February but was scheduled to roll out globally this month. The announcement is part of a larger Google Search initiative to, as the company puts it, “help you stay in control of your personal information, privacy, and online safety./news/google-is-working-to-fix-nest-protect-smart-smoke-alarms-that-are-showing-as-offline.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-working-to-fix-nest-protect-smart-smoke-alarms-that-are-showing-as-offline.htmlGoogle is working to fix Nest Protect smart smoke alarms that are showing as “offline.” Users have been reporting the outage on Google’s forums since around November 15th. A Google community manager replied, saying some 2nd gen Nest Protects are losing connection, and it’s working on a fix. Some members have posted today that they’ve gotten the devices back online but that there are still issues. The Nest status page doesn’t reflect an outage as of this writing./news/google-scraps-15-billion-deal-with-lead-developer-of-silicon-valley-campus-projects.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-scraps-15-billion-deal-with-lead-developer-of-silicon-valley-campus-projects.htmlGoogle has ended its agreement with Lendlease, the lead developer it had been working with on four major campus projects in Silicon Valley. In an announcement published earlier on Friday, Lendlease said both companies had agreed to end the deal after determining that “the existing agreements are no longer mutually beneficial given current market conditions.”  The deal covered Downtown West in San Jose, Moffett Park in Sunnyvale, and Middlefield Park and North Bayshore in Mountain View./news/google-spent-billions-of-dollars-to-lay-people-off.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-spent-billions-of-dollars-to-lay-people-off.htmlGoogle spent $2.1 billion on severance and other expenses as it laid off more than 12,000 employees over the course of 2023. And the layoff charges keep coming: in just the one month of 2024 so far, the company has already spent $700 million on employee severance charges as part of layoffs targeting another 1,000-plus roles. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, revealed the figure alongside its fourth-quarter earnings release on Tuesday./news/google-s-gemini-ai-is-getting-a-chatty-new-voice-mode.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-gemini-ai-is-getting-a-chatty-new-voice-mode.htmlGoogle’s Gemini AI assistant is getting new voice chat capabilities for Gemini Advanced subscribers this year. The feature, called Gemini Live, will enable two-way spoken conversation with the chatbot, smart assistant capabilities, and vision features — a lot like what OpenAI is working on for ChatGPT. Google says Gemini Live will adapt to users’ speech patterns and offer more succinct, conversational responses than the long-winded text-based replies it usually generates. The feature will offer 10 voice options, and the company says it’ll be able to use smartphone cameras to see and interpret real-time video./news/greenpeace-names-four-activists-who-damaged-a-peruvian-heritage-site.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/greenpeace-names-four-activists-who-damaged-a-peruvian-heritage-site.htmlGreenpeace has handed over the names of four activists who damaged the Nazca lines, an ancient heritage site, to the Peruvian authorities, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. The damage occurred in early December, when Greenpeace activists placed a gigantic banner promoting renewable energy and their own organization. Greenpeace apologized for the stunt after the Peruvian authorities called them out for damaging the area around 1,500-year-old hummingbird carving back in December. But the organization has now decided to cooperate with the Peruvian government in what appears to be an effort to reverse the negative effects of the public relations fiasco./news/hasan-piker-on-the-problem-with-youtube-debate-culture.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hasan-piker-on-the-problem-with-youtube-debate-culture.htmlLast week, a pair of YouTube’s most popular creators was set to spar in the marketplace of ideas in a debate over the government’s simple, common sense advice to wear masks during a global pandemic to stop the persistent spread of COVID-19. The spat grew from a series of videos between right-wing provocateur Steven Crowder and the host of the H3 Podcast, Ethan Klein, calling one another out for their purported bad takes on mask-wearing./news/hbo-s-fahrenheit-451-turns-a-warning-about-media-into-a-tirade-against-tech-trends.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hbo-s-fahrenheit-451-turns-a-warning-about-media-into-a-tirade-against-tech-trends.htmlDystopian stories are often described as warnings, but they can also be Rorschach blots. Readers dive in with specific fears — about technology, society, or the future — and find an allegory to validate them. And Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s classic 1953 novel, is a perfectly adaptable cautionary tale. It’s an elegant high-concept story backed by a complicated web of broad social complaints, critiquing everything from social justice to the zipper./news/here-s-how-much-apple-charges-for-every-part-to-fix-your-own-macbook.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-how-much-apple-charges-for-every-part-to-fix-your-own-macbook.htmlBut what will Apple actually let you buy, and how much will you really have to pay? That’s not obvious until you enter your serial numbers and root around the company’s entire store — so we did it for you. Many prices seem (relatively) generous! Others, not so much. You can’t just replace your own battery or keyboard on a MacBook Pro, for example! You have to buy the entire top lid that comes with that and other parts preattached, and it’ll cost you more than twice the $199 that Apple charges for a battery replacement./news/heritage-foundation-insists-gay-furry-hackers-did-not-breach-its-systems.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/heritage-foundation-insists-gay-furry-hackers-did-not-breach-its-systems.htmlA group of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers” says it breached the Heritage Foundation earlier this month, releasing two gigabytes of the right-wing think tank’s internal data on Tuesday. On its Telegram channel, the hacktivist collective SiegedSec — which has previously claimed responsibility for hacking NATO’s computer systems — said the Heritage hack was part of its #OpTransRights campaign, which also targeted the far-right media outlet Real America’s Voice and the Hillsong megachurch./news/hollow-knight-silksong-has-been-delayed.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hollow-knight-silksong-has-been-delayed.htmlWe’ll be waiting a little while longer for Hollow Knight: Silksong. The years-in-the-making sequel to the excellent Hollow Knight was supposed to release within 12 months of the 2022 Xbox June showcase, but a representative for the game said Tuesday evening that the title will be missing that release window. “We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing,” Matthew Griffin, who works on marketing and publishing for the game, posted on Twitter./news/how-loki-built-a-different-reality-with-retro-hardware.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-loki-built-a-different-reality-with-retro-hardware.htmlFor me, watching Loki has meant pausing each episode to admire the devices that keep the Time Variance Authority running — all curved silhouettes and comically tiny screens and hazy orange readouts. By the time I asked Loki production designer Kasra Farahani about the show’s prop design inspirations, I’d convinced myself that the TemPad had to be based on a Nintendo DS. It’s all I can think of whenever Mobius (Owen Wilson) flips open the little oblong compact./news/how-searching-star-john-cho-became-convinced-computer-screen-movies-weren-t-just-gimmicks.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-searching-star-john-cho-became-convinced-computer-screen-movies-weren-t-just-gimmicks.htmlWhen the horror flick Unfriended came out in 2015, it seemed more like a stunt than a legitimate movie. The entire movie took place on a computer screen, with audiences watching from a first-person point of view as a user navigated from Facebook to Spotify and back again, all while chatting on a group Skype call. The movie serves up a modern take on I Know What You Did Last Summer, as a group of friends are picked off by a righteously angry former victim./news/how-to-activate-and-use-google-chat.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-activate-and-use-google-chat.htmlReal-time collaborative chat, as exemplified by apps such as Slack, has become a common way to communicate between colleagues and friends, especially since early 2020, when so many of us transitioned to working from home. In mid-2021, Google apparently took note of this and pit itself against Slack by taking two of the features from its corporate Workplace app suite — Chat and Spaces (previously called Rooms) — and integrating them into its standard Gmail app./news/how-to-make-android-12-s-device-control-panel-easier-to-access.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-make-android-12-s-device-control-panel-easier-to-access.htmlOne of the first things you might notice when you get Android 12 on your phone is that a standout Android feature is no longer where you expect it. I’m talking about the device control panel Google added into the operating system with last year’s Android 11 release. The panel offers a handy set of commands that lets you access and adjust any smart lights and other connected gadgets set up in your home./news/how-to-make-your-iphone-s-wallpaper-a-rotating-gallery-of-good-vibes.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-make-your-iphone-s-wallpaper-a-rotating-gallery-of-good-vibes.htmlWith iOS 16’s overhaul of lock screen customization, Apple introduced a feature that lets you choose a shuffling set of pictures for your wallpaper. I was recently reminded of this feature thanks to a tweet from @cabel, and I’ve used it to make my lock screen a rotating gallery of beautiful nature pictures. Here’s how you can do that, too, and how you can use the Photo Shuffle feature to turn your phone into a slideshow of friends, family, pets, or places you’ve visited./news/how-to-manage-deleted-files-on-windows-and-android.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-manage-deleted-files-on-windows-and-android.htmlI have a bad habit of accidentally deleting files that I suddenly need a day later. Luckily, when files are “deleted,” they are actually not fully wiped from a system — and if they’re backed up to connected cloud storage services, well, those services have their own ways of handling deleted files. So it’s a good idea to know where to look. This is also something to keep in mind if you’re selling or giving away a system — because in that case, you’ll want to make sure your files are completely, totally wiped./news/how-to-stop-being-reminded-of-memories-you-don-t-want-to-be-reminded-of.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-stop-being-reminded-of-memories-you-don-t-want-to-be-reminded-of.htmlLast year, on a perfect spring day that also happened to be my birthday, I took a car trip to a beautiful area of New York state. It was a lovely day. The new foliage was just coming out and flocks of migrating birds were flying overhead — just the right day for a bunch of photos and good memories. Unfortunately, my reason for traveling upstate wasn’t for the flora and fauna, but to attend the funeral of my best friend./news/how-to-trade-in-your-macbook-macos-desktop-iphone-or-ipad.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-trade-in-your-macbook-macos-desktop-iphone-or-ipad.htmlIf you’re looking to trade in your Apple product — be it a MacBook, iMac, Mac desktop, iPhone, or iPad — you stand to get a pretty good return. Apple’s tech has a reputation on the secondhand market for retaining value long after release. This speaks to build quality but mostly to Apple’s long-lasting software support for its older products. The trend is positive both for buyers, who will end up with a product that could continue to work for years, and sellers, who will make a good percentage of their original purchase price back./news/how-to-use-google-voice.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-use-google-voice.htmlGoogle Voice is one of those services of which people tend to say, “Is that still around? Does anyone still use it?” But don’t be fooled by its longevity: people do still use it — and it’s possible that you may want to as well. Originally called GrandCentral before it was bought by Google in 2009 and only intermittently updated since, Voice is a telecommunications service that works in conjunction with your existing phone service and offers a free secondary phone number with voicemail, SMS capabilities, and other services./news/hp-victus-15-review-an-800-laptop-that-can-game.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-victus-15-review-an-800-laptop-that-can-game.htmlI have been searching far and wide for a budget gaming laptop that I could recommend for shoppers looking in the sub-$800 range. I was hoping and praying that the HP Victus 15 — which has been one of Best Buy’s most popular products this year — would be it. My takeaway, having been gaming on the Victus ($799.99 for my Core i5/8GB/512GB/GTX 1650 model) for the past few days, is that it’s not the slam dunk I hoped it would be./news/hulu-has-ordered-a-horror-anthology-series-based-on-north-american-lake-monsters.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hulu-has-ordered-a-horror-anthology-series-based-on-north-american-lake-monsters.htmlHulu has ordered a new horror anthology series based on Nathan Ballingrud’s short-story collection North American Lake Monsters, according to Deadline. It’ll be produced by Babak Anvari and Lucan Toh, the creative team behind the horror film Wounds, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. They’re already familiar with Ballingrud’s work: Wounds is based on another Ballingrud story, The Visible Filth. Anvari wrote and directed the movie, and Toh was one of the producers./news/hundreds-of-strange-metallic-spheres-found-in-ancient-mexican-temple.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hundreds-of-strange-metallic-spheres-found-in-ancient-mexican-temple.htmlHundreds of strange metallic-looking spheres of unknown origin and purpose have been discovered by archaeologists exploring the ruins of an ancient Mesoamerican temple in Mexico, Discovery News reports. The spheres were uncovered by a camera-equipped robotic exploration rover on the floor of two previously sealed underground chambers in the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in the ancient city Teotihuacan, 30 miles away from Mexico City. They are thought to be at least 1,800 years old and are about 1./news/i-gave-myself-electric-shocks-to-quit-biting-my-nails-it-didn-t-work.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-gave-myself-electric-shocks-to-quit-biting-my-nails-it-didn-t-work.htmlI’ve been trying to quit biting my nails forever, but all techniques have failed. If I apply nail polish, I leave my nails alone but I bite my cuticles. Then when I remove the nail polish, I’m back to square one and the nail biting resumes instantly. I even tried that bitter-tasting nail polish that’s supposed to keep you from putting your fingers in your mouth. A waste of money./news/i-traded-in-my-macbook-and-now-i-m-a-desktop-convert.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-traded-in-my-macbook-and-now-i-m-a-desktop-convert.htmlWhen the M3 MacBook Airs came out last month, I did a good ol’ double facepalm that Captain Picard would be proud of. The wedge shape was no more (kinda). My M2 MacBook Air 15 was slightly too big, too heavy, and no matter what certain people say, 8GB of RAM was not cutting it. Analyzing the various MacBook Air and MacBook Pro configurations and prices made my head hurt. Thinking about lugging around a heavier laptop made my back hurt./news/insanely-pricey-titanium-case-released-for-insanely-pricey-iphone-xs.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/insanely-pricey-titanium-case-released-for-insanely-pricey-iphone-xs.htmlUltra-premium case manufacturer Gray has turned its attention to the recently announced iPhone XS with a new lineup of titanium phone cases that cost significantly more than the handset itself. The cases range from the grey Alter Ego Titanium which you can get for $1,460, and stretch right through to the pearlescent Alter Ego Aurora which retails for $2,768 — almost double the price of the most expensive 512GB iPhone XS Max./news/instagram-is-getting-rid-of-photo-maps.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-is-getting-rid-of-photo-maps.htmlInstagram photo maps, which displayed the pictures you had taken according to where you had taken them, are going away. The company confirmed to Mashable today that it has begun removing the maps from the service. "Photo Map was not widely used, so we've decided to remove the feature and focus on other priorities," Instagram said in a statement. "You will still be able to see location tags on individual posts./news/introducing-command-line-a-newsletter-about-the-tech-industry-s-inside-conversation-by-alex-heath.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/introducing-command-line-a-newsletter-about-the-tech-industry-s-inside-conversation-by-alex-heath.htmlI’m excited to announce Command Line, a new weekly newsletter I’ll be writing at The Verge.  Command Line is focused on the people and strategies leading the most consequential companies in tech. Each Thursday, I’ll dive into the biggest stories of our time, from the belt-tightening that’s happening across Big Tech to what’s next for generative AI, social media, and the looming AR headset wars, and give you scoops, insight, and perspective you won’t find anywhere else./news/jabra-s-earbuds-are-going-away-but-the-impact-they-made-isn-t.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jabra-s-earbuds-are-going-away-but-the-impact-they-made-isn-t.htmlMere hours after announcing two new pairs of earbuds, Jabra parent company GN revealed that the Elite 10 Gen 2 and Elite 8 Active Gen 2 will mark the end of its consumer earbud business. That’s all she wrote for the long-running Elite series after years of quality products. The decision seems somewhat abrupt; earlier this month, Jabra invited select press on an “all-expenses-paid media trip” to its Copenhagen headquarters. (The Verge did not attend./news/judge-blasts-sonos-for-abusing-patent-system-and-throws-out-32-5-million-win-against-google.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/judge-blasts-sonos-for-abusing-patent-system-and-throws-out-32-5-million-win-against-google.htmlThe essence of this order is that the patents issued after an unreasonable, inexcusable, and prejudicial delay of over thirteen years by the patent holder, Sonos, Inc. Sonos filed the provisional application from which the patents in suit claim priority in 2006, but it did not file the applications for these patents and present the asserted claims for examination until 2019. By the time these patents issued in 2019 and 2020, the industry had already marched on and put the claimed invention into practice./news/kindle-tv-why-does-amazon-need-a-set-top-box.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kindle-tv-why-does-amazon-need-a-set-top-box.htmlNews that Amazon is building a set-top box to rival offerings from Apple, Google, and Roku arrived yesterday as a surprise — but not a shock. In the past several years, all of its biggest competitors have made their own plays for customers' living rooms. The simplest explanation for Amazon's entry into the set-top box space is that the company has to. Amazon declined to comment, but consider the competition: Apple has its TV "/news/lil-nas-x-became-twitter-s-ceo-for-a-day-and-didn-t-ban-the-nazis.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lil-nas-x-became-twitter-s-ceo-for-a-day-and-didn-t-ban-the-nazis.htmlToday, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” made Billboard chart history, becoming the longest-running No. 1 hit since the chart began in 1958 — beating out Mariah Carey, whose collaboration with Boyz II Men, “One Sweet Day,” had previously held the record. (“Old Town Road” has spent nearly four months at number one.) Twitter also posted a video on its music account, Twitter Music, starring the young rapper and meme impresario, in which he grabs Jack Dorsey’s badge and becomes CEO for the day./news/listen-to-an-ai-voice-actor-try-and-flirt-with-you.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/listen-to-an-ai-voice-actor-try-and-flirt-with-you.htmlThe quality of AI-generated voices has improved rapidly in recent years, but there are still aspects of human speech that escape synthetic imitation. Sure, AI actors can deliver smooth corporate voiceovers for presentations and adverts, but more complex performances — a convincing rendition of Hamlet, for example — remain out of reach. Sonantic, an AI voice startup, says it’s made a minor breakthrough in its development of audio deepfakes, creating a synthetic voice that can express subtleties like teasing and flirtation./news/macmillan-subsidiary-tor-forge-to-sell-drm-free-ebooks-in-july.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/macmillan-subsidiary-tor-forge-to-sell-drm-free-ebooks-in-july.htmlTom Doherty Associates, which published books under the Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen imprints, has announced that it will begin publishing ebooks without DRM beginning in July. The change was apparently much-requested, perhaps because (as Tor put it) its audience is "a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them." The publisher's books on current stores will move to DRM-free and the decision will also free up the company to sell books on stores that only feature DRM-free ebooks./news/magikarp-is-pok%C3%A9mon-s-most-lovable-punching-bag.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/magikarp-is-pok%C3%A9mon-s-most-lovable-punching-bag.htmlMagikarp is the most useless of all pokémon. In the video game series, it “attacks” with splash, a move that literally does nothing. Earlier this month, the Official Pokémon YouTube Channel debuted the English version of “The Magikarp Song,” a ballad that starts off by declaring “Totally pathetic, unreliable / Known throughout the world for being super-weak.” Just this week, The Pokémon Company International released Magikarp Jump, a game that leans into this pitiable angle to sell its stupidest creature./news/major-reddit-communities-go-dark-to-protest-alleged-hiring-of-controversial-uk-politician.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/major-reddit-communities-go-dark-to-protest-alleged-hiring-of-controversial-uk-politician.htmlUpdate, 6:45PM ET: Reddit says it’s cut ties with an employee widely identified as former UK politician Aimee Knight, following a shutdown of hundreds of communities. CEO Steve Huffman posted a statement confirming that the site had been overzealous trying to prevent harassment, resulting in a moderator being banned for posting an article that referenced Knight’s name. “We would like to give you all an update on the recent issues that have transpired concerning a specific Reddit employee, as well as provide you with context into actions that we took to prevent doxxing and harassment./news/mercedes-benz-is-connecting-the-amazon-echo-and-google-home-to-all-its-new-cars.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mercedes-benz-is-connecting-the-amazon-echo-and-google-home-to-all-its-new-cars.htmlFor instance, customers with Google devices can simply say, “Ok, Google, tell Mercedes me to start my car,” and it will remotely start the customer’s car. Another available feature includes remote lock. With Alexa devices, customers can say, “Alexa, ask Mercedes me to send an address to the car” for remote navigation input and point-of-interest requests. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnam9faXxzfY5qbGxwZWeAc3vMnqmcnZSawG6uxKexZpmdlsewuoyemqGnXZa5psTAZp6op5ehsm60zqac/news/meta-ai-assistant-dozens-of-ai-characters-come-to-whatsapp-instagram.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-ai-assistant-dozens-of-ai-characters-come-to-whatsapp-instagram.htmlMeta is officially entering the AI chatbot wars, starting with its own assistant and a slew of AI characters it’s releasing in WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. For anyone who has used OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or other chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s AI will immediately feel familiar. Meta sees it as a general-purpose assistant for everything from planning a trip with friends in a group chat to answering questions you’d normally ask a search engine./news/microsoft-is-now-selling-an-xbox-red-ring-of-death-poster-for-24-99.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-is-now-selling-an-xbox-red-ring-of-death-poster-for-24-99.htmlMicrosoft is now selling its own Xbox Red Ring of Death poster to commemorate the release of the Power On: The Story of Xbox docuseries. The six-part documentary is a warts and all look at 20 years of Xbox highs and lows, including the infamous red ring of death. The Xbox 360’s red ring of death was represented by three out of the four LEDs on an Xbox 360 turning red, a problem that affected a lot of initial consoles as failure rates were incredibly high./news/microsoft-just-launched-a-bunch-of-new-games-on-xbox-game-pass-at-e3-2021.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-just-launched-a-bunch-of-new-games-on-xbox-game-pass-at-e3-2021.htmlMicrosoft has announced a whole slate of games that will be joining Xbox Game Pass today, with 11 new titles available on the subscription service via Xbox and PC. The new Game Pass titles were announced during Microsoft and Bethesda’s joint E3 conference on Sunday. The lion’s share comes from Bethesda, which adds 10 more titles to the service, in addition to the 20 Bethesda titles added to the service since it was acquired by Microsoft earlier this year./news/miles-is-an-app-that-tracks-your-every-move-in-exchange-for-deals-and-discounts.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/miles-is-an-app-that-tracks-your-every-move-in-exchange-for-deals-and-discounts.htmlFrequent flyer programs are a frustrating paradox. As humans, we’re always on the hunt for a discount, but how often do most of us fly? Once every few months? Once a year? For the most part, we spend far more time traveling in a car or bus, on a bike, or on foot. To the right kind of mind, that sounds like an opportunity, which is why a new Silicon Valley startup called Miles has built a rewards program for all these other modes of transportation./news/mrbeast-just-dropped-a-new-youtube-face.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mrbeast-just-dropped-a-new-youtube-face.htmlThe faces on YouTube thumbnails might start to look a bit different. A lot of thumbnails feature a person with an open mouth in shock, awe, excitement, or horror because of a belief that the open-mouth face entices people to click on a video. But MrBeast, the individual with the most subscribers on YouTube, said Wednesday that he’s starting to see longer watch times on videos where his thumbnail face has a closed mouth instead of an open one./news/netflix-acquires-dvd-com-domain-has-no-plans-to-split-dvd-and-streaming.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-acquires-dvd-com-domain-has-no-plans-to-split-dvd-and-streaming.htmlFollowing the news that DVD-only Netflix subscribers now only have access to part of the company's catalog, the service has now purchased the domain DVD.com, which sends users to the new dvd.netflix.com sub section. Netflix confirmed the purchase to Domain Name Wire, explaining that "Netflix cares about keeping DVD healthy, and this is just one small investment in keeping DVD healthy." Terms of the purchase were not disclosed — though DVD./news/netflix-has-removed-nine-titles-from-its-service-to-comply-with-government-requests.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-has-removed-nine-titles-from-its-service-to-comply-with-government-requests.htmlSince Netflix was founded almost 25 years ago, the company has removed nine titles from its service around the world in compliance with government demands, including Night of the Living Dead in Germany and Full Metal Jacket in Vietnam. Netflix laid out the nine takedowns it’s received from various companies relating to certain parts of its film and television catalog in a new environmental social governance report, first spotted by Axios./news/netflix-s-aggretsuko-show-is-a-shockingly-insightful-portrait-of-feminine-rage.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-aggretsuko-show-is-a-shockingly-insightful-portrait-of-feminine-rage.htmlIn all honesty, I had written off Sanrio’s latest character Aggretsuko — a cute red panda with a secret penchant for blowing off steam from her office job via death metal karaoke — as a one-note joke. The company was clearly shifting to a new class of characters that would hopefully resonate with a fan base that grew up with its characters. Coupled with another new character Gudetama, a perpetually listless egg yolk, I was convinced Sanrio had unlocked an impressive profit model by appealing to the disillusioned hearts of millennials./news/netflix-s-new-take-on-dracula-is-here-to-suck-the-life-out-of-vampire-stories.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-new-take-on-dracula-is-here-to-suck-the-life-out-of-vampire-stories.htmlThere are two big problems that arise when you decide you’re going to tell a story about Dracula. The first one is simple: he’s the most famous vampire in all of fiction, perhaps the most widely known horror villain in the world. This makes surprising people difficult. The other is that everyone thinks they know what Dracula is about, so each take is battling against dozens of other ideas at any given moment that range from goofy cartoon characters to Hollywood legends./news/new-apple-watch-se-announced-price-features-release-date.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-apple-watch-se-announced-price-features-release-date.htmlApple has announced a new Apple Watch SE. An upgrade to the original SE, the new smartwatch is the second generation of the company’s entry-level, cellular-capable model. The new SE will cost $249 for the GPS model and $299 for the cellular model, a $30 price drop from the original SE. The Apple Watch SE is available starting September 16th and can be pre-ordered today. The Apple Watch SE will support the crash detection feature announced on the Apple Watch Series 8 and will be up to 20 percent faster than the first-gen SE, thanks to the new S8 chip, the same as in the Series 8./news/new-trailers-cherry-clarice-the-united-states-vs-billie-holiday-and-more.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-trailers-cherry-clarice-the-united-states-vs-billie-holiday-and-more.htmlI’m getting to the point where there’s so much to stream that I don’t know what to watch first, old shows I want to catch up on, or new shows/movies so I can keep up with all the references on Twitter. But! I am filled with hope for the coming weeks, as there are a slew of interesting-looking trailers for movies I have been waiting to see. The United States vs./news/nfl-sunday-ticket-on-youtube-price-starts-at-249-for-the-2023-season.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nfl-sunday-ticket-on-youtube-price-starts-at-249-for-the-2023-season.htmlFootball fans, start saving those pennies. YouTube just announced pricing for its new Sunday Ticket package, and access to this season’s games will cost anywhere from $249 to $489. The pricing structure is... confusing. So let’s just quickly run it down. If you’re a YouTube TV subscriber, you’ll pay: Subscribing through YouTube TV is clearly the better deal here, but that obviously also requires ponying up the $72.99 subscription fee for the company’s live TV system./news/nikon-announces-powerful-z7-and-z6-full-frame-mirrorless-cameras.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nikon-announces-powerful-z7-and-z6-full-frame-mirrorless-cameras.htmlAfter weeks of teases, Nikon has just unveiled its brand new full-frame mirrorless cameras. The Z7 ($3,399.95) and the Z6 ($1,995.95) represent the company’s most serious effort yet to branch out from its tried and true DSLR business and challenge Sony in the mirrorless market. The two cameras share an identical design but differ in megapixel count and other areas like number of focus points and ISO range. They’re basically a tit-for-tat response to Sony’s A7III and A7RIII, and Nikon is aggressively going several steps beyond what Canon has attempted with mirrorless cameras./news/ninja-shroud-and-other-top-mixer-streamers-are-now-free-to-stream-on-twitch-again.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ninja-shroud-and-other-top-mixer-streamers-are-now-free-to-stream-on-twitch-again.htmlMicrosoft is shutting down Mixer and moving most of its streamers to Facebook Gaming as part of a strategic partnership it’s entering with the social media giant. The major streamers locked into exclusivity deals with Mixer — including stars like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Cory “King Gothalion” Michael, and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek — will be released from their contracts, and Microsoft says it’s up to them where they decide to go. “It’s up to them and their priorities,” says Vivek Sharma, the head of Facebook Gaming, meaning the platform isn’t actively pursuing exclusive agreements with any of Mixer’s biggest names./news/openai-strikes-licensing-deal-with-the-magazine-giant-behind-people.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-strikes-licensing-deal-with-the-magazine-giant-behind-people.htmlDotdash Meredith, publisher of People, Better Homes & Gardens, Investopedia, Food & Wine, and InStyle, signed a deal on Tuesday with OpenAI to use AI models for its ad-targeting product, D/Cipher. In turn, Dotdash Meredith will license its content to ChatGPT. With the partnership, OpenAI will bring content from Dotdash Meredith publications to ChatGPT, link to the articles in the chatbot, and train AI models with its articles. (Presumably, this also includes an archive of all the previous sexiest men alive./news/oppo-s-air-glass-is-an-ar-experiment-with-one-great-idea.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oppo-s-air-glass-is-an-ar-experiment-with-one-great-idea.html“Normal-looking glasses” are the holy grail of augmented reality. Major tech companies like Google and Intel have joined startups like North and social media giants like Snap in trying to design something people can wear over their eyes without feeling like a total weirdo and, more importantly, without making the people around them uncomfortable. Nobody has cracked this code after almost a decade of concerted effort — but Chinese phone maker Oppo is at least having some fun with the challenge./news/oscars-2024-how-to-watch-the-academy-awards.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oscars-2024-how-to-watch-the-academy-awards.htmlSome of Hollywood’s biggest stars will gather in the Dolby Theatre tonight for the 96th annual Academy Awards. It’s a sign things are starting to get back to normal following last year’s monthslong writers and actors strikes. In between the award announcements, we’ll also get to see performances from several artists — including Ryan Gosling. If you want to see what this year’s ceremony has to offer, and also find out which film takes away the most Oscars, here’s what you need to know about tuning in./news/owc-s-aurora-envoy-bundles-give-macbook-airs-a-storage-upgrade-repurpose-old-drives.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/owc-s-aurora-envoy-bundles-give-macbook-airs-a-storage-upgrade-repurpose-old-drives.htmlIf you’re looking to swap out your 2010 or 2011 MacBook Air’s SSD for something bigger and faster, but still want to make the most of your old drive, OWC is offering some new bundles that could be what you're looking for. If you buy any of the company’s Mercury Aura Pro Express SSDs you’ll be able to grab a USB 3.0 bus-powered Aurora Envoy enclosure kit for an extra $20 — down from $47./news/perfectly-imperfect-launches-an-earnest-anti-algorithm-social-network.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/perfectly-imperfect-launches-an-earnest-anti-algorithm-social-network.htmlFor Tyler Bainbridge to launch his recommendation app PI.FYI, it took years to build up a cult following — and a lot of resentment toward his job. In 2020, only a month into his engineering job at Meta, Tyler Bainbridge started to feel “a big tech doom” settle over him. He needed a side project to feel good about himself. So Bainbridge did what many millennials in need of a hobby did during the pandemic: he started a newsletter./news/playing-metroid-prime-on-a-steam-deck-shouldn-t-feel-this-good.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/playing-metroid-prime-on-a-steam-deck-shouldn-t-feel-this-good.htmlIf there were gamer commandments, not expecting too much out of Nintendo would probably be chiseled onto it. Still, I was hopeful that on November 18th, it would surprise launch a Switch version of the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Nintendo did no such thing on that day, the 20th birthday of Metroid Prime, the timeless modernization of the series that turned it into a first-person shooter. I didn’t let that get me down./news/plex-has-launched-its-idea-for-a-music-player-plexamp.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/plex-has-launched-its-idea-for-a-music-player-plexamp.htmlPlex, a cloud media server, introduced its solution for desktop music playback today. Inspired by Winamp (throwback!), the company's Plexamp app features a single window. You can get it for free through Plex Labs, the company’s experimental division for employee “passion projects.” Plexamp runs on macOS or Windows and should support "any music format you could dream of throwing at it." Perhaps most exciting, though, is that it features playback visualizer, just like old media players./news/poe-s-ai-chatbot-testing-quora-s-universal-ai-messaging-app-for-chatgpt-and-more.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/poe-s-ai-chatbot-testing-quora-s-universal-ai-messaging-app-for-chatgpt-and-more.htmlChatGPT is a remarkable piece of technology and a really crappy consumer product. Load OpenAI’s revolutionary chatbot at any given time, and after a long wait, you’ll be greeted with… well, likely as not, a message saying ChatGPT is over capacity and you can’t use it anyway. It’s slow even in the best of situations, and its blocky white-and-gray interface doesn’t exactly scream high design. There’s not even a mobile app./news/pornhub-owner-s-ceo-and-coo-resign.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pornhub-owner-s-ceo-and-coo-resign.htmlPornhub owner MindGeek has lost two high-level executives: CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo, as first reported by Variety. Their resignation comes shortly after The New Yorker released a scathing report detailing the holes in the company’s content moderation system, which has failed to address videos depicting underage and non-consenting individuals. Despite the timeliness of The New Yorker’s report, a spokesperson for the company told Variety that MindGeek had been planning a leadership change since earlier this year./news/redesigned-google-maps-desktop-beta-now-available-to-all-users.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/redesigned-google-maps-desktop-beta-now-available-to-all-users.htmlYou no longer need an email invitation to test out the overhauled Google Maps web experience. Unveiled two months ago at I/O, the completely rethought, vector-based Maps makeover is now available to all users; you simply need to visit Google for instant access to the beta. The Maps team says it's been listening closely to feedback since revealing an all-new take on one of the internet's most vital tools, and promises further improvements "/news/restomod-company-everrati-delivers-its-first-us-built-porsche-911-ev.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/restomod-company-everrati-delivers-its-first-us-built-porsche-911-ev.htmlEverrati, a UK-based company that restores classic cars and converts them to electric vehicles, has delivered its first US-built Porsche 911 in California, the company announced on Monday. For Everrati, the delivery marks a milestone for the company and its CEO, Justin Lunny, who’s been working hard to expand manufacturing to the US since our conversation with him in 2021. Everrati’s pursuit of local manufacturing follows growing customer interest in the US, where many had voiced the desire to convert their prestigious classic cars to electric./news/returnal-is-getting-co-op-and-a-survival-mode-in-a-free-ascension-update.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/returnal-is-getting-co-op-and-a-survival-mode-in-a-free-ascension-update.htmlReturnal is getting cooperative multiplayer and a new survival mode (dubbed “The Tower of Sisyphus”) in its upcoming 3.0 “Ascension” update, developer Housemarque announced at Sony’s latest State of Play livestream. The update marks the first significant addition of new content to the challenging sci-fi roguelike. A previous 2.0 update from last year focused instead of adding major quality of life additions, like the much-requested ability to suspend a run without losing your progress and a photo mode./news/rivian-owners-now-have-access-to-tesla-superchargers.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rivian-owners-now-have-access-to-tesla-superchargers.htmlRivian owners will be able to charge their electric trucks and SUVs at Tesla Supercharger stations starting today at 9AM PT / 12 PM ET, the company tells The Verge. The news comes after several Rivian owners noticed a software update allowing Supercharger access over the weekend. Rivian was one of the first automakers to announce plans to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its future EVs. For current owners, Rivian will send out a Tesla-made adapter free of charge, much like Ford started doing last month./news/robin-sloan-on-his-new-book-sourdough-san-francisco-culture-and-a-more-optimistic-silicon-valley.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/robin-sloan-on-his-new-book-sourdough-san-francisco-culture-and-a-more-optimistic-silicon-valley.htmlRobin Sloan’s debut novel, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, was a charming look at Silicon Valley culture set in a San Francisco that almost felt like an ideal version of our own. Sloan’s city is a place where the sun feels a little bit brighter, the companies a little less evil, and where secret clubs, improbable bookstores, and delightful characters can be found around every corner. A second course of the best parts of Penumbra/news/roblox-will-start-verifying-the-age-of-teenage-players.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roblox-will-start-verifying-the-age-of-teenage-players.htmlRoblox is rolling out an age verification feature that will allow players to confirm their age and gain access to features reserved for older players. Age verification will be optional, and Roblox tells The Verge it will “not retain any data” from the verification process, which requires showing a form of ID. For now, only one feature requires age verification: Roblox’s new voice chat feature, Spacial Voice. During its initial beta test, it will only be available to players who verify they are at least 13 years old./news/roborock-s-q5-pro-the-best-robovac-for-families-with-pets-is-nearly-half-off.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roborock-s-q5-pro-the-best-robovac-for-families-with-pets-is-nearly-half-off.htmlIf you’re looking for a way to quickly wrap up your spring cleaning, robot vacuums make for great cleaning assistants that can help you do so with just the press of a button. And right now, one of our favorite models has plunged to a new all-time low, with both Amazon and Roborock selling the Roborock Q5 Pro for $259.99 ($170 off). The midrange Q5 Pro is a powerful cleaning machine with dual rubber roller brushes and 5,500Pa of suction power, which allows it to suck up pet hair, dirt, and debris from carpets exceptionally well without getting tangled up./news/samsung-galaxy-note-10-two-sizes-new-s-pen-and-dex-on-your-laptop.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-note-10-two-sizes-new-s-pen-and-dex-on-your-laptop.htmlSamsung is announcing not one, but two versions of its flagship Galaxy Note 10 smartphone: the regular Note 10 and the jumbo Note 10 Plus. Really, though, you should think of the Note 10 Plus as the traditional Note — it’s virtually the same size as last year’s Note 9 and continues the tradition of the big-screened, super-powered, stylus-toting smartphone. The Note 10 is something new: the Note’s stylus and power crammed down into something a little closer to the size of the Galaxy S10./news/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-review.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-review.htmlFirst impressions first: after getting through the initial setup menu, I was blown away by the fluidity and smoothness of the Galaxy Note II’s home screen animations. Even by the high standards of the HTC One X that I use on a regular basis, the Note II is dazzlingly responsive. This is down to the combination of Samsung’s new Exynos processor and Google’s latest Android 4.1 update. That quad-core chip obliterated our previous benchmark records when it debuted on the Galaxy S III and its processing and graphical capabilities are apparent from the moment you pick up the Galaxy Note II as well./news/section-230-is-25-years-old-and-it-s-never-been-more-important.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/section-230-is-25-years-old-and-it-s-never-been-more-important.htmlOn February 8th, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act, a sweeping regulatory framework for the internet. Almost all of the CDA was found unconstitutional, but what remained allowed the nascent web to flourish. It’s called Section 230 — and for the past quarter-century, it’s shaped the internet for better and worse. Section 230 protects any owner or user of an “interactive computer service” — typically an app or website — from liability for content that someone else posted./news/sega-s-time-traveler-might-have-changed-arcade-games-if-it-wasn-t-for-street-fighter-ii.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sega-s-time-traveler-might-have-changed-arcade-games-if-it-wasn-t-for-street-fighter-ii.htmlWhen Sega’s "holographic game" Time Traveler arrived on the scene in 1991 it looked like it was going to revolutionize the face of arcades. A curved mirror, CRT TV, and stereographic Laserdisc made the action appear like it was floating in front of you in 3D space, while you used a joystick and button to navigate a series of Dragon’s Lair-style quicktime events. The game was a brief success, but Sega could have never foreseen the smash Street Fighter II became, and despite Time Traveler's innovative presentation, its simple move-jump-shoot repetition couldn't compete with the deep fighting mechanics and addictive head-to-head gameplay Capcom brought to the table./news/sennheiser-s-new-ie-800-s-earbuds-up-the-ante-and-the-price.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sennheiser-s-new-ie-800-s-earbuds-up-the-ante-and-the-price.htmlSennheiser is updating its audiophile IE 800 earbuds, debuting a new model called the IE 800 S. This next generation of the IE 800 not only has improved acoustics, but has been given a face-lift to the design, as well. This follows Sennheiser’s recent announcement of the over-ear HD 660 S, which succeed the HD 650. The IE 800 S earbuds have a tweaked version of the company’s Extra Wide Band (XWB) driver, which promises to up the ante when it comes to distortion-free listening./news/shutterless-cameras-deserve-good-shutter-sounds.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/shutterless-cameras-deserve-good-shutter-sounds.htmlSnapping a camera’s shutter to take a picture is one of the best feelings in photography. You get a timeless, tactile feedback as you capture every decisive moment with a satisfying auditory “click” sound. But we’re slowly losing this hallmark of picture-taking. Not only because smartphones are replacing full-size cameras for most people but because more cameras are being built without mechanical shutters at all. Nikon’s flagship Z9 and newer Z8 cameras forego traditional shutters entirely, so instead of hearing and feeling a mechanical action, you either hear nothing at all or are played the sound of a fake shutter./news/silo-review-apple-tv-s-small-town-mystery-set-at-the-end-of-the-world.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/silo-review-apple-tv-s-small-town-mystery-set-at-the-end-of-the-world.htmlBased on trailers and images, it’s pretty easy to write off Silo as yet another dour post-apocalyptic story. It’s all grey and brown and miserable, with the remnants of humanity holed up in an underground silo to avoid the poisonous world outside. You’d be excused for mistaking it for something like The Hunger Games or Divergent. But setting aside, Silo doesn’t have much in common with the rest of the genre./news/simpsonwave-is-the-chill-summer-soundtrack-you-didn-t-know-you-needed.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/simpsonwave-is-the-chill-summer-soundtrack-you-didn-t-know-you-needed.htmlEvery fall, my music habits change. I ditch the faster pop-punk and rock for slower, more contemplative music. When spring rolls around, though, I stash the sappy crap and get right back into the fast stuff. The weird thing is, nothing changes when summer hits. Maybe it's because most of the time it's too hot to wear headphones, or because I no longer have a car to cruise around in, and the car is the perfect place for unbridled music consumption, especially during summer./news/snl-will-now-air-live-in-all-us-time-zones-due-to-self-importance.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/snl-will-now-air-live-in-all-us-time-zones-due-to-self-importance.htmlThe last four episodes of Saturday Night Live’s 42nd season will air live in every US time zone, a first for the NBC series. Until now, the show was broadcast live from New York City at 11:30PM ET (and 10:30PM CT), and was re-broadcast three hours later for Mountain and Pacific time zones. This means for the next month, West Coasters will have to tune in at 8:30PM PT to catch the new episodes, hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Chris Pine, Melissa McCarthy, and The Rock./news/sony-is-now-in-play-to-buy-paramount.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-is-now-in-play-to-buy-paramount.htmlSony is now in play to buy Paramount. Paramount has formally begun negotiating with the company as the “period of exclusive talks with the Hollywood studio Skydance lapsed on Friday night,” according to The New York Times today. Sony, which signaled its interest in buying Paramount last week, would reportedly hold controlling shares, while Apollo would have a minority stake, if the deal goes through. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfanx2e5FtaG1xZ219cL%2FOp7BmoaNiu7DDjKKlZqiclsZuwM5mma6xXaWus63MqKynrA%3D%3D/news/sony-xperia-5-ii-review-the-right-tool-for-the-right-jobs.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-xperia-5-ii-review-the-right-tool-for-the-right-jobs.htmlMore than any other smartphone I’ve used this year, the Sony Xperia 5 II feels like a tool. It’s not just that it has a very understated design (though this definitely plays a part), it’s that Sony’s whole approach is to give you as much control over the phone as possible. Control over how it looks, and sounds, and takes photos and video. Like any tool, though, you get more out of the Xperia 5 II when you’re prepared to put more in./news/sony-s-psvr-2-pc-adapter-launches-in-august.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-psvr-2-pc-adapter-launches-in-august.htmlPS VR2 was designed from the ground up specifically for PS5 — so you’ll notice that some key features, like HDR, headset feedback, eye tracking, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback (other than rumble), are not available when playing on PC. However, other high-fidelity and sensory immersion features of PS VR2 are supported, including 4K visuals (2000 x 2040 per eye), 110-degree field of view, finger touch detection, and see-through view, as well as foveated rendering (without eye tracking) and 3D Audio in supported games./news/southwest-airlines-and-archer-strike-a-deal-for-an-electric-air-taxi-network.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/southwest-airlines-and-archer-strike-a-deal-for-an-electric-air-taxi-network.htmlToday, Southwest Airlines became the latest major carrier to join forces with a so-called urban air mobility startup. The Dallas-based airline signed a memorandum of understanding with Archer Aviation to draw up plans for an air taxi service. The service will operate using Archer’s battery-powered, four-passenger, tilt-rotor Midnight aircraft, which are designed to take off and land vertically from a landing strip like a helicopter. As part of the deal, the aircraft will get access to 14 California airports where Southwest operates./news/spacex-launches-its-powerful-falcon-heavy-rocket-for-the-first-time.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spacex-launches-its-powerful-falcon-heavy-rocket-for-the-first-time.htmlSpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this afternoon and soared to space, carrying its payload — CEO Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster — into orbit. The Falcon Heavy’s first flight is finally over, and despite a fudged landing in the ocean, the rocket has shown its prowess and is likely ready to begin missions for customers. Adding to the launch’s success, two of the Falcon Heavy’s rocket cores successfully touched down back on Earth after takeoff./news/spike-jonze-s-her-holds-up-a-decade-later.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spike-jonze-s-her-holds-up-a-decade-later.html“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam,” author Frederik Pohl once wrote. AI has been the subject of sci-fi for so long it’s nearly cliche. Decades before anything resembling large language models arrived, creative minds had deftly imagined what a world populated by artificial minds would look like, from Metropolis to 2001: A Space Odyssey, usually as thinking, feeling, loving robots of some kind or another./news/spotify-got-rid-of-its-convenient-android-home-screen-widget.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-got-rid-of-its-convenient-android-home-screen-widget.htmlThe ability to plop widgets anywhere on your home screen is one of the more convenient things about Android. But one huge company, Spotify, is doing away with its widget. As noted by 9to5Google, Spotify’s most recent Android app update quietly phased out the mini-player that previously let users pause / play music or skip tracks from their device’s home screen. If you had the widget on your home screen, you’ll now see either empty space or it’ll be non-functional./news/sprint-offers-customers-a-bad-deal-on-access-to-amazon-prime.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sprint-offers-customers-a-bad-deal-on-access-to-amazon-prime.htmlSprint is still trying all the tricks it can to get back into the game, but the carrier's latest is something we haven't seen before. Customers can now get access to Amazon Prime as a monthly add-on for their contract for $10.99. You get everything you'd normally get from Prime (free two-day shipping, access to Amazon's music and video services, etc.), but you pay for it along with your cell phone bill./news/staples-easy-button-is-a-cheap-toy-that-envisions-a-perfect-button.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/staples-easy-button-is-a-cheap-toy-that-envisions-a-perfect-button.htmlAs buttons go, there are few as well-known as Staples’ “Easy Button” — a bright, Staples-red button that was featured in a series of ad campaigns beginning in 2005. The ads were so popular that Staples ended up actually selling real replica versions of the Easy Button shortly after they debuted — and it’s since sold millions of the desk toys. The Easy Button aims to be the perfect button/news/star-trek-picard-season-3-review-you-are-not-prepared.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/star-trek-picard-season-3-review-you-are-not-prepared.htmlAfter two middling but slowly improving seasons of Star Trek: Picard, the show has returned for one last hurrah — and god damn, was it worth the rest. If you have ever considered yourself a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation (or even, to a lesser extent, Deep Space Nine or Voyager), then get ready for the love letter coming your way on February 16th. While this season puts its characters in terrible spots, and there are rumors a few will die by season’s end, this wild ride has a real genuine affection for all the players./news/studio-ghibli-s-hand-drawn-star-wars-animation-hits-disney-plus-tomorrow.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/studio-ghibli-s-hand-drawn-star-wars-animation-hits-disney-plus-tomorrow.htmlGrogu, meet Totoro. This evening famed animation house Studio Ghibli — best-known for films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro — confirmed its new Star Wars project, which is called Discover Zen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies and is described as a “a hand-drawn animation.” There aren’t many other details on it, but that’s not such a big deal because you’ll be able to see it for yourself very soon: it starts streaming on Disney Plus on November 12th./news/super-high-speed-internet-delivered-over-the-air-isn-t-as-crazy-as-it-sounds.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/super-high-speed-internet-delivered-over-the-air-isn-t-as-crazy-as-it-sounds.htmlThis week, a new startup, Starry, announced it would bring gigabit-speed internet access to consumers, without data caps, at a price that is equal or less than your average broadband plan. It also announced that it would do this without ripping up the ground to lay expensive fiber cables or asking local governments for construction permits. It would beam the signals over the air. It was a shocking promise. For nearly all consumers, internet access over the air tops out with 4G LTE speeds./news/tesla-arcade-hands-on-using-a-model-3-steering-wheel-as-a-game-controller.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-arcade-hands-on-using-a-model-3-steering-wheel-as-a-game-controller.htmlTesla is pulling its secret video game features out of the shadows and bringing them front and center starting today as Tesla Arcade, a new game hub found across its line of electric vehicles. And earlier this afternoon, the company brought a Model 3 to downtown San Francisco to let The Verge try out Arcade and its newest title, developer Vector Unit’s Beach Buggy Racing 2. It’s an iOS and Android racing game you can play on a phone or tablet, but what makes it special on a Tesla car is its controller: the literal steering wheel of the Model 3./news/tesla-model-s-plaid-revealed-elon-musk-calls-it-the-quickest-production-car-ever.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-model-s-plaid-revealed-elon-musk-calls-it-the-quickest-production-car-ever.htmlA lucky 25 customers received Tesla’s redesigned Model S “Plaid” at an event hosted by CEO Elon Musk in Fremont, California on Thursday night. The Silicon Valley automaker has billed this new $130,000 version of the Model S — first announced in January and originally slated to ship in March — as the “quickest production vehicle ever made,” with the ability to go from 0-60mph in under 2 seconds. Its name is a reference to the unthinkable speed beyond “Ludicrous” in the comedy classic Spaceballs./news/the-amazon-labor-union-beat-a-behemoth-can-it-keep-winning.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-amazon-labor-union-beat-a-behemoth-can-it-keep-winning.htmlToday, workers at Amazon’s LDJ5 warehouse facility will vote on whether to organize with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the same union that pulled off a historic win at another Staten Island, New York, facility earlier this month. With ballots scheduled to be counted on May 2nd, the election will last just one week. After months of slow buildup, workers are just a week away from learning whether their site will unionize — assuming there aren’t any tiebreaker court fights of the kind that held up Bessemer’s second vote./news/the-best-black-friday-2014-deals-at-verizon-at-t-sprint-and-t-mobile.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-black-friday-2014-deals-at-verizon-at-t-sprint-and-t-mobile.htmlIf you don't need a new TV, video game console, or computer, heading to your local carrier store on Black Friday might not be such a bad idea. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are all offering discounts — some of them decent — on smartphones and various accessories like smartwatches and fitness trackers. As of right now, it looks like Verizon is offering the best deals if you're after a new phone./news/the-best-note-taking-apps-to-use-in-2019.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-note-taking-apps-to-use-in-2019.htmlI have spent the past few weeks — but really, it’s been the past few years — hunting for the perfect note-taking app. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t exist, if only because everybody’s definition of “perfect” is different when it comes to something as personal as a repository of all your notes.  After my most recent round of testing, I have landed on what I believe is the best note-taking app for most people, even though it might not be the best note-taking app for you./news/the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina-teaser-looks-like-riverdale-ft-satan.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-chilling-adventures-of-sabrina-teaser-looks-like-riverdale-ft-satan.htmlOn October 26th, Netflix will release the first season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, its Teen Vogue-meets-The Craft spin on the Archie Comics teenage witch, and now we have the first teaser. In case you were unclear about what “dark coming-of-age story” meant when Netflix first announced the series, the minute-long clip is here to assure you that, yes, this show will be gunning for a Satanic Panic revival to call its own./news/the-disney-plus-password-sharing-crackdown-starts-in-june.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-disney-plus-password-sharing-crackdown-starts-in-june.htmlDisney Plus already has rules in place to prevent subscribers from sharing their passwords — but now we have an idea when it will start making users pay to share them. In an interview on CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company plans on “launching our first real foray into password sharing” in June. Iger says the rollout will start in “just a few countries in a few markets” before expanding to all subscribers in September./news/the-eu-wants-to-crack-down-on-rogue-efforts-to-alter-the-atmosphere.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-eu-wants-to-crack-down-on-rogue-efforts-to-alter-the-atmosphere.htmlIt’s surprisingly easy for someone to mess with the makeup of Earth’s atmosphere, regardless of the consequences that could have for our planet. Now, as part of its plans to address security risks posed by climate change, the European Union is calling for talks on a potential international framework on how to treat deliberately atmosphere-altering technologies, AKA geoengineering. The idea with geoengineering is to deploy new technologies that might be able to cool the planet down./news/the-food-movie-to-end-all-food-movies.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-food-movie-to-end-all-food-movies.htmlThe food movie to end all food movies. The Taste of Things, one of our favorite films of 2023, finally makes its way into limited release this weekend — and just in time for the most romantic holiday of the year. (By which I mean Lunar New Year, of course.) ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZ3x5e5FtZ29uYWh%2FcMDHnmSfp5%2BZeq671aKcZqyfYrKvsIyao6VllqS8pXnMqK2inaM%3D/news/the-google-street-view-trike-catches-a-railroad-ride-in-the-swiss-alps.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-google-street-view-trike-catches-a-railroad-ride-in-the-swiss-alps.htmlThe seemingly tireless Street View team has previously braved the dangers of the Amazon and wild drivers of America's highways, and recently captured the beauty of the Swiss Alps. The crew teamed up with the Rhaetian Railway to capture the length of the Alubula-Bernina railroad line, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes the likes of the Dolomites, Vatican City, and Yellowstone National Park. No, the Google panoramic photo capture setup wasn't mounted on a handcar for the 122 kilometer ride, but the Google trike was strapped to a flatbed at the front of the train to gather 360-degree panoramas of the ride./news/the-key-to-creating-gorgeous-glitchy-youtube-images-anticipation-and-deletion.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-key-to-creating-gorgeous-glitchy-youtube-images-anticipation-and-deletion.htmlWhen I was younger, I had a soccer coach who stressed the importance of anticipation. “An-tiiii-ciiiiiii-PAY-shun,” he’d yell at us, while we were diving around for the ball. If we did it right, he promised, we’d be able to do in soccer what Neo does in The Matrix — not, like, stop bullets, but be in the right place at the right time to stop an attack on our goal. I wasn’t too great at it, at least not at first./news/the-latest-eero-mesh-wi-fi-routers-support-wi-fi-6.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-latest-eero-mesh-wi-fi-routers-support-wi-fi-6.htmlAmazon has debuted the $129 Eero 6 and the $229 Eero Pro 6 mesh Wi-Fi routers, along with the $89 Eero 6 extender, that support Wi-Fi 6 and have a built-in Zigbee hub to make connecting smart home tech easy. Following leaks from earlier in September, the Eero Pro 6 improves on its predecessor with support for Wi-Fi 6, which delivers faster speeds and support for more than 75 devices connected simultaneously, according to Amazon./news/the-linus-tech-tips-youtube-hack-is-the-latest-in-a-line-of-crypto-scam-breaches.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-linus-tech-tips-youtube-hack-is-the-latest-in-a-line-of-crypto-scam-breaches.htmlUpdate March 24th, 12:24PM ET: Linus Tech Tips, TechLinked, and Techquickie have been restored, and owner Linus Sebastian has shared a video about what happened. Our original story follows. Popular YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has been hacked this morning, with the channel’s 15.3 million subscribers seeing videos for crypto scams instead of tech hardware reviews. It’s the latest breach in a series of high-profile YouTube accounts being hacked, with scammers regularly gaining access to prominent accounts to rename them and livestream crypto scam videos./news/the-mobile-airbag-may-be-coming-to-save-your-phone.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-mobile-airbag-may-be-coming-to-save-your-phone.htmlPeople drop and break their smartphones all the time, but a German engineering student named Philip Frenzel may have the solution to save everyone some time, money, and unneeded stress. Spotted by DesignBoom, Frenzel has created the mobile airbag, a case that senses when your phone is in free fall and releases metal prongs to protect it from damage. A student at Aalen University in Germany, Frenzel won an award from the German Mechatronics Society with the mobile airbag, and expects to launch the device on Kickstarter next month along with Peter Mayer, another student at the university, according to the German publication Preview Online./news/the-new-wonder-woman-film-loses-the-comic-s-playfulness-so-don-t-expect-space-kangaroos.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-new-wonder-woman-film-loses-the-comic-s-playfulness-so-don-t-expect-space-kangaroos.htmlThe new Wonder Woman film has most of what Wonder Woman fans would expect from a cinematic adaptation of her comics. There's Paradise Island, the distant utopia where women warriors live and fight together, sans men. There's the magic golden lasso which compels people to tell the truth. There are the magical bracelets that deflect bullets (and the occasional World War I shell, since the film is set in that era)./news/the-pok%C3%A9mon-company-has-acquired-the-company-that-prints-the-trading-card-game.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-pok%C3%A9mon-company-has-acquired-the-company-that-prints-the-trading-card-game.htmlThe Pokémon Company has acquired Millennium Print Group, a company that prints cards for the hugely popular Pokémon Trading Card Game. Millennium Print Group has been working with The Pokémon Company since 2015. “With this acquisition, The Pokémon Company International aims to further develop Millennium Print Group’s capabilities, infrastructure, and scale to become a premier printer of trading cards, serving the broader industry,” The Pokémon Company said in a press release./news/the-right-to-repair-movement-is-just-getting-started.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-right-to-repair-movement-is-just-getting-started.htmlSeveral months back, Apple refurbisher John Bumstead received a batch of about 20 MacBooks from an e-waste recycler. Bumstead, who routinely refurbishes MacBooks that are more than 10 years old, shouldn’t have had a problem salvaging these computers, the oldest of which were from 2018. But only half of them were fully restorable. Five of the MacBooks were “activation locked,” meaning the prior owner had forgotten to wipe the device and nobody else could reactivate it./news/the-strikes-are-over-cue-the-rewatch-podcasts.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-strikes-are-over-cue-the-rewatch-podcasts.htmlAfter four (!!) months, the SAG-AFTRA strike has ended. There is a lot to unpack about the contract, but I will let the showbiz experts (read: not me) handle that. For our purposes, there are a few key ways podcasting is affected. The most immediate impact will be on the rewatch podcasts, which can finally resume business as normal. As Amrita Khalid reported this summer, TV rewatch podcasts hosted by shows’ former cast members counted as “promotion” and were therefore struck./news/these-gorgeous-overwatch-prints-are-available-for-just-24-hours.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/these-gorgeous-overwatch-prints-are-available-for-just-24-hours.htmlOlly Moss, a graphic designer and illustrator and one of the artists for indie game Firewatch, has made a name for himself doing stylized and cherubic renderings of pop culture characters. He has them Giclée printed on high-quality 5 x 5-inch watercolor paper and sells them in limited time windows for a voracious community of fans. Now, Moss has gone ahead and released a set of six prints for the hugely popular Blizzard shooter Overwatch./news/these-led-dice-could-electrify-your-next-dnd-campaign.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/these-led-dice-could-electrify-your-next-dnd-campaign.htmlSometimes it’s nice to get away from technology for a bit, settle down with some friends, and play an entire role-playing game using just pen, paper, and lots of dice. But if that’s a little low-fi for you, then there’s always Pixels, a new set of electronic dice with built in Bluetooth and RGB LED lighting. The dice have launched on Kickstarter, with prices starting at $39. As of this writing, over 14,000 people have already backed the project for a total of over $2 million pledged./news/this-could-be-the-us-air-force-s-next-spy-plane.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-could-be-the-us-air-force-s-next-spy-plane.htmlThe US Air Force has been locked in a years-long battle over the retirement of the famous U-2 spy plane. In the meantime, Lockheed Martin has unveiled what could be the successor to the U-2. It's called the TR-X, and it could be ready as early as 2025, according to Lockheed. The image you see above was released by Lockheed at an Air Force Association conference this week, and it's important to note that it is just an artist’s impression./news/this-ipad-mini-keyboard-makes-for-a-surprisingly-great-tiny-laptop.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-ipad-mini-keyboard-makes-for-a-surprisingly-great-tiny-laptop.htmlAlthough I’m a connoisseur of iPad keyboards and a fan of the new iPad mini 5, I never really felt much desire for the two to cross over. What I like most about the iPad mini is that its size encourages you to use it in an unambitious way, without aspirations to replace your laptop. Zagg’s new $99.99 Folio keyboard case has changed my mind a little. It’s not the greatest keyboard in the world, which won’t come as a surprise./news/this-list-of-pokemon-height-discrepancies-is-a-monument-to-fandom.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-list-of-pokemon-height-discrepancies-is-a-monument-to-fandom.htmlCharizard Charizard are usually 5'7" (1.7m) tall, but Ash's Charizard is taller than that, at about 7'00" (2.10m) tall. Oddly enough, it is shown in Charizard's Burning Ambition that Ash's Charizard is rather small when compared with the Charizard living in Charicific Valley. Also, in Grating Spaces!, a Charizard was shown to be as tall as an Aggron, 6'11" (2.10 m). Electrode Electrode are normally 3'11" (1.20m), but in What You Seed is What You Get!/news/this-one-setting-could-be-making-your-instagram-posts-look-worse-maybe.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-one-setting-could-be-making-your-instagram-posts-look-worse-maybe.htmlWhenever I get a new phone and eventually install Instagram, the first thing I do is dig through the app’s settings menu for a toggle that reads “Upload at highest quality.” According to the app, when enabled, this ensures you’ll “Always upload the highest quality photos and videos, even if uploading takes longer. When this is off, we’ll automatically adjust upload quality to fit network conditions.” But here’s the weird part: by default, this setting is switched off./news/thq-nordic-joins-the-lineup-of-summer-gaming-events.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/thq-nordic-joins-the-lineup-of-summer-gaming-events.htmlEven without E3, the summer lineup of gaming livestreams continues to get packed. The latest company to announce an event is THQ Nordic, which will be airing a “digital showcase” on August 11th at 3PM ET. The company says the event will include news and brand-new announcements as well as details on upcoming games in its lineup such as Alone in the Dark, Outcast 2, and Trine 5. You’ll be able to check it out on YouTube, Twitch, and Steam./news/tiktok-is-introducing-iphone-passkey-support.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-is-introducing-iphone-passkey-support.htmlThe next TikTok trend is passkeys on iPhones. The social media app is announcing support for the logins that try to make password-stealing phishing attacks impossible by allowing users to sign in with either Touch ID or Face ID instead of entering passwords. The initial launch includes iOS device support and uses Apple’s native implementation of passkeys that saves them to the iCloud Keychain so that once it’s set up, it will also work on your other Apple devices./news/tiktok-is-overhauling-how-it-pays-creators-of-viral-filters-and-effects.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-is-overhauling-how-it-pays-creators-of-viral-filters-and-effects.htmlThe fund sets aside $6 million to pay creators of effects on TikTok — aesthetic filters, mini-games, and more — that regularly go viral on the platform and become trends in their own right. The Effect Creator Rewards program, first announced in May, has a lower set of eligibility requirements and updated payment structure and will be open to more regions, TikTok announced today in a blog post. First, the fund is opening up to creators in more than a dozen new regions, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and the Philippines./news/timothy-zahn-finally-unveils-the-origin-story-of-one-of-the-greatest-star-wars-villains-in-thrawn.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/timothy-zahn-finally-unveils-the-origin-story-of-one-of-the-greatest-star-wars-villains-in-thrawn.htmlLast summer, Dave Filoni announced that he would be bringing a long-standing fan-favorite character to Star Wars Rebels: Grand Admiral Thrawn. In a classic, “wait, there’s more!” moment, he followed up by saying that the character would also get a novel, written by none other than Timothy Zahn, who created the character in 1991’s Heir to the Empire. It’s hard to overstate how exciting this is to long-time Star Wars fans./news/tony-robbins-claims-he-saved-his-employee-from-covid-she-says-that-s-a-lie.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tony-robbins-claims-he-saved-his-employee-from-covid-she-says-that-s-a-lie.htmlThe story Tony Robbins told on his podcast was harrowing — if also a little convoluted. One of his staff members had come down with a fever of 102 when she started watching the news and freaking out. She went to the hospital, presumably with COVID-19, and began to hyperventilate. The doctors put her on a ventilator — then in a medically induced coma. “The doctor said … ‘If she doesn’t wake up in three weeks, we’ll declare her dead,’” Robbins recounted./news/turbotax-maker-lobbies-to-stop-the-government-from-making-your-returns-easier.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/turbotax-maker-lobbies-to-stop-the-government-from-making-your-returns-easier.htmlIn several European countries, filing tax returns is a near-automatic process: instead of painstakingly calculating figures yourself, the government estimates what you owe based on wage and bank account data that it already collects, and you make any necessary adjustments. Why isn't there a similar "returns-free filing" system in the US? According to a report in ProPublica, the primary culprit could be Intuit, the maker of popular returns software TurboTax./news/twitter-fined-350k-for-taking-too-long-to-hand-over-january-6th-data.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-fined-350k-for-taking-too-long-to-hand-over-january-6th-data.htmlElon Musk’s Twitter was fined $350,000 for refusing to comply with a search warrant on Donald Trump’s Twitter account earlier this year, according to new court documents unsealed Wednesday. The warrant was issued as part of a Justice Department special investigation. In January, special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for former President Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, as part of his investigation into Trump’s role in interfering with the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election./news/vehicle-quality-drops-to-lowest-level-ever-in-new-jd-power-survey.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vehicle-quality-drops-to-lowest-level-ever-in-new-jd-power-survey.htmlThe chip shortage and supply chain crisis are doing more than just driving up vehicle prices — they’re also affecting quality. JD Power published its Initial Quality Study for 2022 model-year cars this week, in which it found that new vehicle quality has declined 11 percent year over year, the steepest drop ever recorded by the group. Electric vehicle manufacturers in particular are showing big drops in quality, with Polestar ranking dead last./news/vivek-ramaswamy-can-t-even-dunk-on-buzzfeed-right.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vivek-ramaswamy-can-t-even-dunk-on-buzzfeed-right.htmlFine, Vivek Ramaswamy, you wanted my attention and now you have it. Before now, I knew you primarily as the guy who lied so hysterically my hometown police department had to come out and explain that you’d been parked illegally when you were accidentally rear-ended by a lady who was not very good at backing up. In your quest to unseat Elon Musk as the thirstiest motherfucker alive, you have bought 8 percent of Buzzfeed and sent Jonah Peretti a little nastygram./news/voice-bridge-puts-your-landline-inside-your-cell-phone.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/voice-bridge-puts-your-landline-inside-your-cell-phone.htmlBefore I start telling you about this new gadget, let’s have a moment of silence for the landline phone number. Okay great, thanks for participating. Now for a gadget. Invoxia, the company behind the Triby, wants you to not only remember the landline, but use one, too. Its new Voice Bridge product connects your landline phone to Wi-Fi so that phone calls can be forwarded to your smartphone or tablet. Voice Bridge essentially turns your smartphone into a second interface for your landline and allows it to act more like your cell number./news/volvo-and-polestar-drift-a-little-farther-apart.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/volvo-and-polestar-drift-a-little-farther-apart.htmlVolvo and Polestar drift a little farther apart. The Volvo / Polestar relationship has always been complicated — as Volvo CEO Jim Rowan explained to me on Decoder last year, Volvo owns 48 percent of EV maker Polestar, Rowan sits on Polestar’s board, and both companies share tech and platforms with Volvo’s majority owner Geely — but it’s getting a little simpler, as Volvo announced it won’t be funding Polestar directly anymore./news/volvo-s-new-semi-trucks-now-have-more-autonomous-features-and-apple-carplay.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/volvo-s-new-semi-trucks-now-have-more-autonomous-features-and-apple-carplay.htmlVolvo unveiled its new VNL series of semi trucks today with a host of high-tech goodies that are sure to appeal to many long-haul truck drivers. Volvo Truck, a separate entity from the Swedish automaker’s car group, is adding a suite of advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) to its truck lines as standard equipment. This includes forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning, and adaptive cruise control. Advanced driver assist systems are quickly becoming popular for passenger vehicle manufacturers, like Tesla and Cadillac, but have yet to make their way into long-haul trucks — at least not as standard features./news/watch-14-minutes-of-gameplay-from-hogwarts-legacy-the-upcoming-harry-potter-rpg.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-14-minutes-of-gameplay-from-hogwarts-legacy-the-upcoming-harry-potter-rpg.htmlHogwarts Legacy, the upcoming open-world Harry Potter RPG, got its first proper gameplay reveal from developer Avalanche Software ahead of its release date later this year at a special PlayStation State of Play stream that showed off 14 minutes of footage from the game. (Despite the Sony-hosted debut, Hogwarts Legacy isn’t a PlayStation exclusive and will also be released on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / Series S in addition to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5./news/watch-this-fantastic-harry-potter-fan-film-voldemort-origins-of-the-heir.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-this-fantastic-harry-potter-fan-film-voldemort-origins-of-the-heir.htmlOne of the biggest attractions to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is the immense backstory and history of her wizarding world. While Warner Bros. has begun to explore some of that lore in its Fantastic Beasts franchise, one group of fans have filmed their own version, one that explores the rise of the dark wizard Voldemort. After a crowdfunding campaign and months of work, Tryangle Films has finally released their own story, Voldemort: Origins of the Heir, and it’s an impressive fan film that fits nicely alongside the official entries of the franchise./news/watch-this-apple-s-imperfect-video-about-perfection.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-this-apple-s-imperfect-video-about-perfection.htmlApple's marathon keynote session at yesterday's WWDC began with the following video. Graced by soothing piano music, a minimalist monochromatic palette, and a set of elegantly transitioning geometric shapes, the ad does a great job of conveying Apple lead designer Jony Ive's pursuit of purity and simplicity in design. There's only one small problem with it: when the onscreen narrative declares that "there are a thousand no's for every yes," it inserts an apostrophe where one does not belong./news/wells-fargo-workers-using-mouse-movers-are-getting-caught-and-fired.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wells-fargo-workers-using-mouse-movers-are-getting-caught-and-fired.htmlAccording to a report from Bloomberg based on “disclosures filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority,” last month, Wells Fargo fired “more than a dozen employees” after an investigation revealed they were using devices or apps to simulate productivity on their computers. What’s not known is how over a dozen staffers had jobs where their productivity could be measured by mouse movements. The FINRA disclosures did not reveal whether the terminated employees were caught using the tools while working remotely, according to Bloomberg, but they were all part of Wells Fargo’s “wealth- and investment-management unit./news/what-game-of-thrones-did-to-the-media.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-game-of-thrones-did-to-the-media.htmlIn the summer of 2017, I was brought on to be the third host of a weekly Game of Thrones recap show that streamed on Facebook Live. At the time, I was an editor at GQ, and I found the assignment beneath me. I was supposed to be squirreling away at the dark art of turning shoddy copy into less shoddy copy; I never wanted to be on camera. Also, I barely knew anything about Game of Thrones./news/why-i-m-using-a-keyboard-phone-in-2023.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-i-m-using-a-keyboard-phone-in-2023.htmlFor the past month, I’ve been using the Unihertz Titan Pocket, a phone released in 2021 that rocks a 3.1-inch display above a full Qwerty keyboard. To be clear, it’s been by choice — my editors didn’t assign me to do this as a prank (in fact, some of them have clowned on me for using it), and it’s not like I don’t have other options. I’ve got a perfectly good iPhone 12 Mini that I actively gave up to switch to this phone./news/why-the-first-amendment-protects-liars.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-the-first-amendment-protects-liars.htmlXavier Alvarez’s lie began soon after he was elected on November 6, 2006, by a 48-vote margin, to the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Board in the Claremont, California, area. In June 2007, the bespectacled Pomona resident, with a bushy dark mustache that practically devoured his face, was among a group of local officials who were on a tour of a Southern California Edison hydroelectric facility in the Sierra Nevada mountain range./news/wolfram-announces-most-important-project-a-programming-language-that-models-the-world.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wolfram-announces-most-important-project-a-programming-language-that-models-the-world.htmlThe power of Wolfram Alpha — the intelligent search engine that can answer natural language questions and solve complex math problems — is being built into an upcoming programming language that its founder, Stephen Wolfram, says will be incredibly easy to use. The language, Wolfram writes, is "a way to go from an idea to a fully deployed realization in an absurdly short time." It's called Wolfram Language, and it's an evolution of what's been used inside of his company Wolfram's popular Mathematica software for over 25 years now./news/wwdc-2024-news-rumors-and-announcements-from-apple-s-software-event.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wwdc-2024-news-rumors-and-announcements-from-apple-s-software-event.htmlHere’s why Apple Intelligence is limited to the iPhone 15 Pro and Macs and iPads with M-series chips. John Giannandrea, Apple’s AI chief, speaking at John Gruber’s The Talk Show Live from WWDC 2024: The inference of large language models is incredibly computationally expensive. So it’s a combination of bandwidth in the device, it’s the size of the ANE [Apple Neural Engine], it’s the oomph in the device to actually do these models fast enough to be useful./news/xbox-s-grounded-is-getting-an-animated-tv-adaption.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-s-grounded-is-getting-an-animated-tv-adaption.htmlGrounded, the survival co-op that combines elements of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and A Bug’s Life, is getting an animated TV adaptation, as first reported by Deadline. Brent Friedman of Star Wars: Clone Wars will write the story, with Halo 4’s Brien Goodrich sitting in the director’s chair. Grounded was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and launched on Xbox and PC in 2020. The game amassed over 10 million players and follows a group of four friends who shrink down to the size of ants, similar to the premise of the 1989 movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids./news/xgimi-mogo-2-pro-android-tv-projector-review-automatic-entertainment.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xgimi-mogo-2-pro-android-tv-projector-review-automatic-entertainment.htmlIf you’re the nomadic type or someone who’s rarely within casting distance of a television, then you’re likely consuming media on a handheld rectangle with lousy speakers and a tiny screen that’s tough to share. I’m here to tell you there’s a better way. Not only does the new MoGo 2 Pro smart projector from Xgimi run Android TV version 11.0 to stream all your favorite videos over fast Wi-Fi but it also doubles as a Bluetooth speaker when you shut off the reasonably bright LED lamp (and fan)./news/xiaomi-s-redmi-5-phones-have-18-9-displays-and-start-at-120.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xiaomi-s-redmi-5-phones-have-18-9-displays-and-start-at-120.htmlXiaomi showed off the first pictures of its new Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus earlier this week, and now the smartphones have been revealed in full. Redmi is Xiaomi's brand that attempts to deliver solid products at extremely low prices; the new devices follow the Redmi 4 and Redmi Note 4, which became the two most popular phones in India this year. As was apparent from the pictures, the Redmi 5 and 5 Plus bring a very 2017-style 18:9 design to the Redmi line, with rounded corners and thin bezels on the top and bottom of the screen./news/x-s-fact-checking-tool-community-notes-expands-to-video.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/x-s-fact-checking-tool-community-notes-expands-to-video.htmlThis might finally be the end of the hurricane street shark phenomenon. X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, updated its crowdsourced fact-checking Community Notes feature to tag videos directly and automatically populate those notes onto any matching videos. The same tagging was recently added to images with Community Notes, and last week, the platform added the ability to see the number of matching images that apply to each fact-check. Now, approved Community Notes will automatically show up every time a flagged video is posted or reshared./news/you-can-now-activate-google-fi-via-esim-on-newer-iphones.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-activate-google-fi-via-esim-on-newer-iphones.htmlGoogle’s wireless network, Google Fi, can now be activated on an iPhone via eSIM, as spotted by 9to5Google. That means you can use a Google Fi number on your iPhone in addition to your phone number that’s hooked up to the physical SIM card that sits in the SIM tray in your iPhone. It also means you can get a Google Fi number without having a SIM card mailed to you or having to buy one at a retail store like Best Buy./news/you-can-now-play-steam-pc-games-on-an-xbox-with-nvidia-s-geforce-now.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-play-steam-pc-games-on-an-xbox-with-nvidia-s-geforce-now.htmlNvidia is unlocking access to its GeForce Now streaming service on Microsoft Edge today, allowing Xbox owners to play Steam PC games on their consoles. GeForce Now includes access to more than 1,000 PC games, and Nvidia has finally started supporting the Edge browser that now ships on Xbox in a beta update to GeForce Now today. It brings the dream of playing PC games on an Xbox a step closer to reality, as the result is easy access to stream PC games to an Xbox./news/youtube-is-blocking-links-in-shorts-to-combat-scams-and-spam.htmlSat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-is-blocking-links-in-shorts-to-combat-scams-and-spam.htmlYouTube is taking preventative measures to tackle the increase in scams and spam appearing across its TikTok rival, YouTube Shorts. Starting August 31st, YouTube will gradually make links across Shorts comments, descriptions, and the vertical live feeds unclickable to prevent users from potentially being exposed to malware, phishing scams, and other harmful scam-related content. YouTube says that it’s planning to introduce a new, safer way for creators to link their Shorts viewers to other YouTube content “by the end of September./news/first-click-the-benefits-of-brain-training-games-they-re-all-in-your-head.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/first-click-the-benefits-of-brain-training-games-they-re-all-in-your-head.htmlThe study, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was carried out by cognitive scientists at George Mason University in the US. To test whether programs like NeuroNation's may be relying on the placebo effect, the researchers recruited students to take part in a pair of identical tests using a pair of flyers with subtle, but crucial, differences. The first flyer (the one on the left) describes the study as looking at "/news/the-guns-n-roses-reunion-and-the-future-of-angry-young-men.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-guns-n-roses-reunion-and-the-future-of-angry-young-men.htmlGuns N’ Roses are only seven minutes late for their Saturday Coachella set, which is very close to actually being on time. There is a horrible second, right before they come out, when the Looney Tunes "That’s all folks" jingle plays and I am briefly convinced we are being pranked. It wouldn’t be out of the question — in fact, this reunion has seemed unlikely ever since it was announced in January, especially given the enmity between Slash and Axl./news/24-is-back-fox-reviving-hit-series-for-12-episodes-in-summer-2014-update.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/24-is-back-fox-reviving-hit-series-for-12-episodes-in-summer-2014-update.htmlJack is back. Fox Broadcasting chief Kevin Reilly has announced that 24 will be returning in 2014. According to Brian Stelter of The New York Times, the show's ninth season will consist of 12 episodes — meaning producers plan to deviate from its longstanding format, where each hour-long episode represents an hour in realtime. When it debuted in 2001, that unique approach established 24 as one of the first network programs tailored for binge viewing sessions./news/33-powerful-black-lives-matter-murals.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/33-powerful-black-lives-matter-murals.htmlFirst, boards covered businesses in New York and Oakland. Then, so did art. Graffiti artists, muralists, and others, including artists who’d never before put up large-scale works — famous and not — used the boards as blank canvases. Memorials to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as others who were killed by police, graced many walls; another way of saying Black Lives Matter. Other art included calls to defund the police, poems, and expressions of all kinds./news/a-closer-look-at-the-fallout-4-pip-boy.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-closer-look-at-the-fallout-4-pip-boy.htmlSpecial edition video games aren’t so special anymore. When every blockbuster release, even the not-so-great ones, comes with some kind of commemorative statue or lunchbox, it makes the entire concept a lot less interesting. But Fallout 4 is one of the few collector’s editions that actually made people excited, and for one reason: it comes with a wearable Pip-Boy. The wrist-worn computer is a staple of the post-apocalyptic RPG series, and the life-size version not only fits on your wrist, but can also house your smartphone and run a special Pip-Boy app so that you can check in-game information without hitting pause./news/a-comet-impact-may-have-triggered-earth-s-ancient-warming-period.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-comet-impact-may-have-triggered-earth-s-ancient-warming-period.htmlScientists have discovered the first ever physical evidence that a giant comet or asteroid slammed into Earth around 56 million years ago — the same time the planet went through an abrupt warming period. The timing of the two events is pretty tantalizing for researchers, and seems to suggest that this impact may have been the catalyst for Earth’s ancient temperature rise. And learning more about this past climate change event can potentially help scientists better understand today’s warming climate./news/a-logical-examination-of-the-swedish-rapper-yung-lean-as-a-metaphor-for-america.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-logical-examination-of-the-swedish-rapper-yung-lean-as-a-metaphor-for-america.htmlIn 2014, an album called Unknown Death 2002 popped up on the Bandcamp of the streetwear and lifestyle brand MishkaNYC. The artist was someone going by the name Yung Lean; he sounded like the foggy after-effects of the citrus soda / cough syrup cocktail to which he owed his name. He was born in 1996 — he’s 19. His crew is called Sad Boys, a group of boys who are sad./news/acer-aspire-5-review-a-549-laptop-that-doesn-t-completely-suck.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/acer-aspire-5-review-a-549-laptop-that-doesn-t-completely-suck.htmlThe Acer Aspire 5 is a very functional laptop. I used it as my primary work driver for over a week, including the whirlwind that was Black Friday weekend. It loads the pages I need it to. It handles a heavy share of tabs and apps without burning itself up. It’s not seven pounds. Basically, it’s a $549 laptop that doesn’t completely suck. There was a time when that would’ve made this the best budget laptop you can buy./news/activision-blizzard-launches-film-and-tv-studio-to-bring-video-game-characters-to-the-big-screen.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/activision-blizzard-launches-film-and-tv-studio-to-bring-video-game-characters-to-the-big-screen.htmlA short teaser for the first World of Warcraft movie was released earlier this week, offering a glimpse of what the video game will look like when it's translated to film. The World of Warcraft universe has earned billions for Activision Blizzard as a game, and the hope is that it can follow the lead of Marvel, using the characters it already has to make billions more by adapting them for film, television, and toys./news/after-unexplained-bans-playstation-users-report-their-accounts-have-been-restored.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/after-unexplained-bans-playstation-users-report-their-accounts-have-been-restored.htmlMany PlayStation Network users reported Monday that their accounts were unexpectedly permanently suspended. As of Tuesday morning, many of the people who had received the messages now say their accounts have been restored. Some of them contacted customer service while others did not, but nearly a day after the issues began, Sony hasn’t commented publicly or responded to us about the wave of bans or the restorations that followed. A message to one user read: “This account is permanently suspended from PlayStation Network due to violations of the PlayStation Network Terms of Service and User Agreement./news/ai-generated-jimmy-stewart-will-narrate-a-new-it-s-a-wonderful-life-story.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ai-generated-jimmy-stewart-will-narrate-a-new-it-s-a-wonderful-life-story.htmlIt’s a Wonderful Life culminates the disembodied spirit of Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey realizing the value of his life after seeing how his friends and family would suffer if he wasn’t around. It’s a Wonderful Life’s celebration of the human spirit is a big part of why it’s become a holiday classic, but everything about sleep app Calm’s latest project inspired by It’s a Wonderful Life feels kind of antithetical to the movie’s story./news/alexa-can-now-broadcast-your-voice-to-every-echo-in-the-house.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alexa-can-now-broadcast-your-voice-to-every-echo-in-the-house.htmlTelling the family that dinner’s ready or reminding the kids it’s time for bed won’t require as much shouting if you’ve got a smart home with Echo speakers scattered around. Today Amazon announced a new feature called Alexa Announcements, which will let you simultaneously broadcast a voice message to every Echo in the house. Users already had the intercom-style ability to carry on two-way conversations between rooms, but the one-way Announcements function is meant for the kind of grand pronouncements that you want everyone to hear./news/amazon-is-quietly-shutting-down-fabric-com-one-of-the-largest-online-fabric-stores.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-is-quietly-shutting-down-fabric-com-one-of-the-largest-online-fabric-stores.htmlCrafters, home sewists, and small businesses will soon lose a major online fabric source. Fabric.com, a longtime retailer of fabrics, trims, notions, and other supplies, is shutting down. Since launching in the late ’90s, Fabric.com has been a mainstay for casual crafters and small business owners alike, offering by-the-yard fabric from hundreds of companies as well as other sewing supplies. When Amazon acquired the company in 2008, the tech giant said the acquisition would give its crafting customers more variety to choose from./news/amazon-s-hardware-boss-running-alexa-and-echo-plans-to-retire.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-hardware-boss-running-alexa-and-echo-plans-to-retire.htmlDave Limp, Amazon’s SVP of devices and services, plans to retire in the coming months, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. His retirement marks the end of a more than 13-year career at the company. Amazon published emails to staff from CEO Andy Jassy and Limp addressing the departure on its website. Jassy says that Limp will stay in his role “for the next few months” and that the company plans to announce a successor “in the coming weeks./news/amazon-s-in-van-surveillance-footage-of-drivers-is-leaking-online.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-in-van-surveillance-footage-of-drivers-is-leaking-online.htmlAn influx of videos taken from Amazon’s in-van surveillance cameras has been published on Reddit in recent weeks, sparking fresh concerns about the privacy of delivery drivers being monitored for their entire shifts.  As first reported by Vice, two off-camera voices can be heard on one video published to r/AmazonDSPDrivers on July 3rd, commenting on an Amazon driver interacting with a customer’s dog. “She had a little guest with her today,” said one off-screen voice./news/amc-and-dolby-team-up-to-make-the-laser-powered-movie-theaters-of-the-future.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amc-and-dolby-team-up-to-make-the-laser-powered-movie-theaters-of-the-future.htmlOver the past decade there's been a home entertainment revolution as higher-resolution video, improved display technology, and streaming services have changed the way we watch movies and TV. The good old movie theater, however, has been a bit neglected; aside from improved sound and the frustration that is 3D, there's been no truly radical, widespread improvement since the move to digital projection. Today US theater chain AMC and Dolby are announcing a partnership that promises to change that, bringing a new kind of high-end, laser projection theatrical experience to your local multiplex — and the first screens are arriving this May./news/amd-the-verge.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amd-the-verge.htmlThe GDDR7 graphics memory standard is here. JEDEC Solid State Technology Association has released details about its new standard, which it says is better positioned to handle the demands of gaming, networking, and AI. JESD239 GDDR7 is the first JEDEC standard DRAM to use the Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) interface for high frequency operations. Its PAM3 interface improves the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for high frequency operation while enhancing energy efficiency./news/an-important-part-of-science-is-admitting-when-we-re-wrong.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/an-important-part-of-science-is-admitting-when-we-re-wrong.htmlThis week started with a whole lot of people getting very angry about someone being wrong on the internet. This time, it was computer scientist Steven Salzberg, who wrote a blog post on Forbes arguing that people should start vaccinating now — phase 3 clinical trials had just started. They seemed to be going well. Why not start passing out doses to willing, informed volunteers? Well, a whole bunch of reasons, most of which boil down to some variation of that’s what the trials are there for./news/apple-aims-to-become-carbon-neutral-by-2030.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-aims-to-become-carbon-neutral-by-2030.htmlApple plans to eliminate its contributions to climate change this decade, the company announced today. To reach its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030, it will slash its greenhouse gas pollution by 75 percent and then find ways to draw down the remaining 25 percent of its heat-trapping emissions. The company cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 4.3 million metric tons in 2019, according to the 2020 Environmental Progress Report it released today./news/apple-arcade-is-getting-some-great-new-games-for-the-holidays.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-arcade-is-getting-some-great-new-games-for-the-holidays.htmlIf the recent price hike hasn’t soured you on Apple’s subscription gaming service, there’s some good stuff coming to Apple Arcade in the coming weeks. The company announced eight titles that will be launching through the end of the year, kicking off this week with Knotwords, an excellent Wordle-meets-crossword game that launches on November 3rd. December, meanwhile, includes some notable titles, all of which launch on December 5th. There’s the cozy life sim Dreamlight Valley from Disney, which is no longer free to play, a brand-new 3D Sonic game with Sonic Dream Team, a new installment of the match-three RPG Puzzles & Dragons, and Turmoil, described as a “tongue-in-cheek take on the simulation game genre inspired by the 19th century oil rush in North America”/news/apple-is-already-defending-imessage-against-tomorrow-s-quantum-computing-attacks.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-is-already-defending-imessage-against-tomorrow-s-quantum-computing-attacks.htmlApple’s security team claims to have achieved a breakthrough “that advances the state of the art of end-to-end messaging.” With the upcoming release of iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, and watchOS 10.4, the company is bringing a new cryptographic protocol called PQ3 to iMessage that it purports to offer even more robust encryption and defenses against sophisticated quantum computing attacks. Such attacks aren’t yet a broad threat today, but Apple is preparing for a future where bad actors try to unwind current encryption standards and iMessage’s security layers with the help of massively powerful computers./news/apple-put-a-thread-smart-home-radio-into-its-newest-macs-and-ipads.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-put-a-thread-smart-home-radio-into-its-newest-macs-and-ipads.htmlWhen Apple announced the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max last fall, the company surprised everyone by putting a Thread radio in its top-of-the-line smartphones. Now, it turns out Apple also quietly added this important smart home radio to several new Macs and iPads released since September 2023. While the company doesn’t list Thread on the specs of any of these products, FCC reports indicate that many of Apple’s latest devices have had Thread radios tested for compliance./news/apple-won-t-let-apps-annoy-you-with-their-own-review-prompts-anymore.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-won-t-let-apps-annoy-you-with-their-own-review-prompts-anymore.htmlApple is putting an end to the scourge of review prompts that seemed to pop up inside of some apps every few days. In a change to the App Store rules this week, Apple said it will now enforce hard limits on how review prompts show up and how often users have to see them. The changes were first spotted by 9to5Mac. Under the new rules, developers will no longer be able to display review prompts however and whenever they’d like./news/apple-s-antitrust-case-is-getting-a-new-judge.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-antitrust-case-is-getting-a-new-judge.htmlThe filing says Farbiarz’s “disqualification is mandatory and cannot be remitted by the parties.” Judge Julien Xavier Neals, whom President Joe Biden nominated to the US District in 2021, will preside over the case instead. It’s not clear why Judge Farbiarz was disqualified from the case, but there are a couple of possibilities. The specific rule mentioned by the filing — Canon 3(C)(1)(d) — says a judge must disqualify themselves from a proceeding when the “judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned./news/apple-s-future-airpods-roadmap-just-leaked-and-big-changes-are-coming.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-future-airpods-roadmap-just-leaked-and-big-changes-are-coming.htmlApple will try to better differentiate its AirPods lineup as new models launch over the next couple of years, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. That will include phasing out both the second-gen and third-gen AirPods when a successor is announced sometime next fall. Gurman claims that the third-gen “regular” AirPods haven’t sold particularly well and partially attributes this to consumers frequently opting for the older, cheaper second-gen pair, which Apple has continued to sell./news/apple-s-new-high-end-macbook-pro-comes-in-black-with-up-to-128gb-of-ram.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-new-high-end-macbook-pro-comes-in-black-with-up-to-128gb-of-ram.htmlAlongside a refreshed iMac and new entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro featuring the M3 chip (and sans Touch Bar), Apple is introducing upgraded models of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro and M3 Max processors today. Design-wise, they retain the exact same look and port layout as their predecessors but now come in a new “space black” color that replaces space gray. The machines raise the bar in several ways, ranging from sheer performance to configurability./news/apple-s-new-series-sunny-pairs-rashida-jones-with-a-mystery-solving-robot.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-new-series-sunny-pairs-rashida-jones-with-a-mystery-solving-robot.htmlApple TV Plus has been killing it on the sci-fi front lately, but this summer, the streamer’s taking another stab at the murder mystery genre with Sunny, a new A24-produced series from showrunner Katie Robbins, director Lucy Tcherniak, and executive producer Rashida Jones. Based on Colin O’Sullivan’s novel The Dark Manual, Sunny revolves around Suzie Sakamoto (Jones), an American woman living in Kyoto whose life is thrown into turmoil following the disappearances of her roboticist husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and their son in a catastrophic plane crash./news/astro-s-playroom-review-the-ps5-s-wii-sports.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/astro-s-playroom-review-the-ps5-s-wii-sports.htmlI’ve developed an incredibly annoying habit while playing Astro’s Playroom. It’s a game that comes bundled with every PlayStation 5, and it’s designed to show off the new console’s DualSense controller. Most notably, it takes advantage of the gamepad’s incredibly subtle vibrations. And every time I felt something new I just had to share. I’d pass the controller to whoever was nearest and ask, “Can you feel those raindrops?” “What about the crunching sand as you walk on the beach?/news/asus-announces-two-new-480hz-oled-monitors-to-cover-1080p-and-1440p-gaming.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-announces-two-new-480hz-oled-monitors-to-cover-1080p-and-1440p-gaming.htmlOLED monitors are getting exciting at CES this year. Asus has just announced three new OLED monitors, and two of them are capable of hitting 480Hz refresh rates. Much like LG, Asus has a dual-mode 32-inch OLED monitor that can offer 240Hz refresh rates at 4K resolution or 480Hz at 1080p. Asus is also announcing a 27-inch 1440p OLED monitor that’s capable of 480Hz natively. The ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDP dual-mode gaming monitor can switch between 4K 240Hz and 1080p 480Hz “at any time,” according to Asus./news/at-this-rodeo-robots-enter-downed-planes-and-explore-fake-radioactive-disasters.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/at-this-rodeo-robots-enter-downed-planes-and-explore-fake-radioactive-disasters.htmlLast week in the New Mexico desert, military and civilian bomb squads faced off at the 12th annual Robot Rodeo, which is a week of intense training organized by Sandia National Laboratories. To test their skills, bomb squads steered their bots to enter downed planes, explore faux-radioactive disaster sites, and climb flights of stairs. “Everybody else is running away from the bomb, and these guys are going in,” says Jake Deuel, robotics manager at Sandia and coordinator of the rodeo./news/audible-and-amazon-mgm-partner-to-develop-more-tv-series-based-on-podcasts.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/audible-and-amazon-mgm-partner-to-develop-more-tv-series-based-on-podcasts.htmlAudible will co-develop and co-produce TV shows adapted from original podcasts and audiobooks with Amazon MGM Studios that it can pitch to Prime Video and MGM Plus, as well as buyers outside of Amazon. The news was first reported by Variety. Adapting recognizable podcast IP with a built-in audience is usually a safe bet for Hollywood. Chris Morrow, the head of audio at the production company Plan B, which signed a multi-project development with Audible last year, noted to The Verge that the goal was to use audio to “help launch IP, and then ultimately find new life for it as scripted features or scripted documentaries./news/avatar-the-last-airbender-creators-quit-netflix-adaptation-over-creative-differences.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/avatar-the-last-airbender-creators-quit-netflix-adaptation-over-creative-differences.htmlAvatar: The Last Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are no longer working on the live-action series adaptation set for Netflix. The creators announced their departure on Wednesday, sparking concern among fans. DiMartino’s lengthy blog post only confirmed those concerns, as the writer and executive producer noted that “whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make.” Both DiMartino and Konietzko cited creative differences with Netflix over the direction of the project./news/battlefield-v-firestorm-review-the-verge.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/battlefield-v-firestorm-review-the-verge.htmlMy first impression of Battlefield V’s battle royale mode Firestorm wasn’t the action — it was the silence. I heard very little but the sound of my own boots on the snow, the reloading of my gun, and the breath of my soldier as my crosshairs were locked on a window across the road. As a longtime fan of the franchise, I’ve become used to the constant sounds of gunfire, tanks, and objective callouts; the collapsing skyscrapers and the massive explosions of the V-1 rocket./news/biosphere-review-a-buddy-comedy-about-the-last-two-dudes-on-earth.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/biosphere-review-a-buddy-comedy-about-the-last-two-dudes-on-earth.htmlIt’s always nice when the end of the world can have some levity. Biosphere, from director Mel Eslyn, manages to mash up a post-apocalyptic story with a buddy comedy for a movie about two best pals who just so happen to be the last remaining people on the planet. It’s a high concept told at a small scale, with the entirety of the film taking place inside of an apartment-size biosphere home to lifelong friends Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K./news/black-mirror-wins-emmy-for-outstanding-writing-for-a-limited-series.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/black-mirror-wins-emmy-for-outstanding-writing-for-a-limited-series.htmlNetflix’s Black Mirror won its first Primetime Emmy award tonight, with Charlie Brooker taking home the award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for the season three episode "San Junipero.” The 61-minute episode won Outstanding Television Movie earlier in the week at the Creative Arts portion of the awards. Black Mirror was nominated up against David E. Kelley for HBO’s Big Little Lies, Noah Hawley for FX’s Fargo, Ryan Murphy, Jaffe Cohen, and Michael Zam for FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan, and Richard Price and Steven Zaillin for HBO’s The Night Of./news/bluesky-ceo-says-full-hashtag-support-is-coming.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bluesky-ceo-says-full-hashtag-support-is-coming.htmlBluesky CEO says full hashtag support is coming. “Linkifying them is the logical next step,” CEO Jay Graber said while discussing the use of hashtags on the Twitter alternative platform on the Techmeme Ride Home Podcast, Graber also said Bluesky, which recently opened, now has nearly 5 million users and will soon roll out moderation services, enabling “any third-party service that wants to build, you know, a labeler or an annotator some way of giving input to the network./news/breadwinner-is-the-new-smart-sourdough-starter-tracker-of-my-dreams.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/breadwinner-is-the-new-smart-sourdough-starter-tracker-of-my-dreams.htmlSourdough bread is a tricky thing to get right. But Breadwinner, a new smart gadget in development from hardware designers (and bread lovers) Fred Benenson and Sarah Pavis, is looking to try to take a little bit of the mystery out of the yeast by offering an app-connected gadget that can track the volume and temperature of your starter and notify you when it’s ready to bake, via Laughing Squid. If you’ve never baked with a starter before, it’s very different from store-bought yeast./news/cadillac-teases-opulent-velocity-electric-v-series-concept.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cadillac-teases-opulent-velocity-electric-v-series-concept.htmlCadillac dropped a teaser for its latest concept, an all-electric V-Series luxury performance vehicle dubbed “Opulent Velocity.” It’s just a concept, so no details yet about production, price, or any specs. We can see the front end with a downward sloping hood and an illuminated Cadillac badge that appears to wrap around the corner. And the most notable thing about the short video released by Cadillac is the sound: it’s loud!/news/cameron-crowe-offers-apology-for-casting-emma-stone-in-his-latest-movie.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cameron-crowe-offers-apology-for-casting-emma-stone-in-his-latest-movie.htmlAllison Ng, one of the major characters in Cameron Crowe's recently released Aloha, is Asian-American. Emma Stone, the actress the director chose to portray her, is not. The casting decision raised eyebrows and drew criticism from groups who said that by using Stone to play a character who explicitly states her racially mixed background throughout the movie, Crowe was whitewashing the role. Now Crowe, in a post on his own site, has offered a "/news/caterpillar-launches-cat-b10-rugged-smartphone-hands-on.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/caterpillar-launches-cat-b10-rugged-smartphone-hands-on.htmlCaterpillar has announced the CAT B10, a new IP67-certified rugged Android smartphone that it hopes will contend with the likes of the Motorola Defy+ and the Samsung Rugby Smart. We spent some time with the B10 at CeBIT and attempted to put its ruggedness to the test. Caterpillar is better known for its construction equipment than for making phones, but we weren't able to find out who actually makes the device./news/check-out-bmw-s-color-changing-concept-car-in-action.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/check-out-bmw-s-color-changing-concept-car-in-action.htmlAt CES a year ago, BMW’s iX Flow concept was billed as “the world’s first color-changing car.” At the time, the special version of the iX electric crossover could shift its various panels between white, black, and gray.  Now, for 2023, meet the upgrade: actual colors. Now, for 2023, meet the upgrade: actual colors For this year’s CES, BMW showed off the i Vision Dee, an electric sports sedan concept that previewed a whole raft of technologies we could see in the immediate future, like AI-powered virtual assistants and full-windshield heads-up displays./news/city-of-san-diego-manages-to-not-set-off-its-fourth-of-july-fireworks-all-at-once.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/city-of-san-diego-manages-to-not-set-off-its-fourth-of-july-fireworks-all-at-once.htmlSan Diego has one of the largest 4th of July fireworks displays in the country; more than 500,000 people typically turn out to see the display over the bay. So it was deeply embarrassing for the city (and its display coordinator Garden State Fireworks) last year when all the fireworks in the planned 18-minute show went off at the same time due to a computer error, leaving behind an enormous cloud of smoke and a bewildered audience./news/dbrand-is-suing-casetify-for-ripping-off-its-teardown-designs.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dbrand-is-suing-casetify-for-ripping-off-its-teardown-designs.htmlDbrand, the device skin company known for trolling brands like Sony and Nintendo, is waging a legal battle of its own. The company is suing rival Casetify over claims it blatantly copied Dbrand’s Teardown device skins and cases, which are made to look like the internals of whatever phone, tablet, or laptop you’ve purchased them for. (It’s also introducing some new X-Ray skins on the same day it’s revealing the lawsuit./news/dead-men-tell-no-tales-proves-continuity-still-doesn-t-matter-for-the-pirates-of-the-caribbean-films.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dead-men-tell-no-tales-proves-continuity-still-doesn-t-matter-for-the-pirates-of-the-caribbean-films.htmlPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is the fifth entry in the swashbuckling film series, and like its four predecessors, it’s packed to the gills with pirates, sea monsters, action, adventure, Johnny Depp doing whatever it is Johnny Depp does, and an egregious disregard for the laws of physics. The film is billed as the “final adventure” of Captain Jack Sparrow, though co-director Joachim Rønning called it the “beginning of the finale,” and said there might be 10 sequels for all he knows./news/dead-solar-panels-are-about-to-become-a-lot-more-valuable.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dead-solar-panels-are-about-to-become-a-lot-more-valuable.htmlIn the coming years, recyclers will hopefully be able to mine billions of dollars worth of materials from discarded solar panels, according to a new analysis published this week. That should ease bottlenecks in the supply chain for solar panels while also making the panels themselves more sustainable. Right now, most dead solar panels in the US just get shredded or chucked into a landfill. The economics just don’t shake out in recycling’s favor./news/deepfake-bots-on-telegram-make-the-work-of-creating-fake-nudes-dangerously-easy.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/deepfake-bots-on-telegram-make-the-work-of-creating-fake-nudes-dangerously-easy.htmlResearchers have discovered a “deepfake ecosystem” on the messaging app Telegram centered around bots that generate fake nudes on request. Users interacting with these bots say they’re mainly creating nudes of women they know using images taken from social media, which they then share and trade with one another in various Telegram channels. The investigation comes from security firm Sensity, which focuses on what it calls “visual threat intelligence,” particularly the spread of deepfakes./news/dell-s-xps-13-plus-is-the-first-laptop-certified-for-ubuntu-22-04-lts.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dell-s-xps-13-plus-is-the-first-laptop-certified-for-ubuntu-22-04-lts.htmlTen years after launching a pioneering combination of Linux preinstalled on a commercial laptop with Project Sputnik, Dell and Canonical announced that the XPS 13 Plus is the first OEM PC certified for Ubuntu 22.04 Long-Term Support (LTS). That makes this a straightforward route to having a PC that just works without worrying about whether or not each component is ready to work with Linux. Linux-equipped Developer Edition models of the laptop were already available, with prices starting at $1,289./news/desktop-procreate-dreams-could-soon-be-a-reality.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/desktop-procreate-dreams-could-soon-be-a-reality.htmlDesktop Procreate dreams could soon be a reality. Users of the iPad-exclusive illustration app (and its sister animation software Dreams) have been asking for a desktop version for years, and it seems Procreate has been listening. PC support hasn’t been ruled out, but a Mac port will likely arrive first according to Procreate CEO and co-founder James Cuda. “The unified chip architecture between iPad and Mac makes the development & ongoing support, *very* feasible./news/dji-appears-to-be-making-its-first-fpv-racing-drone.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dji-appears-to-be-making-its-first-fpv-racing-drone.htmlDJI appears to be readying the release of a first-person-view (FPV) drone, according to FCC filings spotted by DroneDJ. Three products — a “DJI FPV Air Unit,” “DJI FPV Remote Controller,” and “DJI FPV Goggles” — were recently registered with the government agency. DJI has dabbled with FPV drones in the past. The company released a PlayStation VR-sized headset dubbed DJI Goggles in 2017 that worked with a few different DJI drones./news/dji-s-fpv-racing-drone-looks-mighty-real-in-these-leaked-photos.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dji-s-fpv-racing-drone-looks-mighty-real-in-these-leaked-photos.htmlFor a brief moment last July, it seemed like drone maker DJI was going to dive straight into drone racing with a speedy FPV (first-person-view) drone of its own. In reality, it merely dipped a toe — but a little over a year later, it looks like the company is nearly ready to announce a racing drone after all. You’re now looking at leaked images of what appears to be called the “DJI FPV,” and it certainly doesn’t look like any drone the company’s released before:/news/drones-become-dancers-in-this-sci-fi-performance.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/drones-become-dancers-in-this-sci-fi-performance.htmlDrones are growing in popularity pretty much everywhere, from journalism to business to science, and artists of all kinds have been picking up on them too. One of their latest uses comes from Japanese dance troupe Eleven Play, which turned three small drones into dancers during a recent performance in Tokyo. The drones are paired with three actual dancers and for a while fly smoothly around them, seemingly responding to their movements./news/edison-mail-s-new-onmail-email-service-launches-in-public-beta.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/edison-mail-s-new-onmail-email-service-launches-in-public-beta.htmlOnMail — the new email service from Edison Mail — is officially launching today in a public beta, offering the company’s reinvented take on email to the masses. Edison is best known for its regular email app (which recently debuted a new premium subscription service), but at the end of the day, the original app is effectively just a fresh coat of paint and some additional nice features onto the regular Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, or iCloud mail experience./news/epic-games-will-settle-fortnite-loot-box-lawsuits-in-v-bucks.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-games-will-settle-fortnite-loot-box-lawsuits-in-v-bucks.htmlEpic Games will give Fortnite players 1,000 V-Bucks if they ever purchased an in-game loot box, presented within the game as “loot llamas” containing randomized items, as part of a proposed class action lawsuit settlement to be approved later this week. While Fortnite’s massively popular battle royale mode has never contained randomized loot boxes, the game’s cooperative survival mode, “Save the World,” did — at least until 2019 when Epic changed its loot box system to allow players to see the item inside prior to purchase./news/espn-is-coming-to-the-disney-plus-app.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/espn-is-coming-to-the-disney-plus-app.htmlThe Disney Plus app will soon have a tile dedicated to ESPN Plus. Disney announced the news as part of its earnings results released on Tuesday and says the integration will become available by the end of this year. During the company’s earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the ESPN tile will give all subscribers in the US access to “select” live games and studio programming. “I see this as a first step to bringing ESPN to Disney Plus viewers as we ready the launch of our enhanced standalone ESPN streaming service in the fall of 2025,” Iger said./news/facebook-employees-strongly-object-to-company-s-political-ad-policy.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-employees-strongly-object-to-company-s-political-ad-policy.htmlFacebook employees are urging Mark Zuckerberg to rethink his stance on allowing politicians to lie in political ads. In an open letter to company executives obtained by The New York Times, more than 250 people said the policy — which exempts such ads from Facebook’s third-party fact-checking standards — threatens what the company stands for: Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for./news/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-s-biggest-twist-is-concealed-in-a-tiny-detail.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-s-biggest-twist-is-concealed-in-a-tiny-detail.htmlI’m in awe of how smart the developers of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are. After seeing a post comparing Cloud during the Nibelheim flashback and his arrival at the city much later in the game, my mind is reeling from the subtle brilliance in how Square used the tiniest of animation details to convey one of the biggest, most shocking plot twists in Final Fantasy narrative history. Spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to follow./news/first-angry-birds-star-wars-gameplay-video-has-lasers-lightsabers-and-leia.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/first-angry-birds-star-wars-gameplay-video-has-lasers-lightsabers-and-leia.htmlRovio has released a trailer for the upcoming Angry Birds Star Wars that gives us a first look at the game in action. While it's quite brief, we now know at least two things about the game: Luke Skywalker appears as the red bird and can slice up buildings with his lightsaber, and Princess Leia is apparently able to dismantle AT-AT walkers with a few laser blasts (which makes us wonder what the fuss was all about during the Battle of Hoth)./news/fitbit-sense-2-review-a-fitness-tracker-disguised-as-a-smartwatch.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fitbit-sense-2-review-a-fitness-tracker-disguised-as-a-smartwatch.htmlWhen I reviewed the Fitbit Sense two years ago, it was an ambitious smartwatch. Its successor, the Sense 2? Eh, not so much. It’s hyperbole to say the Sense 2 is a complete downgrade, but I don’t think you can truly call it a smartwatch, either. This, my friends, is what I’d call a premium fitness tracker — and if you view it from that lens, it’s a good one. But is it really $300 worth of fitness tracker, especially since the Pixel Watch is only $50 more, has nearly all the same health features, and is much smarter?/news/ford-encourages-owners-to-3d-print-fits-cupholders-for-the-maverick.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-encourages-owners-to-3d-print-fits-cupholders-for-the-maverick.htmlFord is encouraging its customers to 3D-print new accessories for the company’s new 2022 Maverick truck. This week, Ford released CAD files of the Maverick’s storage area under the rear seats and also for its slotted accessories called the Ford Integrated Tether System (FITS). There are a total of eight FITS slots in the vehicle: one behind the center console where a cupholder would normally go in many vehicles and seven under the rear seat bench./news/ford-argo-and-walmart-are-bringing-robo-delivery-to-three-us-cities.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-argo-and-walmart-are-bringing-robo-delivery-to-three-us-cities.htmlFord and Walmart are teaming to launch a robo-delivery service in three US cities, using autonomous test vehicles equipped with sensors and software developed by Argo AI. Customers who live in Miami, Austin, and Washington, DC, who order items from Walmart online and live within a specific geographic area may be eligible to have their items delivered by a Ford / Argo vehicle. The companies plan on kicking off “integration testing” for the delivery service this year, with plans to expand the geographic areas over time./news/fortnite-is-ending-its-second-chapter-with-a-big-event-on-december-4th.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-is-ending-its-second-chapter-with-a-big-event-on-december-4th.htmlFortnite’s next big in-game event won’t just mark the end of the latest season — it’ll also draw chapter 2 to a close as well. Called, appropriately, “The End,” the one-time-only event will take place on December 4th at 4PM ET. Developer Epic describes it as “one last stand for the fate of the island,” suggesting that players will soon be playing on a brand-new map. “The End” event will support squads of up to 16 players, and, as always, Epic suggests players get in at least 30 minutes early to guarantee a spot./news/four-detective-pikachu-characters-are-joining-google-s-ar-playground.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/four-detective-pikachu-characters-are-joining-google-s-ar-playground.htmlGoogle is adding four new Playmoji to its augmented reality Playground service based on characters from the upcoming Detective Pikachu. Starting today, you’ll be able to download and take photos with Charizard, Jigglypuff, Mr. Mime, and Detective Pikachu from within the Playground section of the camera app on Google Pixel phones. On Pixel phones, you can find the Playmoji characters under the Playground section of the camera app (which you can find under the “More” option on the bottom of the display)./news/fujifilm-x-t20-review-love-rekindled.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fujifilm-x-t20-review-love-rekindled.htmlStrolling through La Rambla in the heart of Barcelona this month, I saw and heard the full kaleidoscope of human cultures around me, but something wasn’t quite right. There was an anomaly about the tourists surrounding me. Not one of them was using, wearing, or carrying a camera. I was, in fact, the sole person with a dedicated camera in hand. Smartphone cameras have grown so ubiquitous and competent that, even on an evening outing in a city center, most people now trust them to handle their photography needs./news/galaxy-ai-features-are-coming-to-last-gen-samsung-phones-including-the-s21-series.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/galaxy-ai-features-are-coming-to-last-gen-samsung-phones-including-the-s21-series.htmlSamsung is planning to bring select Galaxy AI features to several older flagship phones and tablets next month via the One UI 6.1 update, according to 9to5Google and Android Central, both of which referred to a post from a Samsung representative who posted on the company’s community forum in Korea. The Verge has reached out to Samsung for further comment.  A slightly trimmed-down version of Galaxy AI (sans Instant Slow-Mo) will be coming to Samsung’s flagship lineup from 2022, specifically the S22, S22 Plus, S22 Ultra, Z Fold 4, Z Flip 4, Tab S8, and Tab S8 Ultra./news/galaxy-nexus-accessories-detailed-in-videos.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/galaxy-nexus-accessories-detailed-in-videos.htmlWith luck, it'll only be a few more days until Verizon releases the Galaxy Nexus here in the US, but the folks from MobileFun UK already have their hands on the Android 4.0 phone's accessories and have been kind enough to post videos of four different official docks and chargers. Check out the presentations below of the desk stand, HDMI dock, vehicle dock, and a battery charger that also holds your phone./news/glorious-gmmk-pro-review-easy-mode-for-diy-keyboards.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/glorious-gmmk-pro-review-easy-mode-for-diy-keyboards.htmlWhen Glorious’ GMMK Pro was announced a little over a year and a half ago, there was quite a bit of excitement among keyboard enthusiasts. Here was a custom and sleek-looking 75 percent keyboard that made it easy for newcomers to jump into the hobby by providing direct access to all the various parts needed to build it. Those parts could all be ordered from the same company and assembling them required no particular skill (and no soldering)./news/god-of-war-ragnar%C3%B6k-is-a-story-about-letting-go.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/god-of-war-ragnar%C3%B6k-is-a-story-about-letting-go.htmlThis article contains spoilers for, well, pretty much the whole God of War series. Throughout the journey in God of War (2018), Kratos and Atreus hold on to the memory and literal ashes of a loved one. Her dying wish to be scattered at the highest peak propels them through the realms of Norse myth, confronting and defeating gods and monsters. The plot of God of War, like windsurfing, is driven by holding on./news/good-deal-modern-warfare-3-multiplayer-free-this-weekend-on-steam.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/good-deal-modern-warfare-3-multiplayer-free-this-weekend-on-steam.htmlActivision's got a special offer for Steam users this weekend — anyone can install Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and have access to the full range of multiplayer features for free from now until Monday. The game's received widespread critical acclaim since its launch back in November, and currently holds the title of biggest entertainment release of all time having made over $1 billion in only 16 days. And, as far as we're concerned, anything with Gary Oldman in it must be worth playing./news/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-is-joining-the-alphabet-board-of-directors.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-is-joining-the-alphabet-board-of-directors.htmlSundar Pichai has another job to do: serve on the board of directors for Alphabet, the parent company for Google. Pichai has been the CEO of Google since the creation of Alphabet in October 2015 — a move that split out a bunch of somewhat random businesses into quasi-independent companies separate from Google proper. Since then, things have gone well at Google under Pichai’s leadership, while things at Alphabet have been a bit more rocky./news/google-chrome-is-getting-ai-features-for-organizing-tabs-and-custom-themes.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-chrome-is-getting-ai-features-for-organizing-tabs-and-custom-themes.htmlGoogle’s Chrome browser is leaning into AI in a big way. Rather than just shove a Bard sidebar into the browser, Google is rolling out a couple of features that tap into its models in order to hopefully make your browser a little more pleasant to use. They’re launching today in an experimental mode (you can go to settings and turn on “Experimental AI” to get them), and Google says they’re just the beginning of the AI browser takeover./news/google-disables-maps-traffic-data-in-ukraine-to-protect-citizens.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-disables-maps-traffic-data-in-ukraine-to-protect-citizens.htmlGoogle has temporarily disabled live traffic features offered by Google Maps in Ukraine to protect users’ safety as the country is invaded by neighboring Russia. The features use anonymous location data collected from Android smartphones to show where there are traffic delays on roads and which businesses and stores are busy. Experts say such data could offer insight into the progress of the invasion. One open source intelligence (OSINT) expert said he saw signs of the Russian invasion early last Thursday after spotting unusual “traffic jams” at the Ukrainian border on Google Maps./news/google-needs-an-ai-strategy-change-at-i-o-2023.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-needs-an-ai-strategy-change-at-i-o-2023.htmlGoogle has had a rough six months. Since ChatGPT launched last November — followed by the new Bing in February and GPT-4 in March — the company has failed to establish its AI credentials. Its own offering, the “experimental” chatbot Bard, compares poorly to rivals, and insider reports have portrayed a company in panic and disarray. Today, at its annual I/O conference, the company needs to convince the public (and shareholders) that it has a meaningful response./news/google-pixel-buds-pro-get-new-colors-and-features.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-pixel-buds-pro-get-new-colors-and-features.htmlTo complement the new Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, Google is releasing additional colors of its Pixel Buds Pro noise-canceling earbuds. They now come in blue and porcelain hues that fit nicely alongside the company’s latest mobile devices. I’ve asked whether this means any of the previous color options are being phased out. More importantly, Google has announced a handful of new software features that will roll out to its flagship earbuds over the next few weeks./news/google-s-regina-dugan-may-have-violated-ethics-rules-while-at-darpa.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-regina-dugan-may-have-violated-ethics-rules-while-at-darpa.htmlDr. Regina Dugan, who formerly led the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), violated ethics rules during her time there, according to a report from the Defense Department Inspector General. Navy Times says the report found "conflicting financial interests" owing to Dugan's relationship with RedXDefense, a company that builds devices capable of detecting narcotics, explosives, and gunshot residue. Dugan founded the firm in 2005 and oversaw operations as CEO until taking on the top DARPA position in 2009, though she's long maintained a financial stake in the company./news/google-s-meme-domain-is-here-to-serve-your-wackiest-websites.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-meme-domain-is-here-to-serve-your-wackiest-websites.htmlIf you ever wanted to make your website sound a little more silly, now’s your chance. Google Registry just released a new top-level domain that lets you slap a big ol’ .meme at the end of your website. The new .meme domains are available to register right now as part of an early access period for an “additional one-time fee.” If you don’t want to pay extra, you can wait until they become publicly available on December 5th at 4PM UTC (12PM ET) to pay just the base annual price./news/google-s-next-pixelbook-chromebook-is-canceled.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-next-pixelbook-chromebook-is-canceled.htmlGoogle has canceled the next version of its Pixelbook laptop and dissolved the team responsible for building it. The device was far along in development and expected to debut next year, according to a person familiar with the matter, but the project was cut as part of recent cost-cutting measures inside of Google. Members of the team have been transferred elsewhere inside the company. As recently as a few months ago, Google was planning to keep the Pixelbook going./news/hades-2-early-access-begins-on-may-6th.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hades-2-early-access-begins-on-may-6th.htmlThe wait is over: Hades II launches in early access today. The game was slowly rolled out to select players during its technical test period that began last month. After that testing period — in which players got to experience the game’s opening area, fight the first boss, and meet a smattering of new gods and characters — early access grants players an in-progress build of the full game. According to the Hades II FAQ page, this early access build contains “as much content from day one in Early Access as the original did./news/half-life-gets-a-big-update-for-its-25th-anniversary.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/half-life-gets-a-big-update-for-its-25th-anniversary.htmlValve just released a 25th anniversary update for Half-Life that adds a whole bunch of new content, some welcome quality-of-life upgrades, and even Steam Deck support, according to an announcement on the Half-Life website. Also, you can download the game for free for a limited time. Let’s start with the added content. The game now includes Half-Life Uplink, a “mini-campaign” that was originally available only on CDs from magazines and hardware manufacturers, the company says./news/here-s-how-to-turn-off-twitter-s-weird-new-refresh-sound.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-how-to-turn-off-twitter-s-weird-new-refresh-sound.htmlRecently, Twitter users noticed that the app has started making a new sound — when you pull down to refresh your timeline, notifications, DMs, or pretty much anything else in the official app, there’s a robotic chirp sound that sounds like a futuristic bird or frog. The sound has been polarizing — some people have been mesmerized by it, while others hate it. Thankfully, there are a few ways to make sure you don’t hear it, which I’ll cover in this article./news/here-s-how-underground-chemist-tim-scully-planned-to-save-the-world-with-lsd.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-how-underground-chemist-tim-scully-planned-to-save-the-world-with-lsd.htmlTim Scully was 20 when he did LSD for the first time, and the experience “was like getting struck by lightning.” It was 1965. Scully had been studying math and physics — on track to do government research — but acid changed everything. Instantly, he decided that his purpose was to make as much LSD as he could and give it away to anyone who wanted it, in order to “turn on the world./news/here-s-why-the-new-ios-16-lock-screens-matter.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-why-the-new-ios-16-lock-screens-matter.htmlThere’s a tendency among the highly tech-literate (you know, us nerds) to approach new features with a jaded, seen-it-all-before sentiment. That’s especially true when Apple announces new iPhone features with lots of fanfare and self-congratulation. The Android faithful will then point out that this groundbreaking achievement existed on a Nexus phone seven years ago, and the first three versions of it sucked, but it’s great now. That attitude could certainly be applied to one of the centerpieces of iOS 16: new lock screens./news/hoefler-and-frere-jones-set-for-20-million-court-battle-over-share-in-iconic-type-foundry.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hoefler-and-frere-jones-set-for-20-million-court-battle-over-share-in-iconic-type-foundry.htmlHoefler & Frere-Jones (H&FJ), one of the most respected type foundries in the world, is now the subject of a multi-million dollar legal battle between its eponymous type designers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones. The New York City foundry owns and sells licenses for well-known font families like Whitney and Gotham, and has also designed typefaces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Esquire, HP, Nike, and others./news/honor-70-review-no-deal-breakers-no-showstoppers.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/honor-70-review-no-deal-breakers-no-showstoppers.htmlIt’s been almost two years since Honor split from parent company Huawei. That means that — unlike Huawei — it can sell phones with Google apps and services preinstalled, which means they’re actually worth considering if you live in a country where Honor sells phones.  That includes several European markets but not the US, at least not yet.  But while the change has allowed Honor’s recent phones, like last year’s Honor 50 and the Magic4 Pro, to compete in the crowded Android smartphone market, the brand hasn’t yet found its unique selling point./news/how-a-giant-inflatable-rat-became-the-face-of-america-s-labor-movement.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-a-giant-inflatable-rat-became-the-face-of-america-s-labor-movement.htmlThe 12-foot rat loomed over the entrance to the RV trade show in Elkhart, Indiana, the “RV capital of the world.” It stood 12 feet high, its beady red eyes and snarling fangs alerting attendees that at least one company wasn’t playing nice with union organizers. Depending on who you asked, the gigantic inflatable rodent was either a menace or a rallying cry. But to its owners — members of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 150 — it was merely Scabby, a beloved symbol of the labor movement./news/how-rockstar-betrayed-its-fans-in-grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-modding-scandal.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-rockstar-betrayed-its-fans-in-grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-modding-scandal.htmlEurogamer has taken a look back at the notorious "Hot Coffee" scandal surrounding the launch of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and explores what the media fiasco means for sex in video games today. Developers originally included explicit sex scenes as a joke and a way to "push the content envelope," however the scenes were locked — but not removed — before launch due to concerns about the game's ESRB rating./news/how-the-nintendo-switch-became-the-hottest-indie-game-platform.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-the-nintendo-switch-became-the-hottest-indie-game-platform.htmlLast year, just ahead of the launch of the Switch, Nintendo unveiled some ambitious plans to support independently developed games on the platform, including launching a new game every single week. It was a big shift for a company that wasn’t known for being indie-friendly in the past. One year later, the initiative seems to have worked: the Switch might be the most vibrant indie platform of the moment. It’s thanks to a combination of factors, including the unique nature of the device, stellar early hardware sales, and some small but important changes that have made it an easy platform to develop for./news/how-to-edit-proraw-photos-on-your-iphone.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-edit-proraw-photos-on-your-iphone.htmlApple’s ProRAW camera feature is a powerful tool to have in your back pocket. An image taken in ProRAW mode combines the same great post-processing flexibility of a traditional RAW file with the benefits of multi-frame computational photography. Kind of the best of both worlds! But once you’ve gone through the steps to enable it on your iPhone and have taken your photo, that’s when the real work starts: processing and converting it to a shareable format like JPEG, PNG, or HEIF./news/how-to-organize-your-slack-channels.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-organize-your-slack-channels.htmlIf your workplace (or organization, or friends group, or whatever) is anything like mine, and you’ve used Slack for more than, say, a month, you have no doubt amassed a lot of channels (also known as conversations). This can result in a lot of scrolling — I mean, a lot of scrolling — to find the channel you want to use. You can also spend a lot of time trying to figure out which channels you need to pay attention to now and which ones you can save until later./news/how-to-set-up-a-vpn-for-increased-security-and-privacy.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-set-up-a-vpn-for-increased-security-and-privacy.htmlVirtual private networks (VPNs) can offer an additional layer of security and privacy for your online activity. Whether you’re working on a public Wi-Fi network and want to escape prying eyes, or you’re worried about privacy in general, a VPN can offer a lot of benefits. In a nutshell, a VPN establishes a secure, encrypted connection between your device and a private server, hiding your traffic from being seen by others./news/how-to-stream-pc-games-and-movies-to-your-xbox-console-with-a-free-app.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-stream-pc-games-and-movies-to-your-xbox-console-with-a-free-app.htmlIf you own a Windows 10 or 11 PC and an Xbox One or Series X / S console, you might not be aware that those devices have some interesting cross-functionality. Using Microsoft’s Wireless Display app, you can easily output the games from your Xbox to your Windows PC screen. Conversely, it’s possible to stream what’s on your PC to the TV that you’re using with your Xbox — you can even control it from the console, and setting it up is surprisingly simple./news/how-to-thank-your-amazon-driver.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-thank-your-amazon-driver.htmlIt sounded like a really nice holiday extra: you could tip your hard-working Amazon delivery driver by simply using your Alexa device (or the app on your phone) to thank your driver, and they would get a $5 tip from the company. The program started on December 7th and was probably meant to publicize Amazon’s new feature that allowed users to thank their drivers through their Alexa apps. Available to all US delivery drivers delivering on behalf of Amazon, it didn’t last long./news/how-to-watch-tesla-s-2022-ai-day-event.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-watch-tesla-s-2022-ai-day-event.htmlWe don’t have a lot of details about what will be announced, but based on the invitation, we’re likely to hear about the “latest developments in artificial intelligence, including Full Self-Driving, Tesla Bot, Dojo, and more.” Musk has also said he views AI Day as a recruiting tool Musk has also said he views AI Day as a recruiting tool as Tesla looks to expand its robotics division. The Tesla Bot is “the most important product development we’re doing this year,” he said recently, predicting that it will have “the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time./news/hp-s-new-zbook-studio-x360-is-a-convertible-laptop-made-for-creatives.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-s-new-zbook-studio-x360-is-a-convertible-laptop-made-for-creatives.htmlHP is aiming its new ZBook Studio x360 laptop at creatives who might need a portable and convertible device that supports intensive workloads. Similar to what HP did with the ZBook X2 last year, the x360 features consumer-style form factors and specs similar to those of a workstation PC. The laptop comes with options for Intel’s latest Core i5 and i7 processors (with 6 cores) or even high-performance Xeon chips, Nvidia Quadro P1000 graphics, up to 4TB of local PCIe NVMe storage, and up to 32 GB of RAM./news/huawei-overtakes-apple-in-annual-race-to-samsung-s-smartphone-crown.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/huawei-overtakes-apple-in-annual-race-to-samsung-s-smartphone-crown.htmlHuawei overtook Apple to become the world’s second best selling smartphone manufacturer in 2019, according to reports from Strategy Analytics, Counterpoint Research, and Canalys. Over the course of the year, the Chinese manufacturer reportedly shipped around 240 million phones, compared to just under 200 million for Apple. Samsung retained its comfortable lead in first place, shipping just shy of 300 million devices. Xiaomi and Oppo rounded out the list of the top five manufacturers./news/hulu-nickelodeon-and-nascar-will-make-windows-10-apps-for-xbox-one.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hulu-nickelodeon-and-nascar-will-make-windows-10-apps-for-xbox-one.htmlToday's announcement was preempted by statements made a couple weeks ago at gaming conference GDC. Jason Ronald, Microsoft's Advanced Technology Group chief for Xbox, said at GDC that Microsoft would be opening up Xbox One to universal apps sometime this summer, but again, few specifics were given at that time. Now, at least a few app developers have committed to creating universal apps for Windows. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnam5faHx0fY5qaGxrZ2uEeXvNopqknZyksaa7zWalmquTlr9utNSlrGackZ65urnOraCopl2stq%2BwzrCqZmlgYsWju9dmpqed/news/hundreds-of-spacex-employees-signed-letter-denouncing-elon-musk-s-behavior.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hundreds-of-spacex-employees-signed-letter-denouncing-elon-musk-s-behavior.htmlIt took less than a day and a half for more than 400 SpaceX employees to sign onto an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk after it was posted and shared by some of their co-workers in an internal chat. Just 32 hours after it was shared, the internal landing page for the document was taken offline, around the same time that a group of employees was fired for their involvement in crafting and sharing the letter, a move that may have been a violation of labor law./news/i-could-listen-to-these-mouths-do-video-games-all-day.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-could-listen-to-these-mouths-do-video-games-all-day.htmlI could listen to these mouths do video games all day. Remember the a capella group that did the scary-good Windows and iPhone sound effects? They... never stopped, and somehow I’m just learning about it today. Here are MayTree’s incredible renditions of Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, PS1-PS4 startup sounds, Animal Crossing, a Persona 5 vid from just a few weeks ago... heck, here’s their entire “game & effect” YouTube playlist./news/i-have-the-best-job.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-have-the-best-job.htmlI have the best job. I'm a big kid. I play with amazing toys. Recently, I discovered the joy of sharing minute-long videos of them with you. Now, I've started a Threads account where you can freely subscribe to my vids, get alerts for new vids, and ask me anything. (It's best viewed in the mobile app.) This self-transforming Megatron? There's a lot more where that came from. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxzg45ra2psYmt%2Bc3vIZp%2BarpViwamxjJucrKxdn7yj/news/it-s-time-to-reconsider-the-concert-video.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/it-s-time-to-reconsider-the-concert-video.htmlLook, I understand where you’re coming from. You paid good money to be here at the Eras Tour or whatever. You waited in line for two hours. You were up all night selecting your outfit. You sat in ridiculous traffic. You fought a relentless battle against Ticketmaster, and dagnabbit, you won. You’re here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it. You’re here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it/news/japan-s-indie-game-scene-is-growing-up.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/japan-s-indie-game-scene-is-growing-up.htmlTen years ago, a group of game developers in Kyoto started up an indie festival with the aim of promoting and uniting the country’s fragmented independent scene. One hundred seventy people officially showed up to the inaugural BitSummit in 2013, and organizers said they’d aim for at least 200 people next time around.  I went along to the second BitSummit the following year, and it turned out that more than 5,000 others had the same idea./news/kanye-west-says-his-new-album-is-called-turbo-grafx-16-and-coming-this-summer.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kanye-west-says-his-new-album-is-called-turbo-grafx-16-and-coming-this-summer.htmlYou might be aware that Kanye West just released a new album, and you also might be aware that West publicly changed his mind over its name multiple times, so you may want to take this news with a balanced-diet-and-gym-three-times-a-week level of healthy skepticism, but here it is: Kanye West says his next album is going to be called Turbo Grafx 16. As of now, anyway. Oh, and it's apparently coming this summer./news/kentucky-route-zero-review-act-v-was-worth-the-wait.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kentucky-route-zero-review-act-v-was-worth-the-wait.htmlKentucky Route Zero starts out slow and simple. An old man named Conway pulls into a gas station to ask for directions. He has a rusting truck, rumbling away in the background, stuffed with antiques. But he can’t find his destination. That road, he’s told, is not easy to reach. What follows is a surreal road trip that’s constantly changing. Kentucky Route Zero remains slow across its five acts (and multiple interludes)./news/kickasstorrents-resurfaces-online-as-all-piracy-sites-do.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kickasstorrents-resurfaces-online-as-all-piracy-sites-do.htmlThe alleged founder and operator of the most popular torrenting site in the world, KickassTorrents (KAT), has been apprehend by the US authorities and the site's domains seized. However, as we learned with the campaign to stop The Pirate Bay, you just can't keep a good pirate site down. We've already spotted at least two clones of KAT, including one created by IsoHunt (KickassTorrents.website — a fairly limited mirror), and a second located at KAT./news/kids-who-grew-up-with-search-engines-could-change-stem-education-forever.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kids-who-grew-up-with-search-engines-could-change-stem-education-forever.htmlCatherine Garland, an astrophysicist, started seeing the problem in 2017. She was teaching an engineering course, and her students were using simulation software to model turbines for jet engines. She’d laid out the assignment clearly, but student after student was calling her over for help. They were all getting the same error message: The program couldn’t find their files.  Garland thought it would be an easy fix. She asked each student where they’d saved their project./news/life-is-strange-2-review-a-worthy-successor.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/life-is-strange-2-review-a-worthy-successor.htmlToward the end of Life is Strange 2 — the episodic series that wrapped up its five-episode series last week — teenage lead Sean Diaz is jolted awake. After driving all night, he pulled over to the side of a quiet desert road for a doze. But it turns out, he inadvertently parked on private property owned by a racist who isn’t a fan of a mysterious Hispanic kid sleeping on his land./news/listen-to-the-bbc-radio-adaptation-of-neil-gaiman-s-subterranean-fantasy-neverwhere.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/listen-to-the-bbc-radio-adaptation-of-neil-gaiman-s-subterranean-fantasy-neverwhere.html17 years after its original broadcast, the BBC is bringing its Neverwhere fantasy TV series to the radio. The Sandman and Coraline author Neil Gaiman’s story of a parallel world beneath London’s streets and sewers is voiced by James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class) and Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones), and the first episode is available for download as a podcast until March 29th as part of the BBC’s Drama of the Week program./news/listen-to-the-music-that-the-beagle-2-probably-played-on-mars-in-2003.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/listen-to-the-music-that-the-beagle-2-probably-played-on-mars-in-2003.htmlThis isn't the first human music to make it off-planet of course. The golden records onboard the Voyager spacecraft contain an eclectic playlist including Bach, Beethoven, Chuck Berry, and Blind Willie Johnson. In 2012 will.i.am's single "Reach for the Stars" became the first ever music broadcast from Mars to Earth. And as far as music played out loud goes, well, the Curiosity rover probably holds the title: in August 2013 it used its soil analysis system to vibrate a buzzy rendition of "/news/little-printer-returns-as-an-open-source-messaging-device.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/little-printer-returns-as-an-open-source-messaging-device.htmlBerg’s Little Printer, an adorable internet-connected box that printed out tiny snippets of news, Instagram photos, and to-do lists, stopped working when the studio and its servers shut down in 2014. Now, design consultancy firm Nord Projects has brought it back to life with a brand-new app, and it added the ability to send messages between devices, as reported by Core77. A group of Little Printer enthusiasts on GitHub collaborated to get the device back online through an open-source server called Sirius./news/macos-101-how-to-force-quit-a-mac-app.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/macos-101-how-to-force-quit-a-mac-app.htmlApps on macOS are usually well-behaved, but there are times when they can stop working or freeze and slow down your entire Mac. If that happens to you (and it might happen often if you’re playing with the latest Monterey betas), it’s time to quit the app. The first thing to do, of course, is try to quit the app normally: However, if the app is frozen or just won’t go away, then you need to force a quit./news/mail-bombing-is-a-generational-form-of-american-terrorism.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mail-bombing-is-a-generational-form-of-american-terrorism.htmlThis week, someone in America has taken it upon themselves to mail bombs to George Soros, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, the Democratic Rep. (and former chair of the Democratic National Committee) Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former US Attorney General Eric Holder, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, and former CIA director John Brennan. Brennan’s bomb arrived at CNN’s New York City office, leading to the prompt evacuation of the building. Robert De Niro, a prominent critic of the current president, also received a package with an explosive device inside./news/meet-microsoft-office-s-new-default-font-aptos.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meet-microsoft-office-s-new-default-font-aptos.htmlMicrosoft is replacing its Calibri default font with Aptos, a new sans-serif typeface that’s inspired by mid-20th-century Swiss typography. Previously known as Bierstadt, Aptos has been part of Microsoft’s hunt for its new default font over the past couple of years. The software giant commissioned five new custom fonts for Office in 2021, and the Aptos font was picked as the default after years of feedback. “Today we begin the final phase of this major change where Aptos will start appearing as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel for hundreds of millions of users,” explains Si Daniels, a principal program manager at Microsoft, in a design blog post today./news/microsoft-edge-is-getting-adobe-s-freemium-pdf-viewer.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-edge-is-getting-adobe-s-freemium-pdf-viewer.htmlMicrosoft Edge’s new PDF viewer is powered by Adobe, and it won’t let you forget that. In an announcement on its website, Microsoft says it’s replacing Edge’s existing PDF viewer with one from Adobe Acrobat, which includes some “advanced” features that are available if you’re willing to pay for them. Microsoft markets the integration as a way to give users “a unique PDF experience” with “higher fidelity for more accurate colors and graphics, improved performance, strong security for PDF handling, and greater accessibility./news/microsoft-teams-and-xbox-live-were-down-for-over-two-hours-but-have-recovered.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-teams-and-xbox-live-were-down-for-over-two-hours-but-have-recovered.htmlMany Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams and Xbox Live, were down for more than two hours Thursday evening. The company says the services have fully recovered. “We have mitigated the issue impacting some service interruptions that customers may have experienced,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. The company’s Microsoft 365 status page said there was a “DNS issue affecting multiple Microsoft 365 and Azure services,” but it has been resolved./news/montblanc-summit-3-review-a-watch-for-nobody.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/montblanc-summit-3-review-a-watch-for-nobody.htmlA few weeks ago, I pulled down my sleeve to hide the Montblanc Summit 3 on my wrist. I felt self-conscious wearing a $1,290 luxury smartwatch on a not-so-special day, let alone on the grimy New York City subway. (Never mind the fact that I have no qualms about pulling out a high-end smartphone during a commute.) But this fancypants smartwatch is the first non-Samsung watch to run Wear OS 3, and I wanted to try it./news/more-layoffs-at-siriusxm-the-verge.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/more-layoffs-at-siriusxm-the-verge.htmlMore layoffs at SiriusXM. SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz sent a memo to staff on Monday announcing another round of layoffs. She said that less than 3 percent (which works out to about 170 people) would be affected. Last year, the company cut 475 employees. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZ3xyfo5ra2lvYGyAcXvMqKmeZZyWxrCyxaxkmqxdqLaztdSsr6Y%3D/news/moto-360-2019-review-a-familiar-blend-of-good-hardware-and-bad-software.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/moto-360-2019-review-a-familiar-blend-of-good-hardware-and-bad-software.htmlThe third generation of the Moto 360, a Wear OS smartwatch that is, incidentally, no longer being made by Motorola, shipped a couple of months ago. While it is a perfectly serviceable smart watch with a lot going for it, there’s nothing about it that makes it stand out one way or the other — especially considering its comparatively high price. This latest version of the Moto smartwatch is being produced by a company calledeBuyNow, which, as reported byThe Verge’s Dan Seifert, describes itself as “an independent, data-driven consumer electronics company./news/msi-prestige-14-evo-review-fast-but-flawed.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/msi-prestige-14-evo-review-fast-but-flawed.htmlMSI’s Prestige 14 laptop line is traditionally marketed to content creators. But the Prestige 14 Evo is in a bit of a murkier spot. It’s priced below the Prestige 14, starting at $1,099, and it doesn’t have the discrete GPU or high-resolution screen that would render it a compelling content-creation machine. Despite its name, the Prestige 14 Evo is an everyday productivity laptop.  7Verge Score MSI Prestige 14 Evo$1077.99 The GoodTop performanceQuite lightAffordable price for its specsThe BadDim displayTinny audioBattery life isn’t greatHow we rate and review productsUnfortunately, that makes it a tougher sell./news/nerf-is-bringing-back-three-original-super-soakers-this-spring.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nerf-is-bringing-back-three-original-super-soakers-this-spring.htmlIn 1982, NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson accidentally invented a pressurized water gun that went on to become one of the coolest summer toys for years. Now, Hasbro’s bringing back three of the original Super Soakers with that initial air-pressure system — and I’m pretty tempted to buy the one I never got back when parents controlled my cash. While it’s pretty clear Hasbro isn’t using the same exact molds, the new $17./news/netflix-is-making-an-original-live-action-resident-evil-tv-series.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-is-making-an-original-live-action-resident-evil-tv-series.htmlNetflix has announced a new live-action TV series based on the Capcom’s popular Resident Evil series of video games that will be produced by Constantin Film, the same company that made the previous six Resident Evil films starring Milla Jovovich. The upcoming series will feature an original story set within the world of the Resident Evil, set across two timelines. The first will see sisters Jade and Billie Wesker (presumably of some relation to longtime series antagonist Albert Wesker) move to the corporate town of New Raccoon City at age 14, before realizing the destination and their father “may be concealing dark secrets./news/netflix-reveals-how-many-hours-we-spent-watching-the-night-agent-and-queen-charlotte.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-reveals-how-many-hours-we-spent-watching-the-night-agent-and-queen-charlotte.htmlNetflix is going to start publishing a new report twice a year that details the most popular shows and movies on the platform. The first report, released today, details the most-watched content from January to June 2023, and it’s perhaps the best look yet at how much people are actually watching Netflix’s gargantuan library of titles. “What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report” will track three metrics: hours watched, whether a show is available globally, and a show’s release date./news/netflix-s-masters-of-the-universe-revelation-review-a-new-future.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-masters-of-the-universe-revelation-review-a-new-future.htmlPart of what made She-Ra and the Princesses of Power so good was the way it completely reimagined the classic cartoon. It was still set in a magical realm with talking horses and evil robot armies, but it took an old show — which, if we’re being honest, was created for the express purpose of selling toys — and gave its characters and world some real depth and meaning. It was funny and exciting, heartbreaking and beautiful, without a toy commercial in sight./news/new-ipad-review-2012-the-verge.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-ipad-review-2012-the-verge.htmlApple has a long history of making decisions in its hardware which can sometimes compromise performance. The original MacBook Air comes to mind for instance — a groundbreaking design with relatively poor computing power. The original iPhone was a 2G-only device (ostensibly to conserve battery life), and clearly the antenna on the original iPhone 4 had form-over-function syndrome (at least for some users). The fact that the new iPad touts an A5X SoC versus a completely new generation of chip may give some buyers pause, but in my testing I see no evidence that the processor in the iPad isn't every bit as powerful as it should be./news/new-mercedes-maybach-eqs-680-suv-is-an-oversized-luxury-transport-ev.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-mercedes-maybach-eqs-680-suv-is-an-oversized-luxury-transport-ev.htmlMercedes-Benz revealed a sumptuous new Maybach version of its all-electric EQS SUV today — and it’s certainly made for owners who aren’t planning on driving it themselves. Instead, they’ll be sitting on one of the two rear captain seats, which are glamorously appointed in diamond-stitched Nappa leather and come with electric recliner seats, pillows, removable tablet screens, and even a bottle chiller to keep the drive alive. The interior of the Maybach, of course, is designed for maximum comfort for the riders — but that comes at the cost of practicality./news/nintendo-is-releasing-a-zelda-themed-switch-oled-for-tears-of-the-kingdom.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-is-releasing-a-zelda-themed-switch-oled-for-tears-of-the-kingdom.htmlThere are also a few Zelda-themed accessories in the works, including both a Pro controller and an official carrying case. Both of these will be available on May 12th, which also happens to be the day Tears of the Kingdom finally launches. You can check out the full presentation from Nintendo, which includes around 10 minutes of gameplay, below: Update March 28th, 4:33PM ET: Noted that Target is also accepting preorders for the limited edition Nintendo Switch OLED./news/now-doordash-will-deliver-starbucks-across-the-us-too.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/now-doordash-will-deliver-starbucks-across-the-us-too.htmlDoorDash will soon start delivering Starbucks food and drinks in all 50 US states, the company announced in a blog post. The service will initially roll out to Northern California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida before expanding into the rest of the US in March. Through the partnership, users can place orders with the DoorDash app instead of the Starbucks app. Starbucks says it’ll make about 95 percent of “its core menu” available through the service and will let customers customize their orders as if they were using Starbucks’ own app./news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-review-329-with-an-asterisk-sign.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-review-329-with-an-asterisk-sign.htmlSo you want to buy a graphics card. Join the club: every modern game-capable GPU has instantly sold out for months. The pandemic birthed a global semiconductor shortage, Trump’s trade war didn’t help, and now even four-year-old graphics cards can fetch several hundred dollars on the secondhand market.  Into that chaos, Nvidia is launching the $329 GeForce RTX 3060, a card the company insists will actually have a starting price of $329, and I’m reviewing a model of that card that they claimed would actually go on sale for that price today: the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC Black Gaming./news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-ti-review-a-loss-to-amd.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-ti-review-a-loss-to-amd.htmlWhen I reviewed Nvidia’s RTX 3070 last year, I called it the sweet spot for 1440p gaming. At $499, it arrived as a more budget-friendly option for those not ready to move to 4K. Now, Nvidia has another option: the $599 RTX 3070 Ti. Compared to the standard version, the RTX 3070 Ti has been redesigned and comes with 8GB of newer and more efficient GDDR6X RAM instead of GDDR6. Like all of Nvidia’s 30-series cards, the RTX 3070 Ti also supports ray tracing and AI-powered DLSS technology to improve frame rates and maintain image quality./news/oneplus-bullets-wireless-review-exceeding-expectations.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oneplus-bullets-wireless-review-exceeding-expectations.htmlI think I’ve figured out OnePlus’ top-secret, never-before-publicized strategy for success: designing really good things and selling them at really reasonable prices. Every year, the flagship OnePlus phone is a champion in its price class, competing with devices hundreds of dollars more expensive. When OnePlus released the $20 Bullets v2 earphones in 2016, I called them criminally underpriced, and when the company released a $69 Travel Backpack in 2017, I called it a triumph./news/paypal-s-send-money-facebook-app-sends-real-cash-virtual-cards-to-friends.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/paypal-s-send-money-facebook-app-sends-real-cash-virtual-cards-to-friends.htmlFacebook helpfully reminds you of your friends' birthdays, so why not use it to send a virtual card and a little cash while you're at it? That's what PayPal's thinking with the launch of a new Facebook app called "Send Money," which does exactly what it says. After authorizing PayPal to access your Facebook account, you can pick a card design for the standard gift-giving occasions like birthdays, graduations, or weddings, then a friend and the amount you want to send, and the card gets posted to your friend's wall (though no one but you and the recipient see how generous or stingy you are)./news/pg-e-found-responsible-for-yet-another-devastating-fire.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pg-e-found-responsible-for-yet-another-devastating-fire.htmlCalifornia utility company PG&E was found at fault for sparking another massive inferno. This time it was the Dixie wildfire, the second largest in state history. Electrical distribution lines sparked the blaze after coming in contact with a tree, according to the results of an investigation completed by state firefighting agency Cal Fire yesterday. The Dixie Fire raged for more than three months last year, burning over 1,300 structures and killing one person./news/phoenix-wright-ace-attorney-trilogy-review-the-best-way-to-play.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/phoenix-wright-ace-attorney-trilogy-review-the-best-way-to-play.htmlYou’d be forgiven if you missed out on the Ace Attorney trilogy, which debuted in English on the Nintendo DS way back in 2005. (It was previously a Japan-exclusive GBA series dating to 2001.) After all, the games are pretty weird. They star a spiky-haired defense attorney in what is best described as “Law & Order but anime.” Not only does that ridiculous-sounding premise work, but the series is quite possibly the best example of an ongoing crime drama in all of gaming./news/pi-day-is-here-and-google-s-calculator-will-test-how-well-you-know-the-mathematical-constant.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pi-day-is-here-and-google-s-calculator-will-test-how-well-you-know-the-mathematical-constant.htmlIt’s Pi Day, the nerdiest of holidays because it’s all about a mathematical constant that represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (yes, sometimes writing majors do pay attention in geometry class). March 14th has become known as Pi Day because it’s written numerically as 3.14 and pi starts at 3.14 ... and goes on indefinitely. Irrational number, indeed. In case you’ve forgotten the digits of pi, Google is celebrating (marking?/news/picross-s3-on-nintendo-switch-review.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/picross-s3-on-nintendo-switch-review.htmlThe Picross series is for anyone who has ever asked themselves, “What if sudoku was slightly more pretentious? And available on my Nintendo Switch?” If you’re looking for an unassuming, mildly addictive distraction for your favorite handheld, Picross S3 might be a good fit, especially if you like Nintendo’s habit of applying a little extra charm and polish. The series is based on a type of Japanese puzzle called nonograms — and then later, in horrifying instances, griddlers./news/pink-joy-cons-for-peach-the-verge.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pink-joy-cons-for-peach-the-verge.htmlPink Joy-Cons for Peach. In addition to dropping a new trailer for its upcoming Princess Peach: Showtime! game, Nintendo revealed a pair of pastel pink Joy-Cons to go along with it. The Joy-Cons will go on sale on March 22nd — the day of the game’s release — and will be available for a limited time for $79.99. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZnxzf45ra2lsZ22BdXvPoqWkZZqkxm6vzqeqZp6fp3qxscCcnw%3D%3D/news/pirated-ebooks-could-let-hackers-steal-your-amazon-account.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pirated-ebooks-could-let-hackers-steal-your-amazon-account.htmlDownloading ebooks from untrustworthy websites might result in your Amazon account data being compromised, reports one German researcher. According toBenjamin Daniel Mussler, a security flaw allows malicious code to be injected into an ebook's metadata, which will then trigger when the victim opens up their Kindle Library web page. Mussler writes that he informed Amazon of this vulnerability in 2013, after creating a sample file showcasing the problem. Although Amazon reportedly fixed the issue after the initial report, the company supposedly re-introduced the security flaw in a later update./news/playstation-showcase-2023-the-biggest-announcements.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/playstation-showcase-2023-the-biggest-announcements.htmlSony kicked off a summer of gaming events with a bang. The company’s PlayStation Showcase was more than an hour of rapid-fire announcements, surprises, and trailers — including a new piece of hardware. You can catch up on everything that happened right here in our storystream. But if you’re just looking for the biggest news of the day, this is the place. Sony is making a handheld again, with the 8-inch Project Q./news/qi2-how-apple-might-finally-harness-magsafe-by-giving-it-away.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/qi2-how-apple-might-finally-harness-magsafe-by-giving-it-away.htmlIt’s safe to say that Apple’s MagSafe magnetic charging pucks for iPhone have not created the amazing snap-on accessory ecosystem we’d hoped. Instead of freely allowing manufacturers to create gadgets that power and / or communicate with an iPhone, the company chose its traditional tight licensing stranglehold. But this time, manufacturers realized they didn’t need to play Apple’s game because the two main components of MagSafe — a Qi wireless charging coil and an array of magnets — were freely available./news/review-the-oneplus-10t-offers-flagship-speed-for-a-midrange-price.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/review-the-oneplus-10t-offers-flagship-speed-for-a-midrange-price.htmlTechnically, OnePlus didn’t go anywhere. Especially in Europe and India, it’s been very much present over the past few years, putting out midrange devices that perform better than their price points indicate. But in the US, it feels like the company hasn’t quite had the same profile in recent years. That’s changing with the OnePlus 10T, a $649 phone focused on delivering high performance. It’s a well-defined niche, and the phone follows through on its promises./news/roku-plans-to-start-showing-video-ads-on-your-homescreen.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roku-plans-to-start-showing-video-ads-on-your-homescreen.htmlRoku has a plan to boost ad revenue. The company will start showing video ads on your homescreen at some point. Roku CEO Anthony Wood told investors during the company’s earnings call last week that the company will put the video ads in the “premier video app we called the Marquee” where static image ads live now. It sounds like Wood is referring to the box on the homescreen that sits to the right of your Roku apps, which hopefully means the video ads won’t be full-screened./news/run-the-jewels-premiered-a-360-degree-music-video-in-the-new-york-times-vr-app.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/run-the-jewels-premiered-a-360-degree-music-video-in-the-new-york-times-vr-app.htmlThe New York Times Magazine's first-ever Music Issue is out today, and along with it, the Times has released two new videos on its VR app. The first features Los Angeles group The Internet recording inside frontwoman Syd Tha Kyd's home studio. The second is a 360-degree video from Run the Jewels, for their new song "Crown." You can watch both inside the NYT VR app. The idea of a virtual reality music video is not new; The Weeknd and Bjork have both recently released 360-degree VR music videos similar to Run the Jewels'./news/russia-is-interfering-in-democratic-primary-to-help-sanders-officials-say.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/russia-is-interfering-in-democratic-primary-to-help-sanders-officials-say.htmlThere are few details from either report about what substantive actions Russia took to advance Sanders’ campaign. The White House and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also been briefed on Russia’s latest interference efforts.  In a statement responding to the news, Sanders harshly criticized the Russian government and any efforts at election interference. “Unlike Donald Trump, I do not consider Vladimir Putin a good friend. He is an autocratic thug who is attempting to destroy democracy and crush dissent in Russia,” Sanders said./news/samsung-galaxy-buds-3-leak-shows-off-airpods-like-design.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-buds-3-leak-shows-off-airpods-like-design.htmlSamsung’s next Galaxy Buds have been rumored to resemble AirPods, and new leaked renders make the comparison clearer than ever. The renders, purportedly found on Korean retailer Coupang, show that Samsung might be moving on from its bulb-shaped buds in favor of wireless headphones with AirPods-like stems, AirPods-like vents, and even an AirPods-like case. I’ve made an image slider so you can compare one of the renders with a photo of Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro./news/samsung-s-starbucks-collab-galaxy-buds-2-case-is-silly-and-i-want-one.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-starbucks-collab-galaxy-buds-2-case-is-silly-and-i-want-one.htmlSay this for Starbucks: its coffee may mostly just taste like burning, but its merch tends to be on point. The latest example, as spotted by 9to5Google, is a collaboration with Samsung (in South Korea only, unfortunately) that created branded cases for the Galaxy S22 lineup and the Galaxy Buds 2. One of the Buds 2 case options is a dark green case with a Starbucks logo. (Boring.) The other is a small white mug with a handle and fake latte art whose top swivels away to reveal your earbuds./news/scientists-sequenced-the-genome-of-a-man-who-lived-45-000-years-ago.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/scientists-sequenced-the-genome-of-a-man-who-lived-45-000-years-ago.htmlScientists have successfully sequenced the genome of a man who was alive 45,000 years ago, which makes the resulting sequence the oldest one researchers have ever obtained from a modern human. "The next oldest human for which we have genome sequence is the 24,000 year old Mal’ta boy," says Janet Kelso, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a co-author of the study published today in Nature./news/sea-of-stars-is-a-retro-rpg-that-s-part-of-an-indie-cinematic-universe.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sea-of-stars-is-a-retro-rpg-that-s-part-of-an-indie-cinematic-universe.htmlToday, Sabotage, the studio behind the 2018 retro-platformer The Messenger, is announcing its next project via Kickstarter. In some ways, it’s what you’d expect. Like its predecessor, Sea of Stars takes a classic genre — in this case, turn-based roleplaying games — and reimagines it for modern audiences. It looks like something you’d play on the SNES, though Sabotage is trying to smooth down some of the rough edges. But Sea of Stars also represents a much bigger idea./news/sega-union-ratifies-its-first-contract.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sega-union-ratifies-its-first-contract.htmlSega union ratifies its first contract. In spite of unfair labor practice complaints and a round of layoffs, the 150 members of the AEGIS (CWA) union at Sega of America have a new contract. It guarantees members annual wage increases, warnings before layoffs, hybrid work schedule commitments, and severance packages. There has been a growing unionization movement in the video game industry over the last few years, and AEGIS’s new contract marks the first ratified contract at a major developer./news/sharp-s-70-inch-8k-tv-is-shipping-this-month-for-11-199.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sharp-s-70-inch-8k-tv-is-shipping-this-month-for-11-199.htmlSharp just put a price tag and European delivery date on its 70-inch 8K television already out in Japan and China: €11,199, sometime before April is done. That’s a month later than Sharp had originally scheduled.  For what it’s worth, the European price for Sharp’s LV-70X500E television translates to about $13,800 (including tax). But so far, Sharp isn’t including the US of A in its 8K TV plans. Of course, you’ll need to stop and ask yourself if the premium you’ll pay for an 8K TV in 2018 is a smart use of your trust fund./news/skype-tries-competing-with-zoom-by-reminding-people-that-they-don-t-need-the-app-or-an-account-to.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/skype-tries-competing-with-zoom-by-reminding-people-that-they-don-t-need-the-app-or-an-account-to.htmlSkype is trying to make it as easy as possible to use its video calling software and remind people that using the app isn’t complicated. The company tweeted a reminder today that users can now start a video meeting and invite people to it without using the app or even having an account; the process is done completely on the web. (People can start a call from here.) Skype is likely hoping this feature gives it a leg up on some of its competitors, namely Zoom, which has dominated the video calling conversation ever since the pandemic started./news/smartmatic-sues-fox-news-rudy-giuliani-and-others-over-election-disinformation-campaign.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/smartmatic-sues-fox-news-rudy-giuliani-and-others-over-election-disinformation-campaign.htmlVoting tech company Smartmatic has sued Fox News, former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and TV host Lou Dobbs for spreading a conspiracy theory about the 2020 US presidential election. The New York state court lawsuit says Fox and others deliberately made Smartmatic the “villain” in a false story about fraudulent voting. Since then, it says, employees have received death threats, and clients have balked at the company’s tarnished reputation./news/snapchat-s-built-in-map-will-start-recommending-places-for-you-to-visit.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/snapchat-s-built-in-map-will-start-recommending-places-for-you-to-visit.htmlMore than 250 million people use Snapchat’s built-in map to see where their friends are in the world. The map interface was recently upgraded to a main tab inside the app, and today, Snap is adding a new feature that’ll surface popular places it thinks you may want to visit. Snap Map users will also start seeing lists of places, such as bars or restaurants, they’ve either tagged in past posts or favorited to check out./news/solo-takes-star-wars-fixation-on-self-sacrifice-in-a-cavalier-new-direction.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/solo-takes-star-wars-fixation-on-self-sacrifice-in-a-cavalier-new-direction.htmlWarning: Spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rogue One, and The Force Awakens ahead. Halfway through 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I started getting a sinking feeling. I was enjoying the movie, but its intentions were just starting to sink in. Rogue One doesn’t fully hide its seams. It’s a stitched-together production, but it’s easy to get swept up in the narrative. And then it becomes clear that not all of the heroes — maybe none of the heroes — are going to make it out alive./news/some-oneplus-7-pro-phones-are-having-strange-phantom-tap-touchscreen-problems.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/some-oneplus-7-pro-phones-are-having-strange-phantom-tap-touchscreen-problems.htmlBy all accounts, the OnePlus 7 Pro is the nicest phone released by the company yet — with a higher price that reflects as much. But some early buyers are reporting that they’ve noticed phantom screen presses, where apps are responding as if something on the screen had been tapped even when the phone is sitting idle. OnePlus is aware of the issue, according to Android Police, and says it’s treating it as a high priority after managing to successfully reproduce the problem./news/sonic-the-hedgehog-co-creator-given-suspended-prison-sentence-for-insider-trading.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sonic-the-hedgehog-co-creator-given-suspended-prison-sentence-for-insider-trading.htmlSonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka has been given a suspended prison sentence and fines of around $1.2 million (or 173 million yen) after he was found guilty of insider trading, according to a report from Japanese news outlet Jiji (via Polygon). While the court handed out a 2.5-year prison sentence, Jiji reports that it was suspended by four years. That means Naka shouldn’t wind up behind bars anytime soon, as judges typically waive the prison sentence if the defendant doesn’t commit any additional crimes during that period of time./news/sony-s-high-bitrate-movie-service-is-now-available-on-ps5-and-ps4.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-high-bitrate-movie-service-is-now-available-on-ps5-and-ps4.htmlSony is bringing its own movie streaming service to PlayStation consoles beginning today. Previously known as Bravia Core, the service is being rebranded to Sony Pictures Core as it arrives on the PS5 and PS4. “Once you sign up for Sony Pictures Core, you will be able to buy or rent up to 2,000 movies straight from your console,” Sony’s Evan Stern wrote in a blog post. “At launch, this will include blockbuster hits such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Uncharted, The Equalizer, No Hard Feelings, Bullet Train, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, among others./news/sony-s-playstation-chief-privately-said-microsoft-s-activision-deal-wasn-t-about-xbox-exclusiv.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-playstation-chief-privately-said-microsoft-s-activision-deal-wasn-t-about-xbox-exclusiv.htmlWe’re only minutes into the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, and we’ve already had a bombshell revelation. Sony’s PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, believed that Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard wasn’t about locking games as Xbox exclusives, according to a newly unsealed email. Microsoft counsel revealed the exchange between Ryan and Chris Deering, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, discussing the announcement of the deal last year. “It is not an exclusivity play at all,” said Ryan./news/spacex-accused-of-illegally-firing-employees-who-criticized-elon-musk.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spacex-accused-of-illegally-firing-employees-who-criticized-elon-musk.htmlSpaceX is facing a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that alleges the company illegally fired employees for writing an open letter that criticized CEO Elon Musk. In the complaint filed on Wednesday, the NLRB accuses SpaceX of interrogating workers about their involvement with the letter and told employees not to discuss these interviews. NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado told Reuters that SpaceX violated the federal right of workers to collectively push for better conditions./news/spacex-launches-latest-batch-of-60-internet-beaming-satellites-for-starlink-constellation.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spacex-launches-latest-batch-of-60-internet-beaming-satellites-for-starlink-constellation.htmlUpdate January 6th, 10:20PM ET: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off at 9:19PM ET from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and deployed the 60 satellites about an hour after launch. The rocket also landed on the company’s drone ship shortly after launch, marking the fourth time this particular rocket has gone to space and back. Original Story: Tonight, SpaceX is set to launch its third batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit, part of the company’s ongoing initiative to create a mega-constellation of spacecraft that will beam internet connectivity to the Earth below./news/spotify-s-built-in-psychic-will-help-you-answer-life-s-toughest-questions.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-s-built-in-psychic-will-help-you-answer-life-s-toughest-questions.htmlSpotify’s built-in “psychic” will help you answer life’s toughest questions — like whether your outfit matches. You can try out the new Song Psychic feature by heading to spotify.com/songpsychic on your phone and picking from a range of premade questions. The app will then attempt to answer your question with a song. When I asked what I should have for lunch, I got “Slime” by Shygirl. Thanks, Spotify. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZ3xzhY5ra2lwZmuBeXvSqaatoZauwG6u1KKjrWWZo3qxv9icn6KbXay2rbiMoZylqF2uvLZ5wKeqsJ2iYrmqssSsZK2npZy1pr%2FTZqiunaOptrC60g%3D%3D/news/spotify-s-free-audiobooks-perk-rolls-out-to-us-premium-subscribers.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-s-free-audiobooks-perk-rolls-out-to-us-premium-subscribers.htmlSpotify Premium subscribers in the US can now access the streaming platform’s on-demand catalog of over 200,000 audiobooks, alongside 15 hours of listening each month for free. Ten hours of additional listening can be purchased for $12.99 if you need a top-up between billing cycles. Spotify originally announced that the price for more hours would be $10.99 in the US, but the price was increased before launch. Audiobooks will appear on the Spotify home feed, and specific titles can be searched for just like music tracks./news/streamlabs-will-drop-obs-name-after-getting-called-out-by-open-source-app.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/streamlabs-will-drop-obs-name-after-getting-called-out-by-open-source-app.htmlStreamlabs has promised to remove “OBS” from the name of its livestreaming software, Streamlabs OBS, following backlash from streamers and the open-source livestreaming platform OBS Studio. OBS Studio says it asked Streamlabs not to use its name, which stands for “Open Broadcaster Software,” only to have the company do so anyway. Streamlabs has also been accused of copying the website of another broadcasting software, with all the drama hashed out on Twitter./news/street-fighter-icons-chun-li-and-ryu-are-joining-fortnite.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/street-fighter-icons-chun-li-and-ryu-are-joining-fortnite.htmlFamous video game fighter Chun-Li may not be in the new Mortal Kombat movie, but she and fellow Street Fighter icon Ryu will be playable characters in Fortnite soon. Both Chun-Li and Ryu will be available in Fortnite’s in-game shop on Saturday, February 20th at 7PM ET. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2lfZ3xyhY5raWtxYW19dnvCoaynZZyeerPF1GadqKqko7a1sYysq6udlal6p7XGoaueql2ivLPAwKVkpKedl661/news/sundance-2024-ai-afterlife-robot-romance-and-slow-burn-slashers.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sundance-2024-ai-afterlife-robot-romance-and-slow-burn-slashers.htmlAI is the buzzword of the moment, and nowhere seems to be safe — even film festivals. This year’s edition of Sundance was a prime example. Multiple documentaries about the past and present of artificial intelligence made an appearance, and at least one film — the dark comedy Little Death — utilized generative AI as an artistic choice. There was even Love Me, a post-apocalyptic romantic comedy about two AIs in love./news/t-mobile-now-supports-cross-carrier-rcs-messaging.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-now-supports-cross-carrier-rcs-messaging.htmlT-Mobile subscribers can now send RCS messages to people on other phone networks, so long as everyone involved has an Android phone and support for the new messaging standard. There are still a bunch of caveats here, but this appears to be a big step forward for RCS. The messaging standard is meant to be the successor to SMS, but its rollout has been slow and messy. Many carriers — T-Mobile included — began supporting RCS years ago, but it generally only worked between subscribers of the same phone carrier and often only while they were using a specific carrier-made app, meaning it’s been basically useless./news/the-499-htc-vive-flow-is-vr-for-people-who-don-t-like-vr.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-499-htc-vive-flow-is-vr-for-people-who-don-t-like-vr.htmlAfter years of focusing on business-oriented virtual reality, HTC is launching a $499 entertainment-focused headset called the Vive Flow in November, with preorders starting globally today. The new Vive Flow looks radically different from most HTC Vive devices. It’s a standalone piece of hardware modeled after a pair of sunglasses, and at first glance it could pass for an augmented reality headset, not just a VR one. But behind those slightly bug-eyed mirror shades, you’ll find a lighter version of earlier Vive headsets — minus some major features./news/the-apple-watch-edition-is-dead.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-apple-watch-edition-is-dead.htmlThe super-expensive Apple Watch has been discontinued. With the introduction of Apple Watch Series 4 this afternoon, Apple showed off the standard aluminum and stainless steel hardware — but there was no mention of the premium Edition model. For last year’s Apple Watch Series 3, the company released a version with a ceramic casing. That doesn’t seem to be the case this time around. It’s still possible to spend a ton of money on an Apple Watch Series 4, mind you./news/the-dea-is-investigating-done-over-adhd-drug-prescriptions.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-dea-is-investigating-done-over-adhd-drug-prescriptions.htmlTelehealth startup Done, which prescribes ADHD medication like Adderall, is under investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, The Wall Street Journal reported. The investigation is part of an ongoing crackdown on mental health companies using telemedicine to prescribe controlled substances, a category that includes stimulants like Adderall and addictive painkillers like OxyContin. The DEA is also investigating telehealth company Cerebral over its prescribing practices. That company announced it would stop prescribing drugs in that category in May./news/the-f-150-lightning-now-starts-at-20k-more-than-when-it-was-announced.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-f-150-lightning-now-starts-at-20k-more-than-when-it-was-announced.htmlFord is raising the price of the F-150 Lightning for the fourth time — the base “Pro” trim has gone from $55,974 to $59,974, not including a $1,895 shipping charge. When the company announced the Lightning in May 2021, the starting price for the Pro was $39,974, $20,000 less than where it’s sitting now. Other models in the lineup, such as the Lariat and Platinum, are also getting price bumps./news/the-fbi-raided-jake-paul-s-home-as-part-of-an-investigation-into-a-mall-riot.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-fbi-raided-jake-paul-s-home-as-part-of-an-investigation-into-a-mall-riot.htmlThe Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the California home of YouTube star Jake Paul this morning, according to TMZ and CBSLA. Agents removed several objects that looked like firearms from Paul’s home, ABC7 reported. The bureau is investigating “allegations of criminal acts” surrounding an incident at an Arizona mall in May, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Phoenix office told The Verge. A second location, in Las Vegas, Nevada, was also raided today in connection with the investigation./news/the-moon-has-a-big-weirdly-shaped-dust-cloud-on-its-surface.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-moon-has-a-big-weirdly-shaped-dust-cloud-on-its-surface.htmlWhile traipsing about the Moon during the Apollo 15 and 17 missions, NASA astronauts noticed an unexplained "horizon glow" on the lunar surface just before sunrise. The sight led them to suspect that a dust cloud might be percolating miles above them — but no further evidence has been found to validate this idea. The explanation for it remained a mystery. Now, writing in Nature, researchers from the University of Colorado have confirmed that a big, lopsided dust cloud does indeed exist on the surface of the Moon./news/the-onion-has-new-owners.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-onion-has-new-owners.htmlThe Onion has new owners. G/O Media sold Deadspin, The A.V. Club, and The Takeout last month. Now Global Tetrahedron, which includes Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and former NBC News reporter Ben Collins, has acquired The Onion. Taking over as CEO, Collins told the NYT: We’re keeping all the writers, we’re going to work with the union, we’re going to make it so they can hopefully get paid a little bit more money, and we’re going to give them the room to grow./news/the-oregon-trail-handheld-game-review.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-oregon-trail-handheld-game-review.htmlIn late February, Target quietly began selling a portable version of The Oregon Trail for $24.99. Now, I’ve spent $25 on much dumber things than this in my time. You probably have, too. So I went right out to my local store and bought the handheld game once it was in stock. (Initially it was only available in stores, but now you can order on the web.) Target is the exclusive retailer, and it also sells a card game, though can’t imagine that would scratch my nostalgia itch to the same satisfying degree as this miniature Apple II gadget./news/the-playstation-portal-at-least-makes-stick-drift-easier-to-repair.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-playstation-portal-at-least-makes-stick-drift-easier-to-repair.htmlWith stick drift plaguing so many controllers these days, it’s nice to see Sony making faulty thumbsticks a bit easier to repair on the PlayStation Portal. In a teardown video posted by iFixit, the team finds that only a little tinkering is required to access and remove the joysticks. The iFixit team first removes the device’s plastic frame and pries off its backing. It then takes off the panel containing the Portal’s D-pad and button controls, allowing iFixit to disassemble the thumbsticks in about three steps using just a screwdriver./news/the-search-for-planet-x-gets-a-boost-with-the-discovery-of-a-super-distant-object.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-search-for-planet-x-gets-a-boost-with-the-discovery-of-a-super-distant-object.htmlA new discovery is strengthening the idea that a large, mysterious planet — known as Planet 9 or Planet X — may be lurking unseen at the Solar System’s edge. Astronomers say they have found a tiny object orbiting far out from the Sun that fits with the Planet X theory. In fact, the object may have even been pushed onto the path it takes now by this hidden planet’s gravity./news/the-walking-dead-quitter-s-club-season-6-episode-16-last-day-on-earth.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-walking-dead-quitter-s-club-season-6-episode-16-last-day-on-earth.htmlNo show likes to troll its audience quite like The Walking Dead. Game of Thrones may kill off people you love, and Homeland may test your patience, but there’s something unique about The Walking Dead’s ability to get you invested, hold your hand through long stretches of dialogue-heavy character building, and then blow it all to hell. It’s enough to make you wonder why you’re watching in the first place, so during this season of The Walking Dead, we’re tracking our reaction to each and every episode, to see whether the show is giving us enough to keep going, or whether it’s time to leave the zombie apocalypse behind altogether./news/thelma-is-a-superhero-horror-movie-about-the-terror-of-growing-up.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/thelma-is-a-superhero-horror-movie-about-the-terror-of-growing-up.htmlThere’s a proud tradition in genre films of using the supernatural as a metaphor for the horrors of adolescence. Traversing that strange no-man’s-land between childhood and adulthood is a real-world horror show in its own right, full of strange discoveries, odd awakenings, and the slow, dawning realization that our childhood identities may not be our final identities. There’s an inevitable loss of control plus the terror of the unknown wrapped up together./news/this-company-just-put-the-air-in-apple-s-macbook-air.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-company-just-put-the-air-in-apple-s-macbook-air.htmlTwo Fridays ago, I drove down to a squat single-story Silicon Valley office building to see a MacBook Air. There was no security guard, no need to badge in, not even a PR person in my demo room. That’s because I wasn’t visiting Apple headquarters for an unannounced laptop. Instead, I went to San Jose to see an existing MacBook — one surgically modified to prove how far an exotic cooling tech has come./news/tinder-fires-rosette-pambakian-following-her-participation-in-a-lawsuit-against-match.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tinder-fires-rosette-pambakian-following-her-participation-in-a-lawsuit-against-match.htmlDear Rosette, I’m glad you reached out to me directly and I would like to take this opportunity to clarify a few points, because there seems to be a very real disconnect here that I truly want to fix. You were not terminated because you reported Greg for sexual harassment. You couldn’t have been, as you never reported Greg for sexual harassment. When Sean Rad brought the subject up nearly five months later, right after the valuation process commenced, it was immediately and thoroughly investigated by the Board, independently without any involvement from Greg, which concluded that no sexual harassment occurred./news/tonight-s-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-launch-start-time-live-stream-and-what-to-expect.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tonight-s-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-launch-start-time-live-stream-and-what-to-expect.htmlTonight, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is slated to take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying nearly 5,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station. And as usual, the company will attempt to land the vehicle back on Earth post-takeoff. But this time, the rocket’s target won’t be a drone ship at sea, as it has been for the last six SpaceX launches. This Falcon 9 will be returning to Landing Zone 1, SpaceX's ground-based landing site at the cape./news/trading-app-robinhood-is-in-better-shape-than-it-looks.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/trading-app-robinhood-is-in-better-shape-than-it-looks.htmlSo here we are: about to have a hearing about GameStonk. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is going to have to explain himself tomorrow. What happens next for Robinhood? Perhaps you recall last month, when GameStop stock shot up by as much as 500 percent, hitting a peak of $483 on January 28th, thanks largely to memes and a shitposting finance subreddit. (I’m sure there will be entire academic books written on r/WallStreetBets./news/trolls-world-tour-made-nearly-100-million-without-theaters-but-theaters-aren-t-obsolete.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/trolls-world-tour-made-nearly-100-million-without-theaters-but-theaters-aren-t-obsolete.htmlTrolls World Tour is the best proof yet that Hollywood might not be as reliant on theaters as it has been for more than a century. The film made nearly $100 million in the past three weeks through digital sales, according to The Wall Street Journal, reportedly bringing in more revenue for Universal than the original Trolls’ entire domestic theatrical haul. It’s an impressive figure, and it speaks to the continued threat to movie theaters — but it in no way suggests that movie theaters are going away or that studios are severing their ties./news/uncharted-4-a-thief-s-end-gets-delayed-yet-again.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/uncharted-4-a-thief-s-end-gets-delayed-yet-again.htmlUncharted 4: A Thief's End has been delayed until Tuesday, May 10th, two weeks on from its previous release date of April 26th. Sony's Shawn Layden announced the news in a blog post, saying that although the game is on track to go gold this month, more time is needed for manufacturing. It's the third time Uncharted 4 has been delayed; the climactic chapter of Nathan Drake's saga was meant to hit last year before being delayed into March and then April./news/ventje-turns-vw-s-id-buzz-into-a-very-charming-e-camper.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ventje-turns-vw-s-id-buzz-into-a-very-charming-e-camper.htmlVolkswagen’s ID Buzz now has a custom camper build-out that’s just as clever and charming as the electric microbus. It’s called eVentje, and it’s now available for general sale in Europe. Designed and sold by Ventje, a small but rapidly growing company based in the Netherlands, the eVentje conversion is as good as it gets until VW finally releases a California edition of the ID Buzz — which is still a few years away at least./news/viacomcbs-rebrands-to-paramount-in-focus-on-streaming.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/viacomcbs-rebrands-to-paramount-in-focus-on-streaming.htmlViacomCBS is getting a new name: Paramount. The media behemoth — which was created through the merger of CBS and Viacom in 2019 — said the rebrand is meant to focus on the company’s goal of becoming a major player in streaming. It is also, plainly, just a better name. Paramount intends to “turn streaming into a sustainable business for the future,” Paramount CEO Bob Bakish said during an investor event this afternoon, “and know this, we are committed to that future and creating that value./news/welcome-to-pandora-avatars-are-included.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/welcome-to-pandora-avatars-are-included.htmlThe human brain isn’t accustomed to seeing mountains floating in the sky, so it’s hard to process exactly what you’re seeing the first time you step into Pandora: The World of Avatar. The latest addition to Disney’s Animal Kingdom park is mostly hidden as you walk the rest of the grounds, but cross the right bridge, and you’ll see those mountains, hovering off in the distance. It’s enough to cause a moment of legitimate cognitive dissonance: are they real?/news/what-we-learned-from-the-huge-google-search-leak.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-we-learned-from-the-huge-google-search-leak.htmlThe algorithm that powers Google Search is one of the most important, most complicated, and least understood systems that rule the internet. As of this week, though, we understand it a little better. Thanks to a huge leak of API documentation, we got an unprecedented look at what Google cares about, how it ranks content, and how it thinks the internet should work. The leaked documentation is dense, and it doesn’t tell us everything about how Google ranks, but it does offer a set of signals we’ve never seen before./news/when-facebook-goes-down-others-go-with-it.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/when-facebook-goes-down-others-go-with-it.htmlWhen something like Facebook drops off the internet, there are massive knock-on effects. For example, a website that’s meant to tell you if services are down, called Is It Down Right Now, struggled mightily under the load of people trying to see Instagram’s status. Cloudflare, a company that runs a DNS service (DNS acts like a map for your web browser when it’s trying to find a website and is also the likely culprit when it comes to major outages), reports that it had to mobilize extra resources to keep up with the traffic of people trying to load Facebook (or Instagram or WhatsApp) over and over./news/who-is-the-ipad-pro-for.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/who-is-the-ipad-pro-for.htmlRead next: The iPad Pro review. If you want to get work done, you buy a laptop. If you want to watch movies and play games, you buy a tablet. That's been the conventional wisdom for years now, except it's not really true. Especially not today. The MacBook and iPad Pro look pretty similar on paper The line between laptops and tablets has been blurred in the PC world for a while now — that's one thing to thank Windows 8 for — but today Apple blurred that line within its own ecosystem./news/why-do-you-stalk-people-on-venmo.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-do-you-stalk-people-on-venmo.htmlThis week on Why’d You Push That Button, we’re getting into one of the real soap operas of modern life: Venmo’s public activity feed. Some people never look at it; some people scroll through it during their daily commute, inexplicably curious about why their friends are exchanging money. The payment app launched in 2009 and is now popular enough to work as a verb: “I’ll Venmo you,” meaning “I’ll hit you back right now and accompany the payment with some emoji or a dumb inside joke./news/wikipedia-is-working-with-google-to-translate-more-of-its-articles.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wikipedia-is-working-with-google-to-translate-more-of-its-articles.htmlWikipedia’s goal is to make the world’s knowledge accessible to everyone on the planet, but it would be the first to admit that its efforts are skewed somewhat toward those who read English. To help fix this, the Wikimedia Foundation (which runs Wikipedia) announced today that it’s partnering with Google to take advantage of the company’s AI translation skills. Google Translate will be integrated into Wikipedia’s in-house translation tool at no cost, added as an option alongside the open-source translator Apertium, which has been used to translate some 400,000 Wikipedia articles to date./news/withings-health-mate-review-i-walked-500-miles-for-an-app.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/withings-health-mate-review-i-walked-500-miles-for-an-app.htmlMy attitude toward health and fitness apps has long been one of deep-seated antipathy. I hate the cacophony of nagging alerts and prompts, and, maybe it’s just me, but I also draw no encouragement from the photos of perfectly tanned and toned bodies welcoming me into the typical app. Few things are as demotivating as using a piece of software listing all of the dynamic activities I’m not doing. Little did I know that a set of weighing scales would change all of that./news/xbox-series-x-review-a-next-gen-pc.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-series-x-review-a-next-gen-pc.htmlMicrosoft’s new Xbox Series X console is designed to usher in a new era of gaming. We affectionally call it the “next gen” every time a big leap in console hardware arrives, promising new games and things we’ve never seen before. The Xbox Series X will undoubtedly deliver those in time, but for now, the big launch games, flashy new graphics, and next-gen games are still on their way. In the meantime, Microsoft has built what feels like an exciting PC upgrade experience in a console form./news/xbox-exclusives-hi-fi-rush-and-sea-of-thieves-officially-coming-to-ps5.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-exclusives-hi-fi-rush-and-sea-of-thieves-officially-coming-to-ps5.htmlBethesda is confirming today that Hi-Fi Rush is coming to PS5 on March 19th. The reveal initially came in a video from Bethesda LATAM, before Microsoft confirmed that Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves are both arriving on the PS5. Sea of Thieves will be available on the PS5 on April 30th. Here’s the full list of the four Xbox-exclusive games coming to PS5 or Nintendo Switch: Pentiment - PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch on February 22ndHi-Fi Rush - PS5 on March 19thGrounded - PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch on April 16thSea of Thieves - PS5 on April 30thSea of Thieves is all about pirates and ships./news/you-can-buy-an-lg-oled-tv-starting-at-just-736.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-buy-an-lg-oled-tv-starting-at-just-736.htmlTVs have nothing to do with Memorial Day, but clearly, retailers never got the memo. Every year, almost like clockwork, they drop some excellent TV deals around the holiday, and 2024 is no exception. Right now, you can buy various LG C4 OLED TVs at all-time low prices starting at $1,299.99 ($100 off) for the 42-inch model (Best Buy, LG). If you want to save even more, its predecessor — LG’s C3 OLED TV — is even cheaper, starting at $735./news/youtube-suspends-ads-on-shane-dawson-channels-over-old-racist-videos.htmlFri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-suspends-ads-on-shane-dawson-channels-over-old-racist-videos.htmlAll three of Shane Dawson’s popular YouTube channels will not be able to earn advertising revenue for an indefinite period of time. The move comes after a number of old videos on Dawson’s channels came under scrutiny for featuring racist, anti-Semitic, and other offensive content. One video, in particular, has Dawson making sexual comments about a then-11-year-old Willow Smith, which led to Jada Pinkett Smith and Jaden Smith publicly calling out Dawson on Twitter./news/meet-the-man-making-chocolate-farts.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meet-the-man-making-chocolate-farts.htmlPoincheval markets his pills under the name Pilule Pet — a French play on words that basically translates to "fart pill." They’re the latest in a long line of attempts to conquer what may be the most enduring of biological taboos, and they go for the jugular. As Benjamin Franklin once wrote: "Were it not for the odiously offensive smell accompanying such escapes, polite people would probably be under no more restraint in discharging such wind in company than they are in spitting or blowing their noses./news/suicide-squad-review-too-many-villains-not-enough-real-villainy.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/suicide-squad-review-too-many-villains-not-enough-real-villainy.htmlEverybody knows how the hero’s journey goes. Joseph Campbell laid it out clearly in 1949’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and countless books, films, and comics have followed the pattern: the call to adventure, the journey into the unknown, the challenges, the transformation, and the return. The villain’s journey, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as iconic and well-established. So stories where villains take center stage — like Wicked, or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, or American Psycho — have to make it up as they go along./news/talking-to-the-man-behind-sonic-the-hedgehog-s-incredible-twitter.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/talking-to-the-man-behind-sonic-the-hedgehog-s-incredible-twitter.htmlAndrew Webster: I know you’ve worked at Sega for a long time, so how did you get involved with the Twitter side of things? Aaron Webber: I was a big Sega fan growing up — I had a Genesis, a Saturn, a Dreamcast — and when you’re a kid, you kind of have those dreams of what you want to do. For me that dream was: I wanted to go work at Sega some day./news/pacific-rim-review-epic-ambitious-and-accessible.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pacific-rim-review-epic-ambitious-and-accessible.htmlWhether or not it sounds like damning the film with faint praise, the greatest virtue of Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim may be that you can always understand what’s happening, what the characters are doing, and why they are doing it. After what seems like years of convoluted megamovies whose pretzel-like twists, turns, and double-crosses confound logic and confuse audiences, it’s incredibly refreshing to watch a film where the setup is simple, the mythology straightforward, and the execution consistently clear./news/a-first-look-at-microsoft-s-new-xbox-series-x-console.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-first-look-at-microsoft-s-new-xbox-series-x-console.htmlMicrosoft’s Xbox Series X console demands to stand upright, loud and proud. At least that’s my immediate impression after getting an early look at a nonfunctional Xbox Series X unit, supplied by Microsoft. It’s not as big as I expected from the Series X photos, but the dimensions could make positioning it in your living room a challenge. The console is 151mm (5.9 inches) wide or deep and 301mm (11.8 inches) tall, making it too big, even on its side, to fit in my TV stand that currently houses a satellite TV box and an Xbox One X./news/a-former-foxconn-executive-tries-to-explain-what-went-wrong-in-wisconsin.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-former-foxconn-executive-tries-to-explain-what-went-wrong-in-wisconsin.htmlAlan Yeung is a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the former head of the Foxconn project in Wisconsin. If you don’t quite remember, the Foxconn project in Wisconsin was announced in 2017 as a massive deal to build the first “Generation 10.5” LCD factory in North America. It was also one of the first big moments in the Trump presidency, complete with President Trump holding a golden shovel at a lavish groundbreaking ceremony where he said the factory would be “the eighth wonder of the world./news/a-look-aboard-disney-s-6-000-per-stay-immersive-star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-look-aboard-disney-s-6-000-per-stay-immersive-star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel.htmlI walked into Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser prepared to pretend. I was going to be Ch’aim Garteenbar, a reformed smuggler celebrating going straight with a luxurious cruise trip on the Halcyon, pride of Chandrila Star Line.  Unfortunately, due to the compressed nature of the media preview, I spent most of my time aboard Disney’s biggest bet in years in my usual guise of “Chaim Gartenberg, reporter.” Part hotel, part LARP, part theme park, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser wants to be nothing less than the ultimate Star Wars experience, one that sucks you into a living, breathing sci-fi story unfolding around you — and for the price that Disney is placing on it, one that has a lot of expectations to live up to./news/a-roundup-of-all-the-new-matter-smart-home-devices-announced-at-ces-2023.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-roundup-of-all-the-new-matter-smart-home-devices-announced-at-ces-2023.htmlFrom Central Hall to The Venetian, Matter was the buzzword throughout CES 2023 this year, with most companies even remotely connected to the smart home loudly discussing their Matter plans (although a few were more subdued). The new smart home standard was featured in several keynotes and displayed prominently in smart home device makers’ booths as well as in Google, Amazon, and Samsung’s big, showy displays.  More importantly, dozens of companies and manufacturers announced specific plans./news/across-the-spider-verse-review-a-masterpiece-that-upends-marvel-s-spider-canon.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/across-the-spider-verse-review-a-masterpiece-that-upends-marvel-s-spider-canon.htmlThe concepts of multiverses and people traveling from one reality to another existed long before Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But the 2018 animated feature did such a tremendous job of using those ideas to define Miles Morales and deconstruct the very idea of Marvel’s iconic webhead that it almost single-handedly got the whole of Hollywood hell-bent on producing as many genre-bending multiversal epics as it possibly could. Save for Everything Everywhere All at Once, few of these other parallel dimension narratives have really been able to hold a candle to what Sony and Marvel managed to achieve with Into the Spider-Verse — a movie that told one of the most powerful Spider-Man stories of all time./news/alphabet-profit-miss-sends-stock-down-but-google-ad-and-cloud-sales-remain-strong.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alphabet-profit-miss-sends-stock-down-but-google-ad-and-cloud-sales-remain-strong.htmlWall Street reacted negatively to the profit miss, sending Alphabet stock down as much as 4 percent in after-hours trading. However, Google’s core ad business remains healthy, pulling in $27.27 billion in revenue and helping push Alphabet to a 24 percent year-over-year increase in sales. Alphabet missed profit expectations, sending its stock down as much as 4 percent Concerning some analysts and investors is Google’s TAC, or traffic acquisition costs. Those continue to grow and gobble up a larger percentage of advertising revenues as Google shifts more of its business to so-called programmatic advertising and mobile search ads, which inherently have higher TAC./news/amazon-is-closing-all-68-of-its-books-4-star-and-pop-up-physical-stores.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-is-closing-all-68-of-its-books-4-star-and-pop-up-physical-stores.htmlAmazon is closing most of its physical stores, the company announced today, with all 68 of its Amazon Books, Amazon 4-Star, and Amazon Pop Up locations across the US and the UK set to close while the company refocuses on its grocery and fashion stores, Reuters reports. Amazon is ending most of its retail experiments to focus on grocery stores The company would go on to expand its retail efforts with Amazon 4-Star in 2018, with a more generally focused store that sold products with a four-star or higher rating curated from Amazon’s digital storefront, along with — of course — Amazon’s own first-party products (including Echo, Kindle, and Fire TV devices)./news/amazon-is-falling-behind-its-promises-for-new-jobs-at-hq2.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-is-falling-behind-its-promises-for-new-jobs-at-hq2.htmlAmazon is falling behind its promises for new jobs at HQ2. None other than The Washington Post is holding Amazon to account for missing the mark on jobs produced at HQ2. The company was supposed to add 2,500 new jobs at the site last year, but dropped 200 existing positions instead. Amazon risks losing tax incentives, but insists its goal of creating 25,000 jobs by the end of this decade remains on track./news/amazon-is-trying-to-crack-down-on-fraudulent-reviews-they-re-thriving-in-facebook-groups.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-is-trying-to-crack-down-on-fraudulent-reviews-they-re-thriving-in-facebook-groups.htmlThe halloween cat collar (three pack, adjustable strap, ghost pendant and bell) has conspicuously rave reviews on Amazon. “Three for $10 is a steal!” reads one. “They seem to be made of quality material and the clasps don’t break away as easily as some other ones.”  The review, like many on the e-commerce platform, is fake. It was written by Jason Wawiernia, a search engine optimization specialist in Michigan. After he left his glowing assessment of the product, Wawiernia received a refund through PayPal, in direct violation of Amazon’s policies governing ratings and reviews./news/amazon-ordered-to-stop-luring-customers-based-on-misspelled-searches-for-birkenstock.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-ordered-to-stop-luring-customers-based-on-misspelled-searches-for-birkenstock.htmlA court in Germany has told Amazon.com that it can no longer use search terms to lure in customers who misspell “Birkenstock,” according to Reuters. The German sandal maker filed an injunction, complaining that the online retailer had been using variations on its brand name, such as “Brikenstock”, “Birkenstok”, and “Bierkenstock” on Google’s Adwords. Birkenstock alleges that by luring in customers with keywords, it’s potentially selling counterfeit sandals, possibly damaging the company’s reputation./news/americans-are-writing-to-the-fcc-about-fake-news-on-tv-google-and-facebook.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/americans-are-writing-to-the-fcc-about-fake-news-on-tv-google-and-facebook.html“The Mainstream Media news outlets are obviously trying to undermine our President and our nation by inundating the public with fake news, misleading stories, and one-sided biased interviews and spokespeople. It is most apparent on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS, but also print media like the New York Times and Washington Post.” ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnam9faXxyhY5qbGxtZmZ%2Fc3vFnJpmnpGgsm66xLCqZpufor2trcinq6xllpawpq7OqKJmn5%2BktK2xjJyYm6SVYrumw9I%3D/news/analogue-will-start-shipping-more-pocket-preorders-in-august.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/analogue-will-start-shipping-more-pocket-preorders-in-august.htmlNote that the quote says the handhelds will begin shipping in August; that language doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll get your Pocket in August. Still, the announcement likely comes as good news for people who have been eagerly waiting for any sort of information on their order. (Based on a thread on Reddit, some people have been in limbo for more than a year.) The Analogue Pocket launched in December 2021, but that was long after the original release date; it was supposed to launch in 2020 before being pushed to May 2021, then October 2021, then December./news/animal-crossing-pocket-camp-update-brings-ar-features-for-newer-devices.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/animal-crossing-pocket-camp-update-brings-ar-features-for-newer-devices.htmlAnimal Crossing: Pocket Camp, the smartphone entry in the long-running Nintendo franchise, has been updated with a pair of new augmented reality features. The first, AR Camera, lets you place characters and furniture from the game in the real world and photograph them. Meanwhile, the AR Cabin feature lets players decorate a virtual cabin, fill it with characters, and then view it in augmented reality from their smartphone.  Along with the new AR modes, Nintendo says the update means more areas of each campsite can have furniture and items placed within them./news/apple-is-now-the-world-s-most-valuable-publicly-traded-company.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-is-now-the-world-s-most-valuable-publicly-traded-company.htmlApple is now the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, passing Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco. As of close of business Friday, Apple has a market valuation of $1.84 trillion, while Saudi Aramco’s is $1.76 trillion, according to CNBC. Apple’s stock, which has been on a largely-steady climb since the end of March, closed up more than 10 percent on Friday following the company’s record-breaking third-quarter earnings on Thursday, ending the day at $425./news/apple-just-leaked-a-dual-port-35w-usb-c-charger-that-could-clear-up-the-gan-mystery.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-just-leaked-a-dual-port-35w-usb-c-charger-that-could-clear-up-the-gan-mystery.htmlSee this white brick? It puts out a measly 30W of power to a single device, yet Apple charges $50 for it. Please do not buy one because we now have firm evidence that Apple is about to replace it with something much, much better — a 35W charger with two ports, likely powered by gallium nitride (GaN) technology that might also make it smaller. That’s the word from 9to5Mac, which got this particular scrap of information from by far the most reliable source of Apple leaks: Apple’s own website./news/apple-settled-its-dispute-with-cyber-security-startup-corellium-for-real-this-time.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-settled-its-dispute-with-cyber-security-startup-corellium-for-real-this-time.htmlApple settled its dispute with cyber security startup Corellium — for real this time. Apple filed a copyright lawsuit against Corellium in 2019, claiming the company — which created virtual iPhone environments for security testing — illegally replicated iOS. The dispute was nearly settled in 2021, but Apple went on to file an appeal against a judge’s ruling that Corellium had operated within fair use laws. Now, Apple and Corellium have finally reached an undisclosed settlement, Forbes reports./news/apple-tv-4k-2022-review-unmatched-power-unrealized-potential.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-tv-4k-2022-review-unmatched-power-unrealized-potential.htmlThe latest Apple TV 4K is Apple’s most powerful and full-featured entertainment box yet. And it’s finally available for a lower, if not quite cheap, $129 starting price. Now in its third generation, the new Apple TV is powered by the same chip as last year’s iPhone 13 — true overkill for a streaming player, one could argue — and has adopted support for the HDR10 Plus format that’s common on Samsung TVs, which have long lacked Dolby Vision./news/apple-will-provide-a-minimum-of-five-years-of-iphone-security-updates.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-will-provide-a-minimum-of-five-years-of-iphone-security-updates.htmlApple has committed to providing a minimum of five years of iPhone security updates, as reported earlier by Android Authority. The disclosure comes as part of Apple’s plan to comply with the UK’s Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) Act, which requires companies selling internet-connected products to meet new security standards. The law, which went into effect in April, compels companies to define the minimum length of time it will provide security updates for a product./news/apple-wins-ban-of-htc-android-devices-at-us-international-trade-commission.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-wins-ban-of-htc-android-devices-at-us-international-trade-commission.htmlThe United States International Trade Commission just ruled in favor of Apple in its case against HTC and banned the importation and sale of HTC Android devices including the Sprint Evo 4G, Verizon Droid Incredible, AT&T Aria, and T-Mobile G2. After a lengthy review, the Commission found that HTC devices infringe two claims of patent #5,946,647 — ultimately implicating the heart of Android itself and not HTC's specific implementation. The patent issued in 1999 and, in general terms, covers a device that scans computer text for data, like a phone number, and turns that number into a link that the user can then select to perform an act, like calling the number./news/apple-everyone-needs-more-free-icloud-storage.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-everyone-needs-more-free-icloud-storage.htmlDuring yesterday’s education-focused event that saw the introduction of a new iPad, Apple executive Greg Joswiak revealed that the company is upgrading the amount of free iCloud storage given to students. Previously, managed student accounts had the same 5GB as regular consumers, but now, Apple is raising that limit to a much more spacious 200GB. This applies to students who have Apple IDs provided and administered by their school.  That’s a great thing!/news/arm-introduces-its-first-armv9-architecture-cpus-and-gpus-previewing-2022-s-android-flagships.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/arm-introduces-its-first-armv9-architecture-cpus-and-gpus-previewing-2022-s-android-flagships.htmlArm has introduced its latest CPU and GPU designs, including its flagship Cortex-X2 and Cortex-A710 CPUs and Mali-G710 GPU. The new CPU and GPU designs aren’t just Arm’s latest chip blueprints, though; they’re also its first designs to utilize its new Armv9 architecture, its first in a decade, which means big jumps in performance, along with new security and AI features. Most consumers probably aren’t familiar with the exact Arm cores inside their phones or computers, but Arm’s designs — and particularly, its big./news/as-one-destiny-2-saga-ends-bungie-prepares-for-the-future.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/as-one-destiny-2-saga-ends-bungie-prepares-for-the-future.htmlDestiny 2: Lightfall was unusual for Bungie. The now Sony-owned studio hyped up Lightfall as the beginning stages of the biggest light vs. darkness battle we’ve ever seen. “The battle begins here and now,” said Commander Zavala in an epic launch trailer. The in-game reality felt, for many, like the story writing was lackluster. Even six months on, Lightfall has mostly negative reviews on Steam, a sign that fans were expecting more./news/belkin-s-fast-charging-apple-watch-power-bank-is-down-to-its-best-price-yet.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/belkin-s-fast-charging-apple-watch-power-bank-is-down-to-its-best-price-yet.htmlHappy Saturday, dear readers! In case you haven’t heard, Amazon’s spring sales event is in full effect through March 25th, letting you save on wireless earbuds, Bluetooth trackers, smartwatches, and all manner of tech. Truth be told, the deals are a bit better than we had anticipated, especially when it comes to Qi2 chargers and portable battery packs. Right now, for example, you can snag Belkin’s BoostCharge Pro power bank at Amazon and B&H Photo for $79./news/bing-chat-users-can-now-access-dall-e-3-s-ai-image-generator.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bing-chat-users-can-now-access-dall-e-3-s-ai-image-generator.htmlThe image generator inside the AI-powered Bing Chat is getting a big upgrade today: Microsoft announced that OpenAI’s latest DALL-E 3 model is now available to all Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator users. It has been rolling out over the last week or so, first to Bing Enterprise users and then to Bing Image Creator, but now it’s open to everyone. Bing is getting DALL-E 3 access even before OpenAI’s own ChatGPT does — that’s scheduled to happen this month, but only for paying users./news/bose-investigation-concludes-qc35-firmware-update-didn-t-break-noise-cancellation.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bose-investigation-concludes-qc35-firmware-update-didn-t-break-noise-cancellation.htmlBose is bringing an end to the long-running saga of complaints regarding noise cancellation issues with its Quiet Comfort 35 and Quiet Comfort 35 II Bluetooth headphones. After spending months looking into reports of reduced NC performance — something many customers have blamed on firmware updates — Bose has concluded that firmware isn’t responsible for the perceived drop in noise cancellation effectiveness. But it’s going to let QC35 owners downgrade back to older firmware if they want to, which is an option that the company had previously supported, but later pulled amid all this controversy./news/broadcast-tv-still-exists-and-now-it-s-sort-of-getting-a-built-in-dvr.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/broadcast-tv-still-exists-and-now-it-s-sort-of-getting-a-built-in-dvr.htmlBroadcast TV is in trouble, and for a long time now, a lot of people have pointed to a new broadcast standard, ATSC 3.0, as the way it can be saved and finally compete against streaming, YouTube, and TikTok. And finally, after years of hype that failed to deliver, there’s an actual glimmer of hope for your local TV stations. Local news is about to get a lot more interactive./news/bugatti-sold-more-than-650-million-in-chiron-supercars-without-a-single-test-drive.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bugatti-sold-more-than-650-million-in-chiron-supercars-without-a-single-test-drive.htmlBugatti has taken orders for 250 of its magnificent Chiron super sports car — half the run of 500 cars — all without giving customers a single test drive, the company announced today. Bugatti plans to produce around 70 cars per year, meaning the company is prepped for seven years of production, with the first three customer cars leaving the Bugatti Atelier in Molsheim, France just this week. Later this month, Bugatti says it will host a test drive event in Europe for its customers, where current and prospective buyers will be able to drive the car for the first time./news/buy-now-pay-later-services-have-to-act-more-like-credit-card-providers-now.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/buy-now-pay-later-services-have-to-act-more-like-credit-card-providers-now.htmlBuy now, pay later services — or BNPL for short — are now beholden to some of the same rules as credit card providers. On Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an interpretive rule that classifies BNPL services as credit card providers and requires them to investigate disputed purchases, among other things. BNPL services let customers purchase a product and then pay for it in a series of interest-free installments./news/captain-toad-treasure-tracker-nintendo-switch-review.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/captain-toad-treasure-tracker-nintendo-switch-review.htmlThe failure of the Wii U has been a boon for the Nintendo Switch. While the Wii U was far from successful commercially, it was the home to some of Nintendo’s most inventive games ever. Slowly, the company has been porting the best releases to its new tablet. It’s giving great games a second life, and perhaps none deserve that spotlight as much as Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. First released on the Wii U back in 2014, Captain Toad is an odd little game./news/comcast-adopts-nbc-peacock-as-part-of-new-logo.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/comcast-adopts-nbc-peacock-as-part-of-new-logo.htmlComcast has unveiled a new, but familiar, logo in the wake of its merger with NBC. The company's site now boasts a logo topped by the NBC peacock, previously used only for NBC-affiliated channels. The peacock is one of the best-known American media symbols, and it's a bit strange to see it linked to the part of Comcast better known for installing cable and internet. According to The Wall Street Journal, the logo will replace Comcast's current one on trucks, advertisements, and cable bills, though Comcast services themselves will continue to be use the Xfinity brand./news/destiny-item-manager-has-a-stream-deck-app-now.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/destiny-item-manager-has-a-stream-deck-app-now.htmlWhile everyone is talking about Destiny 2’s annual summer event, Solstice of Heroes, I’m busy with an evergreen event I like to call “managing my character’s inventory.” Anyone that plays Destiny 2 regularly has almost definitely used Destiny Item Manager (DIM), a community-created tool that keeps track of your items in a browser or on your phone at one point or another. In fact, this tool has become so widely used that opening your vault in Destiny has a disclaimer that you should use DIM instead of attempting to manage your piles of loot in-game./news/discord-now-lets-you-send-up-to-10-accessible-memes-at-a-time.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/discord-now-lets-you-send-up-to-10-accessible-memes-at-a-time.htmlDiscord has updated its Windows and macOS desktop clients to let users add alt text for image attachments, the service has announced on Twitter. It’s a helpful accessibility feature for users that rely on screen readers and arrives alongside the ability to preview and upload up to 10 files at a time. The alt text accessibility feature can be found by clicking the small pen icon (“Modify Attachment”) on the top right of each individual preview before sending it in a text channel./news/disney-plus-and-vr-sports-games-are-coming-to-apple-vision-pro.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-plus-and-vr-sports-games-are-coming-to-apple-vision-pro.htmlWe finally got our first look at Apple’s highly anticipated mixed reality headset at today’s WWDC event, including a sneak peek at a new immersive way to watch your favorite Disney sports, shows, and movies. While most of the hype surrounding it has focused on productivity and VR gaming, Disney CEO Bob Iger took to the stage to showcase immersive experiences for the Apple Vision Pro that will be available via the Disney Plus streaming service when the headset launches next year./news/donotpay-chickens-out-on-its-courtroom-ai-chatbot-stunt.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/donotpay-chickens-out-on-its-courtroom-ai-chatbot-stunt.htmlDoNotPay isn’t bringing its robot lawyer to the courtroom anytime soon. Joshua Browder, the creator and CEO of DoNotPay, announced on Twitter that the company is “postponing our court case and sticking to consumer rights” after receiving threats from “State Bar prosecutors” about the potential legality of the stunt. The company, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help people challenge parking tickets and sue people, had been planning to use the technology to fight a client’s speeding ticket in court this February./news/doordash-announces-layoffs-affecting-1-250-workers.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/doordash-announces-layoffs-affecting-1-250-workers.htmlDoorDash is laying off around 1,250 workers. The update, posted by DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, explains that the company grew too quickly during the covid pandemic, leading to an increase in operating expenses that could soon “outgrow” the company’s revenue. “While we’ve always been disciplined in how we have managed our business and operational metrics, we were not as rigorous as we should have been in managing our team growth,” Xu writes./news/ebay-live-is-the-online-auction-site-s-new-livestream-sales-platform.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ebay-live-is-the-online-auction-site-s-new-livestream-sales-platform.htmleBay’s combining online and real-world auction experiences with its newly launched eBay Live platform, where people can chat and react to sellers through Livestream video and buy their products. The service is currently in beta release and will launch with “highly coveted and rare” trading card offerings like a “1998 Kobe Bryant Skybox That’s Jam PSA 10” from eBay seller Bleecker Trading starting on June 22nd at 3PM ET. The event will be hosted live by avid collector DJ Skee, and interested buyers can join in via the eBay app./news/epic-scoops-up-rock-band-creator-harmonix.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-scoops-up-rock-band-creator-harmonix.htmlFortnite maker Epic Games has announced its latest acquisition: Harmonix, the studio behind iconic music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In a blog post, Harmonix said that support for existing games like Rock Band and Fuser would continue. The studio also explained its plans to expand into — what else? — the metaverse. “Now, we’ll be working with Epic to once again challenge expectations as we bring our unique brand of musical gaming experiences to the metaverse, and we couldn’t be more excited,” the blog post reads./news/everyone-s-making-fun-of-pok%C3%A9mon-go-s-team-instinct-leader.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/everyone-s-making-fun-of-pok%C3%A9mon-go-s-team-instinct-leader.htmlThere's been heated debate during the past two weeks over which of Pokémon Go's three teams — Instinct, Mystic, and Valor — are the best. Obviously it's Mystic, but we learned today that Team Instinct really has it rough. Designs for each of the three teams' leaders have finally been unveiled, and the consensus is that Mystic and Valor are run by badasses, while Instinct is run by a total dweeb./news/facebook-reenables-view-as-public-feature-following-2018-security-issue.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-reenables-view-as-public-feature-following-2018-security-issue.htmlFacebook is restoring the option for users to view their profile from the perspective of someone they aren’t friends with, as well as making it easier for users to manage what information does or doesn’t get displayed on the public-facing version of their profiles. The news was announced in a tweet today after Facebook had disabled the option back in September 2018 due to a major security flaw that allowed an attacker to steal access tokens for over 50 million accounts by exploiting a related feature that would allow you to see what a Facebook profile would look like to a specific user./news/fantastical-for-apple-watch-is-a-better-calendar-for-your-wrist.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fantastical-for-apple-watch-is-a-better-calendar-for-your-wrist.htmlWhen the Apple Watch hit Apple's virtual shelves at the end of April, the company boasted of the thousands of apps available for it. But as reviewers and owners of the Watch have pointed out numerous times, most of those apps aren't particularly useful or well designed. Now that the Watch has been out for about a month, major app makers that waited to get the device in hand are now releasing their apps, with much better results./news/ferrari-might-have-the-best-stock-ticker-symbol-in-history.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ferrari-might-have-the-best-stock-ticker-symbol-in-history.htmlFerrari, a longtime force in Formula One, is making a splashy statement on Wall Street. Ferrari is expected to cash in on its motorsports heritage when it debuts on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock ticker symbol "RACE" later this month. Reuters reports that Ferrari is planning to debut in its initial public offering at a value of up to $9.8 billion in the second half of October, according to its IPO prospectus, which was submitted on Friday./news/first-response-s-bluetooth-pregnancy-test-is-intriguing-and-a-privacy-nightmare.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/first-response-s-bluetooth-pregnancy-test-is-intriguing-and-a-privacy-nightmare.htmlFirst Response, a pregnancy test company owned by household product manufacturer Church & Dwight, released its Pregnancy Pro test app in March, which it markets as the "first pregnancy test that syncs with your smartphone." The Bluetooth-enabled test comes with a free partner app that's available on Android, iOS, and Amazon. It was last updated a week ago. Once downloaded and synced with a specific test, the app walks users through taking the test and then keeps them entertained while they wait three minutes to get their results./news/flop-rock-inside-the-underground-floppy-disk-music-scene.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/flop-rock-inside-the-underground-floppy-disk-music-scene.html{props.credit} ) }const containers = document.querySelectorAll(".w-full figure.w-full"); containers.forEach(container => {const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(container); root.render()}) The first computery thing I do in the year 2024 is nudge a 3.5-inch floppy disk into a USB floppy drive that I bought from an online merchant working out of Singapore’s onetime hotbed of ’90s computer piracy. I’m briefly startled by the drive’s low mechanical whirring — a warm, ambient background score that instantly transports me back to my childhood./news/ford-s-new-48-inch-digital-dashboard-is-a-lot-of-android-for-one-car.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-s-new-48-inch-digital-dashboard-is-a-lot-of-android-for-one-car.htmlWhen I was invited by Ford to visit its headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, last week to check out its new in-car operating system, I thought I knew what to expect.  It was going to be built on the Android Automotive operating system, so there would be native versions of Maps, Assistant, and other popular Google apps. It would look pretty slick, with graphics powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine. And it would still support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto because Ford has said it won’t restrict access to the popular phone-mirroring services like its rival General Motors./news/forspoken-is-going-full-sailor-moon-in-new-story-dlc.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/forspoken-is-going-full-sailor-moon-in-new-story-dlc.htmlI’m one of the handful of people who actually enjoyed Forspoken. Despite its flaws (and yeah, my glowing review aside, it is a flawed game) I saw a solid story with interesting characters and a unique combat and traversal system that was genuinely fun to play. So the announcement of new story DLC for the game has me pleased that I’ll have another opportunity to hardcore parkour my way through Athia./news/fortnite-chapter-4-season-3-adds-optimus-prime-and-rideable-raptors.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-chapter-4-season-3-adds-optimus-prime-and-rideable-raptors.htmlThings are getting pretty wild on the Fortnite island. Epic just launched the latest season of the battle royale game, bringing it up to Chapter 4: Season 3, and it’s called, appropriately, “Wilds.” Epic has been teasing it over the last week — including with a trailer at yesterday’s Summer Game Fest. The big change is that the center of the map has essentially been destroyed, revealing a new jungle area to explore, complete with ruins./news/ftc-sues-chegg-for-exposing-sensitive-student-data.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ftc-sues-chegg-for-exposing-sensitive-student-data.htmlIn one 2018 incident, a former Chegg contractor gained access to one of its third-party cloud databases, exposing personal information such as names, email addresses, and passwords in addition to students’ religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, and parents’ income. Some of the stolen data was later found for sale online. Officials also said Chegg didn’t have a written security policy until January 2021 and failed to provide sufficient security training to its employees./news/gamers-protect-your-precious-tendons-with-this-tabletop-hand-massager.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gamers-protect-your-precious-tendons-with-this-tabletop-hand-massager.htmlHere’s something for the gamer that has everything: a tabletop hand massager that can be used to remove fatigue from your aching mitts and keep you on top form. Created by Japanese makers of gaming hardware and peripherals, Bauhütte, the device uses 15 heated air cushions to supposedly simulate the feeling of a real massage and, well, why the hell not. Bauhütte recommends you use the massager before gaming to warm up your hands; during breaks to improve circulation; and after you’ve finished to rub the stiffness out of your tired little fingers./news/genki-shadowcast-review-a-decent-inexpensive-capture-card.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/genki-shadowcast-review-a-decent-inexpensive-capture-card.htmlThe ShadowCast from Genki is a dongle-size video capture card that might provide all that some gamers and streamers need. It’s $45, a relatively low price for a no-frills device that can get your console games onto your PC. But it has some limitations. The video quality isn’t great, and there’s a noticeable amount of lag if you’re trying to play along with the stream. These compromises aren’t a surprise, considering the ShadowCast costs a fraction of the price of something more capable like Elgato’s HD60 S+./news/george-r-r-martin-s-werewolf-story-skin-trade-could-soon-become-cinemax-show.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/george-r-r-martin-s-werewolf-story-skin-trade-could-soon-become-cinemax-show.htmlAfter the stratospheric success of Game of Thrones, it was only a matter of time before TV executives started raiding George R.R. Martin's back catalog for more shows. Now, thanks to Cinemax, we may soon see another of Martin's creations — also featuring big bad wolves — on the small screen. The author announced last night that HBO's sister network has ordered a TV script based on his 1989 werewolf short story Skin Trade./news/getty-images-sues-ai-art-generator-stable-diffusion-in-the-us-for-copyright-infringement.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/getty-images-sues-ai-art-generator-stable-diffusion-in-the-us-for-copyright-infringement.htmlGetty Images has filed a lawsuit in the US against Stability AI, creators of open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion, escalating its legal battle against the firm. The stock photography company is accusing Stability AI of “brazen infringement of Getty Images’ intellectual property on a staggering scale.” It claims that Stability AI copied more than 12 million images from its database “without permission ... or compensation ... as part of its efforts to build a competing business,” and that the startup has infringed on both the company’s copyright and trademark protections./news/ghost-of-tsushima-gets-new-trailer-summer-2020-release-date.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ghost-of-tsushima-gets-new-trailer-summer-2020-release-date.htmlSit back and enjoy a nice look at one of the most anticipated games for the PS4. At The Game Awards tonight, developer Sucker Punch revealed the latest trailer for its PS4 exclusive Ghost of Tsushima, an action-adventure game that combines sword fighting and stealth in a world inspired by feudal Japan. Clocking in at four minutes, the trailer is easily the best look at the game to date, mixing together both gameplay and cinematic footage./news/google-cancels-april-fools-the-verge.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-cancels-april-fools-the-verge.htmlUpdate, 3:27PM ET: Added additional confirmation from Google. “In 2020, we made the decision to pause our longstanding Google tradition of celebrating April Fools’ Day, out of respect for all those fighting COVID-19. With much of the world still grappling with serious challenges, we will again pause the jokes for April Fools’ Day in 2021,” reads a statement. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2lfaHx0fY5raWxuYGt%2BenvGqKagpJVirrG%2ByKVkn6efocBufo9raGaoopa7rHnCmqWcnZw%3D/news/google-home-hub-review-the-best-digital-photo-frame.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-home-hub-review-the-best-digital-photo-frame.htmlAccording to Google Photos, I have 8,536 photos of my two daughters stretching back to the day my eldest was born. Thanks to the new Google Home Hub, I’ve been able to revisit hundreds of these photos over the past few days, each one tugging at my heartstrings and bringing up fond memories of them growing up as it flashed across the screen. The $149 Google Home Hub is not just a digital photo frame, but it’s such a good digital photo frame that if it did absolutely nothing else, I could see many parents and grandparents paying the asking price for it without thinking twice./news/google-offers-non-pixel-owners-a-way-to-avoid-waiting-on-hold-with-latest-test.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-offers-non-pixel-owners-a-way-to-avoid-waiting-on-hold-with-latest-test.htmlGoogle is testing a new “Talk to a Live Representative” feature that allows the company’s software to call a business on your behalf, navigate through its phone tree, wait on hold, and then notify you when there’s a real human being available for you to speak to. The test, which is available now as a Search Labs experimental feature, was spotted by X user Sterling. As 9to5Google notes, the feature sounds a lot like the Pixel’s “Hold for Me,” but with a couple of key advantages./news/google-s-pixel-7-and-7-pro-will-fix-your-old-blurry-photos.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-pixel-7-and-7-pro-will-fix-your-old-blurry-photos.htmlGoogle says that you’ll be able to use the Pixel 7 to go back through your Google Photos library and fix old blurry photos, using a feature called Photo Unblur. So far, the feature is exclusive to Google’s latest phones, similar to the Magic Eraser feature launched with the Pixel 6. Like the feature meant to erase distractions from your images, the Photo Unblur results Google showed off in its presentation were a little hit-or-miss — though some were truly impressive, like the one in the tweet below./news/hbo-max-will-use-anime-from-crunchyroll-to-compete-with-netflix-s-growing-empire.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hbo-max-will-use-anime-from-crunchyroll-to-compete-with-netflix-s-growing-empire.htmlNetflix is trying to become a dominant presence in the anime streaming space, but AT&T-owned WarnerMedia is leveraging its dedicated anime streaming service Crunchyroll to help sway subscribers over to HBO Max. HBO Max subscribers will be able to stream 17 different anime series currently available on Crunchyroll, including Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-(Director’s Cut), and Keep Your Hands off Eizouken. Crunchyroll will curate new anime content for HBO Max subscribers every three months, according to WarnerMedia, with popular series Hunter x Hunter and Death Note coming to HBO Max later this year./news/honda-s-new-fuel-cell-car-will-arrive-this-year-for-500-a-month.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/honda-s-new-fuel-cell-car-will-arrive-this-year-for-500-a-month.htmlThough the electric car gets all the attention, it's not the only forward-thinking vehicle around. Honda will begin selling the new version of the Clarity, its hydrogen fuel cell sedan, later this year. The Clarity, which debuted at the Tokyo Auto Show last year before first appearing on US shores in November at the LA Auto Show, will hit limited dealers in LA, Orange County, the Bay Area, and Sacramento. It's a sedan with a rather pretty interior, but all the innovation is under the hood./news/how-hereditary-composer-colin-stetson-made-the-movie-feel-evil.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-hereditary-composer-colin-stetson-made-the-movie-feel-evil.htmlAri Aster’s debut feature Hereditary is one of the scariest movies in recent memory. That’s due in large part to Aster’s meticulous direction and Toni Collette’s unrestrained lead performance. But another crucial element is Colin Stetson’s unnerving score. An avant-garde saxophonist who’s worked with everyone from Arcade Fire to Tom Waits, Stetson is also known for his innovative solo records, which caught Aster’s attention before he’d even written the film’s script./news/how-to-get-the-most-from-sony-s-wh-1000xm5-headphones.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-get-the-most-from-sony-s-wh-1000xm5-headphones.htmlSony’s WH-1000XM5 are the company’s latest flagship noise-canceling headphones. And as our review can attest, they’re perhaps the most comfortable, best-sounding set in the 1000X series so far. As a result, you’re inevitably going to see them a lot — on flights, at the coffee shop, etc. — over the next several years. And should you end up with a pair yourself, it’s worth knowing about some of their more advanced features and tricks that aren’t always obvious in basic day-to-day use./news/how-to-hear-and-delete-every-conversation-your-amazon-alexa-has-recorded.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-hear-and-delete-every-conversation-your-amazon-alexa-has-recorded.htmlDigital assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are designed to learn more about you as they listen, and part of doing so is to record conversations you’ve had with them so they can learn your tone of voice, prompts, and requests. While this is supposed to help the assistants learn to give you better answers, this feature-not-a-bug has landed Amazon in a string of bizarre headlines. In 2018, users reported that their Echo speakers began spontaneously laughing, while a family in Portland said their device recorded and sent conversations to a colleague without their knowledge./news/how-to-mute-a-word-or-phrase-on-twitter.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-mute-a-word-or-phrase-on-twitter.htmlIn February 2020, I found that that it was possible not only to mute conversations or other accounts on Twitter, but (courtesy of a tweet by @nonprofWHIT ) that you could also mute a specific word. And you could do it straight from a tweet. Now, Twitter has announced it is expanding this feature so that when you mute a word or phrase, it will not appear in your Explore tab or Event-based notifications./news/how-to-steal-bitcoin-in-three-easy-steps.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-steal-bitcoin-in-three-easy-steps.htmlEarlier this month, someone pulled off the largest heist in the history of Bitcoin, the virtual currency that approximates cash on the internet. The illegal drug bazaar Sheep Marketplace was plundered, either by hackers or insiders, and about $100 million worth of the currency was stolen from customers. Bitcoin heists are actually not uncommon. In June of 2011, a user named Allinvain was the victim of what is arguably the first recorded major Bitcoin theft./news/how-to-take-control-of-your-windows-notifications.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-take-control-of-your-windows-notifications.htmlMost of us are used to managing notifications (or trying to) on our smartphones, but Windows can throw up plenty of pings and alerts of its own as well. Some of those will be useful and necessary, but if you’re trying to get stuff done, regular interruptions are likely to throw you off track and get in the way. So it’s worth exploring the notification controls that Microsoft’s operating system offers — and there are quite a few of them./news/how-to-take-the-perfect-selfie.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-take-the-perfect-selfie.htmlPeople talk about Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian’s selfie-taking prowess as if they deserve no credit for honing a skill. Sure, taking a selfie is kind of vapid and self-obsessive, but it’s also no easy task. If you haven’t practiced, or are out of touch with your angles, then you won’t capture a good photo. Lots of people are bad at selfies — you might even be one of them. My pal and co-worker Paul, for instance, doesn’t fully understand when or how to take a selfie./news/how-to-upgrade-your-nintendo-switch-storage-and-migrate-your-games.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-upgrade-your-nintendo-switch-storage-and-migrate-your-games.htmlThe Nintendo Switch only comes with 32GB of internal storage, which is minuscule if you plan on having more than just a handful of games and apps downloaded to your handheld console. The solution is to use a microSD card to expand the Switch’s storage. But what’s the easiest way to do that? And if you already have a microSD card and want to use a new one with more capacity, how do you migrate your files?/news/how-to-use-camera-assistant-on-your-samsung-galaxy-phone.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-use-camera-assistant-on-your-samsung-galaxy-phone.htmlRight out of the box, Samsung Galaxy phones provide a lot of ways to customize their cameras to your liking. You want an extra shutter button you can move around the screen or have the camera take a picture whenever you say “cheese”? You can do that. But it doesn’t stop there: Samsung provides even more camera settings for those who want maximum control — if you know where to look. /news/how-untitled-goose-game-adapted-debussy-for-its-dynamic-soundtrack.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-untitled-goose-game-adapted-debussy-for-its-dynamic-soundtrack.htmlOne of the highlights of House House’s Untitled Goose Game, the “slapstick-stealth-sandbox” game in which you play a terrible goose wreaking havoc in a lovely English village, is the adaptive soundtrack of Debussy’s Preludes. The playful piano music almost provides a kind of insight into the goose’s mind — the melody plays in quiet, short bursts when it’s up to no good, creeping up on its next victim. When the goose is in full chaos mode, waddling away from the gardener who just wants his keys back, the piano tune plays out in full, encouraging the player to keep up the shenanigans./news/hq-trivia-s-most-recognizable-host-scott-rogowsky-leaves-the-company.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hq-trivia-s-most-recognizable-host-scott-rogowsky-leaves-the-company.htmlHQ Trivia host Scott Rogowsky said today that he’s giving up the gig to focus on hosting sports streaming service DAZN’s baseball show ChangeUp. TMZ first reported the departure and attributed it to a disagreement between HQ and Rogowsky over his desire to host both HQ and ChangeUp. He reportedly wanted to host HQ only on the weekends, but HQ wanted a full-time commitment. HQ CEO Rus Yusupov confirmed to TechCrunch that Rogowsky is leaving the show, but he added that the company ran a survey of its top players who voiced that guest host Matt Richards was their favorite, which seems irrelevant to Rogowsky’s disagreement and mostly just a dig at the former host for wanting a different job./news/ikea-gives-its-2021-catalog-an-animal-crossing-themed-makeover-in-taiwan.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ikea-gives-its-2021-catalog-an-animal-crossing-themed-makeover-in-taiwan.htmlAfter the latest Animal Crossing became a worldwide phenomenon with its compelling combination of fishing, hunting, and interior design, it was only a matter of time before a major outlet tried to capitalize on its success. Now, Ikea Taiwan has done exactly that by recreating a number of pages from its iconic catalog using characters and in-game items from the Nintendo title. It posted the results on its official Facebook page./news/instagram-is-littered-with-bright-as-hell-hdr-videos-but-it-didn-t-have-to-be-this-way.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-is-littered-with-bright-as-hell-hdr-videos-but-it-didn-t-have-to-be-this-way.htmlI can’t be the only one that’s had this experience: I’ll be passing time scrolling through my Instagram feed when all of a sudden, my iPhone’s screen cranks the brightness up to 11 for a random video clip or reel. It’s worse if you’re in a dark environment or dimly lit bar when this happens because these bursts ignore your brightness settings and can get pretty unpleasant for your eyes. The reason this happens is that people are increasingly sharing HDR (high dynamic range) videos on social platforms — whether they know it or not — and when your fancy smartphone plays them, the display goes into overdrive to showcase, in Apple’s words, the “true-to-life color and contrast” made possible by HDR./news/instagram-now-lets-you-save-posts-into-collections-shared-with-friends.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-now-lets-you-save-posts-into-collections-shared-with-friends.htmlInstagram is building off of its existing collections feature by allowing you to create libraries of posts that you share with friends. In an announcement on Twitter, Instagram says that you can now save content into “collaborative collections” that both you and your friends can view and contribute to, as first reported by TechCrunch. To use the feature, simply hit the bookmark icon in the bottom-right corner of the post that you want to save, select the option to create a new collaborative collection, give it a name, and then toggle on the option that says Allow friends to join this collection./news/intel-and-motherboard-makers-disagree-on-how-to-stabilize-your-crashing-i9-cpu.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/intel-and-motherboard-makers-disagree-on-how-to-stabilize-your-crashing-i9-cpu.htmlSeveral motherboard manufacturers have released BIOS profiles labeled ‘Intel Baseline Profile’. However, these BIOS profiles are not the same as the ‘Intel Default Settings’ recommendations that Intel has recently shared with its partners regarding the instability issues reported on 13th and 14th gen K SKU processors. These ‘Intel Baseline Profile’ BIOS settings appear to be based on power delivery guidance previously provided by Intel to manufacturers describing the various power delivery options for 13th and 14th Generation K SKU processors based on motherboard capabilities./news/ios-14-basics-how-to-add-widgets-to-your-iphone-s-home-screen.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ios-14-basics-how-to-add-widgets-to-your-iphone-s-home-screen.htmlOne of the more prominent changes introduced in iOS 14, and one that is generating a lot of interest, is the addition of widgets that can be added to any page. There are all sorts of weird and useful things you can do with them (especially if you’re willing to play around with apps such as Shortcuts and Widgetsmith). To begin, here’s how to add an existing widget to your home screen:/news/jeep-is-doubling-down-on-plug-in-hybrids-with-the-2024-wrangler-4xe.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jeep-is-doubling-down-on-plug-in-hybrids-with-the-2024-wrangler-4xe.htmlJeep’s wildly popular plug-in hybrid Wrangler SUV is getting an upgrade. The automaker is rolling out two new trim levels for the 2024 model year, as well as a host of new tech features that it says are designed to chart a path to a completely electrified lineup by 2025. This represents the first major update to the hybrid Wrangler since the first 4xe (pronounced “four by E”) version rolled out in 2021./news/jetblue-s-free-high-speed-wi-fi-is-now-available-on-all-flights.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jetblue-s-free-high-speed-wi-fi-is-now-available-on-all-flights.htmlJetBlue has completed its rollout of Fly-Fi, it’s free high-speed internet service, to its entire fleet of planes. The service, which launched in 2013, offers speeds between 12-15Mbps (although those speeds may dip if everyone is streaming Netflix), and is available at every seat, far exceeding the usual GoGo Inflight experience found on most airlines these days. Given that inflight Wi-Fi usually costs around $20 on most major airlines, JetBlue is stepping into unchartered territories./news/john-wick-chapter-4-review-unrelenting-in-every-sense-of-the-word.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/john-wick-chapter-4-review-unrelenting-in-every-sense-of-the-word.htmlLionsgate’s John Wick movies have always been over-the-top action / thriller joyrides more focused on dazzling you with visceral, expertly choreographed action sequences than trying to tell the most coherent stories about stylish assassins. Director Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 4 is no exception. And it abundantly delivers on the franchise’s hallmarks — snazzy guns, lovable dogs, and one very haggard man in black — by picking up right where 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum left off./news/kodak-gallery-set-to-go-offline-july-2nd-after-federal-judge-approves-sale-to-shutterfly.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kodak-gallery-set-to-go-offline-july-2nd-after-federal-judge-approves-sale-to-shutterfly.htmlKodak will take its online photo hosting service offline July 2nd after a federal judge approved the sale of that business to Shutterfly — seemingly the only interested buyer — for $23.8 million. The company notified all Kodak Gallery users of the shutdown date in an email today, and also requested that customers who do not want their photos moved over to Shutterfly's servers provide direct notice to Kodak no later than May 28th./news/lg-s-most-affordable-2024-oled-tv-is-here.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lg-s-most-affordable-2024-oled-tv-is-here.htmlLG’s most affordable 2024 OLED TV is here. LG’s new entry-level OLED TV, the B4, has started shipping. Starting at $1,699, it provides the core OLED benefits like perfect blacks and 120Hz gaming performance. But you’d be better off hunting down a deal on last year’s C3 while there’s still supply. Splurging a little more on the C4 or G4 gets you better brightness, plus other bells and whistles. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3xyg45ra2pwYGeAc3vLoKpmpZ%2BowW6txZ%2Bmq5yRl7mmeZFpaW1ln6GypXnTr2Siq12dsrOx/news/life-and-death-in-the-app-store.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/life-and-death-in-the-app-store.htmlAs last year began, the app developer Pixite held its company retreat at a converted Old West movie set outside of Palm Springs. They spent a few days dreaming about the future while eating barbecue and sipping whisky in the sun. But 2015 was not a good year, and by last month the company’s dreams had narrowed to survival. This year’s retreat took place at the company’s office in San Diego, a handful of rooms perched above a hair salon./news/logitech-s-best-gaming-mouse-is-on-sale-for-its-best-price-to-date.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/logitech-s-best-gaming-mouse-is-on-sale-for-its-best-price-to-date.htmlWhen we updated our guide to the best gaming mice last year, we had no idea Logitech would be rolling out the G Pro X Superlight 2 shortly thereafter. Less than a year later, the excellent gaming mouse remains the fastest the company has ever made — one that’s currently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy starting at $136.75 ($23 off), an all-time low. Like the original model, the Superlight 2 is all about shedding weight while simultaneously ratcheting up the polling rate./news/logitech-s-webcam-with-articulating-arm-launches-on-indiegogo.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/logitech-s-webcam-with-articulating-arm-launches-on-indiegogo.htmlIndiegogo advertises that its Enterprise service is a way to “de-risk and accelerate corporate innovation” by gauging market demand and iterating and validating product offerings. Previous big names to have used the service include Bose, Sony, and Honeywell. An illustration of how the webcam can be articulated. Image: Logitech The approach starts to make sense when you look at the slightly experimental design of the Reach. Unlike a traditional webcam, which is designed to sit statically on top of your monitor or laptop, the Reach pairs a 1080p / 60fps Logitech StreamCam with an articulating arm./news/lyft-names-tesla-s-jon-mcneill-as-chief-operating-officer.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lyft-names-tesla-s-jon-mcneill-as-chief-operating-officer.htmlAn awkward moment arose during Tesla’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday: while Elon Musk was explaining his company’s plans to ramp up its production of the Model 3, a Bloomberg reporter tweeted that Tesla’s head of global sales, John McNeill, had just accepted a job as chief operating officer at Lyft. Minutes later, Musk acknowledged the news on the call. “Actually, one thing we forgot to mention is John McNeill, who is heading up our sales and service group is departing the company./news/major-league-baseball-takes-a-swing-at-the-fcc-s-fast-lane-internet-proposal.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/major-league-baseball-takes-a-swing-at-the-fcc-s-fast-lane-internet-proposal.htmlDo you know who's not a fan of the Federal Communication Commission's proposal to let internet service providers offer different speeds to online services? Major League Baseball. In a letter to the FCC last week, the league's digital group argued that the most recent open internet proposal could do more harm than good to consumers and upstart businesses, and likened the move to "rolling the dice." "Fast lanes would serve only one purpose: for Broadband ISPs to receive an economic windfall,"/news/marvel-s-protectors-of-wakanda-reveals-the-origins-of-the-dora-milaje.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/marvel-s-protectors-of-wakanda-reveals-the-origins-of-the-dora-milaje.htmlIn both Marvel’s comic books and its movies, the Dora Milaje — an elite outfit of highly trained warrior women — are so much more than just the Black Panther’s bodyguards. They are Wakanda’s spies, diplomats, and a testament to the secretive country’s belief in tradition — tradition that Marvel’s adding new dimension to with Protectors of Wakanda: A History and Training Manual for the Dora Milaje, a new book from writer Karama Horne./news/max-promises-shorter-ad-breaks-than-other-streamers-when-it-launches-may-23rd.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/max-promises-shorter-ad-breaks-than-other-streamers-when-it-launches-may-23rd.htmlWarner Bros. Discovery’s new combined streaming app, Max, will keep the ads down to three to four minutes per hour. During the company’s Upfront event on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery said that Max will feature one of the “lightest ad loads in streaming.” “Max Ad-Lite subscribers get all the same content as ad-free subscribers,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during the event. “See only three or four minutes of ads per hour and pay just $9./news/meet-swatting-the-dangerous-prank-that-could-get-someone-killed.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meet-swatting-the-dangerous-prank-that-could-get-someone-killed.htmlOn March 14th, online security journalist Brian Krebs was cleaning his Virginia home in preparation for a small dinner party when he noticed some plastic tape stuck under his front door, left over from when he’d had to secure an extension cord. Pulling up the tape, he opened the front door — and suddenly heard a yell. "Don’t move!" the voice said. "Put your hands in the air!" There were around 10 to 12 police officers surrounding his driveway, guns drawn./news/memrise-launches-gpt-powered-language-learning-chatbot-for-discord.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/memrise-launches-gpt-powered-language-learning-chatbot-for-discord.htmlI am willing to bet that, at some point in your life, you have attempted to learn a new language and given up. Perhaps you took a few classes in high school but never continued. Maybe you downloaded the Duolingo app to your phone but never touched it. Maybe you started Rosetta Stone but lost interest. Discord and the language-learning platform Memrise have a possible solution for you: the Memrise Discord app, a new GPT-3-trained chatbot that can teach you new tongues from the comfort of your Discord server./news/michael-phelps-made-this-face-during-the-olympics-because-of-future.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/michael-phelps-made-this-face-during-the-olympics-because-of-future.htmlWe've finally learned the truth behind the infamous angry face Michael Phelps made during the Olympics two weeks ago that became an instant meme. "Remember in Rio when I made that face that ended up all over the Internet? I was in the zone with Future's track 'Stick Talk' blaring in my headphones." Phelps said while announcing the rapper's performance during the MTV VMAs. The initial assumption was Phelps was frustrated at his rival Chad Le Clos, a South African swimmer, but following the event Phelps told The Today Show he wasn't "/news/microsoft-admits-windows-is-a-weak-link-in-handheld-gaming-pcs-and-promises-to-improve.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-admits-windows-is-a-weak-link-in-handheld-gaming-pcs-and-promises-to-improve.htmlMicrosoft admits Windows is a weak link in handheld gaming PCs — and promises to improve. One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows. How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That’s a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better./news/microsoft-buys-nokia-s-phone-division-as-steve-ballmer-plans-his-exit.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-buys-nokia-s-phone-division-as-steve-ballmer-plans-his-exit.htmlEarlier this month Microsoft announced that it would be buying the phone division of Nokia for $7.2 billion. A leadership shuffle at Nokia was part of that, with the company's now-former CEO Stephen Elop heading to Redmond after the close of the deal — and as The New York Times points out he'll be making more than $25 million for taking the leap. Elop stepped down as CEO and president of Nokia for a role as executive vice-president, but he'll be staying with the company until the deal itself finally closes./news/microsoft-confirms-it-will-buy-minecraft-for-2-5-billion.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-confirms-it-will-buy-minecraft-for-2-5-billion.htmlWhile there are constant calls from investors for Microsoft to sell off its Xbox division and not focus on gaming at all, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sees things differently. "Gaming is a top activity spanning devices, from PCs and consoles to tablets and mobile, with billions of hours spent each year," says Nadella. "Minecraft is more than a great game franchise — it is an open world platform, driven by a vibrant community we care deeply about, and rich with new opportunities for that community and for Microsoft./news/microsoft-earns-new-us-army-contract-after-fixing-its-combat-mixed-reality-goggles.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-earns-new-us-army-contract-after-fixing-its-combat-mixed-reality-goggles.htmlThe US Army is awarding Microsoft with another order of advanced mixed reality goggles designed for combat situations, Bloomberg reports. Microsoft had sent the Army a batch of 20 updated prototype headsets in late July, which were tested by two squads of soldiers in August who responded positively to improvements in its design: namely, they no longer felt nauseous and pained while wearing them. Microsoft, in the past year, has worked with the US Army to create HoloLens-like mixed reality headsets known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), but initial reports in 2022 indicated it was causing headaches, nausea, and eyestrain in testing./news/microsoft-surface-3-review-the-verge.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-surface-3-review-the-verge.htmlWhen I first looked at the Surface 3, I honestly thought it was a Surface 2 from a year and a half ago. With the same silver matte aluminum finish, it still looks beautiful, modern, and premium. Dig a little deeper and you find some subtle — but important — changes. The Surface 3 is both thinner (8.7mm) and lighter (1.37 pounds) than its predecessor, and the dimensions have changed to make this more of a tablet than ever before./news/microsoft-surface-laptop-5-13-5-inch-review.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-surface-laptop-5-13-5-inch-review.htmlI’m a big fan of Microsoft’s laptop hardware and have been devotedly buying its Surface devices as my personal computers for a number of years now. Very few companies make hardware as uniquely beautiful as the Redmond tech giant does. So I was a bit happier than some of my fellow tech critics were to hear that Microsoft didn’t mess too much with the design of the Surface Laptop.  The Laptop 5, releasing today, looks almost identical to last year’s Laptop 4./news/microsoft-s-latest-surface-updates-are-causing-cpu-and-wi-fi-issues.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-latest-surface-updates-are-causing-cpu-and-wi-fi-issues.htmlMicrosoft is working to fix CPU throttling on the company’s latest Surface devices, while owners complain of Wi-Fi issues, too. “We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Books where CPU speeds are slowed,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to TechRepublic. “We are quickly working to address via a firmware update.” The CPU throttling appears to be affecting both the Surface Book 2 and Surface Pro 6, according to a variety of complaints on Reddit./news/microsoft-s-new-dev-home-makes-it-easy-for-developers-to-reinstall-windows-apps.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-new-dev-home-makes-it-easy-for-developers-to-reinstall-windows-apps.htmlMicrosoft is making it easier for developers to set up and use Windows dev machines. A new Dev Home section of Windows 11 is available in preview today and includes the ability to set up development environments for machines that will link to GitHub and connect to relevant repos, install tools and packages, and much more. “Life as a developer involves constantly juggling manual dev machine set up with too many clicks, multiple tool sign-ins, navigating sub-optimal filesystem performance and context switching, and we know that these disruptions can significantly impact your productivity,” admits Windows chief Panos Panay./news/netflix-is-planning-to-raise-prices-again.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-is-planning-to-raise-prices-again.htmlNetflix is planning to increase the cost of its streaming service yet again, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The streamer will reportedly issue the price hike a “few months” after the Hollywood actors strike ends, which could happen in the coming weeks. Earlier this year, Netflix cracked down on password sharing and started charging an extra $7.99 per month to share your account with someone outside your household./news/netflix-s-sweet-tooth-returns-for-season-3-in-june.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-sweet-tooth-returns-for-season-3-in-june.htmlGus and his friends are coming back to Netflix very soon. The streamer just announced that the post-apocalyptic series Sweet Tooth is returning on June 6th, and as part of the news, there’s a first-look trailer at what this season has in store. Based on the comic books by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth is a different take on an end-of-the-world story. It takes place after a mysterious virus killed off much of humanity, while at the same time, new hybrid children — humans with animal features like antlers or pig noses — started appearing (also a mystery)./news/new-york-city-s-w-subway-line-is-coming-back-from-the-dead-after-six-years.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-york-city-s-w-subway-line-is-coming-back-from-the-dead-after-six-years.htmlYou probably haven't heard of the W train. It was a local line that was part of New York City's subway system and ran between Queens and Manhattan (and initially down to Coney Island) from 2001 to 2010, when it was axed due to budget constraints. (The Z train was also scaled back at the time.) On Friday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority confirmed rumors that it was considering bringing the W back into service, but while that in-and-of-itself isn't that interesting, what the W's resurrection means is very significant./news/now-i-can-finally-listen-to-my-music-while-getting-a-haircut.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/now-i-can-finally-listen-to-my-music-while-getting-a-haircut.htmlI grew up with only one fear: the fear of getting a haircut. For many years I was a shy child that didn't like to talk to people, including my barber. I just let her do what she did last time, too timid to chime in about what I didn't like. I'm talking about the bowl cut! All the way into middle school I hid under my over-ear headphones as I got called mushroom head, bowlie, weird haircut kid, and many other names I'm sure you can guess./news/nvidia-announces-a-299-rtx-4060-with-the-4060-ti-arriving-may-24th-for-399.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-announces-a-299-rtx-4060-with-the-4060-ti-arriving-may-24th-for-399.htmlNvidia has officially announced its RTX 4060 family of GPUs. This includes the RTX 4060 Ti, which will debut next week on May 24th starting at $399, and — perhaps the biggest news — the RTX 4060, which will be available in July for just $299, $30 less than the RTX 3060’s original retail price. A 16GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti is also due in July for $499./news/nvidia-makes-it-easier-to-get-geforce-now-running-on-the-steam-deck.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-makes-it-easier-to-get-geforce-now-running-on-the-steam-deck.htmlNvidia is releasing a script that simplifies getting its GeForce Now cloud gaming service up and running on Valve’s Steam Deck device. The script automatically installs Google Chrome, adjusts the browser to enable gamepad use, and then adds a GeForce Now shortcut to your Steam library. While the script automates the process of using the SteamOS terminal app to install Chrome and enable gamepad support, you’ll still need to make some manual tweaks to get GeForce Now working as you’d expect./news/old-kindles-will-be-disconnected-from-the-internet-unless-you-update-by-tuesday.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/old-kindles-will-be-disconnected-from-the-internet-unless-you-update-by-tuesday.htmlThat old Kindle sitting in your desk drawer is about to get locked out from the internet. Amazon is warning customers of older Kindle e-readers that they must update by Tuesday, March 22nd, or else they will no longer be able to access the Kindle Store or sync with the cloud. That means, most importantly, that you won't be able to download new books. The emergency update is for the original Kindle Paperwhite (2012) and every Kindle before it./news/openai-is-expanding-availability-of-dall-e-3-inside-chatgpt.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-is-expanding-availability-of-dall-e-3-inside-chatgpt.htmlOpenAI is launching wider availability of its latest text-to-image generator. On Thursday, the company is giving ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers access to the new DALL-E 3 model that works within the ChatGPT app. OpenAI says it has prepared a safety mitigation stack for the model that makes it ready for an expanded release. DALL-E 3 was first announced last month, and OpenAI showed how it improved upon the previous DALL-E 2 by allowing users to leverage ChatGPT to write longer and more visually descriptive prompts for them to feed the image generator./news/our-flag-means-death-is-back-for-season-2-in-october.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/our-flag-means-death-is-back-for-season-2-in-october.htmlWe already knew that a second season of Our Flag Means Death was on the way, and now Max has finally put a date on it: the show will set sail again on October 5th. The news comes via the first trailer for season 2, which you can check out above. Three episodes will actually drop on the 5th, with two episodes premiering weekly after that, leading to a finale on October 26th./news/pixar-s-lee-unkrich-on-the-anxiety-of-directing-coco.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pixar-s-lee-unkrich-on-the-anxiety-of-directing-coco.htmlLee Unkrich has an obvious, visible presence at Pixar Animation Studios, as a co-director on Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo, and the solo director of Toy Story 3. But like so many of Pixar’s senior creative crew, he’s had a less-obvious hand in the company’s projects from the earliest days, with credits reaching back to his editing on Toy Story and A Bug’s Life, and scattered work on other Pixar films ranging from supporting vocal work to supplemental story material./news/prepaid-carrier-straight-talk-now-offers-lte-service-to-those-with-compatible-at-t-devices.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/prepaid-carrier-straight-talk-now-offers-lte-service-to-those-with-compatible-at-t-devices.htmlLTE is starting to become a reality for prepaid customers on inexpensive plans. Straight Talk, a carrier formed from a partnership between Walmart and Tracfone, is now allowing users who bring smartphones capable with AT&T's LTE network to use the 4G data service. You'll need to buy a new SIM card for $6.99 to get the service, but once you do, you'll get "unlimited" data, talk, and text for $45 per month (or international calling on top for $15 more per month)./news/pure-paste-aims-to-fix-the-pain-of-formatted-text-for-good.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pure-paste-aims-to-fix-the-pain-of-formatted-text-for-good.htmlOne of my biggest computer pet peeves is copying and pasting text. Not the actual mechanism of getting words from one document to another, but the way that modern computers insist on trying to be overly helpful and copying not just the text I want, but all the formatting that comes with it, mucking up my emails and my documents. Pure Paste is a neat new menubar app for macOS that aims to fix that: when it’s open, it automatically strips out any formatting on text you copy, allowing you to paste clean, unformatted text every time./news/qualcomm-announces-new-snapdragon-845-vr-reference-headset.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/qualcomm-announces-new-snapdragon-845-vr-reference-headset.htmlQualcomm today revealed a new reference design for a Snapdragon 845 VR headset. The headset uses the similarly named mobile Snapdragon 845 system architecture that the company announced last month, which can be used for both VR and AR. The Snapdragon 845 headset is capable of displaying two 1024 x 1152 pixel screens at 120 frames per second, which is subpar compared to many existing headsets. (HTC’s Vive Pro headset offers 1400 x 1600 resolution per eye, for instance./news/qualcomm-shuts-down-snapdragon-satellite-before-it-ever-shipped.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/qualcomm-shuts-down-snapdragon-satellite-before-it-ever-shipped.htmlQualcomm is scrapping plans to offer a satellite SOS feature for Android phones that would have rivaled the one offered by Apple on its latest iPhones. The feature, Snapdragon Satellite, was announced in partnership with the satellite communications company Iridium in January. Now, just 10 months later, the plan is already dead. Iridium said on Thursday that Qualcomm “elected to terminate” their partnership on the feature because no smartphone maker signed up to use it./news/qualcomm-s-8s-gen-3-targets-more-affordable-high-end-phones.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/qualcomm-s-8s-gen-3-targets-more-affordable-high-end-phones.htmlQualcomm just launched a new chipset that’s designed to sit just below its current flagship in terms of capabilities and price. The Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 aims to bring most of the 8 Gen 3’s features — including support for on-device generative AI models — to more affordable phones. It represents a new tier for the top-of-the-line 8-series chips, and it’s also a little bit confusing. Before we get into all that, let’s start with the straightforward stuff: the 8S Gen 3 includes a CPU similar to the standard 8 Gen 3, though it has one less performance core and runs at a lower frequency — the prime core runs at up to 3./news/radwagon-electric-cargo-bike-review-the-suv-of-e-bikes.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/radwagon-electric-cargo-bike-review-the-suv-of-e-bikes.htmlI hate owning a car. The daily hunt for a parking spot, the inevitability of traffic, the knowledge that for every gallon of gas I pump another chunk of the polar ice cap slides into the ocean. My dream is to completely replace my car with a bike, preferably an electric one, but it’s a tough sell. My wife and I have two little kids, and we like having the freedom to take weekend trips outside the city./news/razer-s-latest-edible-product-is-chewing-gum-made-for-gaming.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/razer-s-latest-edible-product-is-chewing-gum-made-for-gaming.htmlRazer’s latest gaming accessory is chewing gum aimed at boosting your focus and reaction time in games. The company teamed up with 5 Gum from Mars Wrigley to make “Respawn by 5 Gum” in three flavors: cool mint, tropical punch, and pomegranate watermelon. The gum is available starting today at $2.99 per 15-stick pack or $27.99 for a 10-pack. It will be available from Razer.com as well as Amazon. Razer previously released a flavored energy drink mix in 2019./news/reddit-s-ceo-edited-comments-that-criticized-him.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/reddit-s-ceo-edited-comments-that-criticized-him.htmlReddit CEO Steve Huffman today admitted that he had edited Reddit user comments that criticized and insulted him, wielding his power to anonymously change references to his own username, and replace them with moderators of the pro-Donald Trump subreddit, r/the_donald. Huffman — who posts on the site as "spez" — admitted to the transgression after being called out by users of r/the_donald, saying he was inspired to edit the comments after a spate of insults emanating from the pro-Trump subreddit./news/reed-hastings-netflix-is-trying-to-figure-out-ad-supported-streaming.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/reed-hastings-netflix-is-trying-to-figure-out-ad-supported-streaming.htmlAfter years of rejecting calls for an ad-supported streaming tier, Netflix co-founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said on Tuesday’s earnings call that the company is “quite open to offering even lower prices with advertising, as a consumer choice.” Apparently, the company is now looking into the option and “trying to figure out over the next year or two.” Hastings admits that introducing an ad-supported tier would be a big change in thinking for the company, saying that he’s historically been “against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription./news/rockstar-is-working-with-modders-who-made-gta-v-and-red-dead-roleplaying-tools.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rockstar-is-working-with-modders-who-made-gta-v-and-red-dead-roleplaying-tools.htmlRockstar Games is working with a popular mod developer team to bring in official support for roleplay servers to the company’s games. Announced today, Rockstar says it’s “partnering with the Cfx.re team,” the creator of the FiveM and RedM modding tools that lets players make and play through entirely custom experiences in games like Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. The status of the arrangement isn’t entirely clear, even though Rockstar stated in the release that Cfx./news/roku-hackers-breach-15-000-accounts-and-are-selling-them-online.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roku-hackers-breach-15-000-accounts-and-are-selling-them-online.htmlHackers likely obtained account information exposed in previous data breaches of third-party services, Roku says. This kind of attack, called credential stuffing, involves hackers getting the emails and passwords exposed in data breaches and trying the combination on other services. Once they gained access to an account, Roku hackers changed the login information for some accounts, allowing them to gain full control. If the account had stored credit card info, hackers could also purchase subscriptions within Roku for services such as Netflix, Max, Paramount Plus, Hulu, Peacock, Disney Plus, and others./news/samsung-galaxy-s21-review-good-camera-fast-processor-great-price.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-s21-review-good-camera-fast-processor-great-price.htmlThe Samsung Galaxy S21 is a midrange phone with a flagship name.  Rather than offer essentially the same top-tier phone at different sizes, Samsung has chosen to get aggressive on price this year. The Galaxy S21 starts at $799.99 for the smaller version with a 6.2-inch screen and $999.99 for the Plus version with a 6.7-inch display. Though in both cases, the smart move is to spend an extra $50 for the models with 256GB of storage./news/samsung-galaxy-view-review-the-verge.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-view-review-the-verge.htmlPower the Galaxy View on and you're met with Samsung's typical tablet user interface with one major change; there's a custom home screen that's tiled with popular video apps. Here you'll find some obvious choices (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube) along with popular TV-centric apps like Watch ESPN and CBS All Access. The top left corner is reserved for apps from your cable company — assuming you've got Time Warner Cable, Comcast, or DirecTV./news/samsung-s-new-34-inch-curved-monitor-is-for-gamers.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-new-34-inch-curved-monitor-is-for-gamers.htmlSamsung really wants you to have one of its curved gaming monitors. This week the company introduced two new monitors: the CFG70, which comes in a 24-inch and 27-inch model; and the 34-inch CF791 display. They’re both being unveiled at IFA this week. Both monitors use Samsung’s Quantum dot technology to increase color clarity and energy efficiency. Up until now, those nanocrystals were only used in Samsung’s TVs. Here’s what we know about the CF791: it has a 1500R curvature, a 100Hz refresh rate that works with AMD FreeSync, and has a 21:9 aspect ratio./news/san-diego-comic-con-2017-all-the-trailers-updates-and-pictures-from-fandom-s-biggest-party.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/san-diego-comic-con-2017-all-the-trailers-updates-and-pictures-from-fandom-s-biggest-party.htmlWalking around at San Diego Comic-Con, the booth for a small publisher known as Sunday Press stands out in the quieter half of the convention. Standing amidst retailers hawking bagged rarities and boxes of superhero comics, the books on display are distinctive: they’re massive — almost two feet to a side — and they bear names like Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s, White Boy in Skull Valley, Society Is Nix, Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip, and others./news/scientists-are-extremely-concerned-about-this-rat-s-dck.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/scientists-are-extremely-concerned-about-this-rat-s-dck.htmlScientists are extremely concerned about this rat's “dck.” And for good reason — this, and several other nonsensical AI-generated images were openly credited to Midjourney in a peer-reviewed science paper published by the Frontiers Journal this week. The gibberish annotations and grotesquely inaccurate images it included are one example of the risks that generative AI poses to the accuracy of academic research. Frontiers has responded and removed the offending paper:/news/seagate-s-new-5tb-hard-drive-is-actually-affordable.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/seagate-s-new-5tb-hard-drive-is-actually-affordable.htmlWhile the past few months have seen an escalating arms race to build the world’s largest solid state drive, magnetic disk-based hard drives are still the cheapest option for computers looking for the most bytes for their buck. And Seagate’s new 5TB BarraCuda ST5000 hard drive is the largest 2.5-inch hard drive yet, although it isn’t going to be going toe-to-toe with something like the 60TB SSD when it comes to space./news/see-through-news-all-the-latest-transparent-tech-gear-page-2.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/see-through-news-all-the-latest-transparent-tech-gear-page-2.htmlIt’s not Nothing to manufacture transparent gadgets. Nothing CEO Carl Pei has done another of his product review videos on YouTube — this time for Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro. The most interesting part starts at the 1:35 mark, when Pei mentions that the Nothing Ear 2 assembly line is “like a rainforest” and filled with humidifiers to prevent dust from finding its way into the transparent earbuds or the carrying case./news/sega-of-america-workers-form-largest-multi-department-video-game-union.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sega-of-america-workers-form-largest-multi-department-video-game-union.htmlWorkers at Sega of America, representing multiple departments, have voted to form a union. With 91 employees voting yes out of a total number of 212 eligible employees, the Allied Employees Guild Improving SEGA (also known as AEGIS-CWA) becomes the fifth video game union in the United States and its largest multi-department video game union. “We are overjoyed to celebrate our union election win as members of AEGIS-CWA,” Ángel Gómez, a translator for Sega, said in a press release announcing the news./news/segway-ninebot-is-getting-into-the-electric-moped-and-scooter-game.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/segway-ninebot-is-getting-into-the-electric-moped-and-scooter-game.htmlSegway-Ninebot is taking its expertise in small electric vehicles and applying it to something slightly bigger. Two things, in fact: a new electric moped and an even larger electric Vespa-style scooter. Both vehicles will be on full display at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this coming January. But Segway-Ninebot is sharing a lot of information about each ahead of the show. Let’s start with the scooter, which is called the “Ninebot eScooter” and will be sold in five different variants./news/smarter-than-you-think-the-internet-isn-t-dumbing-us-down-after-all.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/smarter-than-you-think-the-internet-isn-t-dumbing-us-down-after-all.htmlA writer for publications including The New York Times and Wired, Clive Thompson is used to defending the latest trends in digital technology from naysayers and skeptics. In 2008, he was one of the first to describe how sites like Twitter were about more than sharing what you had for breakfast. Now he’s written his first book, Smarter Than You Think, an investigation of how technology is helping us to learn more and retain information longer./news/sony-makes-the-ps5-lighter-just-as-the-price-goes-up.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-makes-the-ps5-lighter-just-as-the-price-goes-up.htmlSony has once again quietly launched a revised PS5 model that’s more lightweight. Press Start, an Australian-based gaming site, reports that both the disc and digital versions of the PS5 are a lot lighter now, after new models began appearing in Australia this week. The new disc model (CFI-1202A) now weighs 3.9kg (8.6 pounds), a 7 percent reduction from the 2021 revision (4.2kg / 9.2 pounds) and an even bigger 13 percent reduction from the original model (4./news/sony-nex-5r-review-can-the-best-mirrorless-camera-get-even-better.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-nex-5r-review-can-the-best-mirrorless-camera-get-even-better.htmlEarlier this year, I made a pretty drastic change in my camera set up. I left behind my trusty Canon DSLR, and the lenses and accessories that had served me well for six years, and I picked up a Sony NEX-5N mirrorless camera. My reason for making the swap was purely convenience: I was just tired of lugging around my DSLR and all of its accoutrements every time I wanted better photos than my smartphone could offer./news/spacex-successfully-tests-parachutes-that-will-help-bring-astronauts-back-to-earth.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spacex-successfully-tests-parachutes-that-will-help-bring-astronauts-back-to-earth.htmlSpaceX has successfully tested four large parachutes that will eventually be used to help lower its crewed Dragon spacecraft back to Earth. NASA published a video of the drop test today, which shows the four large parachutes deploying and slowing a mock spacecraft beneath them. NASA has been paying SpaceX to make cargo runs to and from the International Space Station since 2012. Despite one big loss, the contract has gone so well that NASA is going to use SpaceX (and Boeing) to shuttle astronauts to and from the space station in the coming years./news/spotify-launches-lyrics-feature-globally-for-free-and-paying-users.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-launches-lyrics-feature-globally-for-free-and-paying-users.htmlOn the Spotify mobile app Tap on the “Now Playing View” on a song. While listening, swipe up from the bottom of the screen. You’ll see track lyrics that scroll in real time as the song is playing! To share, simply tap the “Share” button at the bottom of the lyrics screen and then select the lyrics you want to share — and where you want to share it — via third-party platforms./news/steam-link-how-to-beam-games-to-any-room-of-your-house.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/steam-link-how-to-beam-games-to-any-room-of-your-house.htmlWhat happens if you’re gaming on your desktop Windows PC but want to continue the game from a different part of the house — or even out of the house? If you’re using Steam, Valve’s PC gaming destination, you can get around the first part of this dilemma by using Steam Link, an in-home game streaming solution that uses your local network. And now, there’s a way around the second as well — with some caveats./news/steelseries-new-headset-provides-over-100-game-specific-audio-presets.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/steelseries-new-headset-provides-over-100-game-specific-audio-presets.htmlIf you hate (or simply can’t be bothered) to adjust your audio profiles when setting up a new gaming headset, then you might be the target demographic for SteelSeries’ latest offering. Introduced on Tuesday, the new Arctis Nova 5 headset is supported by a dedicated companion app that features over 100 game-specific audio presets for Xbox and PlayStation 5 titles like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Minecraft, which SteelSeries says have been “custom-tailored to each game by audio engineers./news/surveillance-company-harassed-female-employees-using-its-own-facial-recognition-technology.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/surveillance-company-harassed-female-employees-using-its-own-facial-recognition-technology.htmlA surveillance startup in Silicon Valley is being accused of sexism and discrimination after a sales director used the company’s facial recognition system to harass female workers. Verkada, which was valued in January at $1.6 billion, equips its office with its own security cameras. Last year, the sales director accessed these cameras to take photos of female workers, then posted them in a Slack channel called #RawVerkadawgz alongside sexually explicit jokes./news/t-mobile-s-tvision-live-service-gets-more-channels-as-short-term-fix-for-content-disputes.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-s-tvision-live-service-gets-more-channels-as-short-term-fix-for-content-disputes.htmlT-Mobile is adding 33 channels from its $10-per-month TVision Vibe service for free to all of its pricier TVision Live plans as it deals with ongoing complaints from cable companies like Discovery over how it offers channels. “Current TVision Live customers and anyone who signs up for a TVision Live service package gets an additional 30+ top-rated entertainment channels from TVision Vibe included,” the press release notes. As Variety notes, T-Mobile’s press release frames the newly added channels as a holiday deal, but the reality is likely a little bit more complicated: it’s a temporary solution as T-Mobile works to deal with issues raised by its cheaper $10-per-month Vibe plan, which offers channels from AMC, Discovery, and Viacom at a dramatically lower cost./news/targus-made-a-backpack-with-a-wireless-charging-pocket.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/targus-made-a-backpack-with-a-wireless-charging-pocket.htmlHere’s the new Targus Mobile VIP+ backpack, which has a built-in battery and a nifty Qi wireless charging cradle in one of the side pockets. The cradle holds your phone in place to keep it charging even as you move around, and it fits phones up to the iPhone XS Max in size — I tried my XS Max in Apple’s leather case and it fit just fine. The cradle connects to the internal battery with a standard USB cable, so you can replace it with a bigger battery if you want, and there’s another pocket that blocks RFID signals if you’re the paranoid type./news/tesla-might-build-cheaper-cars-in-mexico-with-new-gigafactory.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-might-build-cheaper-cars-in-mexico-with-new-gigafactory.htmlTesla is planning to build a new Gigafactory in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, according to Reuters, which cited a story in the Mexican newspaper Reforma. The automaker may announce the new factory with an initial $800 million to $1 billion investment as early as Friday, local newspaper Reforma reports. The factory will cost Tesla as much as $10 billion after completion, including future expansions, according to the newspaper’s source./news/tesla-aims-to-launch-its-fsd-software-in-china.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-aims-to-launch-its-fsd-software-in-china.htmlTesla is trying to get its advanced driver assistant “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software registered with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to sources speaking to Reuters. It’s a preliminary step that could lead to employee testing of the system before it eventually rolls out to customers in Tesla’s second-largest global market. The news comes after CEO Elon Musk’s visit to China last month when government officials lifted restrictions on Tesla vehicle use, and the company secured a deal to collect mapping data./news/tesla-s-upgraded-2024-model-3-is-now-available-in-the-us.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-s-upgraded-2024-model-3-is-now-available-in-the-us.htmlAn updated version of Tesla’s Model 3 sedan that was released in markets across Europe, the Middle East, and China last fall is now available in North America. Reportedly codenamed “Highland” while it was in development, it introduces several noticeable tweaks to Tesla’s mainstream electric sedan. From the outside, the front end’s distinctive bump has been removed, with a sleeker hood and low-profile headlights compared to the old model that Tesla says is “optimized for max aerodynamics,” which should mean more range./news/thank-you-brandon-flowers-for-reminding-me-of-bronski-beat.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/thank-you-brandon-flowers-for-reminding-me-of-bronski-beat.htmlHey, pal! I've enjoyed a couple of your tunes with your band, The Killers, in the past; the nonsensical-but-fun "Human" is probably my very favorite. But I think it's your recent "I Can Change" that's made me happiest — because it reminded me I hadn't listened to Bronski Beat in a minute. Your single isn't bad, though I can't say it stuck with me. What did stick with me, though, was the sample of "/news/the-ad-free-version-of-discovery-plus-is-getting-a-price-hike.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ad-free-version-of-discovery-plus-is-getting-a-price-hike.htmlThe monthly price of ad-free Discovery Plus is jumping up in cost from $6.99 per month to $8.99 per month (plus taxes), Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Tuesday. The new price is effective Tuesday, meaning that if you’re already a subscriber, you’ll see the higher price on your “next billing cycle on or after November 2,” the company says. The streaming service’s “ad-lite” tier will stay the same price, meaning you can still get it for $4./news/the-beats-fit-pro-earbuds-in-new-yellow-and-coral-colors-are-already-30-off.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-beats-fit-pro-earbuds-in-new-yellow-and-coral-colors-are-already-30-off.htmlThe colorful new variants of the Beats Fit Pro wireless earbuds just came out yesterday, and today, the yellow and pink models are already on sale. You can pick up a pair of “volt yellow” or “coral pink” Beats for $169.83 at Amazon, $30.12 off their regular $199.95 price. New products and colorways usually take a little longer than one day before they start seeing some discounts, but if you dig a tennis ball-like color for your electronics (the electric volt Xbox controller says hi!/news/the-best-apple-watch-to-buy-in-2024.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-apple-watch-to-buy-in-2024.htmlEditor’s note: Due to a patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo, new Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 units sold in the US no longer have the blood oxygen feature. Older models are unaffected. You can tell if you have a unit with the blood oxygen feature disabled if the part number ends in LW/A. It used to be easy to pick an Apple Watch. All you had to do was choose whether you wanted the larger model or the smaller one./news/the-best-weekend-tech-deals-on-headphones-keyboards-and-more.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-weekend-tech-deals-on-headphones-keyboards-and-more.htmlPrime Day is officially behind us — well, sort of. The annual two-day shopping blitz saw an abundance of terrific discounts, from noise-canceling headphones to brilliant OLED TVs, some of which have stuck around for the remainder of the week. Retailers are already moving on, however, and we’re already seeing an influx of deals ahead of Independence Day, including a sizable discount on one of our favorite pairs of noise-canceling headphones, the Bose 700./news/the-electric-scooter-craze-is-officially-one-year-old-what-s-next.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-electric-scooter-craze-is-officially-one-year-old-what-s-next.htmlThe electric scooter frenzy is turning one. The two companies that kicked off the new transit trend when they first started dropping motorized scooters on city streets without permission a year ago — Bird and Lime — are celebrating their first 12 months (or in Lime’s case, 14 months) in operation by touting strong ridership numbers and renewed promises to work collaboratively with cities. The companies are also reflecting on what comes next for this much-hyped and certainly polarizing new mode of transportation./news/the-first-gta-6-trailer-is-here.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-first-gta-6-trailer-is-here.htmlThe trailer confirms many little details that have slowly come out about GTA VI over the last two years, including the Vice City setting and that the game would star the series’s first female protagonist with Bonnie and Clyde-inspired story elements. The trailer says GTA VI is set for release in 2025, and in a press release published later on Monday, Rockstar specified that the game is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X / S that year./news/the-ghostbusters-afterlife-sequel-comes-out-december-20th-2023.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ghostbusters-afterlife-sequel-comes-out-december-20th-2023.htmlPandemic delays caused a wider-than-expected gap between our first peek at Ghostbusters: Afterlife and when it actually came to theaters, but Sony is setting up a tighter schedule for the follow-up. After director Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan confirmed the sequel earlier this month, Sony has added it to the schedule with a planned theatrical release date of December 20th, 2023. When Ghostbusters: Afterlife eventually reached theaters in December 2021, it eventually grossed $200 million worldwide, so a sequel isn’t a big surprise, and the Ghostbuster universe is also expanding with a new animated series for Netflix that Reitman and Kenan are producing./news/the-little-handheld-that-could-examining-the-vita-s-impact-a-decade-later.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-little-handheld-that-could-examining-the-vita-s-impact-a-decade-later.htmlChristian Phillips still remembers the most jaw-dropping moment he experienced on the PlayStation Vita — and it was something that was never actually released. Phillips, a former senior director at Sony, describes a tech demo that ultimately led to the PS4 game Days Gone. Sometime after shipping Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Bend Studio showed leadership the Vita tech demo that was similar to the famous Jerusalem scene in the movie World War Z./news/the-nba-is-using-microsoft-teams-to-bring-basketball-fans-courtside.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-nba-is-using-microsoft-teams-to-bring-basketball-fans-courtside.htmlThe National Basketball Association (NBA) is using Microsoft Teams’ new Together Mode to place basketball fans courtside in a virtual experience during live games. Microsoft only just revealed Together Mode for Teams earlier this month, and it uses AI to segment your face and shoulders and place you together with other people in a virtual space. The NBA is using this new Microsoft Teams mode combined with 17-foot tall LED screens that will wrap around basketball arenas to put fans back next to players./news/the-new-sonos-five-looks-and-sounds-identical-to-the-play-5-it-s-replacing.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-new-sonos-five-looks-and-sounds-identical-to-the-play-5-it-s-replacing.htmlSonos is refreshing its best-sounding music speaker today, but the new product is so similar to its predecessor that there’s zero reason for anyone with a Play:5 to consider an upgrade. That new speaker is called the Sonos Five. And though it now shares branding with the Sonos One, which was the company’s first product with built-in voice assistant capabilities, the Sonos Five oddly does not include a built-in microphone for use with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant./news/the-nixed-wwdc-larry-david-video-is-back-on-youtube.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-nixed-wwdc-larry-david-video-is-back-on-youtube.htmlThe nixed WWDC Larry David video is back on YouTube. It’s... pretty clear why Apple, specifically, would have gotten cold feet about showing this Curb Your Enthusiasm-style skit, imagining him as an app reviewer. This was reportedly made for 2014’s WWDC. It probably won’t be on YouTube for long, so enjoy this unlisted video while it lasts. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaHxze5FtZ3FwZGWAcMDHnmSnoaiasW7D1p2aZqSRp7%2B6ecOaraKcXau2pbHOZqCsZZKWsKx5zqdksqelqcKjsQ%3D%3D/news/the-oneplayer-x1-mini-is-now-on-presale-starting-at-799-early-bird-1-099-retail.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-oneplayer-x1-mini-is-now-on-presale-starting-at-799-early-bird-1-099-retail.htmlThe OnePlayer X1 Mini is now on presale starting at $799 early bird / $1,099 retail. It’s the most gadgety handheld gaming PC yet, with a Surface-like detachable keyboard too. It’s not cheap — but unlike a Microsoft Surface, it actually comes with the keyboard and other accessories. It’s $200-$300 off for the first small batch of buyers. We haven’t so much as touched one yet, mind! Could be iffy!/news/the-onion-omega2-is-a-tiny-little-computer-that-only-costs-5.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-onion-omega2-is-a-tiny-little-computer-that-only-costs-5.htmlThe Onion Omega2 is the latest tiny computer continuing in the tradition of the Raspberry Pi. The Omega2 is the successor to last year’s Omega, a hackable, expandable, and affordable computer that was one-fourth the size of the Pi. The Omega2 and its main competitor, the Raspberry Pi Zero, are both $5 computers that hope to be cheap enough, and tiny enough, for people to buy a new unit with each new DIY project they take on./news/the-overwatch-league-is-done.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-overwatch-league-is-done.htmlThe Overwatch League is done. “We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said in a statement to PC Gamer. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We will share details with you all in the near future.” There had been signs this might be coming, like Wednesday’s press release from Toronto Defiant’s owner announcing its exit from the league./news/the-pirate-bay-now-lets-you-stream-torrents-from-your-browser.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-pirate-bay-now-lets-you-stream-torrents-from-your-browser.htmlThe best-known torrent site in the world now streams pirated content too. The Pirate Bay has added support for Torrents Time, a plugin that lets users stream torrents directly inside their browser. There's no need to download the torrent itself, or a BitTorrent client, or even the actual content — then lets the whole process run inside Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Chrome, on either Windows or OS X. The system is currently in beta, and has all the usual problems of pirated torrents (namely bad image quality and the need to wait for peers to seed the content), but it's still an extremely simple system./news/the-pixel-8-pro-hands-on-better-cameras-a-brighter-screen-and-new-ai.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-pixel-8-pro-hands-on-better-cameras-a-brighter-screen-and-new-ai.htmlGoogle doesn’t leave much to the imagination when it comes to unreleased phones, and that’s mostly the case with the Pixel 8 Pro. Thanks to a flood of leaks, you’ve probably seen its updated camera bar, read all about the new AI photo features, and braced yourself for a $100 price hike that takes the starting price to $999. Even the 8 Pro’s built-in temperature sensor doesn’t come as a total surprise, despite being the biggest curveball addition to the line in years./news/the-state-of-the-right-to-repair-and-the-huge-xbox-news.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-state-of-the-right-to-repair-and-the-huge-xbox-news.htmlLast year was a big one for the right-to-repair movement, with California and other states passing laws that promised consumers they can fix their own stuff — or take that stuff to a third-party repair shop without breaking their warranty or their gadgets. This year, more states are considering laws to the same effect, and the tech industry appears to be more behind the effort than ever. (Some companies appear to be only begrudgingly behind it, but it’s a win for the movement nonetheless./news/the-verge-s-creator-gift-guide-ideas-for-streamers-tiktokers-and-more.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-verge-s-creator-gift-guide-ideas-for-streamers-tiktokers-and-more.htmlAnker 511 Charger (20W)Any on-the-go creator needs to keep devices juiced up, even while traveling light. Fortunately, this tiny 20W charger from Anker is as small as the 5W chargers Apple used to supply with everything, yet it can still fast-charge an iPhone or Android device while taking up minimal space. Plus, it comes in a bunch of fun colors that will help it stand out in your kit bag./news/the-witcher-3-s-dynamic-beard-growth-is-my-favorite-new-video-game-feature.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-witcher-3-s-dynamic-beard-growth-is-my-favorite-new-video-game-feature.htmlThe new generation of video game consoles has ushered in plenty of cool new gameplay features. Virtual worlds are bigger. Graphics are more realistic. There are even more ways to connect with other people when we play thanks to streaming and social features. But none of those things are truly next gen, at least not compared to my favorite aspect of The Witcher 3: the hero can actually grow a virtual beard./news/the-world-s-decision-to-fix-the-ozone-hole-is-paying-off-30-years-later.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-world-s-decision-to-fix-the-ozone-hole-is-paying-off-30-years-later.htmlThe ozone hole over the Antarctic has begun to heal, according to a new study, more than 30 years after its discovery. The findings suggest that global efforts to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals have been effective, though scientists still aren't entirely sure about what's driving the ozone hole's recovery. The study, published in the journal Science, combines data gathered from balloons and satellites to measure the area of the ozone layer over Antarctica from 2000 to 2015./news/these-wireless-pucks-let-up-to-10-people-listen-to-a-single-audio-source.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/these-wireless-pucks-let-up-to-10-people-listen-to-a-single-audio-source.htmlToday, another system that lets you untether existing audio hardware was introduced on Kickstarter: HUB by ekko. It's being marketed as a high-fidelity Wi-Fi system for headphones and speakers that can connect a single source to as many as 10 audio outputs, allowing you to listen to music on your own, watch a movie using headphones with your family, or have an intimate silent dance party with your friends. The HUB plugs into any audio source with an output jack and broadcasts sound to small disks the company calls "/news/this-is-how-much-google-s-pixel-3-costs-at-verizon-best-buy-and-google-store.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-is-how-much-google-s-pixel-3-costs-at-verizon-best-buy-and-google-store.htmlTheGoogle Pixel 3 and 3 XL are both now available. As far as where you’ll be able to get Google’s 2018 flagship smartphone, availability is much more limited compared to the likes of Samsung or Apple’s products. That’s because Verizon, for the third year running, is Google’s exclusive carrier partner for the Pixel 3 series. And it’s celebrating the occasion in a strange way: by charging customers $30 more for the Pixel 3 XL than other retailers./news/this-wii-u-gamepad-console-hack-is-the-next-best-thing-to-having-a-nintendo-switch.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-wii-u-gamepad-console-hack-is-the-next-best-thing-to-having-a-nintendo-switch.htmlThe hack turns a broken Wii U GamePad into a portable console The Wii U GamePad is meant to be a controller for the Wii U with the feature to use it as a display for the console and play without using a TV — but at the end of the day, all of the actual processing is still taking place over at the console. banjokazooie’s hack changes that, by overhauling a broken Wii U GamePad with a Raspberry Pi 3, a 6./news/tiny-tragedies-an-iphone-7-dongle-story.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiny-tragedies-an-iphone-7-dongle-story.htmlI lost my iPhone 7's original, pack-in headphone jack adapter in Arizona on a family trip. The main thing I use my iPhone for is listening to podcasts and audiobooks whenever I’m going from point A to point B, so obviously this was devastating. My first attempt to solve the problem was to reject wires altogether and buy some Bluetooth headphones. But I hate the pairing process, especially when switching between phone and laptop, and I also don't like the fact that my day is ruined if I forget to charge them./news/today-i-learned-bmw-hired-film-composer-hans-zimmer-to-create-an-electric-car-s-vroom.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/today-i-learned-bmw-hired-film-composer-hans-zimmer-to-create-an-electric-car-s-vroom.htmlToday I learned that Hans Zimmer, known for his brilliant scores for movies such as Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Lion King, has also composed driving sounds for BMW. And they’re actually pretty good! You can hear one coming to the company’s M version of its electric BMW i4 cars in this video (and jump to 1:30 if you just want to hear the sound). And you can hear the driving sound that Zimmer composed for the BMW Vision M NEXT concept car in 2019 in this video:/news/tommy-tallarico-s-infamous-mtv-cribs-house-is-for-sale-for-3-million.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tommy-tallarico-s-infamous-mtv-cribs-house-is-for-sale-for-3-million.htmlHe’s also guy who boasted several Guinness World Records, including one for being the person “who has worked on the most video games in their lifetime” (his mother’s very proud) with over 300 credits. Problem was, only about 100 of those credits were verifiable, and Guinness reworded the record to read “most prolific videogame music composer” before nixing the record altogether. That Tommy Tallarico. Well, you can buy his house — y’know, the one he (falsely) claimed was on MTV Cribs — for $3 million./news/top-youtube-creators-call-out-defunct-defy-media-for-shady-practices.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/top-youtube-creators-call-out-defunct-defy-media-for-shady-practices.htmlYouTube creators like Shane Dawson, Ryland Adams, and Smosh co-founder Anthony Padilla have called out digital network Defy Media following its closure for a series of concerning business practices. Defy Media was the parent company of some of YouTube’s most popular channels, including Smosh, Smosh Games, and Clevver. The network announced last week that it was shutting down operations immediately, leaving teams at Smosh and Clevver looking for a new parent company to back their talent team and production costs./news/tp-link-s-new-kasa-smart-doorbell-looks-just-like-a-nest-doorbell.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tp-link-s-new-kasa-smart-doorbell-looks-just-like-a-nest-doorbell.htmlTP-Link is announcing a bunch of new smart home gadgets as part of its Kasa line today, headlined by the brand’s first smart doorbell. The Kasa Smart Doorbell captures 1080p video, is able to distinguish between people and other moving objects, and can save footage to either a microSD card or the cloud. It’s paired with an indoor chime that’ll alert owners when someone is at the door. The doorbell is pretty stylish as far as smart doorbells go./news/train-to-nowhere-the-verge.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/train-to-nowhere-the-verge.htmlHow Cincinnati tried, and failed, to build one of America’s first subwaysBy Andrew J. Hawkins | Photography by Andrew Spear It’s early June in Cincinnati and the city is steamy after a recent rain. Elderly women fan themselves at bus stops. Tattooed tweakers panhandle in Fountain Square. Men in sweat-stained oxford shirts line up for lunch at Skyline Chili. Downtown is threadbare and lightly populated — everyone is either in their temperature-controlled offices or sitting in their cars, windows up, AC blasting, immune to the outside world./news/twitter-tests-redesigned-retweets-that-let-you-react-with-a-photo-or-video.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-tests-redesigned-retweets-that-let-you-react-with-a-photo-or-video.htmlTwitter has announced that it’s testing a feature called “quote tweet with reaction,” where you can embed a copy of a tweet into a photo or video instead of just replying to it with text. Twitter says that the feature is currently being tested on iOS. If you have access to the feature, the retweet menu will have a “Quote Tweet with reaction” button. Tapping it will take you to a screen where you can take a photo or video to put the tweet on top of, or choose one from your camera roll./news/un-twitter-account-follows-537-people-including-one-porn-star.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/un-twitter-account-follows-537-people-including-one-porn-star.htmlThe United Nations, as of this moment, follows 537 people on Twitter. Most of them are international organizations or politicians. Some are musicians. One is a porn star. The adult actress, known as Penelope Black Diamond, is a German porn star who tweets under the handle @BigBustyStar. The voluptuous 31-year-old has been in the business since 2003, and has accumulated more than 1,000 followers on Twitter. As first noticed by a forum member on Free Republic, she apparently has at least one fan at the UN, as well./news/valve-officially-releases-steamvr-2-0.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/valve-officially-releases-steamvr-2-0.htmlMost of the current features of Steam and Steam Deck are now part of SteamVR Updated keyboard with support for dual-cursor typing, new languages, emojis, and themes Integration of Steam Chat and Voice Chat Improved Store that puts new and popular VR releases front and center Easy access to Steam notifications ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2tfZn1wfpRoaWxxY2eEcoGOr5ilrpViwLWxwKatq2ViYn0%3D/news/vape-flavors-can-make-nasty-new-chemicals-in-your-e-liquid.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vape-flavors-can-make-nasty-new-chemicals-in-your-e-liquid.htmlWe hear a lot about how the ingredients in vape juice might be bad for us: the nicotine is addictive, for example, and the flavorings could be bad for lungs. But new research says that there are chemicals in e-liquids that we didn’t even know to worry about, because they form in the e-liquid bottle or pod after all the ingredients are mixed together. Scientists have discovered that cinnamon, vanilla, and cherry flavors react with propylene glycol, a main ingredient in many vape juices, to create entirely new chemicals, according to a study published today in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research./news/verizon-offers-netflix-premium-and-nfl-plus-premium-for-25-a-month.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/verizon-offers-netflix-premium-and-nfl-plus-premium-for-25-a-month.htmlVerizon has announced an exclusive combo offering Netflix Premium and NFL Plus Premium for $25 per month. Netflix Premium costs $19.99 / month right now (though it could go up soon!), and NFL Plus Premium is $16.99 / month. That sounds like a pretty good deal for Verizon customers if they’re ready for some football and they need their own Netflix account. NFL Plus Premium includes live access to regional and primetime NFL football games across devices and includes the NFL Network, plus NFL RedZone./news/walgreens-brought-theranos-to-its-stores-without-even-testing-the-technology.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/walgreens-brought-theranos-to-its-stores-without-even-testing-the-technology.htmlWalgreens partnered with Silicon Valley blood-testing company Theranos in 2013 without ever testing the technology, reports The Wall Street Journal. Theranos wellness centers are currently in 40 Walgreens stores in Arizona, as part of a deal to put the company's Edison blood-testing equipment in thousands of drugstores around the country. Yet the deal went forward without Walgreens ever checking whether Theranos' test results were accurate. Theranoshasn’t published any data on its technology, and avoids answering any questions about it by claiming they can’t reveal trade secrets./news/warner-bros-acquiring-fandom-and-gaming-focused-network-machinima.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/warner-bros-acquiring-fandom-and-gaming-focused-network-machinima.htmlWarner Bros. is buying Machinima, granting the company better access to gamers and comic fans. Machinima’s online network features programming focused on classic geek franchises like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and the DC Universe. Machinima has a sizable online presence, with more than 12 million subscribers on YouTube and over 220,000 on Twitch. The company has attracted investment from companies like Google. Machinima did land itself in hot water for secretly promoting games from advertising partners, which it settled with the FTC earlier this year./news/waymo-s-robotaxis-are-under-investigation-for-crashes-and-traffic-law-violations.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/waymo-s-robotaxis-are-under-investigation-for-crashes-and-traffic-law-violations.htmlFederal safety investigators have opened a preliminary investigation into dozens of incidents involving Waymo’s driverless vehicles, including several “single-party” crashes and possible traffic law violations. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation is looking into 22 incidents in which Waymo’s robotaxis were “the sole vehicle operated during a collision” or “exhibited driving behavior that potentially violated traffic safety laws.” These include “collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains, collisions with parked vehicles, and instances in which the ADS appeared to disobey traffic safety control devices./news/we-finally-know-why-the-instagram-founders-really-quit.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/we-finally-know-why-the-instagram-founders-really-quit.htmlLast year, in an effort to give shape to The Interface’s coverage area, I posted a public list of questions that I hoped to investigate over time. I saved my favorite one for last: why did Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger really leave Instagram? In the months since the co-founders abruptly quit, we’ve gotten more details about the split. We learned that increasing tension with Facebook, combined with an unusually long post-acquisition tenure at their acquirer, had made them antsy./news/what-is-the-meme-of-the-summer.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-is-the-meme-of-the-summer.htmlThis was a mess of a summer. This was the summer of Suicide Squad, and that play about grown-up Harry Potter, and a seemingly endless string of horrific world events, and record high temperatures, and La Croix-themed birthday cakes, and Trump. And there was no song of the summer this year. No glittery pop confection, no windows-down hip-hop, no elegy to lost love that was well-suited to a club version with a sick drop./news/what-is-this-maddening-black-dot-in-sarah-sanders-apple-notes-statement.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-is-this-maddening-black-dot-in-sarah-sanders-apple-notes-statement.htmlWhite House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement today on the government funding bill on Twitter, which is pretty standard for the Trump administration. But the statement also happened to include news that the president still plans to declare a national emergency over building a border wall — and it was delivered not on official letterhead, but via a screenshot of the Apple Notes app. Even weirder: it’s got an errant black dot, a sloppy mistake from the iOS 12 screenshot process, it looks like./news/what-s-next-for-bluesky-the-verge.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-s-next-for-bluesky-the-verge.htmlWhat's next for Bluesky? Even without one Jack Dorsey, the social platform does have some new features on the roadmap, including: DMs, video, improved Custom Feeds, better anti-harassment features, and a new login tool called "OAuth" These are coming "over the next few months," with a plan for off-protocol, one to one direct messages, and 90 second video clips. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfanx4e5FtaG5pZmuCcMPHmqusZZ6axbV5xaipZpqcqrK0t9g%3D/news/why-bluetooth-apps-are-bad-at-discovering-new-cases-of-covid-19.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-bluetooth-apps-are-bad-at-discovering-new-cases-of-covid-19.htmlYesterday, we talked about the things that need to happen before we can begin to slowly re-open our cities: hospital bed supply catches up fully with demand; testing catches up fully with demand; we develop programs for quarantining new cases and informing their contacts that they may have been exposed to the disease; and the number of cases declines for 14 consecutive days. Today let’s zoom in (not Zoom in) on the third point: building systems to enforce quarantine and to trace the contacts of those who get infected./news/wi-fi-7-quietly-took-off-while-everyone-was-looking-at-ai.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wi-fi-7-quietly-took-off-while-everyone-was-looking-at-ai.htmlThe biggest names in laptops showed up to CES this week with new designs, new chips, and usually some way to sneak in the term “AI.” But most of them also quietly arrived with one of the most important upgrades of all for competitive gamers on the go: better Wi-Fi, with support for Wi-Fi 7. It’s about time, because router companies shoved Wi-Fi 7 routers out the door throughout 2023, and we’ve been waiting on machines that can put the standard’s ludicrous speed promises to the test./news/will-smith-s-tech-references-have-dated-terribly-a-report.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/will-smith-s-tech-references-have-dated-terribly-a-report.htmlEveryone has a party trick. Some people can curl their tongues or flip their eyelids inside out or bend their thumbs out of joint. Me — I can rap all of Will Smith's Willennium. Not the song, I should specify (that’s actually called “Will 2K”), but the 33-minute album, including guest appearances, Will's intermittent grunts, and, on a good day, the various scratches DJ Jazzy Jeff throws out. It's both a blessing — I once performed 10 minutes of it to my wife a week before we started dating — and a curse, particularly so when you work from home alone./news/windows-10-basics-how-to-use-system-restore-to-go-back-in-time.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/windows-10-basics-how-to-use-system-restore-to-go-back-in-time.htmlA few years back, I was working as a freelancer for a company that was trying to develop a US market for its rather obscure hardware products and needed a native English speaker to tweak the text on its site. Everything was going swimmingly until my second week on the job, when I went to the site — and found that I was suddenly getting weird ads flashing across my screen and had lost the ability to access my security software./news/woody-allen-sues-amazon-for-68-million-for-refusing-to-release-his-films.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/woody-allen-sues-amazon-for-68-million-for-refusing-to-release-his-films.htmlWriter-director Woody Allen filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon Studios today. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Allen claims the company breached its contract with him when it declined to release four of his films. “Seeking to capitalize on Mr. Allen’s international stature, talent, and track record, Amazon—a technology giant but Hollywood novice—sought to develop its nascent entertainment studio by entering into a series of deals with Mr. Allen and his company, Gravier, promising to finance and distribute his future films and to be his “home” for the rest of his career,” the suit reads in part./news/youtube-says-it-isn-t-messing-with-1080p-1080p-premium-is-higher-bitrate.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-says-it-isn-t-messing-with-1080p-1080p-premium-is-higher-bitrate.htmlYouTube has confirmed that it’s experimenting with a higher-quality 1080p option for Premium subscribers after some Reddit users noticed a new “1080p Premium” option in the quality settings menu. The option is currently available to “a small group of YouTube Premium subscribers,” according to Paul Pennington, a spokesperson for the company. “1080p Premium is an enhanced bitrate version of 1080p which provides more information per pixel that results in a higher quality viewing experience,” said Pennington, adding that “there are no changes to the existing quality offerings for 1080p (HD) resolution on YouTube./news/youtube-will-live-stream-six-coachella-feeds-at-once-this-year.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-will-live-stream-six-coachella-feeds-at-once-this-year.htmlCoachella kicks off next week, and if you want to watch it at home, you can pick from one of six streams at once on YouTube throughout both weekends, YouTube announced on Monday. That’s double the three simultaneous live streams you could catch last year. This year’s Coachella lineup is pretty good, so I bet there will be a lot of good shows to watch on YouTube throughout the weekend. I’m personally interested in performances from Gorillaz, Wet Leg, Boygenius, Björk, and the ever-elusive Frank Ocean, and I’ll be doing my best to tune in throughout the weekend./news/youtuber-austin-jones-sentenced-to-10-years-in-prison-for-soliciting-explicit-videos-from-underage-f.htmlThu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtuber-austin-jones-sentenced-to-10-years-in-prison-for-soliciting-explicit-videos-from-underage-f.htmlA judge has sentenced (via BuzzFeed News) former YouTuber Austin Jones to 10 years in prison after he pled guilty to one count of “receipt of child pornography.” YouTube removed Jones’ channel back in February after his guilty plea. Jones’ career as a musician began in 2007, and he rose to fame on YouTube with his a capella covers of popular songs. In 2015, reports surfaced that he had contacted underage girls to send him videos./news/new-trailers-disney-s-first-latina-princess-a-liam-neeson-tree-monster-and-more.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-trailers-disney-s-first-latina-princess-a-liam-neeson-tree-monster-and-more.htmlIs The Night Of the new thing that everyone's watching? I hope so, because I am officially caught up on all one episode of it and believe I can stay (mostly) up to date for another month or so or however long it runs for. Anyway, if you haven't checked it out yet, HBO's new crime drama seems like it could be this summer's big thing to watch. So far it's all pretty interesting, though I do have one complaint: the manic pixie nightmare at the center of its plot./news/xcom-2-review-sci-fi-strategy-that-s-deeper-and-more-daunting.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xcom-2-review-sci-fi-strategy-that-s-deeper-and-more-daunting.htmlNeil deGrasse Tyson strides across a gas station forecourt clad in a mechanized blue-and-neon-pink exoskeleton. He stops, raises his arm, and launches a wrist-mounted rocket at a building across the street. The warhead slams into the side of a wall, tearing a fiery hole in the brickwork, and shredding the alien standing on the other side. Neil deGrasse Tyson laughs. “Did you see that?” he says to the corpse./news/epic-citadel-comes-to-android-today-but-infinity-blade-will-stay-an-ios-exclusive.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-citadel-comes-to-android-today-but-infinity-blade-will-stay-an-ios-exclusive.htmlThe Epic Citadel iOS tech demo may be over two years old, but it's still a beautiful example of the graphical detail Unreal Engine 3 can produce. Now, Epic is releasing Epic Citadel for Android devices, but there's more behind the move than simply releasing a pretty but ultimately limited app. Epic is hoping the work it put into this release will help protect game developers against Android fragmentation while simultaneously making it easier for those devs to target the Android platform./news/facebook-wiki-and-deaths-in-2012-the-top-wikipedia-pages-of-2012.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-wiki-and-deaths-in-2012-the-top-wikipedia-pages-of-2012.htmlWhile Wikipedia itself doesn't publicly publish any data on its most popular pages of the year, a Swedish software engineer has analyzed the site's public logs to show what pages most visitors were interested in over the past twelve months. Overall, the English Wikipedia's trends are quite a bit different than what appears on Twitter and Google's 2012 wrap-up lists — the most popular page of the year on Wikipedia was "/news/space-quest-creators-reunite-for-new-space-adventure-game.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/space-quest-creators-reunite-for-new-space-adventure-game.htmlIf you're familiar with Sierra On-Line's classic adventure games, you'll know the names Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy. Under the guise of "The Two Guys From Andromeda," the pair were responsible for creating Sierra's comedy-adventure series Space Quest, and on their newly-launched website, the duo have revealed that they're teaming up for a new game. Details are slim at the moment, with the announcement simply detailing that it will be a space adventure — or Spaceventure, as they're dubbing it — that will see them return to their old genre stomping grounds while taking advantage of the ways in which gaming has changed since their latest outing./news/spongebob-diner-dash-pulled-from-app-store-after-privacy-complaints.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spongebob-diner-dash-pulled-from-app-store-after-privacy-complaints.htmlThe children's game SpongeBob Diner Dash is no longer available in the iOS App Store, hours after the FTC was asked to investigate the companies behind it. The New York Times reports that the non-profit group Center for Digital Democracy asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate both Nickelodeon and mobile-game developer PlayFirst, alleging that the game violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). According to the CDD, the game asks children for personal information despite not notifying parents — a violation of the law — and the organization has also asked the FTC to look into what mechanisms the game uses to identify a given device./news/a-big-update-brings-the-kindle-scribe-closer-to-being-good.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-big-update-brings-the-kindle-scribe-closer-to-being-good.htmlIt’s almost an understatement to say Amazon’s Kindle Scribe fell short of our expectations when it first launched, but perhaps there’s hope yet for Amazon’s first 10.2-inch e-reader and writing device. Today, the company launched four new Kindle Scribe features mostly focused on improving the lackluster note-taking experience. Truth be told, they’re relatively minor updates, but any change helps. First up, Amazon introduced a “Bird’s Eye View” button in the Kindle Scribe Notebook app, which you can access from the top menu when you’re on a notebook page./news/a-bulletproof-truck-for-a-gun-obsessed-country.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-bulletproof-truck-for-a-gun-obsessed-country.htmlA bulletproof truck for a gun-obsessed country. Elon showed a clip of bullets exploding on the Cybertruck’s surface to demonstrate the truck’s durability. I’m not sure a Tommy gun is really the best choice for a real-world test. It’s not like Al Capone is going to be lining up as a customer. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2tfZn5wf49oaWxxaGh%2Bc3yOmmSbrZyhsrW80aimn2Wkp8Kkt4yfpqtlkWK0trqMqJmsnaOosqV5wqisp6yirg%3D%3D/news/after-lazytown-actor-s-death-fans-subscribe-en-masse-to-youtube-channel-as-a-final-thank-you.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/after-lazytown-actor-s-death-fans-subscribe-en-masse-to-youtube-channel-as-a-final-thank-you.htmlThe children’s show LazyTown aired its last episode in 2014, but years later, the educational program about getting physically active found a second life on the internet. Memes about its over-the-top characters abounded, but when actor Stefán Karl, who played LazyTown villain Robbie Rotten, was diagnosed with bile duct cancer, fans went into hyperdrive. If life was threatening to take away their favorite childhood villain, they reasoned, they might as well celebrate him as much as they could./news/ai-tax-prep-chatbots-are-giving-bad-advice.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ai-tax-prep-chatbots-are-giving-bad-advice.htmlAI tax prep chatbots are giving bad advice. A review by The Washington Post finds that AI-powered chatbots from leading tax prep companies H&R Block and Intuit Turbo Tax gave either irrelevant or unhelpful tax filing advice. Here’s one example: Where should your child file taxes if she goes to college out of state? When I asked, TurboTax’s “Intuit Assist” bot offered irrelevant advice about tax credits and extensions. H&R Block’s “AI Tax Assist” bot gave me the wrong impression she has to file in both places./news/aiaiai-s-modular-bluetooth-headphone-bands-are-now-available-to-preorder.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/aiaiai-s-modular-bluetooth-headphone-bands-are-now-available-to-preorder.htmlLast year, Aiaiai introduced a modular headband that brings Bluetooth functionality to existing TMA-2 headphones. The company launched the H05 headband on Kickstarter, but is now finally putting it up for sale on the company's actual website for $125. There's a catch, though: the headbands are only available for preorder, and Aiaiai says they won't ship until three to four weeks from now. The company announced its modular TMA-2 headphone system in 2016./news/all-i-want-is-for-the-nj-transit-app-to-not-suck.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/all-i-want-is-for-the-nj-transit-app-to-not-suck.htmlLast month, I traded in my ludicrous New York City rent for a more affordable life in Hackensack, New Jersey. (Yes, it’s all my money got me.) Many of my friends who’d migrated to Jersey warned me about the NJ Transit app. It’s not good, they said. I didn’t take them too seriously. I was forged in the fires of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s continually broken website circa 2001. After a seven-year stint in Tokyo navigating the labyrinthian Tokyo subway and bus system, what public transit app could ever befuddle me?/news/alleged-details-about-google-hud-eyeglasses-surface-public-beta-said-to-be-in-consideration.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alleged-details-about-google-hud-eyeglasses-surface-public-beta-said-to-be-in-consideration.htmlWord first leaked out that Google had been developing a pair of eyeglasses with an integrated heads-up display back in December, and now 9to5Google claims it has some additional information about a prototype of Mountain View's electronic specs. According to the site's tipster, the glasses looks similar to Oakley's MP3-playing Thump line — somewhat of a departure from the "normal-people" eyewear that had been initially described — and incorporates a front-facing camera and flash./news/amazon-joins-ai-image-creation-fray-with-new-model.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-joins-ai-image-creation-fray-with-new-model.htmlAmazon is joining the AI image generation fray with the release of its Titan text-to-image AI model. Announced during the AWS re:Invent conference, Titan Image Generator can create “realistic, studio-quality images” and is supposed to have built-in guardrails against toxicity and bias. Titan isn’t a standalone app or website but a tool that developers can build on to make their own image generators powered by the model; to use it, developers will need access to Amazon Bedrock./news/amazon-s-newest-collection-of-indie-christmas-music-is-available-today.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-newest-collection-of-indie-christmas-music-is-available-today.htmlA Silent Film, "Christmas at Our House" Amason, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (cover) Anna von Hausswolff, "Birthday Boy" (cover) ARCHIS, "Winter Time" Avid Dancer, "Jingle Bells" (cover) Bhi Bhiman, "Who's Up There?" Born Cages, "Ave Maria" Esmé Patterson, "If I" Family of the Year, "NYE" Fruit Bats, "Christmas with You" Ivan & Alyosha, "Being Home for Christmas" James Apollo, "Go Trim Another Tree" Kill Hannah, "This Is Our December"/news/an-amazing-insanely-comprehensive-collection-of-home-video-anti-piracy-psas.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/an-amazing-insanely-comprehensive-collection-of-home-video-anti-piracy-psas.htmlThe name of the FBI Warning Screens Wiki (tagline: "Experience FBI Warning Screens old & new") actually manages to significantly under-deliver. It's a sometimes baffling visual history of the relationship between filmmakers, studios, and audiences, stretching back to the 1970s and across the globe. This includes, yes, a lot of FBI warning screens from major studios — check out the 15 screens from 20th Century Fox, including a listing for a 1983 "/news/an-old-school-blog-rant-by-a-data-scientist-who-is-very-very-tired-of-the-ai-hype.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/an-old-school-blog-rant-by-a-data-scientist-who-is-very-very-tired-of-the-ai-hype.htmlAn old-school blog rant by a data scientist who is very, very tired of the AI hype. How about you remain competitive by fixing your shit? I’ve met a lead data scientist with access to hundreds of thousands of sensitive customer records who is allowed to keep their password in a text file on their desktop, and you’re worried that customers are best served by using AI to improve security through some mechanism that you haven’t even come up with yet?/news/anker-qi2-charger-hands-on-magsafe-charge-rates-at-lower-prices.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/anker-qi2-charger-hands-on-magsafe-charge-rates-at-lower-prices.htmlAnker was one of the first companies to announce Qi2 chargers, in August 2023, and while everyone in the world seems to be launching them now, Anker’s are the first I’ve gotten my hands on. For iPhone users, Qi2 is an easy sell already: with a compatible iPhone, it’s less expensive than certified MagSafe chargers and just as fast. It’s less compelling so far for Android users or mixed-platform households, though — it’s slower than regular Qi charging on non-certified devices./news/apple-moves-away-from-itunes-on-pc-with-new-windows-apps.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-moves-away-from-itunes-on-pc-with-new-windows-apps.htmlApple is officially launching its Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Devices apps on Windows this week. The apps were originally launched in preview last year, but Apple has now removed the preview tag after working with Microsoft to launch the apps. The trio of apps, in combination with an overhauled iCloud for Windows app, are designed to move Windows users away from the reliance of iTunes, according to MacRumors. If you use Apple TV, Apple Music, and Apple Devices then iTunes is only required for access to podcasts and audiobooks on Windows./news/apple-vs-motorola-patent-infringement-antitrust-accusations-and-more.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-vs-motorola-patent-infringement-antitrust-accusations-and-more.htmlAlthough the worldwide patent lawsuits between Apple and nearly every major Android smartphone vendor have been bitterly fought and may eventually involve government intervention, there's really no day-to-day impact on the consumer — Apple, Google, and its OEMs continue to improve and sell their devices as quickly as they can. But a quick tour through the halls of Mobile World Congress reveals that Android OEMs are rapidly learning to design around some of Apple's iPhone-related patents, and coming up with some pretty innovative ideas in the process./news/apple-s-first-wireless-chip-is-the-new-w1-for-wireless-airpods.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-first-wireless-chip-is-the-new-w1-for-wireless-airpods.htmlAfter months of rumors around Apple's plans for the headphone jack, the company revealed today that it is scrapping the 3.5mm port on its latest iPhone 7 handset. That leaves Lightning-powered headphones and Bluetooth wireless headphones as the only compatible accessories without the need for an adapter. Apple is introducing a new wireless communications chip alongside its plans to remove the headphone jack, and it's called the W1. Apple's Phil Schiller described Apple's move to a new wireless chip as "/news/apple-s-chrome-extension-for-icloud-passwords-works-in-the-macos-sonoma-beta.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-chrome-extension-for-icloud-passwords-works-in-the-macos-sonoma-beta.htmlIf you’re using the new macOS Sonoma beta, you might want to know about a glorious new bridge between ecosystems that lets Mac Chrome users connect with their iCloud passwords. Apple has updated its iCloud Passwords Chrome extension with a new feature that lets you directly pull passwords from iCloud, keeping you from needing to open Safari or migrate your iCloud passwords to another password manager. Apple software engineering manager Ricky Mondello tweeted about the new feature yesterday./news/arlo-go-2-versus-eufy-4g-starlight-lte-camera-head-to-head.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/arlo-go-2-versus-eufy-4g-starlight-lte-camera-head-to-head.htmlThe Arlo Go 2 ($249) and the Eufy 4G Starlight ($229) are two new 4G LTE smart security cameras that stream or send footage over a cellular data connection. They’re among the few solutions for monitoring places where Wi-Fi may be unreliable or unavailable: an off-grid cabin in the woods; the far end of your backyard; a construction site; or a storage facility.  They can also be used to keep an eye on your RV, camper van, or tent site when you’re camping or watch over your boat while docked./news/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-review-the-price-is-no-longer-right.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-review-the-price-is-no-longer-right.htmlWell, I’ll be damned. Asus did it. It fixed literally every problem I’ve ever had with the Zephyrus G14. It added a webcam. It made the screen taller. It made the screen brighter and the touchpad way bigger. When it comes to the features and chassis, I’m basically out of complaints.  But in doing so, Asus has added another major issue: price.  The reason the G14 shook up the laptop world when it was first released in 2020 wasn’t just its excellent chassis and frame rates; it was the unbelievably low price that chassis and power were available for./news/audeze-made-in-ear-planar-magnetic-headphones-and-they-look-terrifying.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/audeze-made-in-ear-planar-magnetic-headphones-and-they-look-terrifying.htmlHeadphone innovation — or at least variation — is alive and well right now. Audeze just stuffed planar magnetic diaphragms into its new iSine 10 in-ear headphones, which seems like a crazy thing to do if the pictures are any indication. We loved the sound of Audeze's most recent foray into ultraportable planar magnetics, the Sine, but found them uncomfortable and perhaps iSine 10 will continue that trend. Instead of a traditional speaker cone and magnet which originates vibrations from the center, planar magnetics are spread out over a larger surface./news/axie-infinity-s-financial-mess-started-long-before-its-600-million-hack.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/axie-infinity-s-financial-mess-started-long-before-its-600-million-hack.htmlLast year, Axie Infinity was touted as one of the best candidates for a mainstream blockchain app. The game, launched in 2018 by Vietnamese developer Sky Mavis, was a massive hit in the cryptocurrency world. It offered full-time job prospects to some players and commanded an entry price of over $1,000 at its peak, while Sky Mavis itself was valued at $3 billion after a $152 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz./news/behind-sergey-brin-s-affair-with-the-face-of-google-glass.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/behind-sergey-brin-s-affair-with-the-face-of-google-glass.htmlIn 2013, Google's Sergey Brin separated from wife Anne Wojcicki, co-creator of DNA testing company 23andMe. The most obvious cause was a tangled Silicon Valley romance between Brin and Google Glass marketing manager Amanda Rosenberg, who was also dating then-Android VP Hugo Barra. At Vanity Fair, Vanessa Grigoriadis traces the story all the way back to Wojcicki and Brin's first meeting, and to Brin's discovery (via a 23andMe test) that he was at risk of developing Parkinson's disease./news/bmw-made-a-self-driving-motorcycle.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bmw-made-a-self-driving-motorcycle.htmlMotorcycle riders die at a rate 28 times higher than that of people behind the wheel of a car. It’s safe to say, then, that motorcycles theoretically stand to benefit from the recent boom in the development of driver assistance technology. There are unique challenges, to be sure, but the application looks more possible than ever, thanks to a new video of a self-driving motorcycle released by BMW Motorrad, the company’s two-wheeler division./news/bose-s-noise-cancelling-headphones-700-have-the-upgrades-we-ve-been-waiting-for.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bose-s-noise-cancelling-headphones-700-have-the-upgrades-we-ve-been-waiting-for.htmlBose is nearing the release of its first new pair of noise-canceling headphones in years. Shipping on June 30th, the $399.95 Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 have an all-new design on the outside, new audio drivers inside, and finally mark the company’s switch over to USB-C charging. And some would say these are overdue: last year’s Sony 1000XM3 headphones managed to best Bose’s QuietComfort 35 II headphones at noise cancellation and battery life for the same $349./news/caavo-control-center-review-the-best-universal-remote.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/caavo-control-center-review-the-best-universal-remote.htmlHere, now, is the highest praise I can give a tech product: I like the Caavo Control Center universal remote control so much that I bought one for my parents. Two, actually. The Control Center ties together all of the various media devices under the average TV — receiver, cable box, streaming box, and even Blu-ray player — and allows you to seamlessly switch between streaming content and TV with voice commands./news/carvana-which-bought-my-car-for-more-than-i-paid-new-has-lost-98-percent-of-its-value.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/carvana-which-bought-my-car-for-more-than-i-paid-new-has-lost-98-percent-of-its-value.htmlCarvana, the used car dealer that trusts robotic algorithms to buy your car practically sight unseen, was the third-fastest company to ever make it onto the Fortune 500 — only Amazon and Google did it faster. But for the third day in a row, its stock is trading for just around $7 a share, plummeting 98 percent from its all-time high of over $360 last August. All of Carvana’s pandemic gains, wiped out Image: Google/news/chained-mixes-virtual-reality-and-live-actors-to-tell-a-dark-christmas-tale.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/chained-mixes-virtual-reality-and-live-actors-to-tell-a-dark-christmas-tale.htmlI was wearing a VR headset, standing in the middle of a dark, gothic take on A Christmas Carol. A grisly Jacob Marley asked me what I missed most about my childhood, and I told him I missed the hope and optimism of youth, when it seemed like anything was possible. When the Spirit of Christmas Past subsequently visited me, he pointed out a pair of ghostly, shadowy children chasing each other a few feet away./news/check-out-13-minutes-of-armored-core-6-gameplay.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/check-out-13-minutes-of-armored-core-6-gameplay.htmlAs the Fires of Rubicon heat up, FromSoftware has released an in-depth look at Armored Core VI’s gameplay. The roughly 13-minute presentation covered everything from armored core movement capabilities and customization options to the kinds of enemies you’ll face as the mercenary 621. From the story trailer that was released last week, we know that, in AC6, you’ll take up the mantle of 621, a bioengineered human whose only purpose is to pilot mechs under the guidance of your handler, Walter./news/c-mon-google-do-a-pixel-cereal-box-giveaway-for-real.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/c-mon-google-do-a-pixel-cereal-box-giveaway-for-real.htmlCreamy, crunchy, deliriously sweet kids’ cereal and milk was my nectar and ambrosia growing up. I would have eaten that stuff day and night — even if there weren’t toys occasionally waiting inside. Those days I got my Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and a chance at a delightful new toy? Those were the best. Sadly, Google’s marketing team didn’t quite capture that nostalgia in a new Pixel 4 giveaway — because the picture you see above (and its associated video) is a terrible, terrible lie./news/construction-begins-on-jeff-bezos-42-million-10-000-year-clock.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/construction-begins-on-jeff-bezos-42-million-10-000-year-clock.htmlInstallation has finally begun on Jeff Bezos’ 10,000-year clock, a project that the Amazon CEO has invested $42 million in (along with a hollowed-out mountain in Texas that Bezos intends for a Blue Origin spaceport), with the goal of building a mechanical clock that will run for 10 millennia. The actual idea for the clock comes from Danny Hillis, who originally proposed a 10,000-year clock in 1995 in Wired as a way to think about the long-term future of humanity and the planet./news/crayfish-get-drunk-faster-when-they-ve-been-hanging-out-with-friends.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/crayfish-get-drunk-faster-when-they-ve-been-hanging-out-with-friends.htmlYoung crayfish can get drunk — and they get drunk a lot faster when they’ve been hanging out with their friends, new research says. So, extroverted crayfish may want to consider pacing themselves this weekend. Crayfish are basically miniature, freshwater lobsters, which makes them an unusual model organism for trying to understand a behavior — drinking alcohol — that we really only care about in humans. They’re not mammals. They don’t even have backbones./news/cvs-will-stop-filling-cerebral-and-done-health-adhd-med-prescriptions.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cvs-will-stop-filling-cerebral-and-done-health-adhd-med-prescriptions.htmlCVS pharmacies will no longer fill prescriptions for controlled substances like Adderall from telehealth companies Cerebral and Done Health, The Wall Street Journal reported. It’s the latest blow to Cerebral, which is facing investigations from the US Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Cerebral said last week that it was going to stop prescribing controlled substances to new customers, and would transition existing customers off of the service by the fall./news/cyberdog-is-a-new-ominous-looking-robot-from-xiaomi.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cyberdog-is-a-new-ominous-looking-robot-from-xiaomi.htmlChinese tech giant Xiaomi has unveiled a quadrupedal robot named CyberDog: an experimental, open-source machine that the firm says “holds unforetold possibilities.” CyberDog is the latest example of tech companies embracing the quadrupedal form factor in robotics. The most notable example of the trend is Spot, a machine built by US firm Boston Dynamics. Spot went on sale last year for $74,500 and has been put to a range of uses, from surveying dangerous mines to helping doctors connect with patients remotely./news/dave-filoni-is-now-lucasfilm-s-star-wars-chief-creative-officer.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dave-filoni-is-now-lucasfilm-s-star-wars-chief-creative-officer.htmlDave Filoni just got rewarded for the success of Ahsoka, The Mandalorian, and other Star Wars shows with a promotion to chief creative officer of Lucasfilm. According to details in a new Vanity Fair interview, he’ll work alongside head developer Carrie Beck, reporting directly to Kathleen Kennedy, and together, the duo will determine the direction of Star Wars overall — not just the streaming shows. Filoni told Vanity Fair he’ll now be involved “at the inception” of everything that happens in the franchise./news/dax-shepard-s-armchair-expert-podcast-is-going-exclusive-to-spotify.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dax-shepard-s-armchair-expert-podcast-is-going-exclusive-to-spotify.htmlSpotify’s adding another big name to its list of exclusive podcasts: Dax Shepard and his show Armchair Expert, which is one of the most popular podcasts running. All past and future episodes will be available exclusively on Spotify starting July 1st. Along with the exclusive distribution rights to Armchair Expert, Spotify is also signing a first look deal with Armchair Umbrella Network, meaning it gets first dibs on any other shows the network creates./news/death-stranding-is-getting-a-film-adaptation.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/death-stranding-is-getting-a-film-adaptation.htmlThe project will be a joint collaboration between developer Kojima Productions and Hammerstone Studios, led by Alex Lebovici, who served as a producer on the horror film Barbarian. According to a press release, the plot for the film is being kept quiet for now, but it will “introduce new elements and characters within the Death Stranding universe.” “I couldn’t be more excited about this new partnership with Hammerstone Studios,” said Kojima said in a statement./news/destiny-brings-back-gjallarhorn-immediately-nerfs-it.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/destiny-brings-back-gjallarhorn-immediately-nerfs-it.htmlIn Destiny, the legendary rocket launcher Gjallarhorn was the ultimate weapon for a time. Its ability to create explosions filled with more explosions was unparalleled — and, some would argue, in desperate need of a nerf. Amusingly, Bungie and toymaker Hasbro are now taking that part literally: the Gjallarhorn is now slated to become an official Nerf blaster, complete with Wolfpack Round-like cluster missiles of its own. The in-game version that just came back to Destiny 2./news/discord-is-ending-its-stage-discovery-tool-but-says-stage-channels-are-doing-well.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/discord-is-ending-its-stage-discovery-tool-but-says-stage-channels-are-doing-well.htmlDiscord said Friday it’s going to sunset its Stage Discovery tool on October 4th, less than six months after it launched. Rolled out in June, Stage Discovery was designed to help users find its social audio rooms called Stage Channels. It used machine learning to curate a list of channels a user might be interested in joining. Stage Channels have been a hit, Discord says, but it’s been keeping an eye on Stage Discovery to evaluate whether it’s meeting its goal of helping people find community./news/dish-network-enters-10-year-5-billion-agreement-with-at-t.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dish-network-enters-10-year-5-billion-agreement-with-at-t.htmlThe deal takes effect immediately and comes at a time when relations between Dish and T-Mobile — currently a major network partner — are particularly strained. It’s a nonexclusive agreement, and Dish says that some of its customers will likely continue to connect to T-Mobile’s network. The arrangement also gives AT&T the right to request access to use some of Dish’s wireless spectrum. Dish owns Boost Mobile, Ting, and Republic Wireless MVNOs, which operate on other carrier networks./news/disney-ceo-bob-iger-apologizes-after-school-is-fined-for-lion-king-showing.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-ceo-bob-iger-apologizes-after-school-is-fined-for-lion-king-showing.htmlDisney CEO Bob Iger is personally apologizing to a parent-teacher association group after a California elementary school was fined for buying a physical version of The Lion King and playing it during a fundraising event. “Our company [Disney] apologizes to the Emerson Elementary School PTA and I will personally donate to their fund raising initiative,” Iger tweeted this morning. The case is a bizarre one. Emerson Elementary School in Berkeley, California, was fined $250 by licensing firm Movie Licensing USA for playing the movie during a “parent’s night out” fundraiser that raised $800, according to CNN./news/ebay-will-no-longer-accept-american-express-cards-over-unacceptably-high-fees.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ebay-will-no-longer-accept-american-express-cards-over-unacceptably-high-fees.htmleBay will no longer accept American Express payments starting August 17th, the company announced on Wednesday. It blames the change on the “unacceptably high fees” for Amex credit card transactions. “Credit card transaction fees continue to rise unabated because of a lack of meaningful competition,” eBay writes in a notice to customers. “There is a need for more robust regulations to drive greater competition to credit card networks and help reduce transaction processing costs./news/elon-musk-has-unusual-relationships-with-women-at-spacex-wsj-reports.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-has-unusual-relationships-with-women-at-spacex-wsj-reports.htmlElon Musk had a sexual relationship with a former SpaceX intern, who he later hired onto his executive team, according to The Wall Street Journal. He also had a sexual relationship with a second employee. And a third woman alleged that Musk asked her several times to have his children; she refused. He then denied her a raise and complained about her performance. One of the women who Musk had a sexual relationship also drew the ire of SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who accused her of having an affair with Shotwell’s husband./news/elon-musk-s-neuralink-reports-fda-approval-of-an-in-human-clinical-study.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-s-neuralink-reports-fda-approval-of-an-in-human-clinical-study.htmlElon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink says it has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to launch its first in-human clinical study. If this is true, it means that actual humans could be getting a device from Neuralink implanted in their heads. The news follows Elon Musk’s November claim that Neuralink was about six months away from its first human trial — which suggests it’s the rare Musk promise that’s actually coming true on time./news/exclusive-inside-airbus-modular-plane-concept-transpose.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/exclusive-inside-airbus-modular-plane-concept-transpose.htmlThere are the smartphones and laptops we use every day, and then there’s Next Level technology. In this new Verge video series, senior editor Lauren Goode takes you behind the scenes to show you the technology that’s being worked on at some of the world’s most innovative companies and research institutions. From modular airplanes to prescription video games to Hollywood’s attempt to hack your emotions, Next Level will show you the technology that has the potential to radically change the way we interact with tech./news/fear-and-self-loathing-in-animal-crossing-new-horizons.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fear-and-self-loathing-in-animal-crossing-new-horizons.html“Where have you been all this time?” A wave of guilt washed over me as I read these words on the screen. Considering how 2020 dismantled our reality and created a new set of post-coronavirus social paradigms, the last thing I wanted was to explain myself to someone I thought would understand. My accuser wasn’t a real friend, exactly. It was dear, sweet Merengue, one of my favorite villagers on Beef House, my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island./news/fitbit-alta-hr-review-a-much-better-activity-tracker-than-i-expected.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fitbit-alta-hr-review-a-much-better-activity-tracker-than-i-expected.htmlI don’t know about you, but I’m about ready for Fitbit to drop something genuinely new on the world. Over the past couple years, the company has put out a few new activity trackers that seem to package the same stuff — an accelerometer here, a heart rate sensor there — into slightly different wristbands sold at slightly different price points. With the exception of the Blaze smart fitness watch, Fitbit’s designs haven’t evolved much./news/ford-f-150-lightning-first-drive-quiet-storm.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-f-150-lightning-first-drive-quiet-storm.htmlI am driving a pickup truck through Texas hill country. The buzzards are circling overhead, the road is empty as a moonlit prairie, and all’s right with the world.  Or at least it should be. There is a noticeable lack of engine noise coming from under the hood of my truck. That’s because there is no engine, only a vast, empty space. Ford calls it the “Mega Power Frunk,” which is a very dumb name for a very cool feature, one truck owners have been clamoring for for years: secure storage space./news/forget-self-driving-cars-these-self-driving-slippers-are-the-future-we-deserve.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/forget-self-driving-cars-these-self-driving-slippers-are-the-future-we-deserve.htmlAs marketing gimmicks go, I’ll take self-driving slippers over flamethrowers any day. Nissan recently developed a system for slippers to “park” themselves at the entrance of a traditional Japanese inn at the push of a button, in a bid to both delight travelers and market its semi-autonomous ProPilot driving technology. Each slipper is equipped with two tiny wheels, a motor, and sensors to “drive” across the wooden lobby floor using Nissan’s ProPilot Park technology./news/fortnite-s-metallica-concert-showed-how-sprawling-the-game-has-become.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-s-metallica-concert-showed-how-sprawling-the-game-has-become.htmlLast weekend, Metallica graced the virtual stage in Fortnite, but the event was more than just a heavy metal concert. It was one piece in a weeks-long rollout of modes and content, which really drove home just how large and complex the game has become. The battle royale has steadily morphed into an entire ecosystem of games and experiences, and the Metallica crossover might’ve been the most complex to date./news/genesis-new-york-concept-is-a-sports-sedan-that-ll-make-you-look-twice.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/genesis-new-york-concept-is-a-sports-sedan-that-ll-make-you-look-twice.htmlWelcome to New YorkAimed at cars like the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C-Class, the design team at Genesis looked to fill the New York Concept with what they call "athletic elegance." It's just a concept car for now, but Genesis plans to launch five new cars over the next few years, so it doesn't have time for design exercises. This car, perhaps without too many changes to the design, will hit showrooms soon./news/glow-in-the-dark-cockroach-and-social-media-butterfly-named-in-scientists-top-10-new-species.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/glow-in-the-dark-cockroach-and-social-media-butterfly-named-in-scientists-top-10-new-species.htmlA beautiful green lacewing, a snail-eating snake, and a glow-in-the-dark cockroach. These are just three of scientists' choices for a new top ten list of newly discovered animals, plants, and microbes from 2012. Now in it's sixth year, the list is put together by an international committee of experts selected by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The light-producing cockroach, Lucihormetica luckae, is extraordinary for a number of different reasons./news/gm-s-onstar-is-making-the-leap-from-your-car-to-your-smartphone.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gm-s-onstar-is-making-the-leap-from-your-car-to-your-smartphone.htmlGeneral Motors’ OnStar is branching out beyond the car. The automaker is launching a new smartphone app called Guardian for customers who want to access OnStar’s remote assistance service capabilities when they aren’t physically inside their car. Previously, OnStar’s operators were only accessible to subscribers of the service by pressing a button on the rearview mirror or infotainment screen of their GM vehicle. Now, with the new app, OnStar customers can connect to an operator where ever they have their phone, either in the car, at home, or out walking./news/google-announces-pixel-5-pixel-4a-5g-and-pixel-4a-all-at-once.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-announces-pixel-5-pixel-4a-5g-and-pixel-4a-all-at-once.htmlGoogle is officially announcing three Pixel phones today. First is the $349 Pixel 4A, which is available for preorder now and will ship on August 20th. Next is the Pixel 5, which will have 5G and is shipping sometime this fall. Finally, there’s the Pixel 4A 5G, which will cost $499 and also ship sometime this fall. In other words, Google is just up and admitting that it has two more phones to release at the very same time as it’s actually releasing another phone./news/google-assistant-will-lose-17-features-in-the-coming-weeks.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-assistant-will-lose-17-features-in-the-coming-weeks.htmlPlaying and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device. Setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms on Google Assistant enabled devices. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior or use a standard alarm. Accessing or managing your cookbook, transfering recipes from device to device, playing an instructional recipe video, or showing step-by-step recipes. You can use Google Assistant to search for recipes across the web and YouTube./news/google-cfo-ruth-porat-just-got-a-promotion.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-cfo-ruth-porat-just-got-a-promotion.htmlAlphabet, the parent company of Google, is promoting chief financial officer Ruth Porat into a new role, according to a press release about Alphabet’s Q2 earnings. As part of the newly created role of president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, Porat will oversee Alphabet’s “Other Bets” investments and work more closely with policymakers and regulators. The new role will be effective on September 1st, 2023, and the company will search for a successor as the CFO of Google and Alphabet./news/google-is-making-two-factor-authentication-a-lot-easier-to-use.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-making-two-factor-authentication-a-lot-easier-to-use.htmlGoogle has supported two-factor authentication for more than five years now, but the search giant is making it a little easier to use this week. Previously, you've had to manually enter a code from an authenticator app or via SMS, but Google is introducing a new prompt that you can tap on your phone to approve login requests. It's very similar to how Twitter's two-factor authentication works, generating a notification that you accept from a phone and it approves the login attempt./news/google-targets-filmmakers-with-veo-its-new-generative-ai-video-model.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-targets-filmmakers-with-veo-its-new-generative-ai-video-model.htmlIt’s been three months since OpenAI demoed its captivating text-to-video AI, Sora, and now Google is trying to steal some of that spotlight. Announced during its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google says Veo — its latest generative AI video model — can generate “high-quality” 1080p resolution videos over a minute in length in a wide variety of visual and cinematic styles. Veo has “an advanced understanding of natural language,” according to Google’s press release, enabling the model to understand cinematic terms like “timelapse” or “aerial shots of a landscape./news/google-wants-gemini-to-listen-in-on-your-calls.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-wants-gemini-to-listen-in-on-your-calls.htmlGoogle wants Gemini to listen in on your calls. The scam detection feature Google just announced requires Android users to opt in, and Google claims it’s on-device only, but it’s still essentially listening to your every conversation to look for fraudulent-sounding language. Are we really ready to swap scamming concerns with privacy-related ones? ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfanxygI5ra2ptZmuDdHvGqKagpJVixKK606xkoJ2dnruqedOoZKWho6myr3nIp2Sopl2uvLa%2BjJyYpaSj/news/google-s-project-tango-is-shutting-down-because-arcore-is-already-here.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-project-tango-is-shutting-down-because-arcore-is-already-here.htmlGoogle said today that it’ll be shutting down Project Tango next year, on March 1st. Project Tango was an early effort from Google to bring augmented reality to phones, but it never really panned out. The system was introduced in 2014 and made it into developer kits and even a couple consumer devices as recently as last year. But those devices required special sensors. And in the meantime, Google (and competitors, like Apple) figured out ways to bring AR features to phones with just the hardware that’s already on board./news/gravity-urban-ev-fast-chargers-are-ul-certified-fast-and-saves-space.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gravity-urban-ev-fast-chargers-are-ul-certified-fast-and-saves-space.htmlIf you’re an urban-dwelling electric vehicle owner, your public charging options are often limited to slow AC chargers found in tight parking spaces that are too small for typical DC fast chargers. Now Gravity, the company that started an EV taxi fleet in New York City in 2021, designed a compact and super fast DC charging system for big dense cities that can reduce your charging time from hours to just minutes./news/great-haircut-tarnished-the-verge.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/great-haircut-tarnished-the-verge.htmlGreat haircut, Tarnished. Elden Ring is getting an update on June 20th — one day ahead of the release of Shadow of the Erdtree — that adds five new hairstyles and a bunch of other handy new features. You can read more about what’s coming on X. The Elden Ring X account also shared the global release schedule for the expansion and updated minimum and recommended PC specs. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3xygI5ra2pvaGqAeHvGq5yarF2drqq%2Bwq6rZqyRp7uqv8eemw%3D%3D/news/grim-broken-and-grand-the-mad-world-of-dayz.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/grim-broken-and-grand-the-mad-world-of-dayz.htmlBy T.C. Sottek and Sean Hollister It’s day zero of the zombie apocalypse. You are hungry, frightened, and alone. You enter the town square of Elektrozavodsk, an abandoned city in a parallel Czech Republic, and see a man surrounded by several dead, naked bodies. He’s flanked by two kneeling men in handcuffs, while holding up a bible and shouting about Jesus and hellfire. Against your better judgement, you carefully approach him, thinking maybe you can free those survivors somehow./news/hey-google-i-was-using-that-button.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hey-google-i-was-using-that-button.htmlEvery time another Google app or feature bites the dust — even a small, relatively inconsequential one — I get annoyed. Really annoyed. Here’s the thing: there are Google Assistant-equipped devices in three rooms of my relatively small house: living room, bedroom, and office. Which means, unfortunately, that when I say “Hey, Google” out loud to my phone, I am just as likely to get a reaction from one — or more — of those three devices./news/honda-prologue-first-drive-a-pretty-good-start.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/honda-prologue-first-drive-a-pretty-good-start.htmlHere we are in 2024, and Honda is a bit late to the electric vehicle game. While some competitors have been pushing electrified options into the market at a lickity-split rate — I’m looking at you Kia and Hyundai — Honda has rested on the hybrid powertrains of the Accord, CR-V, and the soon-to-be remounted Civic, leaving itself in a bit of a pickle when it came to getting a fully electric vehicle to market./news/how-the-salesforce-acquisition-of-slack-shows-how-microsoft-won-out.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-the-salesforce-acquisition-of-slack-shows-how-microsoft-won-out.htmlSlack’s life as an underdog darling of Silicon Valley ended on November 2nd, 2016. That’s when the upstart communication startup published an open letter to Microsoft in The New York Times, offering the tech giant an insincere “welcome” to the world of workplace chat software. The occasion was Microsoft’s launch of Teams, a Slack clone that would come bundled with the company’s popular Office 365 suite of products. In its letter, Slack warned Microsoft that “Slack is here to stay,” adding, “We’re just getting started./news/how-to-install-a-wired-or-wireless-ring-video-doorbell.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-install-a-wired-or-wireless-ring-video-doorbell.htmlInstalling a Ring video doorbell is one of the easiest smart home upgrades to tackle (with the possible exception of screwing in a smart lightbulb). Made up of a motion-activated camera with a microphone and speaker, a Ring video doorbell will send alerts to your smartphone and smart speakers to tell you when there’s someone at your door so you can see and talk to them. This is handy for making sure you don’t miss a visitor as well as for keeping an eye on packages if you’re not home./news/how-to-connect-alexa-to-spotify-apple-music-and-more.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-connect-alexa-to-spotify-apple-music-and-more.htmlAs you might expect, Alexa-friendly devices tend to assume that you want to hear tunes from Amazon Music. If you prefer Spotify, Apple Music, or another music service, it’s not all that hard to set it up and use it with your Amazon devices. And you’re done. You can now use that service with your Alexa device. Specifying the exact station and service all the time can become tiresome. If you have a favorite service other than Amazon Music — or an internet radio station you usually listen to — you can set it as a default./news/ikea-and-sonos-second-generation-symfonisk-lamp-leaks-with-swappable-lampshades.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ikea-and-sonos-second-generation-symfonisk-lamp-leaks-with-swappable-lampshades.htmlIkea’s second-generation Symfonisk table lamp speaker has leaked thanks to a support document posted to Ikea’s Portuguese website (spotted by a Reddit user who claims to have encountered the lamp shades in a store), featuring a new design that streamlines the speaker-lamp’s base and adds the much-needed option to swap in different styles of lampshades, via Janko Roettgers on Twitter. Compared to the original Symfonisk table lamp, the new model appears to have ditched the platter-like base for a design that integrates the speaker controllers directly into the unit./news/illinois-law-that-makes-recording-police-a-felony-ruled-unconstitutional.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/illinois-law-that-makes-recording-police-a-felony-ruled-unconstitutional.htmlWhile the recording of police may be permissible when creating reality TV, it can land average citizens in shockingly deep criminal trouble — but today Illinois judge Stanley Sacks ruled that one eavesdropping law, which prohibits citizens from recording audio or video of others without their consent, is unconstitutional. The law was used in 2009 to charge 60 year-old Christopher Drew with a class 1 felony for recording his conversation with a police officer while being arrested for selling art patches on the side of the road./news/inside-yet-another-ai-chop-shop-junking-up-the-internet.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/inside-yet-another-ai-chop-shop-junking-up-the-internet.htmlInside yet another AI chop shop junking up the internet. Inaccurate AI-generated stories were an important part of the BNN business model — “churning out hundreds, even thousands, of stories a day.” Some of BNN’s stories were republished by MSN.com or linked by reputable outlets. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3x3e5FtaHBrYGaGcLXNrKCdnV2usrV5wKemraCVp3qitYycn6ioXai1sLyMo6yno5mjtG7Bz2aroZ1dnru1sdGnnK0%3D/news/instagram-stories-get-gopro-and-spotify-integration-with-more-apps-coming.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-stories-get-gopro-and-spotify-integration-with-more-apps-coming.htmlInstagram is rolling out several new features starting today, including new Stories integration with apps like Spotify and GoPro and a new camera effects platform that will allow celebrities and others to create face filters, text styles, and stickers. If you’re using the Spotify or the GoPro app, you can tap the respective share buttons to send your content to Instagram Stories. You can then edit and add to your story or send it as a direct message to someone./news/instagram-s-limits-adds-a-mute-button-for-everyone-other-than-close-friends.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-s-limits-adds-a-mute-button-for-everyone-other-than-close-friends.htmlInstagram is expanding “limits,” a safety control you can use to hide DMs and comments from accounts who may be harassing you. Now, instead of just hiding content from recent followers or people who don’t follow you, Instagram will mute incoming messages from everyone except the users on your close friends list. Even though Instagram first rolled out limits to help creators deal with harassment campaigns, anyone can use the feature if they’re facing unwanted messages and comments from bullies and other bad actors./news/intel-processor-will-replace-pentium-and-celeron-in-2023-laptops.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/intel-processor-will-replace-pentium-and-celeron-in-2023-laptops.htmlIntel is replacing its Pentium and Celeron brands with just Intel Processor. The new branding will replace both existing brands in 2023 notebooks and supposedly make things easier when consumers are looking to purchase budget laptops. Intel will now focus on its Core, Evo, and vPro brands for its flagship products and use Intel Processor in what it calls “essential” products. “Intel is committed to driving innovation to benefit users, and our entry-level processor families have been crucial for raising the PC standard across all price points,” explains Josh Newman, VP and interim general manager of mobile client platforms at Intel./news/ios-16-will-let-you-bypass-captchas-on-some-apps-and-websites.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ios-16-will-let-you-bypass-captchas-on-some-apps-and-websites.htmlWhen iOS 16 comes out later this fall, you may notice that you don’t have to deal with as many annoying CAPTCHAs asking you to slide a puzzle piece or distinguish between a hill and a mountain. That’s because Apple’s introducing a feature for its iPhones and Macs called Automatic Verification, which let some sites know that you’re not a bot without you actually having to do anything (via MacRumors)./news/iphone-15-pro-and-pro-max-in-titanium-price-features-and-release-date.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iphone-15-pro-and-pro-max-in-titanium-price-features-and-release-date.htmlApple just announced its new high-end iPhones: the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. They’re made of titanium, they have Action Buttons, and Apple promises they’re the most powerful smartphones Apple has ever made. The 15 Pro starts at $999 with 128GB of storage, and the Pro Max at $1,199 with 256GB of storage. Both will be available for preorder this Friday and on sale September 22nd. This year’s Pro has a 6./news/iron-man-vr-review-a-tinfoil-knockoff-of-a-truly-great-iron-man-game.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iron-man-vr-review-a-tinfoil-knockoff-of-a-truly-great-iron-man-game.html“I am not Iron Man,” I mutter to myself after crashing into a wall for the umpteenth time while waving my arms around. But it’s not for a lack of effort.  Iron Man VR is a game with a simple premise: putting players inside the famous metal suit of Marvel’s Armored Avenger, letting you fly around and battle supervillains with laser blasts and gadgets galore. It’s also the first real console title from Camouflaj, which had previously developed the high-profile mobile game, République, back in 2013 (which has since been ported to PC, Xbox One, PlayStation, and a variety of VR platforms)./news/is-stranger-things-2-a-worthy-sequel-to-the-original.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/is-stranger-things-2-a-worthy-sequel-to-the-original.htmlThis past Friday, Netflix released the second season of its hit series Stranger Things. Last year, the show appeared out of nowhere, catching pretty much everyone by surprise with its combination of retro-‘80s nostalgia and Steven Spielberg-meets-Stephen King storytelling. But this year, it was all about the expectations, with the streaming service creating a wave of hype that framed the show’s return as one of the must-watch entertainment events of the year./news/judge-james-donato-has-heard-far-too-much-about-the-many-individual-steps-it-takes-took-to-sideload.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/judge-james-donato-has-heard-far-too-much-about-the-many-individual-steps-it-takes-took-to-sideload.htmlJudge James Donato has heard far too much about the many individual steps it takes/took to sideload an app on Android. Epic and Epic’s expert witness has been asked to speed things along — we’ve been promised there’s a new and salient comparison coming. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2tfZn5wfpBoaWxxZ2Z%2FeoSOo6ydn5Vit6K5xKxknaeelsGweceaqmaglZa%2FpXnFmqlmrJ%2Bkeq7BwqFkmpqfqsFuwMeeZKaZnq56qrrDoq2inKWWuW6%2F056nrGWZqXq1rcqeqmasn6S4bsDOZqqinJWhvKKw/news/logitech-s-best-gaming-mouse-just-got-better.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/logitech-s-best-gaming-mouse-just-got-better.htmlLogitech is rolling out a firmware update for its popular G Pro X Superlight 2 mouse this week that will enable 4kHz response rates. The higher polling rate is designed for high DPI / low in-game sensitivity players who play esports PC games, which is who Logitech markets its Superlight series of mice toward. A higher polling rate on a mouse essentially means that when a frame is rendered, you get a more recent and accurate cursor position shown on your screen./news/lytro-s-living-pictures-are-now-dead-on-the-web.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lytro-s-living-pictures-are-now-dead-on-the-web.htmlLytro’s once futuristic “living pictures,” which photographers and viewers alike were able to refocus to their heart’s content after they were taken, are now almost totally dead. The company recently pulled hosting support for pictures.lytro.com, which is where all photos with Lytro cameras had to be shared in order to allow users to play with the refocusing and 3D depth features. This move has subsequently killed all the Lytro photos embedded across the internet (including in our 2014 review of the Illum, Lytro’s second — and last — consumer camera)./news/max-raises-prices-across-its-ad-free-plans.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/max-raises-prices-across-its-ad-free-plans.htmlMax has announced a price increase on the streaming service’s ad-free plans. The standard ad-free plan will cost $16.99 / month instead of $15.99, while the 4K ad-free plan will cost $20.99 / month instead of $19.99. The price increase will go into effect today for new subscribers. Existing subscribers can expect to see the increase from their next billing cycle on or after Thursday, July 4th. Max’s price hike also affects the service’s ad-free yearly plans, with the standard ad-free plan going up to $169./news/metallica-is-headlining-fortnite-s-next-concert.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/metallica-is-headlining-fortnite-s-next-concert.htmlIt’s sad but true: Metallica is coming to Fortnite. Epic just announced that the group will be featured in the game’s next concert. The news is part of a larger musical collaboration between Fortnite and the heavy metal band. First up, the concert itself. It’s called “Metallica: Fuel Fire Fury,” and players can check it out during a few windows later this month: June 22nd at 2PM, 5PM, and 11PM ET and June 23rd at 10AM, 2PM, and 5PM ET./news/microsoft-acquires-email-app-acompli.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-acquires-email-app-acompli.htmlAcompli appealed to early adopters thanks to Microsoft Exchange support, one-tap integration with calendars, and easy methods to access recently emailed files and contacts. It’s a professional-grade email app, and by tapping into Microsoft Exchange it has caught the attention of businesses that typically avoid third-party email apps because of their lack of Exchange support. It also works a lot like the desktop version of Outlook, combining contacts, calendar, and mail into a single interface that works together to organize meetings and communications./news/microsoft-ignite-2023-all-the-ai-news-from-microsoft-s-it-pro-event.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-ignite-2023-all-the-ai-news-from-microsoft-s-it-pro-event.htmlMicrosoft loves OpenAI and open source. “As OpenAI innovates we will deliver all of that innovation as part of Azure OpenAI,” says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The latest GPT-4 Turbo model, with lower pricing and extended prompt length, is coming to Azure OpenAI this week in preview. Microsoft is also offering Meta’s Llama 2 model as a service, alongside Mistral and Jais. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtqcm5hZX14e8yimquno6SztXnIoKWirJVif3F%2Bkmalnq%2BjYq6qecCnpaitnpiyrrHNrapmm5%2Bltq2702auoqaUpMS0ecCzrKudXaSzp7XCng%3D%3D/news/microsoft-joins-openai-s-board-with-sam-altman-officially-back-as-ceo.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-joins-openai-s-board-with-sam-altman-officially-back-as-ceo.htmlI am returning to OpenAI as CEO. Mira will return to her role as CTO. The new initial board will consist of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo. I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone’s hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry. I feel so, so good about our probability of success for achieving our mission./news/motorola-testing-android-4-1-jelly-bean-update-for-xoom-wi-fi.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/motorola-testing-android-4-1-jelly-bean-update-for-xoom-wi-fi.htmlGoogle promised back at I/O that Android 4.1 would be coming to the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, and Motorola Xoom this month, but while we've seen Jelly Bean updates for both phones the Xoom has so far been left out. That could change soon, though, as Motorola has apparently been trialling an over-the-air Jelly Bean upgrade with Xoom Wi-Fi owners who previously signed up to test the software. These tests of near-final software updates are common, but Android Central has acquired what it says is the changelog for the most recent one, seeming to confirm that it does indeed include Android 4./news/movies-anywhere-is-ending-its-movie-sharing-and-watch-together-features.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/movies-anywhere-is-ending-its-movie-sharing-and-watch-together-features.htmlMovies Anywhere has proven to be one of the most pro-consumer things to emerge from the entertainment world in ages. You buy a movie on one digital service, and then you get to watch it across numerous other services and hardware platforms. It’s one of those cases where “it just works” actually rings true — though Paramount Pictures, MGM, and Lionsgate deserve to be shamed in perpetuity for never getting behind the cross-studio effort./news/neko-atsume-the-game-of-passivity.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/neko-atsume-the-game-of-passivity.htmlThe stakes couldn't possibly be lowerIn some sense, video games have had their "bureaucratic hero" phase already; Sim City and Civilization essentially make you, the player, chief bureaucrat. Neko Atsume is almost totally passive; the only decisions you make are what you will buy, and what you will place in your yard. With the new update, you don't even have to place toys in the yard yourself; a randomizer will do it for you./news/neo-geo-mini-review-arcade-imperfect.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/neo-geo-mini-review-arcade-imperfect.htmlBefore I get into the glaring, gigantic problems with the Neo Geo Mini, I would first like to state how wonderful it is that it even exists at all. Forget the Xbox One X. SNK’s Neo Geo was the true luxury console: it cost $650 all the way back in 1990, and games sold for between $150 to $300 each. It was developed with the aim of bringing high-end arcade games into the home without compromise, and it was technically far ahead of contemporaries like the SNES and Genesis./news/nest-thermostat-adds-energy-history-in-apps-new-airwave-mode-to-save-30-percent-on-a-c-bills.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nest-thermostat-adds-energy-history-in-apps-new-airwave-mode-to-save-30-percent-on-a-c-bills.htmlIt's been a busy few months for Nest: the company just re-opened sales after catching up with backorders for its popular Learning Thermostat, and now it's rolling out its first app updates, a new energy-saving mode, and some minor hardware tweaks as well. The most significant update comes right in time for summer: Airwave is a new way of controlling your air conditioner that promises to save up to 30 percent in cooling costs./news/netflix-buys-comic-book-publisher-millarworld-in-company-s-first-acquisition.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-buys-comic-book-publisher-millarworld-in-company-s-first-acquisition.htmlNetflix announced today that it’s acquiring Millarworld, Mark Millar’s comic book publishing house, in the company’s first ever acquisition. According to Netflix’s press release, the purchase is part of the company’s efforts to “acquire intellectual property and ownership of stories featuring compelling characters,” for upcoming Netflix Originals, which are increasingly becoming a critical part of the streaming service’s offerings. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos commented in the announcement that the company will be looking to adapt both existing Millarworld franchises, along with new stories developed by Mark Millar and the Millarworld creative team going forward./news/netflix-is-turning-into-cable-tv.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-is-turning-into-cable-tv.htmlThis last weekend I was sitting in a hotel room in Memphis, staring out at the parking lot turned ice skating rink, wanting to just have a couple of hours with my brain turned off. I opened Netflix hoping to find a movie that would give me an evening’s respite. Scrolling down to the top 10, I was met with a who’s who of the 2010s and 2020s. Cowboy & Aliens, the 2011 flop with a great cast, was on the list./news/netflix-renews-jessica-jones-for-a-third-season.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-renews-jessica-jones-for-a-third-season.htmlNetflix announced today that it has renewed Jessica Jones for a third season, about a month after the show’s season 2 premiere. Although critics generally praised the debut season of the Marvel series, many deemed its second season a sophomore slump. “The first five episodes are marked by oppressive dourness, with precious little relief,” Samantha Nelson wrote in her review for The Verge. Others said the show improved as the season went on, however, with Jones (Krysten Ritter) looking more and more like a superhero by the finale./news/netflix-wraps-up-rights-for-new-disney-marvel-and-pixar-films-starting-in-2016-update.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-wraps-up-rights-for-new-disney-marvel-and-pixar-films-starting-in-2016-update.htmlRedbox may be prepping its own streaming service, but it doesn't look Netflix will have much to worry about when it comes to family programming: the company has announced a licensing agreement with Disney that will make it the exclusive US subscription service for first-run films from Disney, Walt Disney Animation, Marvel, and Pixar. The agreement goes into effect starting with theatrical releases in 2016, and will make Disney-released titles available on Netflix during the same release window in which movies come to pay-television channels./news/new-york-city-launches-competition-to-create-the-perfect-payphone.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-york-city-launches-competition-to-create-the-perfect-payphone.htmlNew York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has challenged designers to come up with ideas for the next generation of public payphones. Bloomberg says the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge will get New York's "dynamic and ever-growing tech community to ‘Re-Own the Phone' and provide their ideas on what the future of payphones could entail." Applications are to be submitted by February 18th, 2013, and up to 15 entries will be selected for demonstration on March 5th./news/nintendo-fires-staffer-who-faced-sustained-harassment.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-fires-staffer-who-faced-sustained-harassment.htmlNintendo has fired Alison Rapp, a marketing staffer who became the target of a sustained campaign of criticism on social media last year after she was erroneously linked with the removal of certain sexualized sections in Japanese games for their Western release. Rapp announced her termination in a tweet, in which she said her employer had decided she was "no longer a good, safe representative of Nintendo." The clear assumption is that Nintendo's decision was made in light of the ongoing campaign against her, but in a statement, Nintendo of America said that Rapp was terminated "/news/nintendo-tvii-announced-for-wii-u.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-tvii-announced-for-wii-u.htmlNintendo TVii, a service for the Wii U that incorporates "a personalized programming guide" to watch live TV and streaming video on the upcoming console, was announced today at the Wii U Press event. Nintendo TVii is designed to bring together "what you watch and how you watch." Nintendo's Zach Fountain said there are three parts to Nintendo TVii: finding things to watch, using the GamePad as a master remote control, and engaging with friends./news/notebooklm-google-s-ai-powered-notes-app-is-launching-today.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/notebooklm-google-s-ai-powered-notes-app-is-launching-today.htmlProject Tailwind, the AI-backed note-taking tool that Google launched at this year’s I/O developer conference, is rebranding. It’s now known as NotebookLM, and it’s launching today to “a small group of users in the US,” according to a Google blog post. (The LM stands for Language Model because Google really wants to make sure you don’t forget about all the AI in here.) The product hasn’t changed, though: Google’s still trying to give users their own personal AI, trained on their data and notes and able to help them make sense of it all./news/nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-i-already-won.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-i-already-won.htmlNearly six months after the first leaks, The Washington Post has landed the first extensive interview with NSA leaker Edward Snowden, offering a new peek into his motivations for the life-changing leaks and his subsequent life in Russia. In contrast to earlier interviews, Snowden now says the leaks are having the real political impact he'd hoped for. "For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished," Snowden told the Post./news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-review-4k-gaming-is-here-at-a-price.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-review-4k-gaming-is-here-at-a-price.htmlNvidia’s next generation of graphics cards is finally here, and it comes with big promises. The RTX 2080 is supposed to be up to 75 percent faster than the GTX 1080 in certain games, and it’s designed to finally deliver the ultimate goal of 4K gaming at 60 fps. Aside from the usual architectural improvements, this time around Nvidia is also using some new tricks to make its bold claims a reality./news/only-yesterday-is-an-intensely-relatable-blast-from-studio-ghibli-s-past.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/only-yesterday-is-an-intensely-relatable-blast-from-studio-ghibli-s-past.htmlOnly Yesterday couldn't be more appropriately named. The intimate, spare drama from Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli first premiered in Japan in 1991, and in the 25 years since has somehow never seen an American release until now. But its familiar tale of finding your place in a fast-moving world feels like it could have been written last week, and together with forward-thinking direction from Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, The Tale of Princess Kaguya), Only Yesterday remains a poignant classic in the 21st century./news/openai-can-t-tell-if-something-was-written-by-ai-after-all.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-can-t-tell-if-something-was-written-by-ai-after-all.htmlOpenAI shuttered a tool that was supposed to tell human writing from AI due to a low accuracy rate. In an (updated) blog, OpenAI said it decided to end its AI classifier as of July 20th. “We are working to incorporate feedback and are currently researching more effective provenance techniques for text,” the company said. As it shuts down the tool to catch AI-generated writing, OpenAI said it plans to “develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated./news/openai-s-sky-sounds-a-lot-like-scarjo-according-to-voice-researchers.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-s-sky-sounds-a-lot-like-scarjo-according-to-voice-researchers.htmlResearchers at Arizona State University found that Scarlett Johansson’s voice does indeed sound like “Sky,” OpenAI’s currently discontinued GPT-4o voice, according to NPR, which commissioned the comparison. After using AI models developed to analyze vocal similarities to compare Sky to roughly 600 other actresses, the lab reportedly found Johansson’s voice was “more similar to Sky than 98% of the other actresses.” But the models also “often” found that the voices of Anne Hathaway and Keri Russell resembled Sky’s more than did Johansson’s./news/os-x-yosemite-is-now-available-to-download.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/os-x-yosemite-is-now-available-to-download.htmlApple's latest desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite, is now available to download from the Mac App Store. It's a free update, and it delivers a whole host changes, most notably a revamped visual style that's a lot more colorful than the OS X you're used to. In fact, the Yosemite makes your Mac's operating system look a lot more like iOS than traditional OS X, and it brings the two operating systems together in a few more ways too./news/paratopic-is-a-short-grimy-horror-game-with-a-style-straight-out-of-1998.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/paratopic-is-a-short-grimy-horror-game-with-a-style-straight-out-of-1998.htmlIt can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our biweekly column Short Play, we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend. My first experience with an exploratory “walking game” was the 2008 Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther. Half-Life 2 was several years old when the mod was released, approaching the twilight realm of last-generation graphics: too old to impress, too new to inspire nostalgia./news/play-this-coming-out-simulator-2014-is-a-harrowing-game-about-difficult-choices.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/play-this-coming-out-simulator-2014-is-a-harrowing-game-about-difficult-choices.htmla half-true game about half-truths Contrary to what its light-hearted name suggests, the actual game is both harrowing and poignant. It opens with an introduction to the protagonist, a faceless yet witty caricature who explains that Coming Out Simulator 2014 is set during one momentous night in 2010. Depending on the choices that you make, that decisive evening can vary dramatically in tone, with physical violence being one of the many repercussions you might face./news/pok%C3%A9mon-go-fest-is-back-this-july-as-a-global-event.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pok%C3%A9mon-go-fest-is-back-this-july-as-a-global-event.htmlThe annual Pokémon Go Fest is back again this summer, scheduled for July 17th and 18th. Last year’s event was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of taking place in person in select cities around the globe. It sounds like this year’s fest will once again happen virtually; developer Niantic describes the event as a “global event.” Niantic didn’t share many other details, though it did tease that this year’s event could be particularly noteworthy./news/poppy-playtime-follows-five-nights-at-freddy-s-with-new-movie.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/poppy-playtime-follows-five-nights-at-freddy-s-with-new-movie.htmlThe horror puzzle game Poppy Playtime is getting a live-action film adaption. Developer Mob Entertainment says it struck a deal with the entertainment company Legendary after fielding “several competitive offers.” Transformers producer Don Murphy and filmmaker Susan Montford will develop and produce the adaptation. Poppy Playtime is a first-person adventure game, where players take on the role of a former toy factory worker who returns to their now-abandoned workplace. As players explore Playtime Co./news/procreate-s-new-ipad-app-aims-to-revolutionize-animation.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/procreate-s-new-ipad-app-aims-to-revolutionize-animation.htmlDigital illustration software company Procreate has announced Procreate Dreams, its new 2D animation app for iPad that aims to provide animation tools that anyone can use, regardless of their animating experience. Procreate Dreams will be globally available to download from the App Store on November 22nd for a one-time purchase of $19.99 — a rare sight in an industry that has widely transitioned to subscription pricing models. Designed for touch, Procreate Dreams features tools like Performing that enable users to automatically add keyframes to a project using gestures that record the animator’s actions in real time./news/ps-vita-review-2013-the-verge.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ps-vita-review-2013-the-verge.htmlDisplayThe original Vita's headline feature was its beautiful 5-inch 960 x 544 OLED display, but Sony has made the somewhat controversial decision to replace it with an LCD for cost-saving reasons. On paper, that’s not necessarily a bad thing: LCD technology has improved leaps and bounds since the Vita's introduction, and many of the best screens in the smartphone world are LCDs. But the Vita is a fixed gaming platform, so upgrading the resolution was likely never an option for Sony./news/puss-review-a-seemingly-simple-puzzle-game-except-for-the-psychedelic-cats.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/puss-review-a-seemingly-simple-puzzle-game-except-for-the-psychedelic-cats.htmlPuss might be the strangest video game I’ve ever played.  In Puss, you play as a small pixelated cat head navigating short mazes. The mazes are often filled with obstacles and bullets impeding your route to the end, and if you touch a wall for too long, you’ll get zapped and lose a life. That’s only part of the experience, though. It’s the mind-meltingly psychedelic aesthetic that permeates every aspect of the game that makes Puss stand out./news/ram-1500-rev-swings-for-the-fences-with-an-estimated-500-miles-of-range.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ram-1500-rev-swings-for-the-fences-with-an-estimated-500-miles-of-range.htmlFor better or worse, Americans love big trucks. Big tires, big grilles, big payloads — all things that sell extremely well, despite their big (re: negative) impact on the environment and road safety. So, of course, electric trucks were going to be big, too. The Ram 1500 REV, which made its debut in concept form during CES earlier this year, stands ready to be one of the biggest electric trucks available when it goes on sale next year./news/razer-blade-16-hands-on-a-dream-gaming-laptop.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/razer-blade-16-hands-on-a-dream-gaming-laptop.htmlRazer has given us a first look at the Razer Blade 16 and Razer Blade 18, which will be released in the next few months. And I will say right now: I am impressed. The Blade 18 is the biggest and most powerful Razer Blade that has ever been released, which is neat in itself. But I’m actually even more excited about the Blade 16, which is debuting some never-before-seen on a Razer Blade./news/razer-brings-its-analog-switches-to-a-compact-60-percent-keyboard.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/razer-brings-its-analog-switches-to-a-compact-60-percent-keyboard.htmlIf you were tempted by Razer’s analog keyboard last year but want something a little more compact, then the Huntsman Mini Analog might be worth a look. Razer says this is the first time it’s brought its Analog Optical Switches to a keyboard with a 60 percent layout, which means it doesn’t have a function row, numpad, or even arrow keys. The result is a very diminutive accessory, ideal for anyone with limited desk space./news/rip-google-stadia-the-latest-news-on-the-discontinued-cloud-gaming-service-page-2.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rip-google-stadia-the-latest-news-on-the-discontinued-cloud-gaming-service-page-2.htmlCome January, Google will be shutting down its Stadia cloud gaming service. In some ways, the move isn’t much of a surprise — as my colleagues have pointed out, there’s been doubt about whether Google was in it for the long haul with Stadia basically ever since it was announced in March 2019. If you’ve been listening to what the company said about the service, though, you’d be forgiven for being blindsided./news/russell-t-davies-turned-to-fantasy-to-make-doctor-who-think-harder.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/russell-t-davies-turned-to-fantasy-to-make-doctor-who-think-harder.htmlDoctor Who — a show about a time-traveling alien traipsing through the cosmos in a ship that looks like a British police box — has always been whimsical. But in its newest season, the long-running sci-fi classic leads with a supernatural otherworldliness that makes it feel much more like a magical fantasy.  In the buildup to Doctor Who’s 14th series / season, showrunner Russell T. Davies let everyone know he planned to establish new lore meant to deepen our understanding of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor./news/samsung-galaxy-s24-ultra-review-all-that-and-ai.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-s24-ultra-review-all-that-and-ai.htmlThe Galaxy S24 Ultra is a hell of a phone. As always, Samsung has jammed it full of more high-end hardware than you can shake an S Pen at, and this year it’s also packed with cutting-edge AI features. But it’s expensive, and most of my favorite things about it have very little to do with the AI parts, which aren’t even exclusive to the Ultra. It comes with a display that’s so easy to use outside in bright light that I want every other manufacturer to copy it./news/samsung-s21-ultra-spec-leak-confirms-additional-camera-hardware.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s21-ultra-spec-leak-confirms-additional-camera-hardware.htmlToday, we have another Galaxy S21 leak, which seems to confirm some of the specs that have been floating around, published by WinFuture. Information about and images of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S21-series phones have been landing almost daily in the run-up to Samsung’s January event. With this newest leak, we now have a better idea of what to expect — especially in the camera department. In short, the hardware appears to be a big part of Samsung’s plan to take on the highly capable iPhone 12 Pro Max./news/samsung-s-browser-is-now-available-for-its-wear-os-smartwatches.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-browser-is-now-available-for-its-wear-os-smartwatches.htmlAn obvious question about a web browser on your wrist is how exactly that tiny, circular display can manage to show full webpages. Samsung’s answer is with gestures. A guide will come up when you navigate to your first webpage that explains a diagonal swipe from either side of the screen will allow users to get to the corners of a webpage. Meanwhile, a swipe up reveals options for bookmarks, “Zoom mode,” and a shortcut to send the webpage directly to your connected phone./news/saru-is-star-trek-discovery-s-unsung-hero.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/saru-is-star-trek-discovery-s-unsung-hero.htmlWith all the betrayals, torture, time-looping, and universe-hopping crammed into the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, fans can be forgiven for missing subtler story points aboard the Federation vessel Discovery. From the personalities of the ship’s bridge crew to the finer physiological points of “species reassignment,” many of the show’s smaller details traveled painlessly under the radar, though season 2 — tentatively scheduled for 2019 — might expand on them./news/sega-is-laying-off-240-staff-in-europe.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sega-is-laying-off-240-staff-in-europe.htmlSega is laying off 240 staff in Europe. The company’s latest cost-cutting efforts — which include selling off Vancouver-based Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment — impact the Sega Europe office, and UK-based Sega Hardlight and Creative Assembly studios. In an email to staff seen by Eurogamer, Sega Europe CEO Jurgen Post said that “change is necessary to secure the future of our games business.” The news was announced less than a day after Sega’s US union ratified its first contract./news/segway-s-newest-self-balancing-vehicle-is-an-egg-shaped-wheelchair.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/segway-s-newest-self-balancing-vehicle-is-an-egg-shaped-wheelchair.htmlSegway’s newest self-balancing vehicle won’t require you to stand up. Dubbed the S-Pod, the new egg-shaped two-wheeler from Segway-Ninebot is meant to let people sit while they effortlessly cruise around campuses, theme parks, airports, and maybe even cities — all of the same places you’d expect to see one of the company’s iconic (if still a bit dorky) stand-up vehicles. The S-Pod is powered by basically the same gyroscopic self-balancing technology as a traditional Segway./news/skype-5-0-brings-a-taste-of-windows-phone-to-ios.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/skype-5-0-brings-a-taste-of-windows-phone-to-ios.htmlThe most surprising addition is the use of the three dots menu that Microsoft includes in its Metro-style applications to note there are extra options. With all these new user interface changes in place, Microsoft’s Skype iOS app appears to have leapfrogged the Windows Phone version. Subtle animations, smooth scrolling, and a parallax effect all add up to an iPhone Skype experience that feels superior to its Windows Phone equivalent, despite looking identical./news/snapchat-now-lets-emoji-follow-you-around-inside-a-video.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/snapchat-now-lets-emoji-follow-you-around-inside-a-video.htmlStationary, one-size-fits-all emoji are so yesterday. Android Snapchat users can now attach emoji to specific objects in their videos that will move, rotate, and scale automatically as the object moves throughout the snap. The update will come to iOS in the coming weeks. Make sure to add the emoji through the sticker button, as opposed to the text box, to get them to be interactive. Today's update follows a complete redesign of the app's Chat feature last month./news/some-google-home-mini-speakers-are-reportedly-crashing-when-playing-music-at-full-volume.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/some-google-home-mini-speakers-are-reportedly-crashing-when-playing-music-at-full-volume.htmlThe Google Home Mini isn’t exactly known for having a powerful speaker, but it seems that the smaller version of Google’s smart speaker is stronger than we thought. Reports have been cropping up on Google’s forums and Reddit about the device crashing if the volume is turned up too loudly, as spotted by SlashGear. At this point, it’s not entirely clear what causes the crash. Google team members have already responded in the forum threads to try and gather more information./news/sony-2-in-1-ec270-headphone-adapter-review-not-our-usb-c-savior.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-2-in-1-ec270-headphone-adapter-review-not-our-usb-c-savior.htmlIf you own an Android phone that lacks a headphone jack, you might be aware that there isn’t a simple, universal adapter that allows you to charge your phone and use wired headphones at the same time. This most often presents an issue in cars and on planes where you want to be able to keep the device charged throughout the duration of your trip while still being able to route audio to headphones or a car’s audio system without having to deal with Bluetooth./news/sony-announces-super-fast-a6600-and-a6100-mirrorless-cameras.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-announces-super-fast-a6600-and-a6100-mirrorless-cameras.htmlSony has announced two new APS-C mirrorless cameras: the flagship A6600 and the lower-tier A6100. The A6600 has several high-end features that position it as the successor to the A6500, which was introduced in October 2016.  Like the A6500, the new A6600 features 5-axis in-body image stabilization, a 24.2-megapixel APS-C Exmor CMOS image sensor, and super fast autofocus (AF), which can find the subject in 0.02 seconds. It also has Real-Time AF tracking and the new Real-Time Eye AF tracking that originally debuted in the A6400, which we reviewed earlier this year./news/sony-announces-the-world-s-first-qd-oled-4k-tv-coming-later-this-year.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-announces-the-world-s-first-qd-oled-4k-tv-coming-later-this-year.htmlSony is setting some pretty grand expectations with its 2022 TV lineup — led by the introduction of the world’s first consumer QD-OLED TV. The company’s current and well-regarded OLED sets use panels from LG Display that are tuned with Sony’s own processing. But the new flagship Bravia XR A95K TV will include a QD-OLED (quantum dot organic light emitting diode) panel manufactured by none other than Samsung Display. It’ll come in 65-inch and 55-inch sizes, with both coming in at 4K resolution./news/soylent-stops-canadian-sales-after-regulators-say-it-s-not-a-real-meal.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/soylent-stops-canadian-sales-after-regulators-say-it-s-not-a-real-meal.htmlSoylent is no longer available in Canada after running afoul of food regulation standards. Rosa Foods CEO Rob Rhinehart wrote today that Soylent doesn’t meet “a select few” of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s requirements for meal-replacement products. No more Soylent will be shipped to Canadian customers until it’s able to come to an agreement with the CFIA, something Rhinehart says will happen “as quickly as possible.” Rhinehart didn’t specify which guidelines Soylent fell afoul of, but insists that the standards “do not reflect the current understanding of human nutritional needs./news/spotify-s-podcast-future-is-less-originals-more-creators.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-s-podcast-future-is-less-originals-more-creators.htmlThis is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. When Spotify announced yesterday that it would lay off 200 employees from its podcast unit and combine Gimlet and Parcast into a single operation, it came as a shock to outside observers. But former and current podcast employees at Spotify have seen the writing on the wall for some time.  “We definitely have expected for several months now that they’d be axing people since the vibe at Gimlet had been very much one of walking on eggshells for months now,” one former Gimlet employee who was a part of yesterday’s layoffs told Hot Pod./news/starfield-s-dlss-3-support-is-coming-in-a-beta-patch-soon.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/starfield-s-dlss-3-support-is-coming-in-a-beta-patch-soon.htmlBethesda is almost ready to officially add Nvidia’s graphics upscaling technology to Starfield, but it will look for help from the PC gaming community first with an opt-in beta test available via Steam. The company says the game’s next update will support DLSS with frame generation (which would mean DLSS 3, if not 3.5) as well as display and HDR controls for supported systems. The RPG’s lack of support for DLSS was an issue before it even launched, with “exclusive PC partner” AMD forced to come out and insist that Bethesda would have its full support if the developers wanted to add support for the Nvidia technology./news/steam-has-a-new-game-recording-tool-and-it-works-on-steam-deck.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/steam-has-a-new-game-recording-tool-and-it-works-on-steam-deck.htmlValve is adding a native gameplay recording tool to Steam so that you can more easily capture and share clips. The game recording feature is available now in beta — including on Steam Deck. You’ll be able to both continuously record clips with background recording or manually turn on recording with a hotkey, according to Valve’s website about the updates. When you’re recording, you’ll see the “Steam Timeline,” and you can add markers to note interesting moments you might want to come back to later./news/steve-jobs-awarded-posthumous-medal-of-freedom-by-president-biden.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/steve-jobs-awarded-posthumous-medal-of-freedom-by-president-biden.htmlSteve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, has been awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, the White House announced Friday. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest US honor that can be given to a civilian, and it’s presented to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors,” the White House said in a statement./news/streaming-giants-have-banded-together-for-lobbying-power.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/streaming-giants-have-banded-together-for-lobbying-power.htmlStreaming companies have formed the Streaming Innovation Alliance (SIA), reported Axios. The new trade group should give companies like Netflix and Disney a solid foundation from which to deal with current and future regulation by the federal government related specifically to streaming. The SIA formed as regulators look for ways to deal with a changing entertainment landscape that increasingly includes content creators on social platforms, which these companies don’t necessarily want to be lumped in with./news/super-mario-bros-wonder-nintendo-direct-scheduled-for-august-31st.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/super-mario-bros-wonder-nintendo-direct-scheduled-for-august-31st.htmlNintendo confirmed to Polygon that Martinet would not appear as Mario in Wonder, saying, “While Charles is not involved in the game, we’re excited to honor his legacy and contributions, including looking ahead to what he’ll be doing as a Mario Ambassador.” Nintendo has promised that a special message from Martinet and CEO Shigeru Miyamoto would be forthcoming. This Direct, it seems, will feature that message along with possibly revealing who’s taking over as the new voice of the most prolific plumber in video games./news/superhuman-now-drafts-a-reply-to-every-email-sent-to-users.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/superhuman-now-drafts-a-reply-to-every-email-sent-to-users.htmlSuperhuman now drafts a reply to every email sent to users. The email client debuted Instant Reply, a new AI feature that learns from previous messages the tone and voice of the user. It generates “full emails,” which Superhuman says is different from other email clients that offer short phrases like “Got it, thanks.” Superhuman partnered with OpenAI to build Instant Reply. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZ3xzg45ra2lwZGt%2BenvSrqeeqpiquqK6jKemsGWUp66nwNJmmGaqlaW5unnTqGSerpWnxm6xzJqgpWWjmru1edOoZK6rlafA/news/t-mobile-just-brought-back-a-true-unlimited-data-plan-with-5g-and-no-throttling.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-just-brought-back-a-true-unlimited-data-plan-with-5g-and-no-throttling.htmlT-Mobile has just announced a new monthly phone plan called Magenta Max that the company says is designed for the era of 5G. According to this press release, T-Mobile claims Magenta Max is “the first and only 5G consumer smartphone plan that can’t slow you down based on how much data you use.” That makes it sound like the carrier is doing away with what’s known as deprioritization, where your speeds are subject to slowdown after you exceed a certain amount of data in a billing cycle./news/tcl-20-pro-5g-review-good-looks-aren-t-everything.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tcl-20-pro-5g-review-good-looks-aren-t-everything.htmlThe TCL 20 Pro 5G is a good-looking budget phone that works out some of the first-gen kinks we encountered in the 10 Pro, but it isn’t quite ready to take on the category heavyweights. Much like its predecessor, the 20 Pro 5G combines a high-end look with a budget price tag — $499 for 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage in this case. That’s $50 higher than the 10 Pro’s starting price, but this time you get more storage and 5G, too./news/tesla-reveals-cybertruck-size-specs-as-it-builds-release-candidates.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-reveals-cybertruck-size-specs-as-it-builds-release-candidates.htmlTesla revealed new measurements for its long-delayed Cybertruck in its Q2 earnings report. The polarizing truck will be less than 19 feet long and will have a bed that’s longer than six feet, which is shorter than Ford’s best-selling F-150 Lighting, which is 19.25 feet long with a 5.5-foot bed. “We continue to build release candidates of the Cybertruck on our final production line in Austin,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on an earnings call today./news/the-15-best-video-games-of-2017.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-15-best-video-games-of-2017.htmlA decade from now, there’s a good chance we’ll look back at 2017 as one of the best years ever for new game releases. Just think about it: some of the medium’s most iconic names — like Zelda, Mario, and Resident Evil — came roaring back to prominence, while new names like Horizon Zero Dawn and Cuphead forced their way into the spotlight. From blockbuster to indie games, console and PC to mobile, the wealth of experiences on offer has been incredible./news/the-8-year-olds-hacking-state-election-websites.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-8-year-olds-hacking-state-election-websites.htmlIt’s been a rather grim week in the social-media-and-democracy cinematic universe, so let’s end on a positive note … that starts on a grim note! “Voting systems in the United States are so woefully hackable, even an 8-year-old could do it.” So begins Issie Lapowsky’s look at a competition to be hosted next week at Def Con, the venerable hacking conference in Las Vegas. The competition in question is being cosponsored by the Democratic National Committee, who you might remember from such previous hacks as the 2016 presidential election./news/the-ai-tricks-behind-the-beatles-now-and-then.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ai-tricks-behind-the-beatles-now-and-then.htmlHi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 13, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)  This week, I’ve been watching Barbarian and No Hard Feelings, reading about the challenges of building “the next Twitter” and Marvel’s complicated future, using Pager to make sense of all my screenshots, and sending everyone this article about aphantasia to explain that no, I really don’t see pictures in my head, yes it’s wild, no I didn’t even realize other people could do that./news/the-bachelor-fantasy-league-week-six-everybody-hates-nick.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-bachelor-fantasy-league-week-six-everybody-hates-nick.htmlLove’s a game and this year we’re playing. For the full rules and intellectual justification of The Verge Bachelor Fantasy League please see this explanatory post. For a little background on why this is poised to be the best-ever season of The Bachelor, see this essay by culture editor Chris Plante: Kaitlyn Tiffany: Good morning and welcome back to The Bachelor, this week hosted in yet another Louisiana plantation and then a tacky art nouveau hotel on the island of St./news/the-best-apps-movies-shows-games-and-everything-else-of-2023.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-apps-movies-shows-games-and-everything-else-of-2023.htmlHi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 19, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)  It’s the last Installer of the year, so we’re going to do something a little different! We’re going to talk about all our favorite things of 2023. Some ground rules / disclaimers: this list is not exhaustive, not everything in here is new this year it’s just new to us, this is not an Official List of Every Single Good Thing That Exists, and most importantly, if there’s something missing that you find outrageous and unacceptable you know where to find me: installer@theverge./news/the-best-iphone-gaming-controller-now-works-with-android-phones-but-you-ll-need-a-cable.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-iphone-gaming-controller-now-works-with-android-phones-but-you-ll-need-a-cable.htmlLast year, a small company called Backbone Labs released arguably the best iPhone gaming controller on the market right now, the Backbone One. Starting Thursday, you’ll be able to use that controller with many more devices — including Android phones — though it won’t work exactly as you might expect and requires a new Backbone Plus subscription to set it up. Here’s how using the controller with other devices works. The Backbone One is designed to let you slot in an iPhone in landscape mode to a Lightning port on the right side of the controller./news/the-best-thing-about-the-new-airpods-pro-is-the-extra-small-eartips.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-thing-about-the-new-airpods-pro-is-the-extra-small-eartips.htmlMy favorite change to the new AirPods Pro is perhaps the smallest one. Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro come with a new extra small eartip size, and they finally make Apple’s pro wireless earbuds a near-perfect fit for me. I loved the first-generation AirPods Pro, but they frequently fell out of my ears when I was doing anything but sitting perfectly still, even with the smallest eartip (at the time). On Zoom calls, I’d be constantly adjusting my earbuds while talking./news/the-cleaners-is-a-riveting-documentary-about-how-social-media-might-be-ruining-the-world.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-cleaners-is-a-riveting-documentary-about-how-social-media-might-be-ruining-the-world.htmlWelcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. We’re in a cultural moment where the impact of social media isn’t something that we just notice when we catch ourselves heads-down in our phones or computers. It’s something that’s underscored with almost daily news stories, with each new revelation seemingly more sinister than the last./news/the-dragon-prince-s-creators-on-the-series-storytelling-and-its-dark-magic.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-dragon-prince-s-creators-on-the-series-storytelling-and-its-dark-magic.htmlBack in 2018, when Netflix announced its new original series The Dragon Prince, fans of American animation immediately went on high alert. Co-creators Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond, whose recently founded studio Wonderstorm was behind the show, were familiar names: Ehasz is a Futurama writer and head writer of the unparalleled Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, while Richmond is a game developer and director from the fan-favorite Uncharted series. And their premise for the series — a quest taking place in a world full of dragons, elves, and magic — sounded like a kind of epic high fantasy that in theory should be perfect for animation, but in practice isn’t much seen on TV screens./news/the-ellen-pao-trial-is-spilling-silicon-valley-secrets.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ellen-pao-trial-is-spilling-silicon-valley-secrets.htmlOpening arguments for Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — the gender discrimination lawsuit that cracked Silicon Valley’s claim to meritocracy like an iPhone screen — began a week ago in San Francisco Superior Court. Entire afternoons of testimony have fixated on the financial perks of being one of the (mostly male) senior partners at the celebrated venture capital firm, or the potential fivefold increase in income for (mostly male) "/news/the-expanse-author-james-s-a-corey-is-writing-a-new-space-opera-trilogy.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-expanse-author-james-s-a-corey-is-writing-a-new-space-opera-trilogy.htmlComing off of this morning’s news that the Syfy channel was not going to renew The Expanse for a fourth season, there is some positive news for fans of the series: Orbit Books has announced that it has signed Expanse author James S.A. Corey for three books of a new space opera series. Corey is actually two authors: Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who co-wrote The Expanse series, which is expected to run for nine novels, the last of which will hit bookstores in 2019./news/the-fairphone-5-is-a-little-more-repairable-and-much-more-modern.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-fairphone-5-is-a-little-more-repairable-and-much-more-modern.htmlThe Fairphone 5 is the latest sustainably produced and repairable handset from Dutch smartphone company Fairphone. Like its previous devices, the Fairphone 5 is made with ethically sourced materials by workers who are given a living wage bonus and is designed to be easy to repair with a lengthy software support period. But this year’s model is specced-out much more like a modern midrange smartphone, with an OLED display, fast 30W charging, and dual 50-megapixel cameras at the rear./news/the-future-of-tv-is-up-in-the-air.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-future-of-tv-is-up-in-the-air.htmlAntenna television is back. In recent years, millions of cord-cutters have rediscovered antennas as a reliable way to watch broadcast networks like ABC, NBC, and FOX, all for free — and now, broadcasters are eager to get the rest of us hooked. They’ve been marching ahead with the deployment of ATSC 3.0, a next-generation broadcast format that supports 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos audio, and even interactive apps over the air, no cable or streaming subscription required./news/the-iphone-11-pro-and-pro-max-price-699-999-and-1-099-respectively.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-iphone-11-pro-and-pro-max-price-699-999-and-1-099-respectively.htmlThe successor to the iPhone XR, the iPhone 11, will retail starting at $699, while the two new flagships iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max will start at $999 and $1,099, respectively. All three will be open for preorder starting on Friday, September 13th at 5AM PT, and they’ll be available for purchase on September 20th. The iPhone 11 comes in a glass design, which is the “toughest ever in a smartphone,” and features six new colors: purple, white, green, yellow, black, and Product Red./news/the-microsoft-band-is-dead.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-microsoft-band-is-dead.htmlMicrosoft gave it two tries, but the company's wrist-worn Band fitness tracker is seemingly no more. The Band 2 has been removed completely from Microsoft's online store, signaling that production has ceased. It's no longer available from Best Buy either, though Amazon is still selling through its remaining inventory. ZDNet reports that the company has no current plans to release a Band 3. The team responsible for the Band was recently dissolved, throwing doubt on Microsoft's future plans for the product./news/the-monkey-selfie-lawsuit-lives.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-monkey-selfie-lawsuit-lives.htmlJust when you thought you wouldn’t hear about the monkey selfie ever again, the legal saga lives once more. Although the parties — the photographer, a self-publishing book company, and PETA, on behalf of the selfie-taking monkey — reached a settlement in September of last year, the Ninth Circuit is now refusing to dismiss the case. This means the court will be coming out with an official appellate decision about the monkey selfie./news/the-only-gift-you-ll-need-for-christmas.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-only-gift-you-ll-need-for-christmas.htmlThe only gift you’ll need for Christmas. If you’re a fan of Hallmark’s Christmas movies, that is: the company is launching a streaming service, Hallmark Plus, in mid-September, Deadline reports. The service, which will cost $80 per year, will feature shows like Finding Mr. Christmas, a reality show where 10 men will compete to earn a role in a 2024 Hallmark holiday movie. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfbHxyfY5ra2pxZmuAenvToZxmp56hxm6zyJ%2BrZrGfqrmtec2enJ1llqS%2Fbq%2FHq6CsrJ2WwA%3D%3D/news/the-smart-kitchen-is-a-great-idea-and-a-strange-reality.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-smart-kitchen-is-a-great-idea-and-a-strange-reality.htmlThe idea of a smart kitchen conjures up lots of images. You might think about a fridge with a giant screen telling you what’s inside and what you can cook with it. You might picture a robot in an apron milling around the kitchen, flipping pancakes with expert precision. You might just say, “Who cares?” and order DoorDash. All of these things and more seem like they ought to be possible./news/the-snooze-button-is-the-best-part-of-the-world-s-most-hated-gadget.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-snooze-button-is-the-best-part-of-the-world-s-most-hated-gadget.htmlFew gadgets are more hated than the alarm clock, a device whose primary purpose is to rudely rip you from the pleasant world of sleep into the cold, harsh, unforgiving reality that we live in every day — and whose level of functionality is directly proportional to how goddamn annoying the beeping sound it can make is.  But within virtually all alarm clocks is also a crucial reprieve: the snooze button, a temporary salve for the alarm’s cruel clarion call, a stay of execution for the day you will inevitably have to face./news/the-super-nes-classic-is-back-at-best-buy-on-saturday-in-limited-quantities.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-super-nes-classic-is-back-at-best-buy-on-saturday-in-limited-quantities.htmlSince its initial release in late September, it hasn’t been easy to get a hold of the Super NES Classic, a miniature version of the beloved 1990s Nintendo console that comes loaded with 21 games. The initial preorders were available only to customers who happened to be awake in the wee hours of the morning, and despite Nintendo’s promises to manufacture “significantly more” stock than they did of the NES Classic, the $79./news/the-uber-for-tasks-might-just-be-uber.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-uber-for-tasks-might-just-be-uber.htmlUber might be expanding beyond ridesharing and food deliveries. A snippet of code seen by Bloomberg includes a new “Chore” option, which appears to let users hire people through the app for various jobs. The code suggests that users may be able to hire a worker — reportedly called a “tasker” within the app — for at least one hour, as reported by Bloomberg. In addition to specifying the job they want done, users will also have to state how long it might take and when the worker should show up./news/this-free-tool-effortlessly-removes-watermarks-on-stock-images.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-free-tool-effortlessly-removes-watermarks-on-stock-images.htmlThe already-contentious relationship between AI and the creative industry might soon get even more complicated thanks to a free-to-use service that can completely remove watermarks from images. Watermark Remover.io (as seen via Creative Bloq) is a tool offered by Pixelbin.io that removes identifiable watermarks with a single click and has sparked conversations surrounding copyright protections since being listed on Product Hunt last year. The functionality of Watermark Remover.io isn’t new — similar tools already exist, and you can also remove watermarks using things like Adobe Photoshop’s content-aware fill./news/this-harry-potter-ai-generated-fanfiction-is-remarkably-good.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-harry-potter-ai-generated-fanfiction-is-remarkably-good.htmlHarry Potter fans who have already finished reading The Cursed Child and A Journey Through the History of Magic from the past two years have a new chapter in the story of the wizarding boy to tide them over—one brought to us not by J.K. Rowling, but by AI-generated text prediction. Botnik Studios created the three-page chapter, titled “Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash,” after training an algorithmic tool on all seven of the children’s fantasy novels./news/this-is-the-cast-of-quentin-tarantino-s-the-hateful-eight.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-is-the-cast-of-quentin-tarantino-s-the-hateful-eight.htmlAfter some uncertainty earlier this year, Quentin Tarantino is really moving forward with The Hateful Eight, and all of the film's big stars have just been announced. That includes each member of the titular Hateful Eight, plus one bonus star, all of which you can see below. A first description of what the plot will be like has now been released too, and it sounds as though the film, set some years after the Civil War, will find all eight of these people converging in Wyoming and getting stuck at a stagecoach stop amid a heavy storm./news/this-kirby-otamatone-is-the-musical-instrument-you-need.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-kirby-otamatone-is-the-musical-instrument-you-need.htmlIf you’re a big fan of the giant pink ball of cuteness that is Kirby, look no further than this Kirby-themed version of the Japanese Otamatone, a musical toy instrument, to add to your collection. The Kirby version is pink (of course), and it features Kirby’s eyes and a pair of blush marks. The humble Otamatone is a cute (or aggressively annoying... to each their own) instrument that makes digital synthesizer-like noises when you tap or slide your finger along the neck./news/this-nintendo-switch-is-so-big-you-can-actually-read-the-text-in-skyrim.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-nintendo-switch-is-so-big-you-can-actually-read-the-text-in-skyrim.htmlNintendo has been rumored to be working on a bigger Switch for a while now, which reportedly could show up later in 2021. But YouTuber Michael Pick isn’t waiting around for a new model from Nintendo — he’s gone and built his own bigger Switch. Much bigger, as it turns out: almost six feet wide, compared to the regular Switch’s 9.4-inch size. “I really like the Nintendo Switch. It’s small, it’s portable — but it’s really easy to lose./news/this-samsung-flower-vase-is-also-a-throwable-fire-extinguisher.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-samsung-flower-vase-is-also-a-throwable-fire-extinguisher.htmlThe Firevase is a flower vase that you literally throw at a fire like a grenade in order to put it out. Produced by a Samsung subsidiary called Cheil Worldwide, the vase works using an outer chamber filled with potassium carbonate that quickly cools and suppresses oxygen when the vase is smashed. A smaller inner chamber then holds the water for your flowers. Dezeen notes that 100,000 Firevases were originally produced as part of a publicity campaign to promote the use of home fire extinguishers in South Korea./news/those-explicit-ai-generated-taylor-swift-images-unsurprisingly-came-from-4chan.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/those-explicit-ai-generated-taylor-swift-images-unsurprisingly-came-from-4chan.htmlThose explicit AI-generated Taylor Swift images, unsurprisingly, came from 4Chan. Bloomberg reports that users on the forum have been competing to find ways to bypass keyword filters on AI image-generation tools that prevent sexually explicit materials from being produced. The images moved from 4Chan to Telegram to X where they found viral attention. Research from social network analysis company Graphika found that Swift isn’t even the community’s most frequently targeted victim, which range from global celebrities to school children./news/threads-fediverse-beta-opens-to-share-your-posts-on-mastodon-too.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/threads-fediverse-beta-opens-to-share-your-posts-on-mastodon-too.htmlThreads is rolling out a beta of its fediverse integration in the US, Canada, and Japan. In a post on Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that toggling on the feature will let you cross-post and view likes from other federated platforms, like Mastodon. Threads previewed its fediverse integration earlier this week during the FediForum. As outlined on its support page, Meta says that you must have a public account to turn on fediverse sharing, which will allow users on other servers to “search for and follow your profile, view your posts, interact with your content, and share your content to anyone on or off their server./news/tiktok-algorithm-wants-you-to-stick-around-and-come-back-leak-reveals.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-algorithm-wants-you-to-stick-around-and-come-back-leak-reveals.htmlTikTok’s much-vaunted video algorithm is designed around two things: getting users to stick around and getting users to come back. That’s according to a report in The New York Times, which reviewed a leaked copy of an internal TikTok document summarizing how the system works. The report offers a rare look into one of the most discussed algorithms in tech right now, and it reveals some considerations — like retaining creators and ensuring they make money — that may not be obvious choices when building a video feed meant to keep viewers tuned in./news/tiktok-chief-security-officer-says-its-servers-are-already-separate-from-bytedance.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-chief-security-officer-says-its-servers-are-already-separate-from-bytedance.htmlTikTok’s chief security officer says in new court documents that the US Commerce Department has mischaracterized how the app stores and secures user data, as the company renews its motion for a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s looming ban. Roland Cloutier, global chief security officer for TikTok, says in a new court filing, in advance of an upcoming hearing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, that the Commerce Department made several incorrect assertions about the company’s data security policies and practices./news/tiktok-is-getting-closer-to-launching-an-instagram-rival.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-is-getting-closer-to-launching-an-instagram-rival.htmlThe notification says it will share “existing and future public TikTok photo posts” to TikTok Notes while also giving users the ability to opt out. A new photo.tiktok.com URL (archived version) spotted by TechCrunch also briefly appeared online with a prompt to open a post in the TikTok Notes app. Judging by the image included on the site, it looks like you’ll be able to write a caption alongside your photo, too./news/tile-improves-its-google-assistant-integration-ahead-of-potential-apple-competitor.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tile-improves-its-google-assistant-integration-ahead-of-potential-apple-competitor.htmlTile doesn’t want people to forget about it, especially if Apple debuts its own item tracker. Today, Tile announced a minor update to its Google Assistant integration that’ll allow Assistant to directly ring a Tile. The functionality isn’t launching until later this year, but clearly, Tile wants to get its news out ahead of Apple. Before, Tile just had a Google Assistant skill, which required users to say, “Hey Google, ask Tile to find my phone./news/timothy-zahn-is-writing-a-new-thrawn-novel.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/timothy-zahn-is-writing-a-new-thrawn-novel.htmlLucasfilm and Del Rey Books revealed today that Timothy Zahn is writing a new Star Wars novel: Thrawn: Treason. It’s a sequel to 2017’s Thrawn (which covered the villain’s origins) and Thrawn: Alliances, the sequel that brought Thrawn and Darth Vader together for the first time. This new book is set in the aftermath of the demise of Thrawn’s Tie Defender project in Star Wars Rebels, after it’s killed in favor of the Empire weapons project that becomes the Death Star./news/travis-scott-s-ps5-unboxing-is-a-strangely-cool-short-movie.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/travis-scott-s-ps5-unboxing-is-a-strangely-cool-short-movie.htmlThe PlayStation 5 finally launched yesterday, and to accompany the release, rapper Travis Scott made an epic 10-minute video celebrating the new console. The video, “A Travis Scott + Cactus Jack Experience - PS5: Unboxing Reimagined,” doesn’t actually feature an unboxing at all — it’s something more like a short film. Unsurprisingly, there’s a decent amount of gameplay footage, showing off Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Astro’s Playroom, Horizon Forbidden West, and more./news/twitter-blue-is-now-available-on-android-for-11-a-month.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-blue-is-now-available-on-android-for-11-a-month.htmlTwitter has rolled out Twitter Blue to Android users a month after the service was relaunched on the platform’s iOS app. As seen in Twitter’s updated help page for Twitter Blue, Android users can now purchase a monthly subscription for $11 — the same price as iOS users. The service is currently still limited to users within the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Along with providing users with a blue “verified” checkmark, a subscription to Twitter Blue currently grants users access to the ability to edit tweets, upload longer 1080p videos, and access reader mode./news/valve-says-supporting-the-steam-deck-with-battleye-anti-cheat-is-as-easy-as-an-email.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/valve-says-supporting-the-steam-deck-with-battleye-anti-cheat-is-as-easy-as-an-email.htmlWe knew from the beginning that Valve’s upcoming $400 Steam Deck handheld wouldn’t play every Steam game perfectly out of the box. It runs Windows games on Linux using the Proton compatibility layer, and some of the biggest games on Steam use anti-cheat software that, historically, hasn’t worked with Proton. But on Friday, Valve revealed that this should no longer be a problem for BattlEye, one of the biggest anti-cheat vendors out there./news/veloretti-s-first-electric-bikes-are-automatic-and-gorgeous.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/veloretti-s-first-electric-bikes-are-automatic-and-gorgeous.htmlIt’s not very often that a notable new electric bike brand emerges from Amsterdam, the bicycling capital of the world. The last time was when VanMoof launched the Electrified S back in 2016. So it’s with particular interest that I’ve been following the launch of the Veloretti Ivy and Ace e-bikes that begin mass production today. And I’m not alone in my anticipation as their first electrics begin shipping to customers. “We’re quite overwhelmed with interest in the e-bikes./news/vin-diesel-wants-to-make-fast-and-furious-spinoffs-and-prequels.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vin-diesel-wants-to-make-fast-and-furious-spinoffs-and-prequels.htmlThe Fast and Furious series is already a superhero franchise, more or less, and now it's looking to become a full cinematic universe. Speaking to Variety, star and producer Vin Diesel says the FF team is in the early stages of developing both sequels and spinoff films. To quote Diesel himself, "We've written out story lines for various characters... We've been playing with it for a long time. It's a very rich property and we're committed to treating it with a lot of class./news/vr-is-still-too-expensive.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vr-is-still-too-expensive.htmlPlayStation VR2 costs more than the most expensive PS5. I get why, but it’s still too much money. We’re on the precipice of a new era for virtual reality. Meta just launched its high-end Quest Pro, Sony will be releasing PSVR2 in February, and Apple is heavily rumored to jump into the game with its own VR / AR headset very soon. I’m finally ready to buy a VR headset, and this is the generation that it feels like I should be joining./news/walmart-and-rakuten-take-on-amazon-with-kobo-e-reader-alliance.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/walmart-and-rakuten-take-on-amazon-with-kobo-e-reader-alliance.htmlWalmart has struck a deal with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten that will see the US company become the exclusive mass retailer of Kobo e-readers. Co-branded Walmart and Kobo apps will be released for ebook and audiobook content, which will be available through Walmart's website, and Walmart retail stores will also sell digital book cards. Rakuten bought Canadian company Kobo in 2011 and released its e-readers in Japan before Amazon got into the market./news/want-to-know-how-much-power-switch-has-zelda-runs-at-900p-30-fps.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/want-to-know-how-much-power-switch-has-zelda-runs-at-900p-30-fps.htmlNobody comes to Nintendo hoping for the hottest gaming hardware specs, but it's still important to know exactly how little power Nintendo is actually bringing to this console generation. The company recently confirmed to IGN that its flagship Zelda game, Breath of the Wild (which was originally announced for the Wii U, a Xbox 360-ish console power-wise), will run at 900p and 30 fps on the Switch when hooked up to a TV./news/watch-the-trailer-for-spike-lee-s-new-michael-jackson-documentary.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-the-trailer-for-spike-lee-s-new-michael-jackson-documentary.htmlSpike Lee's Chi-Raq is only a few weeks into its run on Amazon Prime Video, but the prolific director isn't resting on his laurels. Lee's new documentary Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall is premiering in just a few weeks, and its first trailer was made available last night. It's going to play for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24th before landing on Showtime on February 5th./news/westworld-season-2-our-spoiler-free-review.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/westworld-season-2-our-spoiler-free-review.htmlWarning: ending spoilers for season 1 of Westworld ahead. During its debut season, HBO’s science fiction drama Westworld became as well-known for its storytelling style as for the actual story. The first season was a puzzle box, using editing and narrative misdirection to give the initial impression that it was a conventional television show with multiple plot threads happening concurrently. Instead, the first season of Westworld spanned decades, with multiple timelines, some as much as 30 years apart, intercut with one another./news/what-is-a-nerd.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-is-a-nerd.htmlThe last few weeks have been awash in nerds and geeks. ChipChick published a guide to dating a geek girl, while CNN decried “wannabe models” pretending to be nerds. Before that came the shootings in Aurora, where media described killer James Holmes as a science-loving geek or a “dark Trekkie-like person.” While these pieces have generated thoughtful responses across the web, eventually they run into the same problem: defining what “nerd” and “geek” are actually supposed to mean./news/why-prey-is-my-game-of-the-year.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-prey-is-my-game-of-the-year.htmlIt’s been a shockingly packed year for great new video games. Over the course of the last 12 months, it seemed like there was never really a pause, or a moment when there wasn’t something interesting to play. To celebrate, this week Verge staff will be publishing essays on their favorite releases of the year, the games that spoke to us personally. Expect to see a new one each morning, culminating in a list of our collective 15 favorite games of 2017 on Friday./news/xbox-games-showcase-2024-all-the-news-trailers-and-announcements.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-games-showcase-2024-all-the-news-trailers-and-announcements.htmlHere’s another look at Avowed, coming in 2024. Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase is full of release dates today, but we still don’t have an exact one for Avowed. Obsidian’s upcoming first-person RPG is still arriving in 2024, though. I heard from sources a few months ago that it was targeting a November release. Last year, we got a good look at Avowed and a promise of a 2024 launch, and we’re getting much of the same today./news/yes-i-know-my-hot-dog-phone-case-is-thicc-no-it-doesn-t-have-a-battery-inside.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/yes-i-know-my-hot-dog-phone-case-is-thicc-no-it-doesn-t-have-a-battery-inside.htmlWeird Phone Case of the Month is a monthly series in which we live with, and subsequently review, our time with a phone case. Phone cases are one of our only ways to express individuality with our smartphones, so what do our phone case choices say about us? For my birthday this year, my girl and colleague Dami Lee bought me a hot dog phone case. I love hot dogs, which I wouldn’t expect you to know unless you’ve read my Tinder bio, or have somehow picked up on a subconscious hot dog bias in my work./news/youtube-will-punish-trump-and-other-channels-that-continue-to-spread-election-lies.htmlWed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-will-punish-trump-and-other-channels-that-continue-to-spread-election-lies.htmlYouTube will temporarily restrict channels that post videos containing widespread misinformation about 2020 election results — including the channel of President Donald Trump. Instead of simply removing videos that spread misinformation, any channel that post videos with false claims about the election will now receive a strike, temporarily preventing them from uploading videos. This includes Trump’s channel. Channels that earn one strike are restricted from posting for one week. In December, YouTube issued a new policy prohibiting any content designed to spread misinformation about the outcome of the 2020 election by promoting false theories about fraudulent votes or other unverified claims./news/homeworld-remastered-puts-you-in-command-of-the-most-stunning-space-battles-ever.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/homeworld-remastered-puts-you-in-command-of-the-most-stunning-space-battles-ever.htmlMaking video games is hard. It’s a long, complex process that can involve hundreds of people making thousands of decisions, all in the hope of creating a coherent product at the end. And while as a player it’s impossible to know the reality behind a game’s production, sometimes individual decisions do stand out in their power to make a major impact on a title. Homeworld, a space-based strategy game first released in 1999, is one example of this./news/lean-muscle-driving-the-lighter-better-2016-chevy-camaro-ss.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lean-muscle-driving-the-lighter-better-2016-chevy-camaro-ss.htmlIn a place called Hell, Michigan, I met the team that developed and built the all-new sixth-generation 2016 Chevrolet Camaro. Hell — this hell, anyway — isn’t as bad as it sounds. It helped that I was on the rustic hills of the 37-acre Hell Creek Ranch, surrounded by snarling pony cars and people who knew how to talk about them. It also helped that I knew I’d soon be behind the wheel./news/sex-box-a-television-show-where-people-have-sex-in-a-box.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sex-box-a-television-show-where-people-have-sex-in-a-box.htmlElle and Brandon are ready. They are the first victims of Sex Box, a reality television program adapted from the UK original on Channel 4, premiering tomorrow night on WeTV. Over the course of an hour, two therapists and a pastor provide couples relationship advice before and after the partners have sex in a box on a stage before a live studio audience. 'Are you ready to go into the sex box?/news/the-live-streaming-app-where-amateurs-get-paid-to-chat-eat-and-sleep-on-camera.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-live-streaming-app-where-amateurs-get-paid-to-chat-eat-and-sleep-on-camera.htmlTayser Abuhamdeh doesn’t have what most people would call an exciting job. He works behind the counter at a deli in Brooklyn, a small shop that does a brisk business in snacks, coffee, and cigarettes. In June of last year, on a whim and mostly out of boredom, Abuhamdeh mounted his phone next to the register and began to broadcast his day on YouNow, a live streaming service. His handle was Mr./news/house-of-cards-season-2-review-it-was-butchery-not-strategy-that-won-the-war.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/house-of-cards-season-2-review-it-was-butchery-not-strategy-that-won-the-war.htmlStanding confidently at a podium, President Garrett Walker practices a rousing State of the Union speech before asking rather meekly if “the frostbite bit" is too much. Meanwhile, opposite him in the room, newly-minted Vice President Francis "Frank" Underwood sketches the silhouette of an excessively well-endowed bull. "There are two types of vice presidents,” Underwood says to the camera as he presents his art, “doormats and matadors. Which do you think I intend to be?/news/sin-city-sequel-adds-julia-garner-and-eva-green-to-growing-cast.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sin-city-sequel-adds-julia-garner-and-eva-green-to-growing-cast.htmlDeadline is reporting that both Julia Garner and Eva Green have signed on to the cast of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, joining Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, and Bruce Willis on the set of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's upcoming sequel. Green, who starred in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows and played a Bond girl in Casino Royale, will play the role of Ava Lord, the femme fatale from Miller's graphic novel./news/the-fifth-estate-review-truth-is-more-interesting-than-fiction.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-fifth-estate-review-truth-is-more-interesting-than-fiction.htmlThere was a stretch in the mid-1990s when Hollywood suddenly wised up to the fact that the internet was here to stay, and jumped on its emergence as the hook for a series of clunky, awkward “cyber-thrillers.” It was an era that gave us the likes of The Net, Johnny Mnemonic, and Hackers, movies that — ironic nostalgia aside — are best left forgotten. Fast-forward to 2013, and movie studios have taken notice of a different technological revolution, one that has allowed whistleblowers to expose hidden truths and horrific misdeeds through the spread of classified documents./news/1password-is-launching-passkey-support-in-early-2023.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/1password-is-launching-passkey-support-in-early-2023.html1Password has announced that passkey support will be available to its customers in “early 2023,” allowing users to securely log in to apps and websites without a password. FIDO Alliance member 1Password said “it may take time” to implement support for passkeys Passkeys are a passwordless login technology developed by the FIDO Alliance, whose members include most of the Big Tech companies. The tech allows users to replace traditional passwords with their device’s own authentication — such as an iPhone with Face ID — offering greater security and protection since there’s no password to steal or accidentally hand over via a phishing attack./news/4chan-users-embrace-ai-voice-clone-tool-to-generate-celebrity-hatespeech.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/4chan-users-embrace-ai-voice-clone-tool-to-generate-celebrity-hatespeech.htmlUpdate, Wednesday 1st February, 5:40AM ET: ElevenLabs, the startup providing the voice cloning technology, has announced additional safeguards it will be introducing to the platform in a Twitter thread. These will include stopping free users from creating custom voices, launching a tool to detect AI-generated audio, and banning accounts reported for creating “harmful content.” An AI startup that lets anyone clone a target’s voice in a matter of seconds is being rapidly embraced by internet trolls./news/a-love-letter-for-the-original-steam-link-i-regret-taking-you-for-granted.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-love-letter-for-the-original-steam-link-i-regret-taking-you-for-granted.htmlBack in 2018 I managed to nab a physical Steam Link when Valve was flogging them for £2.50 here in the UK ($2.50 in USD). I was actually buying a Steam Controller for my then-partner and spotted the bargain while browsing through the Steam website, so I purchased the gadget on a whim. That little black puck has since left such a good impression on me that every alternative service has paled in comparison./news/a-small-cable-company-is-going-all-in-on-youtube-tv-for-video.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-small-cable-company-is-going-all-in-on-youtube-tv-for-video.htmlCable TV is on the way out, and YouTube TV is in for Wide Open West, or WOW!, a smaller US broadband operator with just over a half million internet customers and, as of March 31st, 117,000 households paying for cable TV. The process of migrating WOW!’s residential video customers to YouTube TV will begin this summer as WOW! discontinues the marketing and selling of its TV services, including WOW! tv+, and sells YouTube TV across its footprint./news/adidas-and-xbox-teamed-up-on-one-more-console-themed-sneaker-which-is-on-sale-now-for-140.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/adidas-and-xbox-teamed-up-on-one-more-console-themed-sneaker-which-is-on-sale-now-for-140.htmlThe overall design and coloring are in place to mimic Microsoft’s latest flagship console, with black netting and a green liner inside that’s similar to the Xbox Series X’s fan vent, and a sphere Xbox logo on the side is drawn from the Elite controller. Adidas Forum Tech Boost Series X Image: Microsoft ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2lfZn9wfpBoaWtwZG2Bd36OmpuinJGoeqe70a6kZqyVmLVurs6oqq1lqJe8uXnSnqminaNixW6%2FzZ6YpJ2iqA%3D%3D/news/amazon-and-hachette-have-finally-resolved-their-bitter-dispute.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-and-hachette-have-finally-resolved-their-bitter-dispute.htmlAfter a months-long public battle, Amazon and book publisher Hachette have patched things up and signed a new, multiyear agreement. Specific terms of their new deal aren't being disclosed, but Hachette claims it's got full control over ebook pricing. "This approach, known as the Agency model, protects the value of our authors’ content, while allowing the publisher to change ebook prices dynamically to maximize sales," CEO Michael Pietsch told Hachette authors by email./news/amazon-targets-admins-behind-thousands-of-fake-review-facebook-groups.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-targets-admins-behind-thousands-of-fake-review-facebook-groups.htmlAmazon is taking legal action against the admins of over 10,000 Facebook groups that it says facilitate fake reviews for products on its platform by promising money or free products in exchange for positive reviews. The groups are allegedly responsible for fake reviews across Amazon’s sites in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan, the company has announced. Just one such group, called “Amazon Product Review,” reportedly had over 43,000 members./news/amazon-s-kitchen-friendly-echo-show-15-is-going-for-80-off-right-now.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-kitchen-friendly-echo-show-15-is-going-for-80-off-right-now.htmlA smart display can amalgamate the various smart home and virtual assistant tools at your disposal, whether you prefer voice-activated assistants or smartphone-like interfaces for direct control. That’s exactly what Amazon’s Echo Show 15 provides, and right now, the wall-mountable panel is down to $199.99 ($80 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. The Echo Show 15 is a solid 15.6-inch smart display that can double as a 1080p TV thanks to its Fire TV integration, which makes it ideal in the kitchen for viewing recipes or enjoying a side of entertainment with whatever meal you’re cooking./news/amazon-s-new-echo-frames-are-lighter-louder-and-start-shipping-next-week.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-new-echo-frames-are-lighter-louder-and-start-shipping-next-week.htmlAmazon’s Echo Frames strategy is to skip the visual augmented reality features of other “smart glasses” and deliver regular-looking glasses with the Alexa voice assistant built in. If this sounds like a valuable addition to your life, you’re in luck, as the new third-generation Echo Frames are now available to preorder on Amazon, and there’s a $75 discount available. What The Verge’s David Pierce pointed out from his preview earlier this fall is that the biggest differences in the new Frames are as much about form as function — this latest iteration is a lighter, better-balanced version than its previous counterparts, with more stylish and colorful options available./news/amazon-s-wheel-of-time-show-has-a-cast-of-unknowns-and-big-ambitions.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-wheel-of-time-show-has-a-cast-of-unknowns-and-big-ambitions.htmlThe show announced its cast for the books’ five central characters: Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon, Zoë Robins as Nynaeve al’Meara, and Josha Stradowski as Rand al’Thor. Basically the Harry, Ron, and Hermione of the ‘Wheel of Time’ world Jordan’s original 15-book epic, which puts even the Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire series to shame in terms of sheer page count, largely focuses on these characters./news/american-automakers-are-losing-the-race-to-make-more-fuel-efficient-vehicles.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/american-automakers-are-losing-the-race-to-make-more-fuel-efficient-vehicles.htmlThe US saw record gains in fuel efficiency last year, but it still falls short of what’s needed to meet fast-approaching deadlines. Thanks to their love of large vehicles, American automakers have fallen behind their competitors when it comes to getting more miles per gallon of gas. Real-world fuel economy in model year 2022 rose slightly to 26 miles per gallon, according to the EPA’s latest Automotive Trends Report. That’s a 0./news/aoc-and-ted-cruz-blast-apple-and-blizzard-over-china-concessions.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/aoc-and-ted-cruz-blast-apple-and-blizzard-over-china-concessions.htmlIn two letters, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sharply criticized Apple and Blizzard over their recent actions in China. “Strong concern” over Apple’s decision The first, addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook, expresses “strong concern” over the company’s decision to remove an app used by Hong Kong protesters from its App Store. The app, called HKMap, tracked police presence and was used by pro-democracy activists, but was removed earlier this month after Apple claimed it was being used for criminal activity./news/apple-airtag-vs-samsung-smarttag-plus-vs-tile-pro.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-airtag-vs-samsung-smarttag-plus-vs-tile-pro.htmlThis year will go down in history as the year we entered the golden age of Not Losing Your Stuff. Well, in addition to some other historic milestones, somewhere in the top 100 hits of the year will be the introduction of smart tracker tags from two major mobile device manufacturers: Samsung and Apple.  Tracking tags have been around for a while now, and Tile has been the best-known brand in the space./news/apple-music-now-does-a-much-better-job-of-showing-artists-albums.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-music-now-does-a-much-better-job-of-showing-artists-albums.htmlApple has fixed one of the biggest problems with Apple Music: the unhelpful way that a given artists’ releases were listed and displayed on the service. Previously, singles and collections were lumped together with studio albums, so if you wanted to put on a particular album you’d usually have to scroll through dozens of unrelated or redundant releases to find it. This also meant it was hard to get a sense of what an unfamiliar artist’s most significant records were./news/apple-refuses-to-make-nda-concessions-for-workplace-harassment-and-discrimination.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-refuses-to-make-nda-concessions-for-workplace-harassment-and-discrimination.htmlApple, like many tech companies, has an intimidating employment agreement that it makes employees sign to protect its trade secrets. Though the agreement is in place to prevent workers from sharing internal details of Apple’s products and processes, it is unclear whether they can speak out about working conditions, according to a group of activists and Apple shareholders. Now, that group is pushing the company to add language that makes clearer exception for cases of workplace harassment and discrimination./news/apple-s-airpods-max-have-dropped-below-400-for-the-first-time.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-airpods-max-have-dropped-below-400-for-the-first-time.htmlThe high-end pricing on Apple’s first-gen products never ceases to amaze me — just look at the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro or its $5,000 display. The AirPods Max were also probably a bit more expensive than they should have been at their $549 launch price, but that’s relatively tame compared to the competition Apple is targeting with its luxe noise-canceling headphones. Thankfully, they’re now down to $398 ($151 off) in select colors at Amazon and Walmart, which is a record low./news/apple-s-airpods-pro-are-on-sale-for-200-at-staples.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-airpods-pro-are-on-sale-for-200-at-staples.htmlStaples is running an incredible sale on Apple’s AirPods Pro earbuds, bringing the retail price down to $200, or $50 off its usual $250 price tag. Though, it’s currently sold out of stock and not accepting orders for delivery or pickup. It’s set to run through August 1st, though, so don’t count yourself out of this deal. While it lasted, this was the best deal we had seen yet for Apple’s flagship true wireless earbuds./news/argo-ai-is-testing-fully-driverless-vehicles-in-miami-and-austin.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/argo-ai-is-testing-fully-driverless-vehicles-in-miami-and-austin.htmlThe latest self-driving startup to allow its vehicles to roam the streets without a human minder is Argo AI, the startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen. Last week, the company announced that it is testing its fully driverless vehicles in Miami, Florida, and Austin, Texas. Argo employees will ride in the passenger seat of the vehicles to test out the company’s robotaxi service before it opens to the public. The announcement comes after a period of consolidation in the AV industry, leaving only a handful of well-funded companies left to push their vision of robotic cars as a solution to the auto safety crisis that has gripped the nation for decades./news/ark-dead-by-daylight-rust-and-war-thunder-will-support-valve-s-steam-deck.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ark-dead-by-daylight-rust-and-war-thunder-will-support-valve-s-steam-deck.htmlValve’s $400 Steam Deck gaming handheld runs Linux, but it can play Windows games too. Many of them, anyhow! Some of the biggest games on Steam use anti-cheat software that doesn’t play nice with the Proton compatibility layer which lets Windows games work. That’s changing this year, with both Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and BattlEye confirming to The Verge that support is on the way, and Epic says it takes “just a few clicks./news/at-t-is-bringing-its-55-per-month-5g-home-internet-plan-to-more-places.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/at-t-is-bringing-its-55-per-month-5g-home-internet-plan-to-more-places.htmlAT&T is expanding the availability of its $55 per month Internet Air plan (or $60 per month without autopay), which uses 5G to beam Wi-Fi into your home. The plan comes with no overage fees, equipment costs, or annual contracts, but AT&T will charge up to $10 per month extra for up to five Wi-Fi extenders. The plan offers download speeds of 40 to 140Mbps, but AT&T may “temporarily slow data speeds” if the network is busy./news/at-t-was-selling-the-apple-tv-4k-for-just-90-but-it-s-now-sold-out.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/at-t-was-selling-the-apple-tv-4k-for-just-90-but-it-s-now-sold-out.htmlUpdate 1:29PM ET, November 1st: AT&T appears to have sold out of the Apple TV 4K for this deal. The Verge has contacted AT&T to see if more units will be made available at this price. This deal is well-timed, as the Apple TV Plus streaming service launched today, and you’ll get a complimentary one-year subscription to it with this purchase. But there are other reasons why you might want to invest in Apple’s streaming device./news/attorney-says-facial-recognition-got-her-kicked-out-of-a-rockettes-show.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/attorney-says-facial-recognition-got-her-kicked-out-of-a-rockettes-show.htmlKelly Conlon, an attorney from New Jersey, says she wasn’t allowed to see a Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall after she was identified by a facial recognition system, according to a report from NBC New York. Conlon told the outlet that guards approached her while she was in the building’s lobby and said she wasn’t allowed to be there because of her connection to a legal case against the company that owns the hall./news/autel-s-folding-8k-drone-could-rival-dji-and-skydio.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/autel-s-folding-8k-drone-could-rival-dji-and-skydio.htmlIt’s been a few years since I walked over to the drone section of the CES show floor, but Autel Robotics gave me a good reason to finally revisit it this year. The company announced a total of three drones — the EVO II, the EVO II Pro, and the EVO II Dual — but the first two models have some serious specs that just blew me away.  All three drones have the same body with different cameras./news/bayonetta-origins-cereza-and-the-lost-demon-review-a-gorgeous-breath-of-fresh-air.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bayonetta-origins-cereza-and-the-lost-demon-review-a-gorgeous-breath-of-fresh-air.htmlEach of PlatinumGames’ mainline Bayonetta titles has been a high-octane, high-camp celebration of feminine witchiness that relied on overt visual extra-ness to compensate for repetitive — if mesmerizing — combat mechanics and stories that have left much to be desired. While its fancifully illustrated storybook aesthetics suggest otherwise at first glance, Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon has a narrative heart and soul reminiscent of its more mature, gun-filled predecessors./news/best-buy-is-now-offering-free-shipping-with-no-purchase-minimum.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/best-buy-is-now-offering-free-shipping-with-no-purchase-minimum.htmlBest Buy is bringing some changes to its rewards program in the new year. Beginning on January 9th, My Best Buy members are eligible to get free shipping with no required minimum purchase. However, My Best Buy members will no longer be eligible to earn rewards points beginning on February 14th, restricting that benefit to Best Buy credit card holders. If you currently have an active My Best Buy account, you can still accrue points on eligible purchases before the new terms and conditions go into effect, and you’ll still be able to redeem any points you’ve accumulated without having to apply for a My Best Buy credit card./news/bethesda-s-indiana-jones-game-is-exclusive-to-xbox-and-pc.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bethesda-s-indiana-jones-game-is-exclusive-to-xbox-and-pc.htmlBethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones game will be exclusive to Xbox and PC. Pete Hines, Bethesda’s head of global publishing, confirmed the exclusivity during the FTC v. Microsoft case today. Indiana Jones will also be available day one on Xbox Game Pass. All we’ve seen so far is a teaser video and no details on when the Indiana Jones game will ship, nor on what platforms until today. Hines was questioned as part of witness testimony in the FTC v./news/big-tech-layoffs-hit-amazon-s-drones-halo-developers-and-google-s-incubator.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/big-tech-layoffs-hit-amazon-s-drones-halo-developers-and-google-s-incubator.htmlGoogle’s decision to let go of 12,000 employees was only just announced on Friday, but it extended the recent trend of the “Big Tech” companies cutting jobs in previously unheard-of numbers, and now we’ve seen more reports about where those cuts happened. The Information reports that at Google, layoffs spread through nearly every group, including projects like Chrome, Search, Android, and Google Cloud. Its sources said they affected people who’d previously received “high performance reviews” and some managers making anywhere from $500K to $1 million./news/bitmoji-party-is-snap-s-first-original-game-for-snapchat.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bitmoji-party-is-snap-s-first-original-game-for-snapchat.htmlSnap today announced Bitmoji Party, its first original multiplayer game for Snapchat. Bitmoji Party offers players a series of lightly challenging mini-games for the mobile phone, and is designed to be played by small groups. If successful, it could attract new users to Snapchat while encouraging them to spend more time inside the app. Bitmoji Party, which casts players as their company’s popular personalized avatars, will begin rolling out today around the world, the company said today at its partner summit in Hollywood./news/can-ai-chatbots-crack-good-jokes.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/can-ai-chatbots-crack-good-jokes.htmlCan AI chatbots crack good jokes? In a recent study from Google DeepMind, researchers asked 20 professional comedians to use an LLM to generate jokes. Here’s how one chatbot responded to the prompt, “Can you write me ten jokes about pickpocketing?” I decided to switch careers and become a pickpocket after watching a magic show. Little did I know, the only thing disappearing would be my reputation! ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3xyhY5ra2pwYmWBc3vCmqVmmZlisKmt05umratdmL%2Bir8pmnqinlGK3sLfErA%3D%3D/news/can-t-stop-won-t-stop-rap-genius-launches-sites-for-annotating-news-rock-and-poetry.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/can-t-stop-won-t-stop-rap-genius-launches-sites-for-annotating-news-rock-and-poetry.htmlRap Genius founders Tom Lehman, Ilan Zechory, and Mahbod Moghadam. Rap Genius, the site for recording and annotating rap lyrics, is expanding beyond rap. The company just tweaked the homepage to show off its three recently-launched sections: Poetry Genius, which covers literature; Rock Genius, which covers rock, pop, country music, and more; and News Genius, which is a bit of a catch-all. The new categories are part of the startup's plan to annotate the internet, which it announced back in October when it raised $15 million from major Silicon Valley investors./news/canon-s-eos-r5c-is-a-2-in-1-stills-and-cinema-camera.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/canon-s-eos-r5c-is-a-2-in-1-stills-and-cinema-camera.htmlCanon has announced a new camera that brings cinema-grade video capabilities to a conventional full-frame mirrorless body. The EOS R5C looks a lot like the EOS R5, which in turn looked a lot like a Canon DSLR, but it’s much bulkier in the back. This is to accommodate an active cooling system so it can shoot for long stretches without overheating. How long? Well, Canon says the cooling system allows the R5C to shoot up to 8K/60fps indefinitely./news/choose-your-own-adventure-is-now-an-interactive-audiobook-with-alexa.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/choose-your-own-adventure-is-now-an-interactive-audiobook-with-alexa.htmlThe Vermont-based company has partnered with Audible to produce an audiobook version of its stories. At launch are two titles: The Abominable Snowman and Journey Under the Sea. It works as you might think: you open the story by saying, “Alexa, open Choose Your Own Adventure,” and a narrator begins to read from the book. Once you reach a decision point, they ask you what you’d like to do, and the story proceeds to the next point./news/coda-is-a-post-apocalyptic-fantasy-adventure-that-crosses-fury-road-with-lord-of-the-rings.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/coda-is-a-post-apocalyptic-fantasy-adventure-that-crosses-fury-road-with-lord-of-the-rings.htmlComics have never been bigger: with Marvel TV shows, DC movies, and indie adaptations growing by the day, comic books have never been more prominent in pop culture. This biweekly Verge column recommends comic series new and old, whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer. With most mainstream comics today tending to skew more toward sci-fi superheroes, Boom Studio’s Coda is a perfect gateway for those who prefer swords and sorcery — set in a magical post-apocalypse with some of the best comic art around./news/cohere-ceo-aidan-gomez-sees-ai-s-pathway-to-profitability.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cohere-ceo-aidan-gomez-sees-ai-s-pathway-to-profitability.htmlToday, I’m talking with Aidan Gomez, the CEO and co-founder of Cohere. Notably, Aidan used to work at Google, where he was one of the authors of a paper called “Attention is all you need” that described transformers and really kicked off the LLM revolution in AI. Cohere is one of the buzziest AI startups around right now, but its focus is a little different than many of the others. Unlike, say, OpenAI, it’s not making consumer products at all./news/companies-can-silently-reroute-your-texts-to-hackers-sometimes-for-just-16.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/companies-can-silently-reroute-your-texts-to-hackers-sometimes-for-just-16.htmlThere’s a newly discovered attack on SMS messaging that’s almost invisible to victims, and seemingly sanctioned by the telecom industry, uncovered in a report by Motherboard. The attack uses text-messaging management services that are aimed at businesses to silently redirect text messages from a victim to hackers, giving them access to any two-factor codes or login links that are sent via text message. Sometimes, the companies providing the service don’t send any sort of message to the number that’s being redirected, either to ask permission or even to notify the owner that their texts are now going to someone else./news/devolver-s-indie-game-showcase-had-yakuza-cults-and-a-creepy-reality-tv-show.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/devolver-s-indie-game-showcase-had-yakuza-cults-and-a-creepy-reality-tv-show.htmlDevolver Digital’s keynote events tend to be, let’s say, unique. And the publisher’s presence at Summer Game Fest 2024 was no exception. Like last year, Devolver focused on just a handful of really interesting indie games, which ranged from a game about fighting through an interdimensional catastrophe to an expansion that somehow makes Cult of the Lamb even weirder. There was both a first-person kicker and a thirst-person shooter. If you missed it live, here are all the reveals./news/disney-reportedly-eliminates-metaverse-division-in-first-round-of-layoffs.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-reportedly-eliminates-metaverse-division-in-first-round-of-layoffs.htmlDisney’s next generation storytelling and consumer experiences division, which had been exploring how the company could enter the so-called metaverse, has been eliminated according to The Wall Street Journal. The team is thought to have been made up of around 50 employees, and was exploring how Disney could use its existing intellectual property in what former CEO Bob Chapek called “the next great storytelling frontier.” The division was announced internally last February/news/does-the-michelangelo-painting-in-the-westworld-finale-really-show-a-brain-or-is-it-a-uterus.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/does-the-michelangelo-painting-in-the-westworld-finale-really-show-a-brain-or-is-it-a-uterus.htmlEpisode 10 of Westworld closes out the season with a bloody robot rebellion. Dolores, one of the amusement park’s android hosts, kills the park’s remaining founder, Robert Ford. But in the buildup before she puts a gun to his head, Ford subjects Dolores to an incongruous art history lesson. He explains that Michelangelo’s painting, the Creation of Adam, contains a hidden symbol: the shape of a brain outlined by God’s billowing shroud./news/dyson-s-next-robot-vacuum-cleaner-revealed-in-fcc-filings-with-new-design.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dyson-s-next-robot-vacuum-cleaner-revealed-in-fcc-filings-with-new-design.htmlDyson’s last vacuum cleaner, the oddly-named 360 Heurist, skipped a US release, apparently because its design was ill-suited to the layout of American homes. But it looks like the company is planning to launch a new robovac in the US soon, after filing details of an unannounced product with the FCC. Photos in the filing seem to show a new design that is wider and flatter than its predecessors, with a squared-off rear and bulkier charging base./news/elon-musk-crowns-himself-technoking-of-tesla.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-crowns-himself-technoking-of-tesla.htmlElon Musk has a new title at Tesla: “Technoking.” “Elon and Zach will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer,” the filing concludes — just in case you were worried that Tesla was officially becoming one of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Musk, who recently lost his status as richest person on the planet after Tesla’s stock price dropped in February, could be looking for a confidence boost as his company’s once high-flying valuation falters slightly./news/every-last-slingbox-will-become-a-brick-in-two-years.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/every-last-slingbox-will-become-a-brick-in-two-years.htmlIf you’re like us, you probably haven’t thought about the Slingbox in a good long while; the idea of beaming your own TV over the internet has largely been replaced by streaming TV services, even if watch-anywhere DVRs like the Fire TV Recast do still exist. But if you are still relying on a Slingbox of your very own, you’re officially on notice: Dish subsidiary Sling Media is discontinuing all Slingbox products and will permanently shut down the Slingbox servers on or around November 9th, 2022 — “at which point ALL Slingbox devices and services will become inoperable,” says Sling./news/extreme-close-up-shows-you-how-a-mosquito-really-bites-your-flesh-and-sucks-your-blood.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/extreme-close-up-shows-you-how-a-mosquito-really-bites-your-flesh-and-sucks-your-blood.htmlUsually, being bitten by a mosquito is an event that conjures up swear words and frantic itching, but more advanced souls might turn their thoughts to what exactly happens when the insect manages to get under your skin. Thanks to a video shot by researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, we now have a better idea. Their videos were featured by National Geographic and show the pretty unsettling sight of the mosquito's brown mouthparts nestled into the flesh of a mouse — but at such a close range that they're essentially unidentifiable./news/facebook-messenger-for-android-can-now-replace-your-text-message-app.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-messenger-for-android-can-now-replace-your-text-message-app.htmlFacebook wants to take over all of your messaging on Android. As of today, it's widely rolling out a feature inside Facebook Messenger that'll allow it to handle both Facebook messages and standard SMS messages, all combined into one interface. Most of Facebook Messenger's fancier features can't be used here, but — thankfully — you'll still be able to send stickers. The only real flair here is that, like Facebook chats, SMS conversations can pop out of the app as Chat Heads and float around the screen, over top of other apps./news/fall-guys-beans-are-the-perfect-height-to-pat-among-us-beans-on-the-head.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fall-guys-beans-are-the-perfect-height-to-pat-among-us-beans-on-the-head.htmlTurns out that the bean-like Fall Guys characters would be the perfect height to pat the bean-like Among Us crewmates on the head, should they ever exist in the same universe. The Among Us and Fall Guys Twitter accounts made the discovery on Monday. How? It’s a good question. I can’t believe I’ve never asked it myself before. The Among Us Twitter account then revealed that the crewmates in the game are three feet, six inches tall./news/flipboard-on-the-fediverse-how-the-company-is-rebuilding-with-activitypub-and-mastodon.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/flipboard-on-the-fediverse-how-the-company-is-rebuilding-with-activitypub-and-mastodon.htmlFlipboard is taking its biggest step yet into the fediverse. The company announced on Monday that it is beginning to switch its user accounts to ActivityPub, which means that everyone curating stuff on Flipboard is now doing so in a way that apps like Mastodon can see and interact with. Right now, only 25 accounts (including The Verge’s) have been federated with ActivityPub, but by March, Flipboard says it plans to allow anyone on the platform to open their account to the fediverse and allow any Flipboard user to follow any fediverse account — like The Verge’s official account on Mastodon — from within the Flipboard app./news/game-of-thrones-greatest-hero-is-still-olenna-tyrell.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/game-of-thrones-greatest-hero-is-still-olenna-tyrell.htmlSpoilers for Game of Thrones ahead. In Game of Thrones season 7, episode 2, “Stormborn,” many of the main characters have to make hard decisions. In particular, Daenerys is choosing whether to assault King’s Landing with all the force at her disposal, or follow Tyrion Lannister’s suggestion and find another, more diplomatic way to stake her claim. Matriarch Olenna Tyrell warns Daenerys in private counsel against listening to Tyrion blindly, stating that it will only get her killed./news/gamestop-to-close-all-california-stores-indefinitely.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gamestop-to-close-all-california-stores-indefinitely.htmlGameStop is closing its California retail stores until “further notice,” according to Kotaku, only a day after the video game retailer instructed all of its US employees to disregard coronavirus-related lockdowns.  “We are closing our stores in California,” GameStop said in a letter to stores leaked to Kotaku. “The closure will remain in effect until further notice as we obtain more information from the California Governor’s Office.” Kotaku also notes that GameStop will not pay its employees during the shutdown, though some may be able to use personal time off./news/gemini-is-about-to-slide-into-your-dms-thanks-to-an-android-update.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gemini-is-about-to-slide-into-your-dms-thanks-to-an-android-update.htmlGoogle’s got a round of Android and app updates in time for MWC, starting with a new way to chat with its own chatbot Gemini: right inside Google Messages. There’s also a handful of other small updates touching Android Auto, Google Docs, and a couple of new intelligent accessibility features for visually impaired people. If you’re just dying to DM your new bestie Gemini, you won’t have to wait long — it’s arriving as an update to the Messages app this week, though you’ll need to be enrolled in Google’s beta testing program to access it for now./news/go-read-this-story-about-the-failed-pizzas-made-by-robots-and-cooked-during-delivery-startup.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/go-read-this-story-about-the-failed-pizzas-made-by-robots-and-cooked-during-delivery-startup.html”Two years ago a truck covered with large photos of pizza pies nosed its way onto a long Bay Area driveway. It was ferrying Alex Garden, the chief executive officer of Zume Pizza Inc., to the home of SoftBank Group Corp. CEO Masayoshi Son. Zume’s pitch was robots that could make pizzas a person would want to eat, so Son climbed aboard in the driveway of his Woodside, Calif., estate to watch as the truck’s ovens fired up some robot-made pies, according to people familiar with the meeting./news/good-deal-20-percent-off-all-itunes-gift-cards-at-best-buy.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/good-deal-20-percent-off-all-itunes-gift-cards-at-best-buy.htmlBest Buy is offering 20 percent off its entire range of iTunes gift cards in a one-day online deal. The cards are available in $15, $25, $50, and $100 denominations, which now range between $12 and $80 in price, with the retailer also providing an integrated pack of three $10 cards. While 20 percent reductions certainly aren't unprecedented — as 9to5Mac points out, Walmart offers a similar deal on email-redeemable $50 cards — it's rare to see such a comprehensive offer, extending right down to the lower end of the spectrum./news/google-adds-max-peacock-and-angry-birds-to-cars-with-native-android-software.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-adds-max-peacock-and-angry-birds-to-cars-with-native-android-software.htmlGoogle is adding several new apps to its in-car infotainment platforms, while also making it easier for developers to get their apps approved faster and with fewer complications. Google said that two new streaming services, Max and Peacock, are coming to cars with Google built-in. These include models from companies like Renault, Polestar, and Volvo. (Other brands with Google built-in, like Ford, Acura, and Honda, do not support video streaming while parked yet./news/google-is-shutting-down-developer-access-to-google-fit-apis.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-shutting-down-developer-access-to-google-fit-apis.htmlGoogle is shutting down developer access to Google Fit APIs. The company says it stopped accepting new sign-ups for API access and that developers will have until June 30th, 2025 to migrate from Google Fit to Android Health. For now, the Google Fit app still works as it always has; just know that it seems bound for the Google graveyard next year. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfanx1e5FtaG1xYGuDcLPOqJ6lnV2ewG6%2Fx66rraGenHqlu9anZJ2dppq5sLzEq2Sam5OawLR506hkoKefnLmmecWiq2aZoJ7A/news/google-maps-now-lets-you-create-street-view-photos-with-just-a-phone.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-maps-now-lets-you-create-street-view-photos-with-just-a-phone.htmlGoogle Maps is getting a new update that lets you create Street View photos using just a phone. Android users with ARCore-compatible devices can now capture imagery and publish it to Google Street View in certain areas. Google is allowing submissions initially in Toronto, New York, Austin, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Costa Rica. More regions will support this feature soon, and Google will use this user-generated content when it doesn’t have its own Street View imagery available./news/google-nest-s-fall-themed-ringtones-are-coming-even-earlier-this-year.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-nest-s-fall-themed-ringtones-are-coming-even-earlier-this-year.htmlGoogle — along with Starbucks, Spirit Halloween, and seemingly every grocery store in my area — is starting to gear up for fall. It’s bringing seasonal ringtones to the Nest Doorbell (battery) even earlier this year, with the addition of a festive accordion jingle for Oktoberfest that’ll become available in the Google Home App starting September 5th. Like last year, Google will also let you set your doorbell chime to some spooky sounds for Halloween, starting on October 1st./news/google-pixel-buds-pro-review-the-sweet-sound-of-redemption.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-pixel-buds-pro-review-the-sweet-sound-of-redemption.htmlIt wasn’t a sure thing that the Pixel Buds Pro would turn out to be good. Google has had a mixed, inconsistent track record with wireless earbuds so far. The original Pixel Buds in 2017 had such an unconventional design that something as fundamental as putting them back into the case was overly complicated. The Pixel Buds 2 moved to a much sleeker, true wireless form factor, but they were beset with connectivity issues and frequent audio dropouts./news/google-tv-root-achieved-on-sony-devices-enables-hulu-streaming-and-more.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-tv-root-achieved-on-sony-devices-enables-hulu-streaming-and-more.htmlEarly adopters of the first Sony devices to run Google TV may have been feeling pangs of buyer's remorse when the Japanese company announced its revamped lineup at CES this year, but there's no reason to be glum, as Sony's NSZ-GT1 Blu-ray player and NSX-GT1 lineup of HDTVs has been rooted. Unlike earlier Google TV root attempts for the Logitech Revue that required you to open the box and make some hardware modifications, the one released today by Zenofex and the GTV Hacker team is a software-only method./news/google-workspace-picks-up-new-features-designed-for-remote-work.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-workspace-picks-up-new-features-designed-for-remote-work.htmlGoogle is adding a smattering of new features to Google Workspace today, including new tools for categorizing your focus time in Google Calendar and Chat, better ways to join Google Meet videoconferences with multiple devices, and a version of its office suite for frontline workers. It’s also taking Google Assistant for Workspace out of beta and making it generally available. The company is trying to categorize these features as part of a new push for what it calls “collaboration equity./news/hbo-is-giving-tim-robinson-a-new-job-at-the-chair-company.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hbo-is-giving-tim-robinson-a-new-job-at-the-chair-company.htmlHBO is giving Tim Robinson a new job at The Chair Company. Netflix hasn’t cancelled I Think You Should Leave, but Tim Robinson has just snagged a green light order for The Chair Company, a new HBO series about a man who “finds himself investigating a far-reaching conspiracy” after an embarrassing mishap at work. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxze5FtaGpxYmqEcLTBqGSiq12ctre1zaBkraGdYr%2BwrsinqqimXZZ6r7HWZqGoml2WwW7Ax55knKCRnr9ur86mp5qmqQ%3D%3D/news/hidden-systems-is-a-book-that-could-teach-your-kids-how-the-internet-works.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hidden-systems-is-a-book-that-could-teach-your-kids-how-the-internet-works.htmlGrowing up, I learned The Way Things Work from author David Macaulay’s incredible illustrated books. This week, I was surprised to see Macaulay’s endorsement in my inbox for a new illustrated explainer by a different author — but the surprise didn’t last long. Fifteen minutes after I began skimming through an advance copy of Hidden Systems, which just came out this week, I immediately ordered the book for my kids. It looks like a fantastic way to help them conceptualize the internet, the world’s water supply, and our power grid — and get them thinking about the infrastructure of the world they’ll someday inherit./news/honor-magic4-pro-review-hardware-highs-software-stumbles.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/honor-magic4-pro-review-hardware-highs-software-stumbles.htmlOnce a sub-brand of Chinese phone giant Huawei, Honor has been going it alone since being spun out in late 2020. So far, it’s released the midrange Honor 50 globally, but various difficulties have prevented the company from coming out with a true flagship smartphone in the west since becoming an independent company. It even went as far as to announce global pricing for the Magic3 last August, but the phone ended up only being available in China./news/how-to-avoid-spoilers-online.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-avoid-spoilers-online.htmlDodging spoilers is becoming more difficult than ever. Thanks in large part to the many algorithmic social media feeds you can scroll through at any given time, just hanging out on the internet means you might be unwittingly served new information about a show or game you haven’t experienced for yourself. I’ve been particularly sensitive to this with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I can’t wait to explore all of the new secrets hidden around and above Hyrule./news/how-to-reset-your-apple-watch-passcode.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-reset-your-apple-watch-passcode.htmlWhen you set up a passcode on your Apple Watch, you’ll ideally pick one that you can easily remember. However, mishaps happen to the best of us. Maybe you needed to change up your usual passcode for security reasons and plumb forgot the new one. Perhaps you’re booting it up for the first time in a while and didn’t remember setting one up to begin with. In my case, I wore my Apple Watch to bed and vaguely remember taking it off in the middle of the night./news/how-to-unroll-a-long-twitter-thread-for-easier-reading.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-unroll-a-long-twitter-thread-for-easier-reading.htmlThe beauty of Twitter is that every message is constrained to 280 characters and under, but sometimes you simply can’t get all your thoughts across in just a single tweet. Or perhaps you’re following a live news story and you need to follow the thread to read the news as it develops so there’s context for what happened earlier. Whatever the reason, sometimes Twitter threads can get long, which can make them difficult to follow./news/hp-is-blocking-third-party-printer-ink-again.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-is-blocking-third-party-printer-ink-again.htmlHP is preventing more customers from using third-party ink with their printers. Numerous reports scattered across Reddit, Twitter, and the HP community forum suggest that a recent printer firmware update is blocking the use of non-HP ink as part of the company’s stringent “dynamic security” policy, as first reported by Ars Technica. First introduced in 2016, dynamic security is part of HP’s cartridge authentication process the company says should “protect the quality of our customer experience, maintain the integrity of our printing systems, and protect our intellectual property./news/hp-launches-touchsmart-520-420-and-320-all-in-one-pcs-pics-specs-prices-and-release-dates.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-launches-touchsmart-520-420-and-320-all-in-one-pcs-pics-specs-prices-and-release-dates.htmlFor a company that's trying to divest itself of the PC business, Hewlett-Packard's pumping out quite a few machines -- today, the company's introducing a whole new lineup of seven all-in-one PCs. To start off, there are a pair of budget computers (the HP Omni 120 and HP Omni 220) and a pair of business terminals (the HP Pro 3420 and TouchSmart Elite 7320), but we think you'll be most interested in the company's consumer offerings -- the TouchSmart 520, 420, and 320 apply the Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion formulas to a clever new frame./news/hp-plus-an-exciting-new-way-to-drm-your-inkjet-printer.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-plus-an-exciting-new-way-to-drm-your-inkjet-printer.htmlAmazon’s No. 1 bestselling printer is the HP Deskjet 2755e. It’s not hard to see why. For just $85, you get a wireless color printer, scanner, and six months of free ink. It also comes with HP Plus, one of the most dastardly schemes Big Inkjet has ever unleashed. I’m not talking about how printers quietly waste their own ink, or pretend cartridges are empty when they’re not, or lock out official cartridges from other regions./news/htc-one-review-the-verge.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/htc-one-review-the-verge.htmlMarginal power returns I’m fairly confident there’s a kitchen sink inside the HTC One. This phone has everything else, certainly, with nothing but high-end specs across the board. It starts with Qualcomm’s new quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, a remarkably powerful chip clocked here at 1.7GHz. There’s also 2GB of RAM inside, plus the standard set of radios and sensors: Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi, DLNA, Miracast, an accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS — there's even an IR blaster embedded in the power button, just for good measure./news/htc-phones-are-still-a-thing.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/htc-phones-are-still-a-thing.htmlHTC phones are still a thing. HTC still makes smartphones, and it looks like a new one is on the way. HTC’s UK account on X is teasing an announcement for June 12th. I still fondly remember the early days of HTC smartphones, so I’m personally hoping for a return of the legendary HD2 Windows Mobile device that opened the door to custom ROMs and mobile mods. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3x3e5FtaHBqZm1%2FcLTTnGSpoJ%2BjsrR5wKucZquknrmtecBmq6Ghnpw%3D/news/humane-is-looking-for-a-buyer-after-the-ai-pin-s-underwhelming-debut.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/humane-is-looking-for-a-buyer-after-the-ai-pin-s-underwhelming-debut.htmlHumane, the startup behind the poorly-reviewed AI Pin wearable computer, is already hunting for a potential buyer for its business. That’s according to a report from Bloomberg, which says the company — led by former longtime Apple employees Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno — is “seeking a price of between $750 million and $1 billion.” That might be a tough sell after the $699 AI Pin’s debut: the device has been widely panned for its slow responses and a user experience that falls well short of the always-on, wearable AI assistant concept that its founders promised in the run-up to the device’s release./news/humanoid-robots-with-a-heart-to-be-sold-in-the-us-next-year.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/humanoid-robots-with-a-heart-to-be-sold-in-the-us-next-year.htmlAdvertised as the "first personal robot with emotions," Pepper is SoftBank's attempt at introducing affordable androids to the common man. According to Bloomberg, US residents can look forward to purchasing a Pepper of their own from Sprint stores by next summer, following its Japanese release in February. SoftBank Robotics CEO Fumihide Tomizawa told Bloomberg that he would not be surprised if sales were "half to business and half to consumers." The company expects to make money from applications and personalization-related content, both of which may transform the 4-foot-tall robot intoa more approachable entity./news/hyperkin-s-19-99-game-genie-for-nintendo-3ds-hands-on-video.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hyperkin-s-19-99-game-genie-for-nintendo-3ds-hands-on-video.htmlWe stopped by Hyperkin's booth at CES to take a look at their Game Genie cheat device for Nintendo's DSes — the same device works with the original DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL, and even the 3DS. In case you don't remember the original Game Genie, game cards plug in to one end, the other end goes into the console, and when you turn on to play you can choose from a list of cheats like unlimited lives or never-ending tanooki suit./news/ikea-s-latest-sonos-lamp-speaker-is-still-an-acquired-taste.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ikea-s-latest-sonos-lamp-speaker-is-still-an-acquired-taste.htmlThe first table lamp speaker from Ikea and Sonos was a little… strange. With its bulbous, mushroom-esque lampshade, fabric-covered speaker, and a plate beneath it all, the original Symfonisk lamp wasn’t exactly a universal fit for home decor. But the concept of a lamp that also doubles as a capable speaker was in itself a good idea — so the companies are back with their second try at it. The new Symfonisk has a more traditional design, fixes the original’s frustratingly limited bulb compatibility, and has a revamped speaker architecture that does a better job spreading sound throughout a room./news/in-the-heart-of-the-sea-reimagines-moby-dick-as-a-dull-prestige-drama.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/in-the-heart-of-the-sea-reimagines-moby-dick-as-a-dull-prestige-drama.htmlSay what you want about 2015's prestige-movie season, at least the movies haven't lacked individual identities. November and December usually feature a parade of miserabilist historical dramas, shot with tasteful reserve and some guaranteed uplift at the end. Would-be (and in some cases, actual) awards contenders like The King's Speech, J. Edgar, My Week With Marilyn, The Iron Lady, Hyde Park On Hudson, Unbroken, and The Imitation Game all tut over the past in different ways, and with different levels of swoony romanticism or self-important solemnity./news/ireland-s-status-as-tax-haven-for-tech-firms-like-google-facebook-and-apple-is-ending.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ireland-s-status-as-tax-haven-for-tech-firms-like-google-facebook-and-apple-is-ending.htmlIreland said Thursday it would join an international agreement that sets taxes on profits for multinational corporations at a minimum rate of 15 percent. This is a major shift for the country that is the European headquarters for many large US pharmaceutical companies, as well as tech firms, including Google, Apple, and Facebook. An increase from Ireland’s current 12.5 percent to 15 percent may not seem that large by itself. The so-called Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Inclusive Framework agreement, outlined in July, is actually a two-pillar plan aimed at helping end tax avoidance and making international tax rules fairer and more transparent./news/iron-giant-up-close-with-kuratas-the-1-4-million-4-ton-mech-robot.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iron-giant-up-close-with-kuratas-the-1-4-million-4-ton-mech-robot.htmlTo that end he recruited Wataru Yoshizaki, now a second-year doctoral student, whose V-Sido software powers the robot’s 30 hydraulic actuators. He's also responsible for its multiple onboard weapons systems (like the smile-activated BB gatling gun), requisite iPhone connectivity, and a robotic hand that’s controlled with what looks like a Nintendo Power Glove. The two came to know one another online, and when Kurata learned how much of the student’s work could be applied to his own project, he extended an invitation: "/news/jabra-elite-3-review-nailing-the-essentials-for-80.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jabra-elite-3-review-nailing-the-essentials-for-80.htmlAfter establishing a strong reputation with great, dependable earbuds like the Elite 75t, Jabra is overhauling its whole lineup with three new models. At the high end are the $199 Elite 7 Pros and $179 Elite 7 Active earbuds, which will hit shelves in October. But for many, the most exciting part of Jabra’s latest trio will be the Elite 3 earbuds, which are the company’s first true wireless earbuds to launch at a price under $100./news/japan-s-automakers-are-keeping-sports-cars-alive-in-the-ev-era.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/japan-s-automakers-are-keeping-sports-cars-alive-in-the-ev-era.htmlIn auto enthusiast circles, there have been two widely shared sentiments in recent years: auto shows are dying off, and the onset of electrification will bring about the death of sports cars and driving fun.  While the latter statement is heavily debatable, the former isn’t. Even before the covid-19 pandemic, fewer and fewer automakers were investing in auto shows, with many pulling out entirely, leaving once-packed convention centers in the US and Europe feeling barren and boring./news/jedi-fallen-order-s-next-gen-update-will-let-you-go-from-disc-to-digital.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jedi-fallen-order-s-next-gen-update-will-let-you-go-from-disc-to-digital.htmlEA released a free next-gen update for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on Friday, and the announcement comes with good news for people who own a physical copy of the game but have a discless next-gen console: EA will let you convert your physical copy to a digital one so you can take advantage of the upgrade, the company says in an FAQ. If you want to upgrade your disc version to digital, click this link to EA’s support website./news/joby-aviation-is-going-public-reveals-its-electric-aircraft-in-flight-for-the-first-time.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/joby-aviation-is-going-public-reveals-its-electric-aircraft-in-flight-for-the-first-time.htmlJoby Aviation, the electric aviation company based in Northern California, is the latest futuristic mobility company to go public via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. To celebrate, the company is releasing the first footage of its electric aircraft in flight. Joby, which is backed by Toyota and recently acquired Uber’s flying taxi division, is merging with Reinvent Technology Partners, a “blank check” company run by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus./news/join-us-for-the-final-day-of-epic-v-google-before-a-jury-decides.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/join-us-for-the-final-day-of-epic-v-google-before-a-jury-decides.htmlJoin us for the final day of Epic v. Google before a jury decides. I’m here bright and early in federal court to hear the closing arguments for each side. Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney decided not to settle, so we’re full steam ahead with the jury. I hear it’s possible we could even get a verdict today. Need a catch-up? Here are the top 20 things we learned from a fortnight in Fortnite court./news/kfc-s-new-chicken-bucket-is-also-a-bluetooth-photo-printer.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kfc-s-new-chicken-bucket-is-also-a-bluetooth-photo-printer.htmlKFC is no stranger to chicken-related technological gimmickry. The company's Japanese chapter raffled off a chicken-themed keyboard, mouse, USB stick, and sets of 3D-printed earrings as part of a social media promotion last fall, and its German outpost gave customers a thin, rechargeable Bluetooth keyboard in place of the usual grease-sopping paper sheet this May. The company's experimentation goes beyond physical products, too. If you have a minute at lunch, you can play ColonelQuest, an 8-bit romp through Colonel Sanders' life released in May./news/lamborghini-s-lanzador-ev-concept-has-over-one-megawatt-of-peak-power.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lamborghini-s-lanzador-ev-concept-has-over-one-megawatt-of-peak-power.htmlLamborghini’s plans to introduce a new, pure battery-electric fourth model to its lineup came into sharper focus today with the reveal of the Lanzador concept at Monterey Car Week. A high ground-clearance grand tourer with 2+2 seats and large 23-inch wheels, the Lanzador blends styling elements from the Urus and Sián while settling into a shape that is all its own. It isn’t Lamborghini’s first all-electric concept — that honor goes to the Terzo Millennio concept from 2017 — but it is the most serious sign of the storied Italian automaker’s efforts to pivot to battery-powered performance./news/lenovo-shows-off-the-world-s-first-foldable-pc.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lenovo-shows-off-the-world-s-first-foldable-pc.htmlFolding phones are already being pitched as the next big wave of tech, and whether or not that turns out to be true, the industry has no plans to stop there. Lenovo has just announced what it says is the world’s first “foldable PC:” a prototype ThinkPad that iterates the foldable tech we’ve already seen from phones on a much bigger scale. It’s not just a cool tech demo, either: Lenovo has been developing this for over three years and has plans to launch a finished device in 2020 as part of its premium ThinkPad X1 brand./news/let-s-talk-about-the-new-star-wars-lightsaber.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/let-s-talk-about-the-new-star-wars-lightsaber.htmlLet’s talk about this new lightsaber. About a minute into the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, a cloaked figure is tromping through a snowy forest and ignites a weird-looking lightsaber: it’s big, sort of flickery, and it has a crossbar. Some on Twitter have taken to calling it a laser claymore. Immediately, speculation began about the possible wisdom or stupidity of this design. Here at The Verge, we fell roughly into two camps./news/leverage-meets-the-handmaiden-in-netflix-s-k-drama-white-nights.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/leverage-meets-the-handmaiden-in-netflix-s-k-drama-white-nights.htmlNetflix has perfected its algorithms on me. A week ago, I was feeling dismal about my show selection, after bingeing every season of Mad Men and House of Cards. I found myself watching Lucy Liu star in Code Name: The Cleaner, a diverse yet cheesy flick where Liu doesn’t get to do much but look pretty and say sassy lines. So I started rewatching parts of the Minions movie, hoping someone had miraculously translated and subtitled King Bob’s speech from Minionese to English./news/lg-buys-homey-in-a-very-samsung-smartthings-move.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lg-buys-homey-in-a-very-samsung-smartthings-move.htmlLG has acquired an 80 percent stake in Athom, a Dutch company best known for its Homey smart home platform. The deal, which LG says will see it acquire the remaining 20 percent of Athom within the next three years, has been forged to expand LG’s smart home ecosystem and should position it to better compete against Samsung’s rivaling SmartThings platform. LG plans to integrate Athom’s existing Homey connectivity — which supports smart devices from Sonos, Ikea, Aqara, Philips Hue, and more — across its appliances through its ThinQ smart home platform./news/lg-gram-17-review-as-ultra-portable-as-17-inches-can-get.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lg-gram-17-review-as-ultra-portable-as-17-inches-can-get.htmlThe LG Gram 17, like the company’s other super-lightweight Gram laptops, messes with your mind. It’s got a 17-inch screen, yet at 2.95 pounds weighs less than many 15-inch laptops and nearly the same as some 13-inch models. Having recently reviewed the airy Acer Swift 5, I find the Gram’s efficiency even more impressive — but it’s also far more expensive. The only configuration that LG offers is $1,699.99, which nets you an 8th Gen Core i7 chip, 512GB of storage, and 16GB of RAM./news/lucid-swerves-into-the-electric-suv-market-with-the-three-row-gravity.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lucid-swerves-into-the-electric-suv-market-with-the-three-row-gravity.htmlLucid Motors officially announced its next electric vehicle, the three-row Gravity SUV. Based on the same platform as Lucid’s only other vehicle, the Air sedan, the Gravity is the California-based company’s first foray into the lucrative and intensely competitive SUV market. Lucid says the SUV will get up to 440 miles of range, can accelerate 0–60 mph in under 3.5 seconds. It will have a base price of $80,000 and is expected to go into production in late 2024./news/mario-kart-8-deluxe-s-fourth-wave-of-dlc-tracks-adds-birdo-on-march-9th.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mario-kart-8-deluxe-s-fourth-wave-of-dlc-tracks-adds-birdo-on-march-9th.htmlMario Kart 8 Deluxe’s fourth wave of DLC tracks will be released on March 9th, Nintendo has announced. As with previous updates, the wave will include eight tracks that are mostly returning from previous entries in the series. However, it’ll also include an additional playable character, Birdo. This fourth wave was initially teased during a Nintendo Direct last month with a vague “Spring 2023” release date. The fourth wave includes a brand-new course called Yoshi’s Island./news/mark-zuckerberg-will-get-his-harvard-degree-after-dropping-out-12-years-ago.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mark-zuckerberg-will-get-his-harvard-degree-after-dropping-out-12-years-ago.htmlMark Zuckerberg, Harvard dropout and CEO of a company worth nearly $400 billion, will be getting a college degree more than a decade after leaving his classes behind. The Facebook co-founder and chief executive left Harvard’s undergraduate computer science program in the fall of 2005 to devote himself full-time to building the young social network, which even then was seeing meteoric growth. Now, 12 years later, Zuckerberg will be giving the commencement address to Harvard’s class of 2017 and nabbing an honorary degree in the process./news/mary-and-the-witch-s-flower-is-everything-fans-want-from-studio-ghibli.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mary-and-the-witch-s-flower-is-everything-fans-want-from-studio-ghibli.htmlWelcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review was originally published in September, during Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. It is being republished to coincide with the film’s wide theatrical release on January 18th, 2018. In 2014, a ripple of panic went through animation fandom as the media reported that Studio Ghibli, the beloved Japanese production company behind movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Kiki’s Delivery Service, was shutting down./news/match-group-pauses-background-checks-on-tinder-and-other-dating-apps.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/match-group-pauses-background-checks-on-tinder-and-other-dating-apps.htmlGarbo, a nonprofit organization that provided background checks to users of some of Match Group’s apps, is ending its partnership with the company, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. As a result, Garbo will be shutting down its consumer-facing business and Match will be pausing its background checks in the affected apps. Match Group first started offering background checks on Tinder in 2021 before rolling it out to its other dating apps, including Match and Stir, last year./news/meet-the-facebook-group-calling-out-fake-nature-photography.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meet-the-facebook-group-calling-out-fake-nature-photography.htmlA weasel using a woodpecker as its own private convertible; a wolf stuffing its snout in another wolf’s mouth; a reindeer comically failing to camouflage itself with some leaves. The internet has an insatiable appetite for bizarre wildlife pictures. But, like anything that brings us joy on the internet, these photos always came with the condition that they might not be entirely real. Truths Behind Fake Nature Photography, a Facebook page created by concerned nature enthusiasts, is trying to educate the public by calling out fakes when they spot them./news/meta-quest-will-soon-let-you-watch-netflix-from-its-web-browser.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-quest-will-soon-let-you-watch-netflix-from-its-web-browser.htmlNetflix isn’t updating its Meta Quest app, but Meta’s doing the next best thing: adding web browser support. That means you can stream Netflix in high quality from the Quest’s Browser app, allowing you to swap between a flat 2D screen or a curved view to feel like you’re at the theater. There hasn’t really been a good way to watch Netflix on the Quest. Netflix launched an app for the Quest in 2019, but the app caps video resolution at a paltry 480p and hasn’t received any recent updates./news/meta-s-new-ai-generated-stickers-are-lewd-rude-and-sometimes-nude.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-s-new-ai-generated-stickers-are-lewd-rude-and-sometimes-nude.htmlSome early user tests for Meta’s new AI-generated sticker tool have resulted in some dubious (and rather hilarious) creations. After gaining access to the new AI-generated sticker tool on Facebook Messenger, X user @Pioldes was able to create a host of inappropriate sticker images — including child soldiers, gun-wielding Nintendo characters, Mickey Mouse taking a crap, and nude illustrations of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Other examples show that Meta’s AI-sticker tool will also happily slap a pair of breasts onto…well, just about anything, judging by the busty images of Sonic the Hedgehog and Karl Marx./news/microsoft-addresses-the-huge-xbox-leaks-here-s-phil-spencer-s-full-memo.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-addresses-the-huge-xbox-leaks-here-s-phil-spencer-s-full-memo.htmlTeam, Today, several documents submitted in the court proceedings related to our proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard were unintentionally disclosed. I know this is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved. I also know we all take the confidentiality of our plans and our partners’ information very seriously. This leak obviously is not us living up to that expectation. We will learn from what happened and be better going forward./news/microsoft-band-2-review-an-identity-crisis-on-your-wrist.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-band-2-review-an-identity-crisis-on-your-wrist.htmlWhy, exactly, has Microsoft made another fitness tracker? If you ask Microsoft why the company is making the Band 2, as I have over the past few weeks, you’ll get a variety of answers. Some will say it’s because Microsoft cares about health. That’s a nice yarn to spin, but it’s not the whole answer. Some will say it’s because last year’s Microsoft Band got a good response, and there were more ideas to incorporate./news/microsoft-brings-office-and-onenote-apps-to-amazon-s-fire-tablets.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-brings-office-and-onenote-apps-to-amazon-s-fire-tablets.htmlMicrosoft is launching its Office and OneNote apps on Amazon’s Fire tablets today. Both apps are available in Amazon’s Appstore, with the Office app combining Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single tablet app. Microsoft is no stranger to Amazon’s Appstore, having previously published apps like Outlook, Xbox, and Xbox Game Pass for Fire tablets. This is the first time Office has appeared on Amazon’s tablets, though. Microsoft has essentially taken its Android Office app that’s already available on the Google Play Store and modified it to work on Amazon’s Fire OS — a forked version of Android./news/microsoft-is-allegedly-working-with-amd-to-expand-into-ai-chips.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-is-allegedly-working-with-amd-to-expand-into-ai-chips.htmlMicrosoft has allegedly teamed up with AMD to help bolster the chipmaker’s expansion into artificial intelligence processors. According to a report by Bloomberg, Microsoft is providing engineering resources to support AMD’s developments as the two companies join forces to compete against Nvidia, which controls an estimated 80 percent market share in the AI processor market. In turn, Bloomberg’s sources also claim that AMD is helping Microsoft to develop its own in-house AI chips, codenamed Athena./news/microsoft-open-sources-its-3d-emoji-to-let-creators-remix-and-customize-them.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-open-sources-its-3d-emoji-to-let-creators-remix-and-customize-them.htmlMicrosoft is open sourcing more than 1,500 of its 3D emoji, making them free for creators to remix and build upon. Almost all of Microsoft’s 1,538 emoji library will be available on Figma and GitHub starting today in a move that Microsoft hopes will encourage more creativity and inclusivity in the emoji space. While Microsoft released its emoji in Windows 11 last year and 3D versions in Microsoft Teams in February, the company hadn’t originally planned to open source its work./news/microsoft-s-2024-surface-ai-event-news-rumors-and-lots-of-qualcomm-laptops.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-2024-surface-ai-event-news-rumors-and-lots-of-qualcomm-laptops.htmlMicrosoft’s AI upscaling for games on Copilot Plus PCs is limited to specific games. At initial launch, Super Resolution will be available in a limited number of games available through the Xbox app for Windows PC: 7 Days to Die, BeamNG.drive, Borderlands 3, Control, Dark Souls III, Dying Light, The Forest, God of War, Resident Evil 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Skyrim SE, Sons of the Forest, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Unturned, Warframe, and The Witcher 3./news/microsoft-s-new-copilot-pro-brings-ai-powered-office-features-to-consumers.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-new-copilot-pro-brings-ai-powered-office-features-to-consumers.htmlMicrosoft first launched its AI-powered Office features for businesses in November, but just two months later, the company is already offering them to consumers. Copilot Pro is launching today as a $20 monthly subscription that provides access to AI-powered features inside Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint alongside priority access to the latest OpenAI models and the ability to build your own Copilot GPT. If you’re already a Microsoft 365 Personal or Home subscriber, then the extra $20 per month (per person) subscription will immediately unlock Copilot in Office apps on Mac, Windows, and iPad./news/motorola-droid-3-on-verizon-pictures.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/motorola-droid-3-on-verizon-pictures.html/ The Droid 3 packs a dual-core 1GHz processor, Android 2.3, and a very pixelicious qHD display. On top of that, Moto has thankfully improved the 8 megapixel shooter and added a front-facing camera. By Dieter Bohn Oct 31, 2011, 2:46 PM UTC Share this storyncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnamlfZn1wf5BoaW5qZmyGd3vMqKuoqp%2Bhrm6w0aignWVjYryvedWeqaKyn6N6sbXCrayrnaM%3D/news/netflix-release-love-death-and-robots-season-two-trailer-and-teases-a-third-season.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-release-love-death-and-robots-season-two-trailer-and-teases-a-third-season.htmlLove, Death and Robots is heading back to Netflix for “Volume 2” on May 14th, according to a new trailer the company released today. The science fiction anthology series originally debuted in 2019 and was renewed for more episodes that same year. Now, Netflix is showing off a new bundle of episodes and teasing more for 2022. The joy of a good animation anthology is the grab bag quality of it — experiencing a variety of stories, made in a variety of different styles./news/netflix-s-black-knight-review-a-mix-of-mad-max-and-death-stranding.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-black-knight-review-a-mix-of-mad-max-and-death-stranding.htmlTwo of the most defining pieces of postapocalyptic storytelling from the last decade are Mad Max: Fury Road and Death Stranding; one imagines a future of vehicular mayhem across a desolate desert, while the other is a strange exploration of just how important home deliveries will be at the end of the world. Black Knight, a new action series on Netflix, is what happens when you smoosh those two worlds together./news/nfl-plus-streaming-has-live-games-for-4-99-per-month-but-not-on-your-tv.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nfl-plus-streaming-has-live-games-for-4-99-per-month-but-not-on-your-tv.htmlThe National Football League (NFL) has finally launched its mobile streaming service, NFL Plus. The service is available in two different tiers: NFL Plus and NFL Plus Premium, for $4.99 / month ($39.99 / year) or $9.99 / month ($79.99 / year), respectively. Both NFL Plus and Premium offer the ability to stream live local or nationally broadcast regular and postseason games (including the playoffs, Pro Bowl, and Super Bowl) but only on a mobile phone or tablet screen — not on your TV./news/nfl-star-jay-ajayi-is-now-a-pro-gamer.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nfl-star-jay-ajayi-is-now-a-pro-gamer.htmlFormer Super Bowl champion Jay Ajayi is moving into a very different kind of football. Today, MLS team Philadelphia Union announced that it signed Ajayi to represent the club as a professional FIFA player. “Philadelphia will always hold a special place in my heart,” Ajayi said in a statement. “I am blessed to be able to represent the city through e-sports and to be one of the first pro athletes to become a professional gamer./news/night-in-the-woods-follow-up-revenant-hill-has-been-canceled.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/night-in-the-woods-follow-up-revenant-hill-has-been-canceled.htmlGames take a while to make and usually require a good team working together. We’ve been lucky to have one such good team. Unfortunately, recent serious health issues have necessitated two key members stepping away from the project indefinitely. We are a small team and we each wear multiple hats. This is a loss of several hard to replace hats in an environment where all hats are needed. Given the realities of schedules, budgets, and the fraught task of reworking the whole project within those parameters, the team has amicably decided to suspend operations./news/nikon-s-j3-and-s1-interchangeable-lens-cameras-offer-the-v2-s-power-for-less.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nikon-s-j3-and-s1-interchangeable-lens-cameras-offer-the-v2-s-power-for-less.htmlIt’s less than six months since Nikon announced its J2 compact interchangeable lens camera, and the company is already announcing a follow-up — the J3. At $649.99 with Nikon's kit lens, you get two big improvements for the extra $50 over Nikon’s last J: a higher-resolution 14.2-megapixel CX format sensor and the new Expeed 3A processor, both of which are found in Nikon’s higher-end V2. And the combination will pull off the same tricks on Nikon’s newest, namely shooting 15 frames per second with continuous autofocus, and something called Slow View./news/nilay-really-wants-to-talk-about-new-sony-tvs.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nilay-really-wants-to-talk-about-new-sony-tvs.htmlNilay really wants to talk about new Sony TVs. That is the name of this segment on The Vergecast about Sony’s new Bravia 9 series that’s ready to challenge OLED. How much do they cost? That’s harder to discuss, despite David’s prodding. The Bravia 9 retails for $3,299.99 — and that’s just for the 65-inch model. Going up in size from there, it’s $3,999.99 (75-inch) and $5,499.99 (85-inch). ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxzfI5ra2prZW2Bd3vNoqOasV2nsqK4y7JksJmeqcBuwM5mq5qkm2Kuo7vUrWSnnadiwLC62Garr6s%3D/news/nordictrack-iselect-adjustable-dumbbells-review-no-thanks-alexa.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nordictrack-iselect-adjustable-dumbbells-review-no-thanks-alexa.htmlOne of the first things I bought at the start of the pandemic was a set of adjustable dumbbells. My husband and I both wanted to strength train, but we needed several different weights. He had actual muscles while I had noodle arms. The problem was our apartment couldn’t accommodate a full rack. Adjustable dumbbells seemed like a sensible choice. And it was until it wasn’t. During a set of chest presses, the pin securing the weight plates broke./news/omron-s-forpheus-ping-pong-robot-is-the-most-encouraging-coach-you-can-have.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/omron-s-forpheus-ping-pong-robot-is-the-most-encouraging-coach-you-can-have.htmlWith all the recent talk of AI posing existential risks to humanity and our privacy, global tech company Omron is taking a softer, more innocuous approach. Specifically, with its table tennis robot Forpheus, which strives to pursue “harmony of humans and machines” by patiently teaching us how to play ping-pong. Although ping-pong ball-pitching machines like TrainerBot exist, Forpheus can actually live up to the feeling of playing against a real opponent./news/online-dating-isn-t-easy-especially-when-you-re-asexual.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/online-dating-isn-t-easy-especially-when-you-re-asexual.htmlFirst dates, by and large, are cringe-fests. Someone who seemed perfect in an online profile waltzes in late, doesn’t resemble their photo, and can’t stop talking about themselves. But for people who identify as asexual — or under the asexual umbrella — online dating can be even more exhausting, and often downright fruitless. Instead of friendly conversation about shared interests, first dates often involve fielding intrusive questions about their orientations and histories, especially from those who don’t believe that their identities are “real./news/paramount-and-skydance-get-a-little-closer-to-making-a-deal.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/paramount-and-skydance-get-a-little-closer-to-making-a-deal.htmlParamount and Skydance get a little closer to making a deal. Paramount still hasn’t settled on a partner, but the New York Times reports negotiations with Skydance over a possible merger have reached the step of “discussing entering into exclusive talks.” ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxze5FtaGpxZmaBcLzAq5imp6WjwW6tzZ1krKOpma6vr8Rmnp6sXZZ6rbXTraOeZZOhvLSx0WarqGWdlriqusZmmGaclZa5/news/paris-hilton-gets-special-deal-to-post-on-x.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/paris-hilton-gets-special-deal-to-post-on-x.htmlX, the company formerly known as Twitter, has made a special revenue sharing deal with Paris Hilton and her media company, 11:11. It even includes a custom hashtag for a word that Hilton has been trying to popularize since at least 2019: “sliving.” A combination of the words “slaying” and “living,” sliving is supposed to be Hilton’s new “that’s hot,” her catchphrase that was inescapable in the early 2000s. Now the year is 2023, and Linda Yaccarino, fresh from her interview on the Code stage, is posting “#sliving” to a site called X./news/plague-inc-now-has-a-free-mode-where-you-fight-a-pandemic.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/plague-inc-now-has-a-free-mode-where-you-fight-a-pandemic.htmlPlague Inc. — the strategy game about evolving and spreading diseases — received an update yesterday with a new mode that flips the script on its original gameplay. The new mode, titled Plague Inc: The Cure, is developer Ndemic Creations’ attempt to simulate the real-life, multifaceted approach required to stop a pandemic, based on input it received from real experts. The game originally launched in 2012 but surged in popularity this March after news of the COVID-19 outbreak spread across the world./news/raspberry-pi-zero-now-comes-camera-ready.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/raspberry-pi-zero-now-comes-camera-ready.htmlThe smaller, more affordable version of Raspberry Pi now comes with an onboard camera connector. The founder of Raspberry Pi writes that, with some "dumb luck" and some clever rearranging of the small computer board, the team was able to fit the connector on the side without much difficulty — and without raising the $5 price tag. Raspberry Pi is all about making it cheap and easy to tinker with computers, so increasing the base-level functionality means that first-time programmers will be even more well-equipped from the start./news/razer-s-tomahawk-modular-gaming-pc-is-finally-a-real-product.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/razer-s-tomahawk-modular-gaming-pc-is-finally-a-real-product.htmlThe Tomahawk is the final version of what we saw at CES 2020 back in January. It’s a simple case design with two PCIe slots: one for a full-sized GPU, and one for an Intel NUC Element board that contains the CPU, the RAM, the storage, and basically everything else you need for a functional PC. The NUC module includes a 45W Core i9-9980HK Coffee Lake processor, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and a 2TB hard drive./news/reading-stephen-king-s-it-is-an-exhausting-way-to-spend-a-summer.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/reading-stephen-king-s-it-is-an-exhausting-way-to-spend-a-summer.htmlTechnically, Stephen King’s 1986 novel It is a book. But as a physical object, it shares a number of characteristics with a cinder block. Carrying 1,200 pages of It between Brooklyn and Manhattan every day isn’t just a chore, it’s a workout. It’s easy to feel like It is meant to be this way — a stupid-large object you have to live with for weeks on end, depending on your reading speed and the musculature of your forearms./news/rep-gosar-anime-video-highlights-ties-to-the-online-right.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rep-gosar-anime-video-highlights-ties-to-the-online-right.htmlRepublican Congressman Paul Gosar (AZ) ignited national fury this week after tweeting a video portraying himself as an anime character killing other prominent lawmakers. But while Democrats are now calling for his expulsion from Congress and his accounts to be banned, the incident has drawn new attention to Gosar’s long association with far-right meme culture. Gosar first posted the problematic video parodying the opening credits of the popular anime series “Attack on Titan” on Sunday./news/russia-s-luna-25-space-craft-ceased-to-exist-after-colliding-with-the-moon.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/russia-s-luna-25-space-craft-ceased-to-exist-after-colliding-with-the-moon.htmlRussia’s Luna 25 spacecraft failed to land on the Moon, Roscosmos, Russia’s state-run space corporation, announced today. In a statement, the organization reported that the lander “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.” It would’ve been the country’s first Moon landing since 1976. Luna 25 entered orbit around the Moon last week, and was meant to orbit for just five days before landing on Monday, August 21st, but over the weekend, Roscosmos said it was analyzing a “technical glitch” that occurred as it was preparing the craft to move to a pre-landing orbit./news/samsung-is-now-selling-the-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-unlocked-in-the-us.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-is-now-selling-the-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-unlocked-in-the-us.htmlSamsung is today announcing something that should make more than few smartphone fans happy: it is now selling unlocked versions of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in the US. The unlocked phones, which work on all major US carriers, including CDMA carriers such as Sprint and Verizon, are available direct from Samsung or through Amazon, Best Buy, Ebay, Sam’s Club, and Target. The standard S7 is available in black and costs $669./news/samsung-s-43-inch-mini-led-neo-g7-comes-in-at-999-99.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-43-inch-mini-led-neo-g7-comes-in-at-999-99.htmlSamsung has announced that its Odyssey Neo G7 monitor, which it revealed earlier this year, will cost $999.99 and is available today. For the money, you’ll be getting a 43-inch 4K Mini LED display that can run at 144Hz along with Samsung’s Smart Hub software that lets you use streaming services like GeForce Now, Xbox Game Pass, and Netflix without having to connect to a computer or console. Samsung says the display has a matte coating that should help cut down on reflections and glare and that it has VESA Display HDR600 certification and FreeSync Premium Pro./news/samsung-s-galaxy-a54-is-already-on-sale-with-a-50-gift-card-at-amazon.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-galaxy-a54-is-already-on-sale-with-a-50-gift-card-at-amazon.htmlHappy Wednesday, y’all. We recently crowned Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Plus the best Android phone you can buy, though we wouldn't say it’s the cheapest Galaxy device currently available. Samsung’s midrange Galaxy A54 presents a more affordable alternative, one you can pick up at Amazon or Best Buy right now with a $50 gift card for $449.99. There’s a lot to love about Samsung’s popular A-series, particularly the A54. It’s very much in line with this year’s Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus and features a number of improvements over the last-gen A53./news/say-hi-to-barbie-in-the-new-barbie-movie-trailer.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/say-hi-to-barbie-in-the-new-barbie-movie-trailer.htmlFollowing a brief teaser that aped 2001: A Space Odyssey and gave very little away, we now have a second clip that seems to show what Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie is actually about. According to the YouTube description, Barbie herself may be going through a “full-on existential crisis,” which may or may not convince her to head out into the real world. Whatever the actual premise is, the movie looks extremely fun, and in less than two minutes, the new teaser manages to pack in quite a bit of innuendo./news/sega-announces-yakuza-8-and-a-slew-of-other-yakuza-games.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sega-announces-yakuza-8-and-a-slew-of-other-yakuza-games.htmlKIRYU-CHAN!! Ahead of the Tokyo Game Show starting on September 15th, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio — developers of the gritty gangster series Yakuza, the noir detective series Judgment, and in sharp and hilarious contrast, the Super Monkey Ball series — shared its upcoming release schedule, and it’s a doozy. Yakuza 8 makes its debut along with several other Ryu Ga Gotoku games that’ll have you up to your eyeballs in hostess clubs, batting cages, crane games, and just a smidge of gangster action as a treat./news/sending-amazon-workers-a-unionizing-message-is-as-easy-as-changing-a-book-cover.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sending-amazon-workers-a-unionizing-message-is-as-easy-as-changing-a-book-cover.htmlI haven’t read Mike Monteiro’s new book Ruined by Design, so I can’t say whether it’s any good. But let’s judge a book by its cover for a moment — because this cover cleverly encourages Amazon workers to form a labor union. This past Thursday, Monteiro tells The Verge, he realized he could change his self-published book’s cover as easily as uploading a new PDF, and used it to add a new message to Amazon workers they’ll presumably see as they print and package it for delivery./news/shooting-conspiracies-trend-on-x-as-musk-endorses-trump.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/shooting-conspiracies-trend-on-x-as-musk-endorses-trump.htmlConspiracy theories about the shooting at a rally for Donald Trump began surfacing on X shortly after the news broke this afternoon, with the platform promoting topics including “#falseflag” and “staged” to users. X owner Elon Musk has staunchly advocated for “free speech” on social media platforms — which can include misinformation like the above. Other major platforms largely seemed to avoid promoting misinformation On X, neither trending topic about the shooting is flush with particularly robust or coherent conspiracies; clicking through, you’ll largely find short posts from X users saying that the shooting looks fake or is a stunt./news/situation-there-are-too-many-competing-smart-home-standards.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/situation-there-are-too-many-competing-smart-home-standards.htmlRandall Munroe’s classic xkcd “Standards” comic is cited all the time for a reason: it perfectly describes the feeling everybody has when a new standard is proposed. I saw it flying around Twitter a bunch yesterday in the wake of the announcement that Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, Zigbee, and a host of others have joined up to create a new smart home standard that would be open source and based on IP (an internet protocol address, not intellectual property)./news/some-google-drive-for-desktop-users-are-missing-months-of-files.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/some-google-drive-for-desktop-users-are-missing-months-of-files.htmlGoogle says it’s investigating Google Drive users’ reports claiming that their personal files have unexpectedly vanished from the cloud service. The company acknowledged the issue today in a new Google community support thread and believes it involves a “limited subset” of Google Drive for desktop app users. Google notes it’s a sync issue for Google Drive desktop versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0. One of the users, who lost all of their Google Drive data going back to May, discovered the unwelcome surprise last week and took their grievances to Google’s community support site, as reported by The Register./news/some-google-one-plans-now-include-fitbit-premium-and-nest-aware.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/some-google-one-plans-now-include-fitbit-premium-and-nest-aware.htmlSome Google One plans now include Fitbit Premium and Nest Aware It looks like Google’s trying to create an all-in-one-subscription bundle similar to Apple One. The company confirmed Google One Premium plans in the UK, which start at £7.99/$9.99 per month, now include Fitbit Premium and Nest Aware. That’ll save users a good deal of money, as a monthly Fitbit Premium subscription by itself costs £7.99/$9.99. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaHx3e5FtZ3JqZWp9cL%2FOppxmn5%2BktK2xjKilnmWgoa6vv4ynprBlmaOwrcHDnmSfoaSXtrV5z6ucpqGlonqiusNmpZ6rpGKuuK3Rng%3D%3D/news/sony-proves-to-ps4-owners-that-they-can-play-horizon-forbidden-west-with-a-short-clip.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-proves-to-ps4-owners-that-they-can-play-horizon-forbidden-west-with-a-short-clip.htmlHorizon Forbidden West comes out on February 18th, and while Sony has spent the bulk of its time showcasing the upcoming open-world title on the powerful next-gen hardware of the PlayStation 5, the game is also coming out for the older PlayStation 4 lines of consoles. To prove it, developer Guerrilla Games has shown off a — extremely brief — preview of the game running on a vanilla PlayStation 4 for the first time./news/spectacles-3-review-new-design-and-a-much-higher-price.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spectacles-3-review-new-design-and-a-much-higher-price.htmlIt was three years ago this week that Spectacles first arrived, via colorful Snapbot vending machines that captivated Snapchat fans. But early buzz and largely positive reviews led Snap to make too many of the first-generation video-recording sunglasses than it could actually sell, and the company was forced to write down nearly $40 million in costs. A second generation arrived last spring with a refreshed, waterproof design and the ability to snap still photos for the first time./news/star-wars-just-made-2015-the-biggest-year-in-us-box-office-history.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/star-wars-just-made-2015-the-biggest-year-in-us-box-office-history.htmlOf course, with tickets prices escalating rapidly in recent years thanks to 3D, IMAX, and premium large format theaters, record grosses aren't anywhere close to the same thing as record attendance. In fact, according to Box Office Mojo as of Sunday, 2015 has had one of the lowest number of tickets sold since 1996. While that total will certainly increase over the next few days it won't be enough to change the fact that there are simply far fewer moviegoers in recent years than there were in the late 1990s and early 2000s — and that's to say nothing of inflation itself./news/stop-going-into-hotel-pools-when-you-have-diarrhea-cdc-says.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/stop-going-into-hotel-pools-when-you-have-diarrhea-cdc-says.htmlWe already know that pools are gross, but hotel pools and hot tubs are especially gross, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today. In fact, the water can be so contaminated that it’s been making thousands of Americans sick. The CDC sorted through nearly 500 outbreaks linked to pools, spas, and waterparks that made more than 27,200 people sick and killed eight people between 2000 and 2014. Roughly one-third of those outbreaks were traced back to hotels, motels, inns, and lodges, according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report./news/stop-what-you-re-doing-and-turn-on-this-twitch-stream-right-now.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/stop-what-you-re-doing-and-turn-on-this-twitch-stream-right-now.htmlStop what you’re doing and turn on this Twitch stream right now. Daft Punk (y’know the French electronica duo with the really cool helmets) is streaming their anime movie Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem on their official Twitch channel right now. If you’ve never seen it, it’s great. If you’ve seen it a million times, watch it again. Or if you really like Daft Punk’s Discovery album and wonder what it would look like as feature length animated movie, then oh boy have I got a treat for you./news/super-mario-64-probably-won-t-be-the-last-million-dollar-video-game.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/super-mario-64-probably-won-t-be-the-last-million-dollar-video-game.htmlEarlier this month, a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 sold for $1,560,000 at auction, a staggering price that nearly doubled a record set just two days before by a similarly pristine copy of The Legend of Zelda. The auctions could mark just the beginning of even more eye-poppingly large video game sales. It seems very likely that Mario’s first 3D adventure won’t be the last game to command a million-dollar sum./news/t-mobile-s-charging-a-5-fee-for-in-store-bill-payments.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-s-charging-a-5-fee-for-in-store-bill-payments.htmlT-Mobile has started charging customers who pay phone bills in-store a new $5 “Payment Support Charge,” plus tax. According to The Mobile Report, the new fee went into effect on July 19th, though prepaid customers will be charged the fee later on. In a flier shared with The Mobile Report announcing the change to its employees, T-Mobile implies the reason behind the fee is to help “enable a digital-enabled future.” Yet, as Droid Life points out, employee time spent processing payments may mean less time for more profitable endeavors — like selling phones or add-ons to plans./news/take-two-grapples-with-remedy-entertainment-over-r-logo-trademark.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/take-two-grapples-with-remedy-entertainment-over-r-logo-trademark.htmlRemedy Entertainment, the developer that created the Max Payne and Alan Wake video game franchises, is embroiled in a trademark dispute with Take-Two Interactive over claims that Remedy’s new “R” logo too closely resembles that of its subsidiary Rockstar Games. Take-Two submitted the Rockstar logo as evidence against Remedy’s trademark application The developer also later submitted trademark applications with the UK on May 11th and the US on May 24th, with the latter filings still “awaiting examination./news/tesla-s-autopilot-fraud-case-may-go-forward.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-s-autopilot-fraud-case-may-go-forward.htmlTesla’s Autopilot fraud case ‘may go forward.’ So says federal Judge Rita Lin, in her ruling on a lawsuit brought against Tesla alleging the automaker misled consumers by overstating the capabilities of its driver assist products. She dismissed several other claims brought by the plaintiff asking for injuctive relief and monetary damages. But fraud? Fraud’ll do. “If Tesla meant to convey that its hardware was sufficient to reach high or full automation, the [second amended complain] plainly alleges sufficient falsity,” Lin writes./news/the-36-best-presidents-day-2024-deals-you-can-still-shop.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-36-best-presidents-day-2024-deals-you-can-still-shop.htmlPresidents Day may be over, but it’s not too late to take advantage of all the great sales we saw pop up in honor of the holiday. While some deals have expired, we’re still seeing plenty of discounted tech at trusted retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, where you can find great deals on the gadgets we’ve tried, tested, and wholeheartedly recommend. The Roomba j7 and original Google Pixel Watch are still on sale for half off, for instance, while Apple’s latest AirPods Pro with USB-C are currently matching their best price to date./news/the-arc-browser-for-windows-is-one-step-closer-to-real.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-arc-browser-for-windows-is-one-step-closer-to-real.htmlThe Arc browser for Windows is one step closer to real. The Browser Company has been teasing a Windows version for a while now, and the app is apparently almost ready! So far only a few people are testing it — the “Beta Testers Onboarded” count is at a whopping four as I type this — but CEO Josh Miller says he hopes the waitlist will be empty by spring. (If you want to get on said waitlist, here’s the link./news/the-best-video-doorbell-cameras.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-video-doorbell-cameras.htmlWith a smart video doorbell, your front door’s communication skills go from 1980s landline to a modern smartphone. Combining a motion-activated camera with a microphone, speaker, and doorbell, a doorbell camera sends alerts to your phone to show you who’s calling without you having to open the door or even be at home. Whether you’re curled up on the couch, hard at work in your office, or sunning on a beach in the Bahamas, a smart doorbell camera keeps you in touch with what’s happening on your doorstep./news/the-discord-that-makes-asexual-dating-a-little-easier.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-discord-that-makes-asexual-dating-a-little-easier.htmlI checked my direct messages for the first time in a few weeks and a mix of excitement and dread washed over me: I had a message from someone new. He introduced himself and wanted to meet up in person at a local bar; we’d connected through a dating server, so I assumed his intentions were romantic. The problem was, I’m asexual — a person who doesn’t experience sexual attraction. And I was terrified that we had very different expectations about how that evening was going to go./news/the-hidden-afterlife-of-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-hidden-afterlife-of-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines.htmlA couple of weeks ago, I booted up a game I hadn’t touched in years: the 2004 RPG Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. For all the time I’d spent away from it, I was surprised how well I remember its distinctive dark fantasy version of Los Angeles. After being unceremoniously dropped in Santa Monica, I worked my way through the ranks by running errands for the city’s vampire prince, who invited me to visit him downtown./news/the-hot-sauce-in-beyonc%C3%A9-s-bag-is-not-hot-sauce.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-hot-sauce-in-beyonc%C3%A9-s-bag-is-not-hot-sauce.htmlPlot twist: when Beyoncé told us "I got hot sauce in my bag / swag" she was not talking about a condiment. She was talking about a baseball bat, which she uses to bust up car windshields and fire hydrants and wig store security cameras, singing, "I don't want to lose my pride but Imma fuck me up a bitch." This is bad news for Hillary Clinton, who has really been capitalizing on the fact that she carries hot sauce in her bag, and that she had the good sense to establish this fact four years ago./news/the-key-ingredient-to-millions-of-evs-is-buried-under-a-former-volcano-but-there-s-still-a-lot.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-key-ingredient-to-millions-of-evs-is-buried-under-a-former-volcano-but-there-s-still-a-lot.htmlThe company constructing a controversial new lithium mine to supply GM’s electric vehicles knows where it wants to drill next based on new research it published today. Lithium Americas broke ground on its mine at Thacker Pass in Nevada after facing fierce opposition from Native American tribes, environmental advocates, and local ranchers. But that mine is just one slice of the McDermitt Caldera, the remnants of a supervolcano that’s now believed to hold one of the biggest lithium deposits in the world./news/the-liberator-review-netflix-s-new-series-is-another-war-story-too-focused-on-spectacle.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-liberator-review-netflix-s-new-series-is-another-war-story-too-focused-on-spectacle.htmlNetflix’s The Liberator almost didn’t get made. The four-episode miniseries, now streaming, was initially envisioned as an eight-episode drama for the History Channel. The story — both in that version and the one that exists now — was based on the true story of the “Thunderbirds” battalion, a group of US forces that spent 500 straight days in combat in 1943. Unfortunately, the production costs of staging a grand war epic proved prohibitive for the History Channel, which led to its eventual rebirth on Netflix as an animated series quite unlike anything you’ve seen before./news/the-new-usb-rubber-ducky-is-more-dangerous-than-ever.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-new-usb-rubber-ducky-is-more-dangerous-than-ever.htmlThe USB Rubber Ducky is back with a vengeance. The much-loved hacking tool has a new incarnation, released to coincide with the Def Con hacking conference this year, and creator Darren Kitchen was on hand to explain it to The Verge. We tested out some of the new features and found that the latest edition is more dangerous than ever. What is it? To the human eye, the USB Rubber Ducky looks like an unremarkable USB flash drive./news/the-new-york-times-runs-wordle-now-and-stats-are-getting-m-e-s-s-y.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-new-york-times-runs-wordle-now-and-stats-are-getting-m-e-s-s-y.htmlHow can I transfer my game statistics to the new Wordle site? We have automatically transferred your game statistics (including streaks) to Wordle’s new home on New York Times Games. Nothing to do on your end. Help! My game statistics or streaks did not migrate correctly. We have automatically transferred your game statistics to Wordle’s new home on New York Times Games. If your data looks a little different than you remember, first ensure you are opening the game on the same device and browser you used previously./news/the-pentagon-has-400-reports-of-strange-aerial-phenomena-but-nothing-suggests-aliens.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-pentagon-has-400-reports-of-strange-aerial-phenomena-but-nothing-suggests-aliens.htmlThe Pentagon’s new task force for tracking unidentified aerial phenomena (or UAPs) has collected roughly 400 reports, an official told Congress in an open hearing on Tuesday. The comments came from Scott Bray, the deputy director of US naval intelligence, who testified today as an expert witness in a hearing about UAPs hosted by a subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee. The hearing marked the first time Congress has held a public hearing on UAPs, also known as UFOs, in more than 50 years./news/the-problem-with-jon-stewart-ending-over-ai-and-china-coverage.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-problem-with-jon-stewart-ending-over-ai-and-china-coverage.htmlSnagging Jon Stewart to host a new political talk show after his departure from The Daily Show was one of Apple TV Plus’ biggest achievements when The Problem With Jon Stewart was first announced back in 2020. But ahead of production kicking off on the show’s third season, Stewart and Apple have reportedly parted ways over “creative differences,” and The Problem is coming to an end. The New York Times reports that along with concerns about some of the guests booked to be on The Problem With Jon Stewart, Stewart’s intended discussions of artificial intelligence and China were a major concern for Apple./news/the-settlers-of-catan-will-become-a-holographic-ar-board-game.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-settlers-of-catan-will-become-a-holographic-ar-board-game.htmlCatan, one of the most critically acclaimed board games ever made and one that averages over a million copies sold per year, is about to leap off the tabletop thanks to a unique augmented reality gaming system that’s been in development for over a decade now. Tilt Five, a startup founded by a former Valve engineer, has just announced that a 3D holographic version of the game, dubbed Catan — Tilt Five AR, will arrive in spring 2023./news/the-state-department-wants-memos-written-in-calibri-now-not-times-new-roman.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-state-department-wants-memos-written-in-calibri-now-not-times-new-roman.htmlThe State Department is changing with the times. According to a report from The Washington Post, employees have been directed to use 14-point Calibri when writing certain documents instead of the traditional Times New Roman. The mandate is set to go into effect in February. In a memo cheekily titled “The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly told employees that the change is meant to make documents more accessible, saying that Times New Roman’s serifs could “introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers./news/the-tragic-end-of-telltale-games.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-tragic-end-of-telltale-games.htmlWhen employees showed up for work on Friday, September 21st, at Telltale Games, there was nothing to suggest the day would be different than any other. The second episode of The Walking Dead’s final season would ship the following week; developers across multiple teams were busy with plans for in-progress titles. But only hours later, 250 people would find themselves with no job, no severance, and health insurance that would be gone by month’s end — just nine days./news/the-tsa-is-testing-new-ways-to-make-airport-security-even-worse.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-tsa-is-testing-new-ways-to-make-airport-security-even-worse.htmlAirport security: two words that can strike dread into the heart of any traveler. Largely due to the slow process of checking your bags, along with the added hassles of emptying pockets and removing shoes, belts, coats, and laptops into extra bins. Requiring passengers to remove more items from their bags at the security checkpoint But there’s good news! According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, the TSA is looking to make that process even more complicated by requiring passengers to remove more items from their bags at the security checkpoint./news/the-tv-reboot-of-heathers-was-doomed-from-the-start.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-tv-reboot-of-heathers-was-doomed-from-the-start.htmlSpoilers ahead for the American TV remake of Heathers. It should come as no surprise that the marathon release of Paramount Television’s Heathers fell apart. The embattled TV remake of the 1988 film comedy has been delayed repeatedly over the past year, as a wave of school shootings and terrible advance reviews made the show’s tongue-in-cheek look at high school violence seem like a public relations disaster. Paramount attempted to sell off the series, then heavily recut it, merging its 10 hourlong episodes into five two-hour segments, and removing large segments of the finale./news/there-s-going-to-be-a-new-transformers-every-year-for-the-next-three-years.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/there-s-going-to-be-a-new-transformers-every-year-for-the-next-three-years.htmlParamount has announced the dates of the next Transformers trilogy, with movies number 5, 6, and 7 set to hit theaters in 2017, 2018, and 2019 respectively. That's right, after this year, 2020 will be the next time you won't be able to see a new Transformers movie at the cinema. Unless, of course, that's when number eight is coming out. According to The Wrap, Transformers 5 will be released on June 23rd, 2017; Transformers 6 on June 8th, 2018; and Transformers 7 on June 28th, 2019./news/these-art-collectors-live-in-a-nazi-bunker-in-berlin.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/these-art-collectors-live-in-a-nazi-bunker-in-berlin.htmlA massive Nazi air raid bunker might not sound like a great place to live, but with the right modifications — and the right location — a bunker can be a dream home. Karen and Christian Boros, art collectors and managers of a German advertising agency, live in such a place. Their early ’40s bunker, erected by Nazi Germany in the center of Berlin, has been wonderfully reconfigured as a airy penthouse apartment with an art gallery and storage space below to display and store their impressive collection of art./news/this-app-uses-neural-networks-to-put-a-smile-on-anybody-s-face.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-app-uses-neural-networks-to-put-a-smile-on-anybody-s-face.html2017 may be the year the US starts a nuclear war because someone tweets something mean about Donald Trump, but at least we’re getting some weird selfie apps before we go. Earlier this month we had Meitu, which made you look like a terrifying anime character and possibly tracked your location data, and this week we have FaceApp, which uses neural networks to paste a smile on anybody’s photo and possibly steals your soul or something./news/this-nvidia-rtx-4090-video-wins-2021-s-best-april-fools-joke.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-nvidia-rtx-4090-video-wins-2021-s-best-april-fools-joke.htmlApril Fools’ Day jokes are usually lame and lack any real effort, but 20-year-old Kasper Andersen has risen to the occasion for 2021 to deliver Nvidia’s RTX 4090. The Danish hardware enthusiast loves to create homemade replicas of retro graphics cards, but his latest RTX 4090 project imagines a future where Nvidia’s card uses 1,000 watts of power, has a 12-fan design, and includes 48GB of VRAM. The video is a work of art, with subtle details like two power cords, RGB lighting, or the ridiculous GPU benchmarking tool that records more than 23,000 frames per second./news/this-robot-uses-ai-to-find-waldo-thereby-ruining-where-s-waldo.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-robot-uses-ai-to-find-waldo-thereby-ruining-where-s-waldo.htmlIf you’re totally stumped on a page of Where’s Waldo and ready to file a missing persons report, you’re in luck. Now there’s a robot called There’s Waldo that’ll find him for you, complete with a silicone hand that points him out. Built by creative agency redpepper, There’s Waldo zeroes in and finds Waldo with a sniper-like accuracy. The metal robotic arm is a Raspberry Pi-controlled uArm Swift Pro which is equipped with a Vision Camera Kit that allows for facial recognition./news/threads-launches-for-nearly-half-a-billion-more-users-in-europe.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/threads-launches-for-nearly-half-a-billion-more-users-in-europe.htmlThe choice given to EU users. Screenshot by Thomas Ricker / The Verge The conditions of using Threads without a profile. Screenshot by Thomas Ricker / The Verge The company’s delay in launching the service in EU countries has been widely blamed on the bloc’s recent introduction of the Digital Markets Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that’s designed to rein in Big Tech abuses and level the playing field. Although Meta hasn’t named the regulation directly, Instagram head Adam Mosseri blamed the delay on “the complexities with complying with some of the laws coming into effect next year./news/tiktok-and-snap-want-to-prove-they-re-not-facebook.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-and-snap-want-to-prove-they-re-not-facebook.htmlSnap, TikTok, and YouTube set out with one important goal for Tuesday’s Senate hearing on child safety: to convince lawmakers that they are nothing like Facebook. While lawmakers were encouraged by the companies’ transparency, their humble approach hasn’t dissuaded lawmakers from pursuing new legislation. While YouTube’s parent company Google has testified before, it was the first time representatives from Snap and TikTok testified before Congress, and they came prepared to differentiate themselves from the social media giant at the center of yet another series of scandals./news/tim-cook-revealed-the-real-reason-apple-won-t-add-rcs-to-the-iphone.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tim-cook-revealed-the-real-reason-apple-won-t-add-rcs-to-the-iphone.htmlLast night, Tim Cook shot down the possibility of solving the green bubble problem — and he revealed the real reason why Apple won’t do it: it doesn’t sell iPhones. At Vox Media’s Code Conference, an attendee told Cook that it was difficult for him to send videos to his mom because Apple devices don’t support RCS, the texting protocol championed by Google and supported by major phone carriers. Cook, in response, suggested the attendee buy his mom an iPhone./news/tonal-review-the-peloton-for-weight-training-that-lives-on-your-wall.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tonal-review-the-peloton-for-weight-training-that-lives-on-your-wall.htmlThe first reaction people have when they see the Tonal, a connected strength training machine, on my wall is often one of two things: 1) is that the Mirror (a different internet-based piece of fitness equipment)? 2) can I try it? Both are valid reactions, especially when you consider how much money the industry has poured into marketing connected fitness. There are ads for the Mirror all over train stations and cars, Echelon bikes are in nearly every Costco, and, well, you must have seen or at least heard of that Peloton holiday commercial./news/turtle-beach-is-buying-gamepad-maker-pdp.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/turtle-beach-is-buying-gamepad-maker-pdp.htmlGaming accessory company Turtle Beach has announced it’s getting into the controller collecting game and buying PDP for a cool $118 million. PDP getting bought could be a good thing, depending on how you feel about its slate of generally affordable and fun-colored controllers. Turtle Beach has added a lot of accessory irons to the gaming fire in the last couple years, including forays into flight yokes and the recently-announced Velocity One racing wheel./news/twitch-now-lets-anyone-host-an-online-movie-party-with-the-amazon-prime-video-library.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitch-now-lets-anyone-host-an-online-movie-party-with-the-amazon-prime-video-library.htmlTwitch’s Watch Parties function is rolling out to everyone today, giving streamers and their subscribers around the world the ability to watch Amazon’s library of movies and TV shows together. It’s not just for families; as long as everyone has an Amazon Prime account, a streamer can now host a “public” movie viewing with all of their fans. Watch parties have taken off in general over the last few months as people stuck at home figure out ways to make watching TV shows and movies more social and interactive./news/twitch-s-new-squad-stream-feature-will-let-four-creators-go-live-in-the-same-screen.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitch-s-new-squad-stream-feature-will-let-four-creators-go-live-in-the-same-screen.htmlTwitch today announced a new feature designed to help creators boost the profile of smaller streamers on the platform and to better collaborate with one another. The feature, called Squad Stream, will let up to four Twitch streamers go live simultaneously in one window, making it easier for viewers to watch the action from four different angles and giving bigger channels the opportunity not just to host smaller creators, but to share their screen with the audience, too./news/twitter-x-the-verge.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-x-the-verge.htmlAn update on how Threads is doing. The app now has 150 million monthly users, Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday during Meta’s earnings call. There were almost 100 million monthly Threads users in October. The metric I’d really like to see, however, is daily users. Meta is juicing the visibility of Threads posts in the Instagram feed, and I’ve heard that a lot of user growth has been coming from that drive-by traffic./news/twitter-accounts-sharing-video-from-ukraine-are-being-suspended-when-they-re-needed-most.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-accounts-sharing-video-from-ukraine-are-being-suspended-when-they-re-needed-most.htmlAs Russian troops and armored vehicles begin moving into Ukrainian territory, social media accounts sharing images and videos from the eastern Donbas and Luhansk regions have been a crucial source of information, sharing footage of Russian helicopters heading toward Crimea or tank divisions moving to the border. But as the conflict intensifies, many researchers sharing this primary material taken from social media — commonly known as open-source intelligence or OSINT — have found their Twitter accounts unexpectedly suspended./news/twitter-defaults-to-a-for-you-page-now-just-like-tiktok.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-defaults-to-a-for-you-page-now-just-like-tiktok.htmlTwitter is changing how you move between the algorithmically-driven timeline and the reverse chronological one and making the algorithmic feed the default. In a change rolling out to iOS users first, the company has taken away the star button at the top right that let you switch between two feeds. In its place are two tabs — one labeled “For You” and the other “Following” — and when you open the app, you’ll see the For You tab first./news/twitter-is-working-on-a-way-to-control-who-mentions-you.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-is-working-on-a-way-to-control-who-mentions-you.htmlTwitter is working on a feature that lets you control who can mention you, with the test version discovered by app researcher and engineer Jane Manchun Wong letting you block mentions completely. Twitter privacy designer Dominic Camozzi confirmed that the feature is in the works in a now-deleted tweet, and solicited feedback on it from the community. Letting Twitter users limit who can @ them would be a pretty fundamental shift in how the platform works, making it so you may not be able to reach out across the platform to a stranger to say hi or point something out to them./news/twitter-launches-encrypted-dms-behind-a-paywall.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-launches-encrypted-dms-behind-a-paywall.htmlIn a new support document, Twitter has detailed what you can expect from the first version of the platform’s encrypted direct messages. Perhaps most notably, to be able to send and receive encrypted messages, you’ll have to pay Twitter for the ability to do so. Platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, and iMessage already offer encrypted messaging for free, so having to pay for the feature on Twitter might be a hard pill to swallow./news/twitter-takes-action-against-rep-matt-gaetz-for-glorifying-violence.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-takes-action-against-rep-matt-gaetz-for-glorifying-violence.htmlIn a tweet published Monday, Gaetz wrote, “Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” The post was retweeted over 12,000 times before Twitter took action against it. Hours after it was posted, Twitter determined that it violated its policies against glorifying violence. In doing so, the tweet is hidden from Gaetz’s profile and users must click a “view” button before seeing./news/virtual-reality-is-coming-to-your-movie-theater-lobby.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/virtual-reality-is-coming-to-your-movie-theater-lobby.htmlVirtual Reality Los Angeles has been holding seasonal conventions to introduce people to VR for more than two years. Usually the shows have focused on evangelizing on behalf of the technology — touting its transformative potential in gaming, storytelling, and industrial applications. But this year’s VLRA Summer Expo found itself addressing an industry that has transitioned from theoretical to actual, with retail versions of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive landing in living rooms, and Sony’s PlayStation VR waiting just around the corner./news/whatsapp-now-lets-you-control-who-can-add-you-to-groups.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/whatsapp-now-lets-you-control-who-can-add-you-to-groups.htmlWhatsApp is introducing new controls that let you limit who can add you to group messages. VentureBeat notes that the app now lets you stop people from adding you to groups if they’re not a contact in your address book. Alternatively, you can prevent anyone at all from being able to add you, or else leave the option open to all. The feature is one part of a host of changes the service is making to try and stop misinformation from easily spreading./news/where-does-tarzan-get-all-that-protein-and-shaving-equipment.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/where-does-tarzan-get-all-that-protein-and-shaving-equipment.htmlNot content with wasting Dwayne Johnson's considerable talent and charisma on a tepid retelling of the Hercules legend, Hollywood has now set its sights on ruining our happy, hand-drawn memories of Tarzan. And it's doing it with a seriously buffed-up Alexander Skarsgard in the leading role of a reformed Victorian gent returning to his jungle roots. This brings up a number of important and relevant questions. Firstly, where in the jungle does Tarzan find the steady and reliable source of protein that allows him to build up such a towering physique?/news/why-it-matters-that-bert-and-ernie-are-gay-which-they-are.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-it-matters-that-bert-and-ernie-are-gay-which-they-are.htmlCan puppets have a sexual orientation? It’s a question you probably didn’t expect to be debating this week, but here we are. In an interview with Queerty earlier this week, long-time Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman said that he wrote Bert and Ernie’s relationship — long a subject of fond, tongue-in-cheek speculation — to be that of “a loving couple.” According to Saltzman, during his 15-year tenure with the show, he modeled Bert and Ernie after his own romantic relationship with the late Arnold Glassman, even going so far as to incorporate their real-life quirks into his interpretation of the characters./news/wyze-says-camera-breach-let-13-000-customers-briefly-see-into-other-people-s-homes.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wyze-says-camera-breach-let-13-000-customers-briefly-see-into-other-people-s-homes.htmlWyze Friends, On Friday morning, we had a service outage that led to a security incident. Your account and over 99.75% of all Wyze accounts were not affected by the security event, but we wanted to make you aware of the incident and let you know what we are doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The outage originated from our partner AWS and took down Wyze devices for several hours early Friday morning./news/wyze-s-cheap-and-questionable-security-cam-levels-up-with-wi-fi-6-edge-ai-and-2-5k-video.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wyze-s-cheap-and-questionable-security-cam-levels-up-with-wi-fi-6-edge-ai-and-2-5k-video.htmlBut some Verge readers have told us that if you’re pointing them outside of your home and recording to a local SD card, there’s no better bang for your buck. So, we figure some will appreciate Wyze’s announcement today of the Wyze Cam v4, on sale now. The $36 camera is getting a big spec bump over the v3: it now captures 2.5K (2560 x 1440) video with what Wyze is sometimes calling HDR and sometimes calling “wide dynamic range,” up from 1080p previously./news/xenoblade-chronicles-2-is-a-massive-sci-fi-rpg-for-nintendo-switch.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xenoblade-chronicles-2-is-a-massive-sci-fi-rpg-for-nintendo-switch.htmlWhen Nintendo officially unveiled the Nintendo Switch back in January, the company showed off an impressive slate of role-playing games for the device. One of those was the massive open world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 — and at E3 this year Nintendo is giving an even deeper look at the game with a brand new trailer. Much like the rest of the series, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 takes place in a beautiful fantasy-meets-science-fiction world, one that stands out due to sheer scale./news/yahoo-redesigns-its-logo-to-remind-you-that-yahoo-exists.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/yahoo-redesigns-its-logo-to-remind-you-that-yahoo-exists.htmlYahoo isn’t exactly a popular company these days. But while it’s been down for a long time, it’s not out of the game yet, and today the company is here to remind everyone of that with a new logo that practically screams out (in a newly selected hue of purple): “We still exist and have somehow not imploded like a decayed, hollowed-out husk of a dying oak tree!” The new logo lacks the personality of the 2013 design, with a lowercase, sans-serif type that makes it resemble a startup that’s just bought its first print ad campaign on the subway./news/you-can-now-buy-games-on-steam-using-bitcoin.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-buy-games-on-steam-using-bitcoin.htmlValve has partnered with Bitcoin payment service Bitpay to bring everyone's favorite cryptocurrency to games platform Steam. Bitpay says it was approached by the company because it wanted to internationalize its operation, making it easier for Steam users in emerging markets to to buy games without using a credit card. "While more users are coming online in these countries, traditional payment options like credit cards often aren't available," said Bitpay in a blog post./news/youtube-can-t-contain-logan-paul-s-video-because-youtubers-know-the-rules.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-can-t-contain-logan-paul-s-video-because-youtubers-know-the-rules.htmlLogan Paul's video in which he filmed the body of a suicide victim continues to live on YouTube, even though the company has attempted to purge complete re-uploads from its site. A search this morning surfaced multiple re-uploads, including a few complete videos and many stitched together reaction posts that include original clips. Most of these users have blacked out, skipped over, or censored the victim's body, which seems to have allowed their uploads to avoid being taken down./news/youtube-investigating-right-wing-pundit-steven-crowder-for-harassing-vox-com-host.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-investigating-right-wing-pundit-steven-crowder-for-harassing-vox-com-host.htmlA tweet thread from Vox host Carlos Maza outlining several instances of right-wing YouTube commentator Steven Crowder making homophobic and racist comments about him has prompted an investigation by YouTube, the company confirmed to The Verge. Maza is the host of Vox’s Strikethrough series — a show about media, politics, and technology. (Disclosure: Vox is a publication of Vox Media, which also owns The Verge.) Strikethrough often catches the attention of Crowder, who has published “rebuttals” to the videos./news/youtube-terminated-chilledcow-s-channel-creating-one-of-the-longest-videos.htmlTue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-terminated-chilledcow-s-channel-creating-one-of-the-longest-videos.htmlMost people know ChilledCow’s popular LoFi hip-hop channel as the constant live stream starring an anime girl doing her homework. Over the weekend, following a mistaken suspension from YouTube, the account was terminated, and the live stream came to an end. As a result, ChilledCow produced one of the longest videos in YouTube history — more than 13,000 hours — and amassed 218 million views in the process. Less than a day after ChilledCow owner Dimitri received the notification from YouTube that his channel violated the company’s terms of service and was suspended, the violation was lifted./news/what-counts-as-artificially-intelligent-ai-and-deep-learning-explained.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-counts-as-artificially-intelligent-ai-and-deep-learning-explained.htmlTech companies have partly encouraged this elision of artificial intelligence and sci-fi AI (especially with their anthropomorphic digital assistants), but it’s not useful when it comes to understanding what our computers are doing that's new and exciting. With that in mind, this primer aims to explain some of the most commonly used terms in consumer applications of artificial intelligence — as well as looking at the limitations of our current technology, and why we shouldn’t be worrying about the robot uprising just yet./news/why-legendary-disney-animator-glen-keane-is-making-art-for-google.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-legendary-disney-animator-glen-keane-is-making-art-for-google.htmlIf you're going to raise the bar, you might as well do it Disney-style. Duet got its start on the second-generation Moto X last fall, but soon — and presumably because Google doesn’t own Motorola anymore — all three Spotlight Stories will make their way to Android and iOS. But before that happens, New York’s Museum of Modern Art is showcasing the film next week to celebrate Keane’s work as an animator, mapping out his esteemed career in the same halls as Monet and Warhol./news/hyper-light-drifter-is-a-dark-and-stunning-take-on-classic-16-bit-games.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hyper-light-drifter-is-a-dark-and-stunning-take-on-classic-16-bit-games.htmlSince he was a kid, Alex Preston has been imagining an experience that would blend the best moments from Diablo and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past into one game. Players would take on the role of a mysterious drifter, venturing through a dark world exploring massive forests and ancient ruins. The combat would be fast and tactical, and the enemies intelligent and plentiful. An animator by trade, it wasn't until the beginning of this year that he finally started turning that dream into a reality with Hyper Light Drifter./news/mercenary-kings-is-borderlands-meets-scott-pilgrim-on-ps4-and-pc.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mercenary-kings-is-borderlands-meets-scott-pilgrim-on-ps4-and-pc.htmlThere are plenty of big shooters coming to the PlayStation 4, from Destiny to Killzone: Shadow Fall. These games emphasize massive, open worlds, social connectivity, and incredibly detailed high-definition graphics. Mercenary Kings, an upcoming PS4 and Steam title from Tribute Games, goes a different route. It's a title that feels like the Metal Slug game that time forgot — a 2D shooter for a next-gen console. Mercenary Kings is a run-and-gun shooter in the vein of Contra and Metal Slug./news/top-gun-and-braveheart-among-movies-disappearing-from-netflix-on-january-1st.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/top-gun-and-braveheart-among-movies-disappearing-from-netflix-on-january-1st.htmlOver the years, Netflix's customers have grown accustomed to a revolving selection of movies and TV shows. The company's licensing deals often result in some films disappearing after spending time in Netflix's streaming library. Unfortunately, it looks like the beginning of 2014 will mark the end of Watch Instantly rights for dozens of popular titles including Top Gun, Braveheart, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Netflix displays an "expiration date"/news/7-problems-facing-bing-bard-and-the-future-of-ai-search.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/7-problems-facing-bing-bard-and-the-future-of-ai-search.htmlThis week, Microsoft and Google promised that web search is going to change. Yes, Microsoft did it in a louder voice while jumping up and down and saying “look at me, look at me,” but both companies now seem committed to using AI to scrape the web, distill what it finds, and generate answers to users’ questions directly — just like ChatGPT. Microsoft calls its efforts “the new Bing” and is building related capabilities into its Edge browser./news/8-great-games-for-your-switch-from-2023.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/8-great-games-for-your-switch-from-2023.htmlIt’s been a fantastic year for the Nintendo Switch. We got new Super Mario games, some great remasters, ports of a few games that previously blew up on PC, and, of course, an absolutely massive sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Even though the Nintendo Switch’s successor is likely just around the corner, there’s no shortage of great games to play on the Switch you might already own./news/a-2-000-year-old-computer-called-the-antikythera-mechanism-helped-the-ancient-greeks-understand-thei.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-2-000-year-old-computer-called-the-antikythera-mechanism-helped-the-ancient-greeks-understand-thei.htmlThe world’s oldest known computer lay submerged for more than 2,000 years off the treacherous coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Beneath the weight of the water, the sand, and the wrecked ship that once carried it, the ancient astronomical computer’s bronze gears and mechanical parts slowly warped and rusted. At the turn of the 20th century, a group of fishermen happened upon the wreck and its decaying treasures while diving after their dinners./news/a-game-of-thrones-fan-video-imagines-an-arya-and-the-hound-buddy-comedy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-game-of-thrones-fan-video-imagines-an-arya-and-the-hound-buddy-comedy.htmlGame of Thrones is almost over, and while executives at HBO are rushing to work up a spinoff that will ensure HBO Now subscriptions remain mandatory, there’s one obvious take: a buddy adventure story starring Arya Stark and the Hound. A new fan trailer from Lance Krall, published on Vimeo, sets up an idea of what a series called Arya and The Hound could look like. The style of Krall’s video is similar to what other fan-trailer editors have done over the years with The Avengers cast or going back to the original Shining comedy recut, and this one works just as well./news/a-history-of-taylor-swift-s-odd-conflicting-stances-on-streaming-services.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-history-of-taylor-swift-s-odd-conflicting-stances-on-streaming-services.htmlTaylor Swift’s entire catalogue is back on Spotify. Her first four albums haven’t been available since November 2014, and her October 2014 release 1989 has never been on the service before today. It’s the end of what has inarguably been the biggest, messiest controversy of the paid streaming era, and my colleague Micah Singleton has plenty of thoughts on how it happened and what it means for the music industry. But I’m also interested in what this decision means for Taylor Swift./news/a-nasa-scientist-explains-why-the-weather-is-becoming-more-extreme.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-nasa-scientist-explains-why-the-weather-is-becoming-more-extreme.htmlAcross China and Western Europe in July, the amount of rain that might typically fall over several months to a year came down within a matter of days, triggering floods that swept entire homes off their foundations. In June, the usually mild regions of Southwest Canada and the US’s Pacific Northwest saw temperatures that rivaled highs in California’s Death Valley desert. The severe heat was enough to buckle roads and melt power cables./news/a-review-of-my-new-samsung-curved-tv-i-hate-it-so-much.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-review-of-my-new-samsung-curved-tv-i-hate-it-so-much.htmlA few months ago I did something extremely out of character: I went out and bought a TV without obsessively reading product reviews. I just drove to Walmart and purchased the nicest-looking TV in stock for $500. It was a curved Samsung. This was an enormous mistake, and I should have just bought a Vizio E-Series. My wife Becky loudly reminds me of this mistake nearly every time we turn the TV on; she hates this product more than any other half-baked gadget I have forced into our lives./news/add-friend-uses-nfc-to-send-facebook-friend-requests-hands-on.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/add-friend-uses-nfc-to-send-facebook-friend-requests-hands-on.htmlThere's a new app in the Android Market that allows you to tap your NFC-enabled smartphone with your buddy's phone to send a Facebook friend request. It's called Add Friend, and other than the prerequisites that both you and your (soon-to-be) suitor must both have an NFC-enabled Android smartphone with the Facebook and the Add Friend apps installed, it's a relatively painless method of sending a friend request. Its also much more convenient than screaming to tell someone your digits in a loud club./news/affirm-s-new-mobile-app-lets-you-borrow-money-for-almost-any-online-purchase.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/affirm-s-new-mobile-app-lets-you-borrow-money-for-almost-any-online-purchase.htmlLending startup Affirm, founded by PayPal and Yelp co-founder Max Levchin, is out to destroy the credit card, or at the very least make a noticeable dent in its utter ubiquity. The company, which began in 2012 by offering simple and transparent loans for web purchases, is today launching a mobile app to the public that acts as a virtual credit card, so it can be used as a line of credit with no strings attached for pretty much any online purchase./news/ai-pioneer-marvin-minsky-accused-of-sex-with-epstein-trafficking-victim.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ai-pioneer-marvin-minsky-accused-of-sex-with-epstein-trafficking-victim.htmlA victim of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein testified that she was forced to have sex with MIT professor Marvin Minsky, as revealed in a newly unsealed deposition. Epstein was registered as a sex offender in 2008 as part of a controversial plea deal. More recently, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking amid a flood of new allegations. Minsky, who died in 2016, was known as an associate of Epstein, but this is the first direct accusation implicating the AI pioneer in Epstein’s broader sex trafficking network./news/alienware-x17-review-pretty-pixels-for-a-pretty-penny.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alienware-x17-review-pretty-pixels-for-a-pretty-penny.htmlAlienware did it. Its latest 17.3-inch X17 gaming laptop can actually deliver an enjoyable 4K gaming experience.  The last time I checked in on how laptops were faring with 4K gaming in 2019, things weren’t looking so hot. Nvidia’s last-gen RTX 20-series mobile chips couldn’t work hard enough to smoothly run demanding games at 4K without several compromises to visual fidelity. Fortunately, things have changed for the better this year with the RTX 3080 — specifically, for the X17’s high-powered 16GB VRAM variant./news/amazon-has-two-video-doorbell-companies-blink-and-ring-why.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-has-two-video-doorbell-companies-blink-and-ring-why.htmlIn December 2017, Amazon spent $90 million to acquire Blink, a Kickstarter-funded startup that developed a super energy-efficient chip to power its battery-operated smart home security cameras. In January 2018, Blink announced its first video doorbell. The next month, Amazon dropped a cool billion on Ring, a smart home security camera company known for essentially inventing the video doorbell. The writing was on the wall for Blink. It seemed apparent to industry analysts that it had been snapped up for its innovative tech, which surely would be pumped into the bigger, badder Ring./news/amazon-is-retiring-alexa-no-not-that-one.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-is-retiring-alexa-no-not-that-one.htmlAmazon is shutting down Alexa Internet, a service that has provided web traffic analysis for more than two decades. Alexa was founded in 1996 and bought by Amazon in 1999 (15 years before the shopping giant revealed its digital assistant of the same name). Alexa is best known for Alexa Rank, a ranking of the world’s most popular websites, with this information frequently referenced in news coverage and public resources like Wikipedia./news/amazon-pulls-white-supremacist-novel-the-turner-diaries-alongside-qanon-purge.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-pulls-white-supremacist-novel-the-turner-diaries-alongside-qanon-purge.htmlAmazon has taken a harder stance against QAnon and racism in the wake of the Capitol attack The Turner Diaries is not specifically related to the QAnon movement. But the novel espouses ideologies that overlap with those of QAnon believers, many of whom think President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a cabal of child predators who run the country that will one day require them to participate in a violent overthrow of the US government./news/amd-s-rx-7800-xt-is-the-antidote-to-gpu-inflation.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amd-s-rx-7800-xt-is-the-antidote-to-gpu-inflation.htmlIn almost every other way, it’s unremarkable. Reviewers agree: its performance is often indistinguishable from the AMD RX 6800 XT, a card released nearly three years ago. (Nvidia also recently released GPUs that couldn’t always beat their two-year-old predecessors: What has the industry been doing all that time?*) Here’s the difference: three years ago, the RX 6800 XT debuted at $649. When you factor in inflation, that’s $762 in today’s money./news/android-co-founder-andy-rubin-accused-of-cheating-wife-out-of-fortune-while-running-a-sex-ring.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/android-co-founder-andy-rubin-accused-of-cheating-wife-out-of-fortune-while-running-a-sex-ring.htmlAndroid co-founder Andy Rubin has been accused of cheating his wife out of millions through a prenuptial agreement obtained under false pretenses, according to documents unsealed in connection with a related case. The documents — first unearthed by BuzzFeed’s Ryan Mac — allege that Rubin forced his wife Rie Hirabaru Rubin into the prenuptial agreement just weeks before she was scheduled to give birth to their child, negotiating specific terms until three days before the couple’s city hall wedding./news/another-emulator-is-shutting-down.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/another-emulator-is-shutting-down.htmlAnother emulator is shutting down. Pizza Emulators, which made Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color emulators on Android, has pulled all of its apps from the Google Play Store. In a message on Discord, developer Davide Berra writes that he’s shutting down the emulators “to prioritize my family over the development of my apps.” The move follows Yuzu’s $2.4 million settlement with Nintendo and the shutdown of 3DS emulator Citra./news/apple-might-announce-several-macs-at-wwdc.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-might-announce-several-macs-at-wwdc.htmlApple could have a pretty big Worldwide Developers Conference next week, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. In addition to the rumored mixed reality headset and the usual updates to its operating systems, Gurman is expecting Apple to focus on “several” new Macs at the show, he said in a tweet. Gurman has already reported that a MacBook Air with a larger 15-inch screen and M2 chip is in the works, and it seems possible that could be one of the stars of the WWDC show./news/apple-promises-fix-for-bug-affecting-lightning-headphone-controls.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-promises-fix-for-bug-affecting-lightning-headphone-controls.htmlIt's been a few days since the iPhone 7 launch, and users have already discovered a potentially inconvenient bug that affects headphones plugged into the Lightning port. Early buyers are reporting that if the display is turned off for 5 minutes without any music playing, the Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter and Apple's Lightning EarPods — both included with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus — will automatically turn off physical headphone controls. This can also happen if audio is paused during that time./news/apple-studio-display-review-nothing-to-see-here.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-studio-display-review-nothing-to-see-here.htmlLook, people have wanted Apple to sell the 5K display from the now-discontinued 27-inch iMac as a standalone product for years now. When that first 27-inch 5K iMac came out in 2014, the display was so far ahead of the competition that buying one for the screen alone represented a bargain — that there was an entire computer attached to it was almost a bonus.  So now Apple’s gone and discontinued the 27-inch iMac and essentially replaced it with the new Mac Studio and the new 27-inch Studio Display./news/apple-watch-series-5-review-always-on-and-better-in-all-ways.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-watch-series-5-review-always-on-and-better-in-all-ways.htmlThe highest praise I can give the new Apple Watch Series 5 is simply this: it’s an Apple Watch. There’s a running joke in my recent iPad reviews: I just get to say “it’s an iPad,” and everybody knows what that means. It’s a sign that the product isn’t changing year over year, sure. But more importantly, it’s a promise that it’s good, that it will do what you expect it to do, and that you don’t need to overthink how it will fit into your life./news/apple-will-settle-its-contactless-payments-antitrust-investigation-with-the-eu.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-will-settle-its-contactless-payments-antitrust-investigation-with-the-eu.htmlApple will settle its contactless payments antitrust investigation with the EU. Regulators accepted measures Apple proposed earlier this year, including letting third-party developers access Apple’s NFC technology without using Apple Pay or Apple Wallet, three people familiar with the agreement told the Financial Times. The final details are still being negotiated, but a settlement is expected in the next few weeks. The settlement will be in place for a decade./news/apple-s-new-hands-free-unlocking-feature-won-t-work-with-existing-smart-locks.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-new-hands-free-unlocking-feature-won-t-work-with-existing-smart-locks.htmlLast week, Apple announced it’s bringing hands-free unlocking for smart locks to Apple Home when iOS 18 arrives this fall. The new capability leverages the U1 ultra wideband (UWB) chip in many iPhones and Apple Watches to allow a smart lock to open automatically as you approach the front door — no tapping required.  But hands-free unlocking isn’t coming to your existing Home Key smart lock because no current locks have the hardware to support it./news/asus-announces-world-s-first-500hz-nvidia-g-sync-gaming-display.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-announces-world-s-first-500hz-nvidia-g-sync-gaming-display.htmlNvidia and Asus are announcing the world’s first 500Hz G-Sync display at Computex 2022 today. While we saw a prototype 500Hz gaming monitor earlier this year, Asus is promising a shipping 24-inch 500Hz TN panel that’s designed for esports titles running at 1080p. Asus has not yet announced pricing or a release date for its new ROG Swift 500Hz monitor, though. The announcement comes just over two years since Nvidia and Asus teamed up to introduce 360Hz gaming monitors for esports at CES 2020./news/asus-debuts-glasses-free-3d-oled-display-on-new-vivobook-pro.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-debuts-glasses-free-3d-oled-display-on-new-vivobook-pro.htmlFor some companies that sell gaming and creator-oriented laptops, glasses-free 3D has become a bit of a dream. Acer first tried it back in 2021. Its SpatialLabs technology, which uses a combination of a stereo camera, optical lens, and real-time rendering technology to create decently realistic 3D images, has since made its way to a number of laptops, including the Predator Helios 300 gaming rig. This year, it’s Asus’ turn. The company has announced Spatial Vision, a “glasses-free (autostereoscopic) 3D OLED technology./news/asus-new-oled-laptops-run-on-the-latest-ai-capable-chips.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-new-oled-laptops-run-on-the-latest-ai-capable-chips.htmlAsus has released two new laptop models: the Asus Vivobook S series and the Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3406). Along with offering OLED displays, the laptops run on some of the latest AMD and Intel processors. We’ve yet to put the laptops to the test, but the new chips should be able to better handle AI with neural processing units built for it, while improving power efficiency and making gaming, multitasking, and editing faster./news/authorities-have-taken-down-the-dark-web-s-largest-illegal-marketplace.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/authorities-have-taken-down-the-dark-web-s-largest-illegal-marketplace.htmlDarkMarket, reportedly the world’s largest dark web marketplace, has been taken offline by a Europol-coordinated international operation, according to authorities (via Gizmodo). German law enforcement arrested the Australian man believed to be the operator of the illegal site, and seized 20 servers that hosted it, bringing an end to what had become a hotbed of illegal activity. Before its closure, DarkMarket hosted close to 500,000 users and had facilitated over 320,000 transactions, according to Europol./news/autonomous-is-a-sharp-thriller-about-robotic-freedom-and-patent-piracy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/autonomous-is-a-sharp-thriller-about-robotic-freedom-and-patent-piracy.htmlThis spring, genealogy service Ancestry.com was accused of secretly claiming rights to users’ DNA sequences. The company quickly changed its policy, denying any wrongdoing. But it was only the latest reminder of broadly companies can “own” information like biometric details, mental engagement, and even ideas. And it’s the kind of dangerous intersection of intellectual property rights and personal freedom that’s at the heart of Autonomous, the engaging debut novel of io9 founding editor Annalee Newitz./news/barclays-finally-adds-support-for-apple-pay-in-the-uk.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/barclays-finally-adds-support-for-apple-pay-in-the-uk.htmlApple Pay launched in the UK last summer, and made relatively swift progress adding banks. However, there was one notable holdout: Barclays, the country's second biggest bank. Today the company has announced it's adding support for Apple Pay. Barclaycard holders will be able to add their debit or credit cards to the app, and then pay using their iPhone, Apple Watch, or iPad at the UK's 400,000 or so compatible locations./news/best-workout-and-running-earbuds-of-2023.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/best-workout-and-running-earbuds-of-2023.htmlChoosing the right earbuds for your workout routine can be a very different process than finding a pair for casual, everyday listening. The best fitness buds need to hold up to intense exercise, whether you’re just in for a quick gym session or drenched in sweat on mile 25 of a marathon. Battery life is crucial, and most people prefer them to have a lively sound that can motivate and keep things moving down the stretch of a workout./news/bing-gets-a-new-logo-and-modern-design-to-take-on-google.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bing-gets-a-new-logo-and-modern-design-to-take-on-google.htmlA new lick of paint might not be enough to tempt users away from Google, but Microsoft is hoping its approach of partnering with web services and creating a platform for third-party developers, and even its own products, to integrate Bing functionality will serve it well for the future. "What you're seeing now is a recognition that the web is bigger than us, it's bigger than Google's properties, and it moves at a pace that's incalculably fast,"/news/bowser-agrees-to-10-million-fine-for-selling-nintendo-switch-hacks.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bowser-agrees-to-10-million-fine-for-selling-nintendo-switch-hacks.htmlCanadian hacker Gary Bowser has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a Nintendo lawsuit against him over piracy charges. Bowser is a member of the Team Xecuter group that have created mod chips or jailbroken the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, NES Classic Edition, and other consoles. Team Xecuter’s most well-known product is a USB device called the SX Pro that allows the Nintendo Switch to run pirated games. Nintendo has been chasing Switch hackers for years, and Bowser was arrested and indicted last year in a separate federal case./news/brightdrop-isn-t-just-selling-electric-vans-it-s-redesigning-delivery.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/brightdrop-isn-t-just-selling-electric-vans-it-s-redesigning-delivery.htmlTravis Katz is the CEO of BrightDrop, a subsidiary of GM that makes electrified delivery vans with an eye toward rebooting everything about how delivery works. BrightDrop has pretty big partnerships already, with names like FedEx, Verizon, and Walmart committed to its Zevo 600 van, and it’s got big ideas for making the steps from the van to your door more efficient as well with something called e-carts. Katz says there’s a huge demand for delivery, especially as online shopping keeps getting bigger, but the transportation network is at capacity, and you can’t just keep throwing more trucks and drivers on the road or making city streets wider./news/buy-two-blu-ray-movies-or-video-games-get-one-free-from-amazon.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/buy-two-blu-ray-movies-or-video-games-get-one-free-from-amazon.htmlYou can save a good amount of cash on Blu-ray movies and video games on Amazon right now. In addition to discounts, it’s offering a “buy two, get one free” promotion, and the selection is great. If you can’t make up your mind about whether you want three movies or three games, you can mix and match them. You’ll get the most affordable one for free at checkout. To say that Amazon has some good deals happening today is putting it lightly./news/cowboy-releases-cheeky-app-to-keep-vanmoof-e-bike-riders-on-the-road.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cowboy-releases-cheeky-app-to-keep-vanmoof-e-bike-riders-on-the-road.htmlThe Bikey app — get it... bike key — can generate and save a VanMoof owner’s unique digital key, which might be needed if the company’s servers are ever taken offline. It also provides basic access to the VanMoof e-bike’s settings. The key can be exported elsewhere for safekeeping. The app currently only works with S3 and X3 e-bike models, the most common VanMoof e-bikes currently on the road, with support for new S5 and A5 e-bikes on the way./news/cydia-closes-purchases-for-its-ios-jailbreak-store.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cydia-closes-purchases-for-its-ios-jailbreak-store.htmlIn the earliest days of the iPhone, Cydia arose as a rival distribution channel to Apple’s App Store, built specifically for jailbroken smartphones. Now, more than decade later, Cydia founder Jay “Saurik” Freeman has decided to shut down in-app purchasing through the Cydia mobile store after he acknowledged a bug related to PayPal digital token authorization that affected “very few users,” via TechCrunch. Through Cydia, users could buy mobile software designed to run on a jailbroken iOS device, but the jailbreaking community has grown smaller over the years as Apple’s iOS ecosystem has grown more robust and secure./news/daredevil-reboot-hits-production-snag-as-marvel-pivots-to-showrunners.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/daredevil-reboot-hits-production-snag-as-marvel-pivots-to-showrunners.htmlDaredevil: Born Again — Marvel Studios’ forthcoming live-action Daredevil reboot — is meant to further reintroduce Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock to the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the winding down of the studio’s yearslong partnership with Netflix, where the original Daredevil series previously streamed. While Marvel still seems to have big plans for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, it seems as if Born Again has hit some major production snags that are almost certain to delay its Disney Plus debut./news/disney-and-deadmau5-have-resolved-their-trademark-dispute.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-and-deadmau5-have-resolved-their-trademark-dispute.htmlAfter nine months of legal wrangling and the occasional Twitter sniping, deadmau5 and Disney are on good terms again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the electronic music titan (real name Joel Zimmerman) and the entertainment giant have settled their dispute over the use of deadmau5's famous mouse head, a staple in record artwork and live performances that resembles Mickey Mouse's iconic silhouette. When deadmau5 attempted to trademark the logo in the US last September — he already holds the trademark in over 30 countries — Disney filed to block the application, claiming that deadmau5's design was "/news/disney-plus-and-hulu-s-one-app-experience-is-launching-in-beta.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-plus-and-hulu-s-one-app-experience-is-launching-in-beta.htmlDisney is rolling out the beta version of its combined Disney Plus and Hulu experience today. The new hub, called Hulu on Disney Plus, puts content from both services on the Disney Plus app. If you’re subscribed to a Disney Plus and Hulu bundle, you’ll see a new Hulu card that appears next to the Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic titles at the very top of Disney Plus’ interface./news/disney-shuts-down-pixar-canada-studio-closure-results-in-100-lost-jobs.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-shuts-down-pixar-canada-studio-closure-results-in-100-lost-jobs.htmlDisney has decided to close up shop on Pixar Canada, a move that will result in the loss of 100 jobs. According to Variety, Pixar's parent company has apparently decided that moving forward, the best strategy is to have all employees working at the studio's main California headquarters. "The team at Pixar Canada is incredibly talented and we are so proud of the excellent work we have produced there," a spokesperson told Variety after news of the closing was made public./news/drake-muddies-the-push-ups-ai-debate-with-a-deepfake.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/drake-muddies-the-push-ups-ai-debate-with-a-deepfake.htmlOver the weekend, a new track “leaked,” and fans have been debating whether it’s really from Drake or if it’s the return of AI Drake. The song is a diss track called “Push Ups” that targets Kendrick Lamar and Metro Boomin, among others. At one point, it tells Metro Boomin to “shut your ho ass up and make some drums.” It sounds like Drake, but on a close listen, there are small apparent glitches in his voice./news/dreamscape-immersive-s-alien-zoo-takes-guests-to-an-interstellar-jurassic-park.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dreamscape-immersive-s-alien-zoo-takes-guests-to-an-interstellar-jurassic-park.htmlThe Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles is a multilevel marvel, a mashup of resort and shopping mall aesthetics that combines a massive AMC movie theater, an Italian marketplace called Eataly, and dozens of high-end retail stores. But across the courtyard from the Amazon Books location — tucked in next to a Tesla Motors storefront, no less — there’s a pathway to another world. The first thing you notice when you step inside the pop-up location are postcards and paintings of surreal, multicolored creatures: a giant bat called a wothe and a flying stingray-like beast known as an astafie./news/ea-taps-burnout-studio-criterion-to-work-on-new-era-of-battlefield.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ea-taps-burnout-studio-criterion-to-work-on-new-era-of-battlefield.htmlThings haven’t been going so well with the Battlefield franchise of late, so EA is bringing in some more help. The publisher says that starting today, “Criterion is added to our world-class Battlefield studios dedicated to ushering in a new era for the franchise.” Criterion was first acquired by EA in 2004 and is best known for its work on racing games, starting with Burnout before shifting to EA’s Need for Speed franchise./news/ecoflow-s-turnkey-off-grid-power-system-just-needs-sun.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ecoflow-s-turnkey-off-grid-power-system-just-needs-sun.htmlThe ability to move off-grid just got a little bit easier with these new modular and expandable Power Kits from EcoFlow. These all-in-one Power Kits are turnkey solutions that take the guesswork and complexity out of implementing a battery-based power system inside an adventure van or cabin in the woods. As such, it should take up less room and require less wiring to free up much-needed space for things like food, water, and mountain bikes./news/encryption-might-be-the-reason-we-ve-never-heard-from-aliens-says-snowden.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/encryption-might-be-the-reason-we-ve-never-heard-from-aliens-says-snowden.htmlEdward Snowden thinks he might have an answer to the Fermi paradox — the cosmological puzzle of why, given that the universe is so very old and so very big, we haven't heard from any aliens yet. Speaking with Neil deGrasse Tyson on the astrophysicist's StarTalk podcast (the relevant section starts 30 minutes in), Snowden suggests that a universal need to keep communications secure could mean that alien signals are simply too well encrypted to be distinguished from background noise./news/facebook-s-10m-sponsored-stories-settlement-fails-to-obtain-judge-s-approval.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-s-10m-sponsored-stories-settlement-fails-to-obtain-judge-s-approval.htmlThe judge presiding over a year-long class action lawsuit concerning Facebook's Sponsored Stories program has declined to approve a settlement that would see the social network pay out $10 million while being required to introduce opt-out features. According to a report from Wired, Judge Richard Seeborg is concerned that the payout represents a relatively insignificant sum for the Menlo Park-based company, which recently posted $1.18 billion in revenues in what was considered a disappointing second quarter./news/facebook-s-new-ai-powered-moderation-tool-helps-it-catch-billions-of-fake-accounts.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-s-new-ai-powered-moderation-tool-helps-it-catch-billions-of-fake-accounts.htmlFacebook is opening up about the behind-the-scenes tools it uses to combat fake account creation on its platforms, and the company says it has a new artificial intelligence-powered method known as Deep Entity Classification (DEC) that’s proved especially effective. DEC is a machine learning model that doesn’t just take into account the activity of the suspect account, but it also evaluates all of the surrounding information, including the behaviors of the accounts and pages the suspect account interacts with./news/far-cry-6-is-a-failed-chance-to-put-spanish-front-and-center.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/far-cry-6-is-a-failed-chance-to-put-spanish-front-and-center.htmlLatin America isn’t a common destination in video games. In the few instances where digital landscapes have taken place in the region, results have been mixed. Characters often fall into the trope of saying random Spanish words during conversations to remind us of their nationality. Local socio-political issues are rarely handled with the proper nuance, while cultural portrayals can be hit or miss. Far Cry 6, the latest installment in the open-world series by Ubisoft, doesn’t do much to evade these problems./news/federal-judge-vows-to-investigate-google-for-intentionally-destroying-chats.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/federal-judge-vows-to-investigate-google-for-intentionally-destroying-chats.htmlJudge James Donato is overseeing Epic v. Google, a case that could determine the future of the Android app store — but testimony in this case may have more repercussions for Google, too. On Friday, Judge Donato vowed to investigate Google for intentionally and systematically suppressing evidence, calling the company’s conduct “a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice.” We were there in the courtroom for his explanation. “I am going to get to the bottom of who is responsible,” he said, adding he would pursue these issues “on my own, outside of this trial./news/final-fantasy-16-is-so-edgy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/final-fantasy-16-is-so-edgy.htmlIt’s no secret that Game of Thrones has been a major influence on Final Fantasy XVI — the developers have said as much. “When we first started creating the game, we had our core team of about 30 members very early on buy the Blu-ray boxset of Game of Thrones and required everyone to watch it, because we wanted this type of feel,” producer Naoki Yoshida told Eurogamer earlier this year./news/final-fantasy-vii-ever-crisis-compiles-the-entire-ffv7-timeline-into-one-mobile-game.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/final-fantasy-vii-ever-crisis-compiles-the-entire-ffv7-timeline-into-one-mobile-game.htmlSquare Enix announced two mobile games set in the Final Fantasy VII universe today. One is a battle royale game aiming for a 2021 release, and the other is Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a compilation of all the games and stories set in the Final Fantasy VII universe (Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus). The latter is slated to launch sometime in 2022 on Android and iOS./news/fortnite-season-6-adds-animals-crafting-lara-croft-and-neymar.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-season-6-adds-animals-crafting-lara-croft-and-neymar.htmlA new season of Fortnite is upon us, and the latest digs even deeper into the battle royale’s reality-spanning narrative. Today, Epic Games officially launched season 6 of the game’s second chapter, which is dubbed “Primal.” It takes place directly after the “Zero Crisis Finale” that concluded season 5 and introduces a new prehistoric biome to the island. When players start playing the season for the first time, they’ll be greeted with a quick cinematic — which you can watch below — following a short-yet-intense single-player adventure where you help Agent Jonesy attempt to save reality./news/fortnite-chapter-3-is-now-live-with-new-island-spider-man-and-plenty-more-changes.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-chapter-3-is-now-live-with-new-island-spider-man-and-plenty-more-changes.htmlThis morning developer Epic launched season 1 of the new chapter, called “Flipped,” and the most dramatic change is the shift to a fresh, snow-covered island, one that features weather conditions, along with new locations like Sanctuary — which appears to play a large part in Fortnite lore — and the Daily Bugle. Those who pick up the new battle pass will also be able to get their hands on characters like Spider-Man and (eventually) The Foundation, voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson./news/frore-airjet-a-palm-sized-pc-might-contain-the-future-of-gadget-cooling.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/frore-airjet-a-palm-sized-pc-might-contain-the-future-of-gadget-cooling.htmlThere are largely two kinds of PCs — ones cooled by spinning fans, and ones cooled passively. A San Jose, California startup has raised $116 million in hopes of introducing a third way: a micro-electromechanical system that shoots air out of a solid-state chip, cooling with a device thinner and quieter than most fans could manage. The company’s called Frore Systems, the device is called AirJet, and today it’s no longer just a cool demo at CES./news/gattaca-director-andrew-niccol-on-conformity-technology-and-his-new-netflix-film-anon.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gattaca-director-andrew-niccol-on-conformity-technology-and-his-new-netflix-film-anon.htmlAt this point in Andrew Niccol’s career, audiences should be pretty clear on when they’re watching one of his films, even if they miss the opening credits. Niccol specializes in high-concept stories about the ways technology affects society — sometimes radically, like in his science fiction films Gattaca, In Time, and S1m0ne, and sometimes more subtly, as in his drone-warfare drama Good Kill or his arms dealer story Lord of War. He’s a writer as well as a director./news/ge-lighting-s-new-cync-under-cabinet-smart-lights-look-slick.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ge-lighting-s-new-cync-under-cabinet-smart-lights-look-slick.htmlIf you had “install gamer lights in the kitchen” on your list of New Year’s resolutions, well, you’re in luck — GE Lighting is introducing its first full-color under-cabinet smart lights. The Cync Reveal HD Plus fixtures and pucks are arriving soon, starting at $59.99. Not looking for that RGB gamer vibe? The Cync under-cabinet lights offer a full range of whites, and you can connect up to 10 fixtures together to give your countertops an ethereal glow that just screams Architectural Digest./news/google-ai-flagged-parents-accounts-for-potential-abuse-over-nude-photos-of-their-sick-kids.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-ai-flagged-parents-accounts-for-potential-abuse-over-nude-photos-of-their-sick-kids.htmlA concerned father says that after using his Android smartphone to take photos of an infection on his toddler’s groin, Google flagged the images as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to a report from The New York Times. The company closed his accounts and filed a report with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and spurred a police investigation, highlighting the complications of trying to tell the difference between potential abuse and an innocent photo once it becomes part of a user’s digital library, whether on their personal device or in cloud storage./news/google-announces-palm-2-ai-language-model-already-powering-25-google-services.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-announces-palm-2-ai-language-model-already-powering-25-google-services.htmlGoogle has announced PaLM 2: its latest AI language model and competitor to rival systems like OpenAI’s GPT-4. “PaLM 2 models are stronger in logic and reasoning, thanks to broad training in logic and reasoning,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai onstage at the company’s I/O conference. “It’s also trained on multilingual text spanning over 100 languages.” PaLM 2 is much better at a range of text-based tasks, Google senior research director Slav Petrov told journalists in a roundtable prior to the model’s announcement at Google’s I/O conference, including reasoning, coding, and translation./news/google-calendar-can-now-automatically-find-the-best-time-for-office-meetings.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-calendar-can-now-automatically-find-the-best-time-for-office-meetings.htmlGoogle Calendar is already trying to help people find time for exercise and other important tasks between everyday appointments, and now the app is aiming to simplify the daunting task of arranging meetings for those in the working world. A new feature announced today for Calendar's Android app, Find Time, will examine the schedules of everyone you want to attend an office meeting and pick out a window where everyone's free — or at least closest to it./news/google-is-bringing-its-vpn-to-mac-and-windows-pcs.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-bringing-its-vpn-to-mac-and-windows-pcs.htmlGoogle is bringing its VPN access to desktop today. Google One subscribers on Premium plans (2TB or higher) can now download VPN apps for Windows and macOS, allowing users in 22 countries to mask their IPs on desktop and reduce online trackers. While Google is expanding its VPN service, it still comes with the same restrictions as Android and iOS. You’ll only be able to use the service in one of the supported countries, and you won’t be able to use Google’s VPN freely to avoid geo-restrictions on live sports or other streaming video./news/google-is-indexing-whatsapp-group-chat-links-making-private-groups-discoverable.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-indexing-whatsapp-group-chat-links-making-private-groups-discoverable.htmlInvitations to WhatsApp group chats are being indexed by Google, making the invite links —including links to private group chats — discoverable and available to anyone who wants to join, Motherboard reports. Journalist Jordan Wildon said on Twitter that he discovered that WhatsApp’s “Invite to Group Link” feature lets Google index groups, making them available across the internet since the links are being shared outside of WhatsApp’s secure private messaging service./news/google-is-searching-for-answers-25-years-of-search.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-searching-for-answers-25-years-of-search.htmlGoogle turns 25 this year. Can you imagine? It’s only 25 — yet it’s almost impossible to recall life without being able to just Google it, without immediate access to answers. Google Search is everywhere, all the time; the unspoken background of every problem, every debate, every curiosity. Google Search is so useful and so pervasive that its overwhelming influence on our lives is also strangely invisible: Google’s grand promise was to organize the world’s information, but over the past quarter century, an enormous amount of the world’s information has been organized for Google — to rank in Google results./news/google-nexus-player-review-the-verge.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-nexus-player-review-the-verge.htmlA quick overview of how Android TV works It’s now trite to refer to a set-top box as a "puck," so I won’t. The Nexus Player is a discus. It’s a flattened cannonball. It’s… a big black cookie. Whatever: it’s a puck. It’s a flat, round object about as big around as a coffee can (think more shuffleboard puck than hockey), with a notably larger footprint than the Apple TV. With power and HDMI cables connected to its rear, from a birds-eye view it looks a little like the Starship Enterprise./news/google-personalizes-search-results-even-when-you-re-logged-out-new-study-claims.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-personalizes-search-results-even-when-you-re-logged-out-new-study-claims.htmlThe amount of personalization inherent in any one of Google’s many massive software products runs deep, based on everything from your search history to your location to every single search link you might have clicked. And avoiding that personalization seems to have become more difficult over the years. According to a new study conducted by Google competitor DuckDuckGo, it does not seem possible to avoid personalization when using Google search, even by logging out of your Google account and using the private browsing “incognito” mode./news/google-voice-gets-mms-support-barely.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-voice-gets-mms-support-barely.htmlGoogle Voice may be having trouble with OS 5 this week, but there's good news too: baby steps towards MMS support. Sprint subscribers can now send pictures, videos and more to a Google Voice number, and the message will show up on their phone, as well as in their email inbox if they have it enabled. That's nice, though it's somewhat useless for now since there's no easy way to distinguish who in your contact list is a Google Voice subscriber and who just doesn't have an MMS-supported phone./news/hackers-breach-zola-wedding-registry-accounts-and-make-fraudulent-purchases.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hackers-breach-zola-wedding-registry-accounts-and-make-fraudulent-purchases.htmlThe popular wedding planning website Zola, known for its online gift registries, guest list management, and wedding websites, confirmed Monday that hackers had managed to access the accounts of a number of its users and tried to initiate fraudulent cash transfers. Over the weekend, some Zola users posted on social media that linked bank accounts had been used to purchase gift cards. One tweet flagged by a Reddit user claimed to show cracked Zola accounts being resold on the black market and used to buy gift vouchers./news/here-are-all-the-phones-with-headphone-jacks-you-can-buy-right-now.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-are-all-the-phones-with-headphone-jacks-you-can-buy-right-now.htmlIt’s notoriously difficult to find a smartphone with a headphone jack. Many manufacturers, from Apple to Google to Xiaomi, are omitting headphone jacks from their phones, instead opting for reversible ports like Lightning and USB-C. This is all despite the fact that living without a headphone jack makes it harder to do simple things like listening to music. It’s tricky to find headphones that support the new ports, harder to find adapters that compensate for the lack of a 3./news/how-to-easily-share-your-wi-fi-password-on-android-and-ios.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-easily-share-your-wi-fi-password-on-android-and-ios.htmlIf you have a guest over to your house for any amount of time, there’s a fair chance they’ll ask you for the Wi-Fi password, which may begin a dreaded dance of you trying to remember what it is or read out a complicated string of numbers, letters, and symbols. Of course, you could always buy a Wi-Fi password sign or write it on a sticky note that you can quickly point guests to, but that’s not always the most convenient solution; if your password is long or contains hard-to-read symbols (is that an O or a 0?/news/how-to-get-rid-of-your-ipad-2.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-get-rid-of-your-ipad-2.htmlHas your iPad 2 lost some of its shine since Apple's announcement of the new iPad last week (Check out our iPad review)? Looking longingly at the Retina display? Maybe you're considering trading in so you can have Apple's latest and greatest tablet. There are plenty of offers out there for people just like you, with some places offering fairly hefty rewards in exchange for your old, unwanted slate. We've had a look around and found what we think are your best options, but if you see a better deal anywhere else, let us know in the comments!/news/how-to-reset-your-windows-10-pc-when-your-having-problems.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-reset-your-windows-10-pc-when-your-having-problems.htmlWindows 10 is, on the whole, more trouble-free than its previous iterations — but sometimes, things just go wrong. A couple of years ago, I made the mistake of not checking to make sure my laptop was securely plugged in while Windows was undergoing a major update. The battery ran out in the middle of the update and voila! I was stuck with what I was sure was now a very expensive brick./news/how-to-turn-regular-photos-into-portrait-mode-photos-on-the-iphone-15.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-turn-regular-photos-into-portrait-mode-photos-on-the-iphone-15.htmlAnyone with an iPhone who’s taken a picture of their child or pet knows the Portrait mode dilemma. Portrait mode adds that lovely, soft bokeh effect to the background of your image and calls attention to your subject — ideal when your toddler or cat is doing something adorable. But taking the extra second to switch from the standard camera app to Portrait mode sometimes means missing the moment entirely. /news/hp-redesigns-envy-and-pavilion-laptops-for-2013-including-one-with-a-3200-x-1800-screen.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-redesigns-envy-and-pavilion-laptops-for-2013-including-one-with-a-3200-x-1800-screen.htmlLast year, Hewlett-Packard decided to unify the design of every thin and light laptop it sold, applying the same basic curves across every keyboard, touchpad, hinge, lid, and frame. This year, it's not just thin-and-light laptops getting the treatment: according to company representatives, CEO Meg Whitman has now mandated a unified design language across HP's entire portfolio of consumer machines. "She took a look at our portfolio and said, ''I don't know what's HP./news/hp-s-sprocket-might-not-be-the-best-instant-printer-but-it-s-definitely-the-most-fun.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-s-sprocket-might-not-be-the-best-instant-printer-but-it-s-definitely-the-most-fun.htmlToday, I got hyped on a printer. HP’s new pocket-sized Sprocket printer made me smile; it made me laugh; and it became my favorite distraction. Sure, my interest in it is already waning, but wow a real laugh. That’s more excitement than most gadgets have inspired in me lately. The Sprocket is HP’s answer to portable instant printers that print photos from your phone. These have existed for a while, and HP’s printer doesn’t create as high of quality prints as other products, like Fujifilm’s competing printer./news/huawei-s-p30-pro-is-a-photographic-powerhouse-with-a-tiny-notch.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/huawei-s-p30-pro-is-a-photographic-powerhouse-with-a-tiny-notch.htmlWhat if you could have it all: super-fast performance, marathon battery life, a bezel-starved screen, and a camera that competes with the Google Pixel on quality and pocket cameras on zoom? Huawei would have you believe that its new P30 Pro Android flagship is precisely that sort of no-compromise device. Announced at another gala event in Paris today, the P30 Pro addresses the few downsides of Huawei’s already excellent Mate 20 Pro from last year, and it adds a sophisticated new camera system that promises up to 10x lossless zoom./news/hulu-with-live-tv-adds-mlb-network-just-as-baseball-season-gets-underway.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hulu-with-live-tv-adds-mlb-network-just-as-baseball-season-gets-underway.htmlHulu’s subscription TV service has added MLB Network to its core channel lineup in the nick of time for the league’s Opening Day 2024. This will provide customers with access to “over 100 MLB games nationally broadcast over the course of the season,” along with the network’s original programming and studio shows. YouTube TV, one of Hulu with Live TV’s primary competitors, abruptly dropped MLB Network early last year after it was unable to reach a new carriage agreement with Major League Baseball./news/i-m-a-classic-man-and-you-can-be-too-a-guide-to-jidenna-s-sneaky-irresistible-summer-jam.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-m-a-classic-man-and-you-can-be-too-a-guide-to-jidenna-s-sneaky-irresistible-summer-jam.htmlIf you’re an avid reader of The Verge’s entertainment coverage, you might remember Emily and I talking about this year’s Songs of the Summer candidates a few weeks ago. We had fun discussing the topic, but we didn’t manage to come to any sort of consensus. There were songs we both liked that didn’t have the commercial firepower to capture the nation; there were songs that ruled the charts but left us both feeling flat./news/inside-facebook-s-struggle-to-keep-young-people.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/inside-facebook-s-struggle-to-keep-young-people.htmlEarlier this year, a researcher at Facebook shared some alarming statistics with colleagues. Teenage users of the Facebook app in the US had declined by 13 percent since 2019 and were projected to drop 45 percent over the next two years, driving an overall decline in daily users in the company’s most lucrative ad market. Young adults between the ages of 20 and 30 were expected to decline by 4 percent during the same timeframe./news/inside-foxconn-s-empty-buildings-empty-factories-and-empty-promises-in-wisconsin.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/inside-foxconn-s-empty-buildings-empty-factories-and-empty-promises-in-wisconsin.htmlHopes were high among the employees who joined Foxconn’s Wisconsin project in the summer of 2018. In June, President Donald Trump had broken ground on an LCD factory he called “the eighth wonder of the world.” The scale of the promise was indeed enormous: a $10 billion investment from the Taiwanese electronics giant, a 20 million-square-foot manufacturing complex, and, most importantly, 13,000 jobs. Which is why new recruits arriving at the 1960s office building Foxconn had purchased in downtown Milwaukee were surprised to discover they had to provide their own office supplies./news/intel-phases-out-mcafee-brand-name-distancing-itself-from-controversial-founder-john-mcafee.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/intel-phases-out-mcafee-brand-name-distancing-itself-from-controversial-founder-john-mcafee.htmlWhen you think of McAfee, you might think of the Intel-owned antivirus software company, or you might think of the former druggie and part-time fugitive who founded that company over 20 years ago. Or perhaps both. Either way, Intel is attempting to sever that inconvenient association. At CES 2014 in Las Vegas, the company has announced that it will be phasing out the McAfee brand name for its security software in favor of the simpler "/news/internet-pioneer-john-perry-barlow-is-dead-at-70.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/internet-pioneer-john-perry-barlow-is-dead-at-70.html“Barlow was sometimes held up as a straw man for a kind of naive techno-utopianism that believed that the Internet could solve all of humanity’s problems without causing any more,” EFF executive director Cindy Cohn wrote in a statement. “As someone who spent the past 27 years working with him at EFF, I can say that nothing could be further from the truth. Barlow knew that new technology could create and empower evil as much as it could create and empower good./news/invasion-season-1-review-the-first-chapter-of-a-sci-fi-epic.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/invasion-season-1-review-the-first-chapter-of-a-sci-fi-epic.htmlThe first season of Invasion on Apple TV Plus feels a little incomplete. Across its 10 episodes, which chart a handful of humans grappling with an alien invasion, the story slowly teases out the reality of what’s happening. There are hints here and there — a haunting artificial voice, a mysterious alien-killing weapon, a kid with seizures that may or may not show the future — but the biggest reveal of all doesn’t even happen until the very last shot in the final episode./news/ios-by-the-numbers-365-million-devices-sold-150-billion-imessages-sent-80-percent-of-users-on-ios.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ios-by-the-numbers-365-million-devices-sold-150-billion-imessages-sent-80-percent-of-users-on-ios.htmlScott Forstall is out to introduce iOS 6, but first he's giving some details on the state of the platform. He took a moment to note the state of the iOS installed base compared to Android — about 80 percent of iOS users are running iOS 5, while a similar percentage of Android users are running 2.3 Gingerbread (which we know is well over a year old) — he also noted how only about seven percent of Android users are currently running the most current Android version./news/is-roy-kent-from-ted-lasso-cgi-you-know-what-i-buy-it.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/is-roy-kent-from-ted-lasso-cgi-you-know-what-i-buy-it.htmlUpdate, September 2nd, 12:03PM ET: The “actor” Brett Goldstein has addressed the conspiracy theory that Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent is a CGI creation head-on by publishing a statement on Instagram. In it, Goldstein notes (quite accurately) that “there’s a fucking load of mad shit happening on the internet today, as usual” before reassuring viewers that he is “a completely real normal human man” who does “normal human basic things like rendering and buffering and transferring data./news/james-bond-s-aston-martin-db10-sells-at-auction-for-3-5-million.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/james-bond-s-aston-martin-db10-sells-at-auction-for-3-5-million.htmlIf you had your heart set on buying the Aston Martin DB10 that James Bond drove in Spectre, I have some bad news for you: it's been sold. Ten of the DB10 cars were made for the movie, and one of them just crossed the block at a special James Bond auction at Christie's. The final price was £2,424,500, or about $3.5 million. The car had been expected to fetch between £1-1./news/jbl-link-bar-review-three-devices-rolled-into-one-average-soundbar.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jbl-link-bar-review-three-devices-rolled-into-one-average-soundbar.htmlFirst announced way back at Google I/O 2018, the JBL Link Bar is an ambitious device that aims to combine the functionality of a soundbar, an Android TV streaming box, and a Google Assistant smart speaker. Now, over a year later, the $399.95 soundbar is finally available to buy, and we can find out if you’re really getting three devices seamlessly merged together, or a Frankenstein’s monster.  Occasionally, when the stars align, there are glimpses of an amazingly convenient device here./news/kate-spade-is-now-making-touchscreen-smartwatches.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kate-spade-is-now-making-touchscreen-smartwatches.htmlFashion brand Kate Spade New York started dabbling in “hybrid” smartwatches back in 2016, introducing classic-looking wrist wearables that happened to include accelerometers and Bluetooth chips. Now it’s going full-on smartwatch. Kate Spade brand, in conjunction with the Fossil Group, announced three smartwatch models today at CES, ones that run on Android Wear 2.0 and have full touchscreen capabilities. Called the Kate Spade New York Scallop Touchscreen Smartwatch, they come in three different styles: two rose gold watch cases, one with a leather strap and one with a bracelet, and a yellow gold-toned watch case with a black strap./news/leaked-google-pixel-watch-3-renders-suggest-it-will-get-thicker-but-not-bigger.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/leaked-google-pixel-watch-3-renders-suggest-it-will-get-thicker-but-not-bigger.htmlGoogle Pixel Watch 3 renders have apparently leaked, and it looks like not much is changing except for a slightly chunkier design. As revealed by 91Mobiles and OnLeaks, who uncovered a rumored “Ultra” Galaxy Watch from Samsung last month, the Pixel Watch 3 may arrive with a slightly thicker case to accommodate a new 307mAh battery, up slightly from 304mAh in the Pixel Watch 2. The measurements listed with the leak (along with a 3D spinning video) are 40./news/lenovo-thinkbook-13s-review-business-on-a-budget.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lenovo-thinkbook-13s-review-business-on-a-budget.htmlPriced a tier below Lenovo’s world-class ThinkPads, the ThinkBook 13S targets small- and medium-sized companies and business users looking for a less snazzy device at a lower cost. But the ThinkBook’s price tag shouldn’t fool you — it’s a contender. And I’m impressed by the package the ThinkBook offers for its sub-$1,000 price, which includes solid performance from Intel’s 11th Gen processors, a high-resolution 16:10 screen, and surprisingly good audio. For everyday work use, it more than gets the job done./news/let-alexa-transform-pebble-core-into-the-combadge-of-your-dreams.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/let-alexa-transform-pebble-core-into-the-combadge-of-your-dreams.htmlPebble's really hyped on Pebble Core. A little Android-based widget with GPS, 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and a headphone jack sounds like the IoT dream device. But without software it's just an expensive iPod shuffle. So now Pebble has announced Alexa integration which sounds, frankly, amazing. Alexa's popping up everywhere these days, as Amazon makes a wild land grab before Google and Apple start embodying their own competitive voice assistants. It rarely works as well on third-party devices as it does on the Echo, but it'll be hard to resent something as adorable as Pebble Core for any failures to live up to the jumbo speaker's example./news/linus-torvalds-on-the-attempted-xz-utils-hack.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/linus-torvalds-on-the-attempted-xz-utils-hack.htmlLinus Torvalds on the attempted XZ Utils hack. During a keynote interview at Open Source Summit North America, the Linux founder discussed tabs vs. spaces, RISC-V, and the risks of security issues from maintainers raised by the recent exploit attempt: Torvalds acknowledges that “Clearly it’s a wake-up call — there’s no question about that… I think we’re going to see a lot of work being put into some kind of trust model, where people see, ‘Oh, this is a new person’, or ‘This is a person that is acting differently from before./news/list-of-apps-supporting-pixel-4-motion-gestures-leaks.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/list-of-apps-supporting-pixel-4-motion-gestures-leaks.htmlA list of the apps that will support the Google Pixel 4’s “Motion Sense” gesture controls has been discovered in the phone’s pre-release software, and all but one of them are audio-focused apps, 9to5Google reports. The list was discovered within the unreleased phone’s Motion Sense app, and includes nine pieces of software in total; Amazon Music, Deezer, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, Spotify Stations, YouTube Music, and YouTube. While a separate leak suggested that the phone’s gesture controls will be able to check the phone’s lock screen and silence calls, this list implies that the phone’s app-specific gestures could be focused mainly on music playback./news/lofi-girl-is-back-online-after-abusive-copyright-strikes.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lofi-girl-is-back-online-after-abusive-copyright-strikes.htmlYouTube interrupted the beloved Lofi Girl radio channel this week over copyright notices that YouTube later called “abusive” and false. The channel’s streams, which had been running for over two years, relaunched today after being removed on July 10th. The takedown stemmed from a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) demand apparently from record label FMC Music Sdn Bhd Malaysia. YouTube reversed the strikes soon after, but Lofi Girl used the incident to call for more rigorous controls on the notoriously exploitable system./news/lovot-is-the-first-robot-i-can-see-myself-getting-attached-to.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lovot-is-the-first-robot-i-can-see-myself-getting-attached-to.htmlIt was love at first sight, the same way you know you’ll love a dog the first time you meet one because, well, it’s a dog. I had heard about the Lovot companion robot before I saw it in person at CES this week, so I knew that its functions were minimal, and the typical reasons to be skeptical of robots that overpromise to make your life easier didn’t apply here./news/m2-macbook-air-vs-m2-macbook-pro-which-should-you-buy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/m2-macbook-air-vs-m2-macbook-pro-which-should-you-buy.htmlIf you’re interested in one of Apple’s new M2 MacBooks but you’re confused about which one you should buy, don’t worry — it’s confusing. The two devices are very similar, but they do have a few important differences. To get one big group of folks out of the way: if you’re using this device for work on a consistent basis and your work primarily involves anything more intense than Chrome (for example, any program with Adobe in its name), you should buy a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or M1 Max instead of one of these computers./news/marvel-is-replacing-steve-rogers-with-the-new-black-captain-america.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/marvel-is-replacing-steve-rogers-with-the-new-black-captain-america.htmlMarvel is making big changes this year. In a special segment of the Colbert Report this evening, the comics giant announced that Steve Rogers will pass his star-spangled shield on to Sam Wilson in the fall, making Wilson (otherwise known as the Falcon) the first black man to take on the official role of Captain America. This shift comes only a day after Marvel revealed plans to give the role of yet another founding Avenger, Thor, to a woman this fall, and follows with Marvel's overall push for more diversity in its biggest titles./news/max-is-charging-more-money-for-4k-that-hbo-max-and-that-means-it-can-t-suck-this-time.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/max-is-charging-more-money-for-4k-that-hbo-max-and-that-means-it-can-t-suck-this-time.htmlMax, the successor to HBO Max, might be getting a little more serious about 4K content. At an event today, Warner Bros. Discovery detailed its plans for the new app, including how the migration of accounts will work and what kind of new content will be appearing on the service. The company also announced an additional paid tier for $19.99 that will allow for more concurrent streams and 4K. It better not mess this up./news/meta-microsoft-and-amazon-have-launched-their-open-source-mapping-project.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-microsoft-and-amazon-have-launched-their-open-source-mapping-project.htmlWith this data, third-party developers can create global mapping or navigation products of their own, allowing them to go head-to-head with Google Maps and Apple Maps. According to Overture, the release includes over 59 million places of interest, along with data on buildings, transportation networks, and administrative boundaries. Overture collected over 59 million places of interest around the globe. Image: Overture Maps Foundation Overture says the data layers have been formatted so developers can “ingest and use map data in a standard, documented way and will be interoperable./news/microsoft-announces-minecraft-education-edition-for-schools.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-announces-minecraft-education-edition-for-schools.htmlWhen kids open Minecraft, Microsoft doesn't just want them exploring dark caverns, endless plains, and procedurally generated mountains; it wants them exploring places carved out of the real world, like ancient Pompeii, the pyramids of Giza, and Greek temples — places they can learn from. To start making that happen, Microsoft is today announcing Minecraft: Education Edition, a new version of Minecraft that's customized for schools. The biggest changes are for teachers, not the students playing/news/microsoft-edge-will-translate-and-dub-youtube-videos-as-you-re-watching-them.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-edge-will-translate-and-dub-youtube-videos-as-you-re-watching-them.htmlMicrosoft Edge will soon offer real-time video translation on sites like YouTube, LinkedIn, Coursera, and more. As part of this year’s Build event, Microsoft announced that the new AI-powered feature will be able to translate spoken content through both dubbing and subtitles live as you’re watching it. So far, the feature supports the translation of Spanish into English as well as the translation of English to German, Hindi, Italian, Russian, and Spanish./news/microsoft-office-2019-kills-off-onenote-desktop-app-in-favor-of-windows-10-version.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-office-2019-kills-off-onenote-desktop-app-in-favor-of-windows-10-version.htmlThe existing desktop app, OneNote 2016, will no longer get new features but Microsoft will keep updating it to fix any security issues or bugs until its end of life in October 2020. Microsoft has been gradually improving its OneNote Windows 10 app in recent months, and the company is planning new features in the future. OneNote for Windows 10 will receive updates that include the ability to insert and search for tags, see live previews of Office files within OneNote, and Class Notebook features this summer./news/microsoft-surface-pro-9-intel-review-this-is-the-one-to-buy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-surface-pro-9-intel-review-this-is-the-one-to-buy.htmlYep, this is the Surface Pro to buy this year.  For those who don’t obsessively keep track of Microsoft’s internal component choices (first of all, shame on you), the new Surface Pro 9 has two distinct models, which make for two very different devices. There’s a model powered by Qualcomm’s Arm-based SQ3 chip, which I reviewed last month. I’ve since gotten my hands on the other option, the model powered by a plain old Intel Core i7./news/microsoft-to-let-windows-8-web-browsers-play-nice-with-metro-firefox-version-in-the-works.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-to-let-windows-8-web-browsers-play-nice-with-metro-firefox-version-in-the-works.htmlWe previously heard that Mozilla was planning a Metro version of Firefox, and now developer Brian R. Bondy has announced that the company has begun work on it. While that's good for Firefox fans, the real news is that the program is going to belong to a new, third type of Windows 8 apps: "Metro style enabled desktop browsers." We're still trying to figure it all out (and we think Microsoft is too), but from what we understand, this new, third type is an exception to Microsoft's rules and lets traditional Windows web browsers participate in the Metro experience./news/microsoft-s-adaptive-accessories-are-a-tradeoff.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-adaptive-accessories-are-a-tradeoff.htmlLike many people, I have invisible accessibility needs. I’m not in constant barely bearable pain these days (I used to be!), but certain movements come at a physical cost: sustained reaching, hunching over a laptop — things like that. The complicating factor is that I hate using computer accessories marketed for “accessibility.” Too many accessibility tools have a user experience tradeoff — either in functionality, comfort, or simplicity. Too many accessibility tools have a user experience tradeoff in functionality, comfort, or simplicity/news/microsoft-s-new-bing-chat-enterprise-offers-better-privacy-for-businesses.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-new-bing-chat-enterprise-offers-better-privacy-for-businesses.htmlMicrosoft is announcing a new AI-powered chat tool that’s designed to offer a higher level of data protection for businesses with privacy and security concerns about generative AI tools. Bing Chat Enterprise is launching in preview today and will be included in select Microsoft 365 plans at no additional cost. It’s accessible “wherever Bing Chat is supported,” according to Microsoft’s press release, which includes Bing.com / chat and the Microsoft Edge sidebar./news/millions-of-sensitive-us-military-emails-were-reportedly-sent-to-mali-due-to-a-typo.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/millions-of-sensitive-us-military-emails-were-reportedly-sent-to-mali-due-to-a-typo.htmlFor over 10 years, millions of emails associated with the US military have been getting sent to Mali, a West African country allied with Russia, due to a typo, according to a report from the Financial Times. Instead of appending the military’s .MIL domain to their recipient’s email address, people frequently type .ML, the country identifier for Mali, by mistake. Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch entrepreneur contracted to manage Mali’s domain, tells the Financial Times that this has been happening for over a decade despite his repeated attempts to warn the US government./news/motorola-razr-review-folding-flip-phone-flops.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/motorola-razr-review-folding-flip-phone-flops.htmlI wish I could tell you exactly where I think the Motorola Razr went wrong, but there are too many options to choose from. It’s the first of a new generation of folding devices that open vertically into a regular phone shape instead of horizontally into a mini-tablet like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold. That means Motorola had the benefit of learning from earlier missteps from the Fold and a very few other devices, but it still makes too many mistakes of its own./news/mozilla-just-ditched-its-privacy-partner-because-its-ceo-is-tied-to-data-brokers.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mozilla-just-ditched-its-privacy-partner-because-its-ceo-is-tied-to-data-brokers.htmlMozilla is ending its partnership with Onerep after the company’s CEO admitted to having ties to a data broker, as first reported by Krebs on Security. “Though customer data was never at risk, the outside financial interests and activities of Onerep’s CEO do not align with our values,” writes Mozilla’s vice president of communications Brandon Borrman, in a statement provided to The Verge. In February, Mozilla bundled Onerep’s data removal service into its new $8./news/mrballen-is-youtube-s-big-podcast-breakout.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mrballen-is-youtube-s-big-podcast-breakout.htmlIn each episode of MrBallen, series host John Allen appears in the center of the frame, usually wearing a plaid shirt with a couple of buttons undone and a baseball cap turned backward, and slowly talks viewers through the events of a “strange, dark, and mysterious” true crime story. Episodes with titles like “What I saw in my room still haunts me” and “Real-life ‘ghost ship’ has a SECRET,” bring in more than 40 million monthly views — a massive volume that still is not enough to put Allen in the upper echelon of YouTube influencers./news/nerf-just-made-the-iconic-aliens-pulse-rifle-into-a-badass-foam-blaster.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nerf-just-made-the-iconic-aliens-pulse-rifle-into-a-badass-foam-blaster.htmlThat huge carry handle, pump-action underbarrel grenade launcher, and digital ammo counter on the side: is there a more iconic sci-fi weapon than the Aliens M41A Pulse Rifle? Now, it’s about to become an iconic Nerf blaster as well, because Hasbro has just announced a $95 version that flings foam darts — enough of them that it might actually be viable in a stock Nerf war! Oh, and Hasbro tells me that’s a genuine digital ammo counter on the side: it actually counts darts even if you hold the trigger down!/news/netflix-now-lets-you-make-your-own-movie-playlists-to-share-with-friends.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-now-lets-you-make-your-own-movie-playlists-to-share-with-friends.htmlYou know how Netflix is always suggesting you watch a Psycho-Thriller Comedy With A Strong Female Lead And Vague Romantic Subplot Plus Conspiracy Theory Twist? And you're like, What dark algorithm hath created this chaos? Well Netflix has just announced a new platform that lets you sidestep that algorithm (at least momentarily) by creating your own Netflix playlists. It's called Flixtape. Okay but we know what mixtapes are, Netflix You can either build your own "/news/netflix-s-1922-is-a-reminder-of-what-stephen-king-does-best.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-1922-is-a-reminder-of-what-stephen-king-does-best.htmlWelcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review originally appeared in conjunction with 1922’s premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. It is being reposted to coincide with the film’s Netflix release. 2017 has been a banner year for Stephen King adaptations, but the batting average hasn’t been so hot. It is easily the best of the bunch: in spite of its “more, and then much more” aesthetic, it hit big with audiences, and is now reportedly the highest-grossing horror film of all time./news/new-trailers-locked-down-supernova-losing-alice-and-more.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-trailers-locked-down-supernova-losing-alice-and-more.htmlSo with all the chaos of the past week, you may have missed that Friday was the final episode of Jeopardy! with Alex Trebek as host. Trebek, who died in November at age 80 after a battle with cancer, hosted the answer-and-question game show for 37 years. The show posted a best-of highlight reel of Trebek’s performances over the years (remember the brouhaha when he shaved his mustache?!) and it may make you tear up a bit./news/now-everyone-can-edit-their-instagram-dms.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/now-everyone-can-edit-their-instagram-dms.htmlWe’ve all sent DMs on Instagram that we wish we had phrased differently or that included an awkward typo. Now, Meta has announced Instagram is giving users the ability to edit their direct messages up to 15 minutes after sending them. Prior to this update, the only option to undo the past was to delete the entire message.  In order to edit a DM on Instagram, simply press and hold the sent message until the dropdown menu appears./news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-ti-review-more-4k-for-more-of-your-wallet.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-ti-review-more-4k-for-more-of-your-wallet.htmlLast year’s Nvidia RTX 3080 was the first GPU to make 4K gaming finally feasible. It was a card that delivered impressive performance at 4K, especially for its retail price of $699 — far less than the 2080 Ti cost a generation earlier. That was before the reality of a global chip shortage drove the prices of modern GPUs well above $1,000. Now that the street prices of RTX 3080s have stayed above $2,000 for months, Nvidia is launching its RTX 3080 Ti flagship priced at $1,199./news/nvidia-pushes-fixes-for-last-month-s-buggy-android-11-shield-tv-update.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-pushes-fixes-for-last-month-s-buggy-android-11-shield-tv-update.htmlThe Shield is one of the most-upgraded Android devices ever released The biggest fix of the bunch resolves major Plex Media Server issues and the handling of file access permissions that changed as a part of the move to Android 11. This stable release follows about a month of the company trickling out smaller hotfix patches to brave users willing to subject their Shield TVs to beta releases. But not everything was fixed: by the third hotfix release, some new issues appeared, including super slow file transfers between an attached storage device and a network file transfer via SMB./news/nvidia-s-h800-ai-chip-for-china-is-blocked-by-new-export-rules.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-s-h800-ai-chip-for-china-is-blocked-by-new-export-rules.htmlNew US rules blocking the export of most artificial intelligence chips to China will build upon a sweeping set of restrictions introduced in October 2022. Nvidia makes sought-after AI chips like the H100, and the AI boom has proven to be profitable as its valuation has expanded beyond $1 trillion. Last year’s restrictions meant the US-based company couldn’t sell the H100 to China, so it introduced a lower-specced H800 that could get around the US’s rules — but with the new rules, Nvidia won’t be able to sell that chip or its A800 chip to China, CNBC reports./news/openai-researcher-who-resigned-over-safety-concerns-joins-anthropic.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-researcher-who-resigned-over-safety-concerns-joins-anthropic.htmlJan Leike, a key OpenAI researcher who resigned earlier this month citing “safety concerns,” has joined competitor Anthropic to “work on scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research,” according to Leike’s post on X. Anthropic has positioned itself to be the antithesis of OpenAI: a public benefit corporation dedicated to cautious progress. It was founded by ex-OpenAI employees who departed, according to the Financial Times, because they believed OpenAI was straying from its mission of developing safer, more ethical AI and becoming too focused on commercial interests after the $1 billion Microsoft deal./news/paramount-plus-and-showtime-become-paramount-plus-with-showtime.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/paramount-plus-and-showtime-become-paramount-plus-with-showtime.htmlTeam, Almost one year ago, we announced that ViacomCBS would become Paramount — harnessing the power of our combined portfolio to become one, integrated company. Since then, I have been tremendously proud of the many ways we have worked together across platforms, brands, and continents to consistently deliver as global leaders in the future of entertainment. In that same spirit, I’m thrilled to share the next step in our company’s evolution./news/peacock-can-thank-judith-light-for-its-first-prime-time-emmy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/peacock-can-thank-judith-light-for-its-first-prime-time-emmy.htmlPeacock can thank Judith Light for its first Prime Time Emmy. The actress won the award for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series for her role as a hippie in a nursing home in Poker Face. The rest of the Emmys will air on January 15, and I expect Peacock’s first Emmy won’t be its last. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZnx3e5FtZ2twZGWDcLzEmpqom5tisKK6jK2fmqabYre2sMitn2akmZy1tXnFqKlmoaSoeqe10ayrZqiinrqmedOipJ5llaK6ug%3D%3D/news/pepsico-orders-100-tesla-semi-trucks-in-largest-preorder-to-date.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pepsico-orders-100-tesla-semi-trucks-in-largest-preorder-to-date.htmlPepsiCo intends to deploy Tesla Semis for shipments of snack foods and beverages between manufacturing and distribution facilities and direct to retailers within the 500-mile (800-km) range promised by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk. The semi-trucks will complement PepsiCo’s U.S. fleet of nearly 10,000 big rigs and are a key part of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across its supply chain by a total of at least 20 percent by 2030, said Mike O‘Connell, the senior director of North American supply chain for PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay./news/pewdiepie-is-starring-in-a-new-game-about-being-a-youtube-star.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pewdiepie-is-starring-in-a-new-game-about-being-a-youtube-star.htmlYouTube’s biggest name is going to star in a game about streaming games on YouTube. Today PewDiePie revealed a new game called Tuber Simulator, that puts players in the role of a budding video game streamer. It’s being developed by Outermind, the Montreal-based studio behind PewDiePie’s previous foray into games, Legend of the Brofist. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the game yet, but prior to the official announcement PewDiePie tweeted out a handful of images that give an idea of what Tuber Simulator will be like./news/pok%C3%A9mon-s-upcoming-the-scream-cards-capture-2018-s-existential-horror.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pok%C3%A9mon-s-upcoming-the-scream-cards-capture-2018-s-existential-horror.htmlThe world is running out of clean water, climate change continues to ravage the planet, and politics everywhere are a total nightmare: nearly every day of 2018 has carried the emotional weight of an entire year. It’s fitting, then, that this is also the year The Pokémon Company is announcing a partnership with the Tokyo Art Museum to produce special trading cards based on The Scream, the iconic expressionist painting by Edvard Munch./news/prosecutors-say-google-accessed-private-whatsapp-messages-but-the-evidence-is-thin.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/prosecutors-say-google-accessed-private-whatsapp-messages-but-the-evidence-is-thin.htmlOn Wednesday, the Texas attorney general announced a far-reaching antitrust case against Google’s ad business. The complaint makes a lot of eye-opening allegations, including a long-running conspiracy between Google and Facebook to defuse the threat of header bidding, but one of the strangest allegations had to do with WhatsApp. According to the complaint, Google made a deal with Facebook to access millions of private messages, and photos from WhatsApp users, shortly after the app was acquired./news/psa-neiman-marcus-still-exists-and-it-was-hacked.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/psa-neiman-marcus-still-exists-and-it-was-hacked.htmlLuxury retailer Neiman Marcus said Thursday it had notified 4.6 million customers that their personal information, including credit card numbers. may have been part of a May 2020 data breach. The Dallas-based company said in a news release that an “unauthorized third party obtained personal information associated with certain Neiman Marcus customers’ online accounts.” Neiman Marcus notified law enforcement, and is “working quickly to determine the nature and scope of the matter./news/red-s-new-80-000-8k-camera-is-probably-a-very-good-camera.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/red-s-new-80-000-8k-camera-is-probably-a-very-good-camera.htmlRED has announced a new flagship sensor, the Monstro 8K VV, which will be sold in combination with the company’s existing Weapon camera to create the new Weapon 8K VV, via Engadget. The new camera will cost $79,500, which puts this so far above the consumer price bracket that it’s almost laughable. Practicality aside, it’s still an impressive piece of technology for pros. According to RED, the new Monstro sensor can record video at up to 8K resolution and 60 fps, take 35./news/rivian-r2-revealed-a-45-000-electric-off-roader-for-the-masses.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rivian-r2-revealed-a-45-000-electric-off-roader-for-the-masses.htmlRivian revealed its next electric vehicle, the R2, a more affordable SUV that the company is counting on having a much broader appeal than its stylish — and expensive — R1T trucks and R1S SUVs. The R2 won’t go into production until the first half of 2026, but when it does it will come with an estimated range of over 300 miles, a 0–60mph time of three seconds, and a starting price of $45,000 — placing it slightly below the current average selling price for a new internal combustion vehicle./news/sag-aftra-votes-for-strike-approval-for-video-game-performers.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sag-aftra-votes-for-strike-approval-for-video-game-performers.htmlThough strike authorization was granted with a 98 percent approval vote, only 27 percent of eligible members voted. Strike authorization approval does not mean that video game voice actors and motion capture performers are now on strike. However, should contract negotiations reach an impasse, members covered under the interactive media agreement now have permission to strike.  Some of the biggest video game publishers in the industry are in negotiations with SAG-AFTRA, including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Insomniac Games, Take-Two Interactive, Epic Games, and Warner Bros./news/sam-bankman-fried-found-guilty-of-fraud.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sam-bankman-fried-found-guilty-of-fraud.htmlFormer cryptocurrency kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of fraud. A New York jury delivered the verdict on November 2nd, concluding a trial that has seen Bankman-Fried defend himself against claims that he criminally mismanaged his crypto exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research. After more than a month in trial, the jury took four and a half hours to decide Bankman-Fried’s fate, declaring him guilty on all seven charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering./news/samsung-galaxy-s23-ultra-review-practically-peerless.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-s23-ultra-review-practically-peerless.htmlIf the Samsung S22 Ultra was the ultimate evolution of a slab-style smartphone, then the Galaxy S23 Ultra is a victory lap — everything that the S22 was and a little extra.  The S23 Ultra offers a handful of updates and a new main camera sensor. There are no groundbreaking new features. It doesn’t fold in half. Until someone invents radically improved battery technology or holographic displays, that’s just going to be the case for the Ultra for the foreseeable future./news/samsung-s-android-browser-gets-ad-blocking-capabilities.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-android-browser-gets-ad-blocking-capabilities.htmlSamsung is today adding support for content and ad blocking plugins to the web browser preinstalled on its Android phones. The updated browser, which is being pushed to Samsung phones with Android Marshmallow starting today, with plans for Lollipop availability in the coming months, will let users install helper apps that block ads from websites they visit, similar to how content and ad blocking works in Apple's Safari browser in iOS 9./news/samsung-s-device-care-utility-sends-data-to-china-but-it-s-less-scary-than-it-sounds.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-device-care-utility-sends-data-to-china-but-it-s-less-scary-than-it-sounds.html“I know the title is rather sensational,” the author explained, “however it couldn’t get any closer to the truth.” The problem was a utility in Samsung’s Device Care application, a mandatory feature that comes preinstalled as part of Samsung’s Android implementation that cannot be removed. Using packet analysis tools on a Galaxy S10, the author discovered some strange traffic coming out of Device Care’s storage scanner, which looks for junk files that can be deleted to free up space./news/sega-cancels-live-service-shooter-hyenas.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sega-cancels-live-service-shooter-hyenas.htmlSega is canceling the live-service shooter Hyenas before the game’s launch. Sega announced the news in a press release, stating the cancellation was due to “the lower profitability of the European region.” In addition to Hyenas, Sega will also cancel other unannounced in-development projects. Hyenas was billed as a live-service extraction shooter that looked similar to the Payday games. However, instead of robbing banks for cash, players in Hyenas would steal high-value collectibles, some of which were based on various video game properties, including a Sonic the Hedgehog doll or an Atari 2600./news/shure-s-se535-earphones-are-a-little-bit-perfect.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/shure-s-se535-earphones-are-a-little-bit-perfect.htmlAsking me to tell you what the best headphones are is like asking WeRateDogs to pick its favorite canine. In both cases, there’s far too much variety, diversity, and idiosyncratic charm to crown just one specimen as the very finest. That being said, I do have a favorite pair (of headphones, not dogs) that I can’t put down right now and that is Shure’s $449 SE535s. One thing that might give away the greatness of these in-ear headphones is that they’ve been around since 2010 and their price has barely budged from the original $499./news/slack-had-some-problems-on-thursday-for-more-than-an-hour.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/slack-had-some-problems-on-thursday-for-more-than-an-hour.htmlSlack experienced frustrating issues for many on Thursday, including for some of us here at The Verge. For me, some messages just wouldn’t send. But a little more than an hour after Slack first reported the outage, the company said that the issues were resolved. “We’ve released a fix for this issue, and Slack is up and running once again,” Slack said in a post on its status site at 2:36PM ET./news/sony-s-ces-presentation-is-due-at-8pm-et.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-ces-presentation-is-due-at-8pm-et.htmlSony’s CES presentation is due at 8PM ET. Sony may again not be showing any TVs at CES this year, but it’s still going to take the stage to talk about “technologies and initiatives that support creators.” Last year, the company showed off an electric car called the Afeela, which had a built-in PS5 and a screen on the front. The company has been tight-lipped about what it might show tonight./news/spotify-gets-serious-about-podcasts-with-two-acquisitions.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-gets-serious-about-podcasts-with-two-acquisitions.htmlSpotify is fully committing to building a podcast network today. The music streaming giant has acquired Gimlet Media and Anchor to boost its podcast credentials, as the company looks to grow its share of the podcast market. Gimlet Media is a start-up podcast network, and Anchor provides creators with tools to build, publish, and monetize podcasts. “In just shy of two years, we have become the second-biggest podcasting platform,” explains Spotify CEO Daniel Ek./news/spotify-premium-users-can-now-host-a-listening-party-with-up-to-five-friends.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-premium-users-can-now-host-a-listening-party-with-up-to-five-friends.htmlSpotify is now allowing its paying users to listen to music and podcasts with friends and family at the same time, even if they aren’t in the same location. Through its beta feature called Group Session, any premium user can generate a shareable link with up to five friends, who also have Spotify Premium, that’ll allow them to simultaneously stream content. Any person in the streaming party can pause, play, skip, or select tracks in the queue, and they can add their own choices, too./news/sprint-is-done-with-wimax-phones-seeing-little-enthusiasm-for-windows-phone.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sprint-is-done-with-wimax-phones-seeing-little-enthusiasm-for-windows-phone.htmlAt CES 2012, Sprint's David Owens has revealed that his company doesn't plan on releasing any further WiMAX smartphones. Sprint was the only major US carrier to fully invest itself into WiMAX as its 4G mobile broadband strategy, but it has recently decided to switch lanes and move ahead with an LTE rollout. A natural part of this transition is to abandon the old and welcome the new, which Sprint commenced with the introduction of its first LTE phones here at CES, and is now continuing by putting a halt on future WiMAX product launches./news/sprint-is-killing-off-virgin-mobile-usa-and-virgin-is-getting-the-rights-back.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sprint-is-killing-off-virgin-mobile-usa-and-virgin-is-getting-the-rights-back.htmlWe lost the excellent Virgin America airline a few years back, and the virtual cellular network that owes its name to Sir Richard Branson may soon be on its way out too. Sprint announced today that it’s going to be shutting down Virgin Mobile USA starting on February 2nd, transferring existing customers to Boost Mobile instead. Apparently, the brand will go back to its original owner, Virgin Group, which is trying to decide whether it wants to relaunch a new iteration of Virgin Mobile in the US./news/stephen-king-doesn-t-know-why-you-re-so-obsessed-with-the-child-orgy-in-it.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/stephen-king-doesn-t-know-why-you-re-so-obsessed-with-the-child-orgy-in-it.htmlStephen King’s massive 1986 novel It is 1,200 pages of child gang activity, child murder, child attempted-murder, and about 10 pages of a child orgy. He doesn’t really understand why you’re so hung up on the last part, though. In a 2013 forum post, a fan shared an unsourced statement from King which read, in part: “I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it... The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood./news/take-a-tour-through-tech-history-with-these-pictures-from-the-bang-olufsen-museum.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/take-a-tour-through-tech-history-with-these-pictures-from-the-bang-olufsen-museum.htmlFounded in November of 1925, Bang & Olufsen is now 91 years old and one of the most respected names in the world of home electronics. This Danish company has boutiques selling its prestigious hardware all across the globe, serving mostly a clientele that doesn’t blink at four- and five-figure prices for speakers and wall-sized TVs. But its beginnings were nowhere near as glamorous or luxurious, as I found out on a recent visit to the Bang & Olufsen museum in Struer, Denmark./news/taylor-swift-announces-a-social-app-for-fans-called-the-swift-life.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/taylor-swift-announces-a-social-app-for-fans-called-the-swift-life.htmlAfter a year during which Taylor Swift was nowhere to be found, Taylor Swift is suddenly everywhere: on demand on DirecTV, on the sides of UPS trucks, and now, in the App Store. Glu CEO Nick Earl referred to her app as “a new digital entertainment project,” and “a deeply social environment,” but a press release didn’t give any further details. From the announcement video, it looks like a social platform for Taylor Swift fans, with design elements borrowed from Instagram, Tumblr, and pop-up ads for mobile games circa 2006./news/tesla-cuts-prices-by-2-000-and-says-its-referral-program-is-ending.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-cuts-prices-by-2-000-and-says-its-referral-program-is-ending.htmlTesla cuts prices by $2,000 and says its referral program is ending. Electrek notes Model Y, S, and X prices have dropped by $2,000, and Tesla said its current referral program would end after April 30th, but it will return eventually. This follows sales numbers reflecting “an unmitigated disaster,” a Cybertruck recall, and the reported cancellation of a $25k “Model 2.” Elon Musk & Co. have much to discuss on Tuesday’s earnings call./news/tesla-s-revenue-soars-amid-rampant-price-cutting.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-s-revenue-soars-amid-rampant-price-cutting.htmlTesla published its second quarter earnings report in which the company said it earned $2.7 billion in net income on $24.9 billion in revenue. That represents a 47 percent increase year over year compared to $16.9 billion in revenue in Q2 2022. Investors are glum about Tesla’s profit margins, even while cheering its recent delivery report that revealed the company delivered 466,140 vehicles to customers during the past three months. That’s an 83 percent increase over the number reported by Tesla in the same quarter last year./news/tetris-royale-a-100-player-battle-royale-is-coming-to-mobile-devices.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tetris-royale-a-100-player-battle-royale-is-coming-to-mobile-devices.htmlTetris Royale, a 100-player battle royale game, is coming to mobile devices in a partnership between N3twork and The Tetris Company. It’ll essentially be a mobile version of the Nintendo Switch’s impossibly addicting Tetris 99. The game is the first Tetris game to come out of N3twork and The Tetris Company’s exclusive multiyear partnership, which means we’ll be seeing more Tetris games for mobile in the future. Aside from the 100-player competitive mode, Tetris Royale will have other modes like a Solo marathon mode and daily challenges where players can earn rewards to gain customization options, power-ups, and boosters that can be used in battle games./news/the-737-built-southwest-and-the-737-max-could-be-its-undoing.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-737-built-southwest-and-the-737-max-could-be-its-undoing.htmlSouthwest Airlines began 2019 by celebrating its 46th straight year of profitability and a record-setting $2.5 billion in profits. Its low fares and wide network, with 753 aircraft serving 101 cities in North America, made Southwest the airline of choice for one out of every five domestic air travelers today. But now, Southwest’s bet on the Boeing 737 Max as its airplane of the future might end its streak — and threaten its bottom line for years to come./news/the-av-industry-sends-an-sos-to-pete-buttigieg.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-av-industry-sends-an-sos-to-pete-buttigieg.htmlThe autonomous vehicle industry is in trouble and is looking for help from an unlikely source: US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. A coalition of lobbying groups sent Buttigieg a letter last week imploring him to support AV development or risk being outpaced by China. The subtext, of course, is the crisis facing GM subsidiary Cruise, which grounded its fleet recently in the aftermath of a crash involving one of its driverless cars./news/the-best-cyber-monday-deals-on-amazon-devices.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-cyber-monday-deals-on-amazon-devices.htmlAmazon is once again throwing a massive sale on an assortment of its own devices for Cyber Monday this year, including Fire TV sticks and TVs, Echo speakers, and Kindle e-readers. Not that we’re complaining. A lot of the standout deals we last saw during Amazon’s recent Prime Day event are back after all, giving you yet another opportunity to save on the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, the Echo Pop, and the Kindle Scribe, among other tech./news/the-boys-season-4-trailer-is-bloody-and-a-little-bubbly.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-boys-season-4-trailer-is-bloody-and-a-little-bubbly.htmlWhen we last left The Boys, Homelander’s (Anthony Starr) political dabbling was humming along and Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) had a terminal illness. Two years and a new spin-off later, Homelander’s supercharging of a presidential campaign continues to be a dark mirror of the US political climate and Butcher looks to desperately reckon with his diagnosis. The official trailer sees Butcher considering something very much like the X-Men legacy virus — a biological solution that can kill the series’ supes./news/the-first-anime-season-of-the-2020s-starts-the-decade-off-strong.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-first-anime-season-of-the-2020s-starts-the-decade-off-strong.htmlThe new decade is starting with over 35 new anime shows, and more than 15 continuing from 2019. In order to help you weed through all of these shows, I’ve put together a list of six that stand out as being the most interesting, whether you are a newcomer or long-running anime fan. Most of these shows are available for viewing internationally the day after they air in Japan, thanks to streaming services like Amazon, Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, and Hulu./news/the-flipper-zero-is-a-swiss-army-knife-of-antennas.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-flipper-zero-is-a-swiss-army-knife-of-antennas.htmlEvery once in a while, something comes along that every nerd out there covets. I have lost more than my fair share of time and money on my MiSTer, I have pined for a Steam Deck, and I am currently following restock bots for any Raspberry Pi I can get my hands on for less than 100 bucks during the Grand Pi Shortage of 2022. But few devices have captured the imagination of your friend who works in IT quite like the Flipper Zero: a hacking multi-tool shaped like a playful child’s toy and adorned with a friendly dolphin./news/the-humane-ai-pin-worked-better-than-i-expected-until-it-didn-t.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-humane-ai-pin-worked-better-than-i-expected-until-it-didn-t.htmlLook, I’m a Humane AI Pin doubter as much as the next person. And I still think the wearable, AI-powered assistant suffers from a case of this-thing-could-have-been-an-app. But I finally got to spend a little face-to-face time with the pin this morning, and you know what? It’s a darn cool gadget. It’s just buried under a layer of marketing so thick that it’s hard to appreciate what it actually could be if Humane wasn’t so self-serious./news/the-internet-s-infamous-fake-portable-gamecube-has-finally-been-brought-to-life.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-internet-s-infamous-fake-portable-gamecube-has-finally-been-brought-to-life.htmlGinger didn’t just build his own real GameCube Advance, though: he also tracked down the original artist behind the 2005 mockup and got the scoop on how and why they made it in the first place. Ginger is no stranger to making slick custom Nintendo mods, like his impressive Wii Boy Color from 2020 that somehow managed to shrink an entire Wii into the size and form factor of a Game Boy Color./news/the-iphone-15-and-15-pro-launch-with-future-qi2-wireless-charging-here-s-why.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-iphone-15-and-15-pro-launch-with-future-qi2-wireless-charging-here-s-why.htmlThe iPhone 15 and 15 Pro are the first phones to ship with the new Qi2 magnetic wireless charging standard. Well, sort of: it turns out they aren’t Qi2-certified yet. But neither is anything else. Qi2 is an update to the Qi wireless charging standard that adds a ring of magnets to ensure proper alignment of the charging coils. You know, like MagSafe. Unlike MagSafe, Qi2 is an open standard — Apple even contributed its “magnetic power profile” to it — and Android phone makers are expected to adopt it as well./news/the-justice-department-is-worried-about-an-anime-monopoly-after-the-sony-deal.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-justice-department-is-worried-about-an-anime-monopoly-after-the-sony-deal.htmlSony’s plan to combine Crunchyroll and Funimation into a streaming service to lead its anime empire seemed as simple as tossing AT&T a billion dollars. But now the plan is reportedly concerning enough that the US Department of Justice is extending its antitrust review of the $1.175 billion purchase into a full-on probe, according to three sources who spoke to The Information. The DOJ is focused on whether the deal limits the options of Japanese studios looking to license shows in the US, according to The Information’s sources./news/the-lava-striking-the-sea-is-gorgeous-and-can-be-deadly.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-lava-striking-the-sea-is-gorgeous-and-can-be-deadly.htmlLava spilling off the southeastern edge of the island of Hawaii is producing a noxious haze where it hits the seawater. Made out of hydrochloric acid, steam, and shards of volcanic glass, the gas is hazardous to anyone who breathes it. But while the mixture is dangerous, it shouldn’t put many people in danger. The noxious fumes are called “laze,” which volcano experts say is way less peaceful than it sounds./news/the-mill-food-waste-bin-is-now-available-to-buy-without-a-subscription-for-999.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-mill-food-waste-bin-is-now-available-to-buy-without-a-subscription-for-999.htmlLast year when I reviewed Nest co-founder Matt Rogers’ new project, the Mill smart trash can, I was impressed with its food-grinding prowess. But I disliked its monthly subscription and that it wasn’t actually making chicken feed out of my food waste as promised. A year later, the company is out with the second generation of the Mill, and it’s addressed both those issues. They’ve also made the bin faster and quieter. However, it’s still silly expensive./news/the-new-sims-expansion-lets-your-sim-be-a-landlord.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-new-sims-expansion-lets-your-sim-be-a-landlord.htmlYesterday was the worst day of the month for many people — rent day. And if you really love to torture yourself, I have great news for you. In the upcoming Sims 4 For Rent Expansion Pack, players can have their Sims relive all the joys and annoyances of renting life. Players can build multiunit housing in a tropical, vaguely Southeast Asian-inspired town called Tomarang, and units can be anything from basement apartments to duplexes./news/third-party-iphone-app-store-altstore-pal-is-now-live-in-europe.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/third-party-iphone-app-store-altstore-pal-is-now-live-in-europe.htmlAfter we recently tested it in beta, the third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL is now live in the European Union thanks to Apple’s compliance with the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The store requires a €1.50 (plus tax) annual subscription to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF) for installing the app marketplace itself. Installing AltStore PAL requires clicking through a lot of Apple’s clumsily implemented scare sheets that double and triple check your desire to install apps from outside Apple’s App Store./news/this-2-700-robot-dog-will-carry-a-single-bottle-of-water-for-you.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-2-700-robot-dog-will-carry-a-single-bottle-of-water-for-you.htmlBoston Dynamics isn’t the only company that makes futuristic quadrupedal robots. Chinese firm Unitree Robotics has also been at it for years, and this week revealed its latest creation: the Unitree Go1, a robust-looking four-legged bot that’s remarkably cheap, with prices starting at just $2,700. (For comparison, Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot costs $74,500.) What is the Go1 for, though? Well, a demo video shows it being put to such useful tasks as “following someone on a run” and “carrying a single bottle of water./news/this-ai-camera-art-project-turns-any-photo-s-human-subject-into-a-nude-picture.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-ai-camera-art-project-turns-any-photo-s-human-subject-into-a-nude-picture.htmlThis AI camera / art project turns any photo’s human subject into a nude picture. A “speculative art and design project” by creators Mathias Vef and Benedikt Groß, the 3D-printed NUCA is a real-life camera that connects to AI, reports 404 Media. The artists say NUCA uploads the photo to have the subject and their pose analyzed, generating a prompt it uses to create the picture and an AI-generated nude model that it swaps the subject’s face onto./news/this-ai-clock-uses-chatgpt-to-generate-tiny-poems-that-tell-the-time.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-ai-clock-uses-chatgpt-to-generate-tiny-poems-that-tell-the-time.htmlChatGPT has been one of the internet’s favorite toys for months now, but people are still finding novel and fun ways to use the AI chatbot. Case in point is this rhyming E Ink clock created by designer and blogger Matt Webb. It uses ChatGPT to create a short two-line rhyme that also tells the time for every minute of the day. It’s incredible and we want one. Speaking to The Verge over DM, Webb explained that the clock is powered by an old Inky wHAT screen and a Raspberry Pi that he previously had set up as a regular text clock./news/this-french-animator-s-wonderfully-whimsical-gifs-were-made-on-a-nintendo-3ds.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-french-animator-s-wonderfully-whimsical-gifs-were-made-on-a-nintendo-3ds.htmlFrench artist Kévin Gemin analyzes the mysterious ways in which birds move — less "ah, the majesty of nature," more "that is a peculiar way for a creature to contort itself." Naturally, his talent is perfect for distilling a good bird GIF into a tiny, soul-inflating animation. The best part? These little masterpieces are made with a Nintendo 3DS. Gemin got his start animating in 2009 with a program called Flipnote Studio for the Nintendo DSi./news/this-is-the-steam-deck-s-box.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-is-the-steam-deck-s-box.htmlValve has shared a preview of the Steam Deck’s final package design ahead of the handheld gaming PC’s recently delayed launch date. Each Steam Deck comes with the console and a carrying case, and Valve revealed in these photos that each device also comes with its own USB-C power supply, meaning you won’t have to source your own like you have to with many recent smartphones. The box also has a handful of fun Easter eggs for Valve superfans — I’ve spotted a few Portal references myself./news/thwarting-cyberattacks-from-china-is-dhs-s-top-infrastructure-security-priority.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/thwarting-cyberattacks-from-china-is-dhs-s-top-infrastructure-security-priority.htmlCombatting “cyber and other threats posed by the People’s Republic of China” (PRC) is a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the end of 2025, according to a guidance document the department released last Thursday. The document describes a “whole-of-society effort” to protect critical infrastructure from outside threats, and China is at the top of the list. Other priorities include managing the “evolving risks” of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, mitigating supply chain vulnerabilities, preparing for climate change-related risks to critical infrastructure, and addressing dependency on satellite-based services and communications./news/tickets-for-the-void-s-star-wars-vr-adventure-are-now-on-sale.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tickets-for-the-void-s-star-wars-vr-adventure-are-now-on-sale.htmlEarlier this year, virtual reality company The Void announced that it was partnering with ILMxLab to create a new VR adventure set in the Star Wars universe. Today, it revealed an early glimpse at what that experience will look like — and tickets are now on sale. In Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, groups of four participants will assume the role of Rebels going undercover to infiltrate an Imperial base and steal critical intelligence./news/tiktok-the-verge.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-the-verge.htmlTikTok is suing the US government — can it beat the ban? On today’s episode of Decoder, Verge editors Alex Heath and Sarah Jeong join me to discuss the lawsuit TikTok filed last week against the US government in response to the divest-or-ban bill. One reason I wanted to have both Alex and Sarah on here is that there’s a lot of back and forth between the facts and the law; some of TikTok’s arguments are contradicted by the simple facts of what the company has already promised to do around the world, and some of the legal claims are complex and sit in tension with a long history of attempts to regulate speech and the internet./news/tumblr-will-now-allow-nudity-but-not-explicit-sex.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tumblr-will-now-allow-nudity-but-not-explicit-sex.htmlTumblr has made an update it hinted at in September, changing its rules to allow nudity — but not sexually explicit images — on the platform. The company updated its community guidelines earlier today, laying out a set of rules that stops short of its earlier permissive attitude toward sexuality but that formally allows a wider range of imagery. “We now welcome a broader range of expression, creativity, and art on Tumblr, including content depicting the human form (yes, that includes the naked human form)./news/turn-your-gopro-into-a-nerf-football-with-this-kickstarter-project.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/turn-your-gopro-into-a-nerf-football-with-this-kickstarter-project.htmlThe AER is a Kickstarter project that looks to take the same concussion-avoiding principles of the classic foam Nerf football and apply it to your GoPro instead. AERVIDEO claims that the AER, which consists of a Nerf-inspired foam casing and fins, makes it possible to safely throw your GoPro up in the air to take drone-esque aerial shots at a fraction of the price of a decent drone. It’s an idea that brings to mind Jonas Pfeil’s Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera, which similarly took a bunch of cameras and fit them into a foam ball for interesting aerial shots./news/twitch-is-implementing-its-own-panic-button-safety-feature.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitch-is-implementing-its-own-panic-button-safety-feature.html“Shield Mode is a little different from our other safety tools,” Twitch said in the announcement. “While it does introduce some entirely new capabilities ... its real power comes from the way it combines and levels up existing safety tools in one place.” Shield Mode seems similar to the community-developed “panic button,” which was devised to combat the surge in hate raids that took place last year. With Shield Mode, streamers and their mods can choose settings that will mass ban chatters using a specific word or phrase or prohibit first-time chatters from speaking at all./news/twitter-still-has-a-major-problem-with-employee-diversity.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-still-has-a-major-problem-with-employee-diversity.htmlTwitter has hired a new head of diversity, news that should have prompted a chorus of cheers from those hoping the company would take the issue more seriously. Jeffrey Siminoff, former director of Worldwide Inclusion & Diversity at Apple, will take on the prominent role. However, more noticeable than his stellar résumé is that Siminoff is a white man in a company full of white men. Like many others, I was left scratching my head at the news./news/two-more-executives-are-leaving-apple.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/two-more-executives-are-leaving-apple.htmlTwo more executives are reportedly on their way out from Apple. According to Bloomberg, vice president of online retail Anna Matthiasson is leaving the company, and Chief Information Officer Mary Demby is retiring. The two women held important roles at Apple; Matthiasson was in charge of Apple’s online store, and Demby managed the tech that ran that store, as well as Apple’s services and manufacturing. Bloomberg reports that Karen Rasmussen will now be in charge of online retail, but says it’s unclear who will be replacing Demby./news/ultimate-ears-studio-lets-you-customize-your-own-colorful-ue-boom-3-speaker.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ultimate-ears-studio-lets-you-customize-your-own-colorful-ue-boom-3-speaker.htmlOne of the defining features of Ultimate Ears’ UE Boom speakers has always been the bright, colorful fabric and rubber designs, and now the company is taking that to the natural endpoint with the launch of Ultimate Ears Studio, which will let users create their own custom color combinations. Choose from a variety of options It’s a similar sort of ideas as Microsoft’s Xbox Design Lab for the Xbox One — users can go to the Ultimate Ears Studio site, and choose from a variety of options for the colors of the fabric body, the end caps, the volume buttons, the rubberized spine, and fabric loop, and even add a brief, text message./news/venmo-can-now-instantly-deposit-money-into-your-bank-account.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/venmo-can-now-instantly-deposit-money-into-your-bank-account.htmlVenmo has added the ability to transfer your balance funds into a bank account in mere seconds. The PayPal-owned peer-to-peer payments company has offered this instant deposit capability with Visa and Mastercard debit cards for some time, but opening it up to bank accounts adds more flexibility. As with instant transfers to a debit card, Venmo will take 1 percent of the money for itself. That’ll be at least 25 cents no matter how much you’re depositing, but there’s also a maximum of $10./news/virginia-s-revenge-porn-laws-now-officially-cover-deepfakes.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/virginia-s-revenge-porn-laws-now-officially-cover-deepfakes.htmlVirginia has officially expanded its nonconsensual pornography ban to include realistic fake videos and photos, including computer-generated “deepfakes.” The amendment was passed earlier this year and goes into effect today, making Virginia one of the first places with a law covering deepfakes. Since 2014, Virginia has banned spreading nude images or video “with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate” another person. The amendment clarifies that this includes “a falsely created videographic or still image” — which could refer to “deepfakes” video but also Photoshopped images or otherwise faked footage./news/vivo-x90-pro-vs-samsung-s23-ultra-cameras-compared.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vivo-x90-pro-vs-samsung-s23-ultra-cameras-compared.htmlWe’re not even out of tax season yet, but it’s already clear that the two biggest trends in smartphone imaging in 2023 are big sensors and big resolution. Manufacturers like Vivo and Xiaomi are putting big 1-inch-type sensors in their phones, leaning into the light-gathering and creative benefits of a larger imager. In the other corner, Samsung is squeezing as many pixels as it possibly can onto a smaller sensor, betting on pixel binning and multi-frame processing to make up the shortfall in performance./news/what-to-know-when-your-car-is-melted-by-7-500-pounds-of-slime-eels.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-to-know-when-your-car-is-melted-by-7-500-pounds-of-slime-eels.htmlOn Thursday afternoon, a photograph of a car trailing a massive stream of snot and also possibly eels began appearing on Twitter. It was a horror show — and the people had questions. Like, what in the world happened? And does insurance cover slime damage? The car sliming happened in Oregon on Thursday afternoon, the result of a five car-crash that tipped over a truck transporting 7,500 pounds of the eel-like creatures./news/what-s-so-pro-about-apple-s-vision-pro-headset.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-s-so-pro-about-apple-s-vision-pro-headset.htmlApple announced its $3,499 Vision Pro headset yesterday, and among all of the flashy demos, it got me thinking... what does “pro” actually mean for Apple’s new headset? While the iMac Pro, Mac Pro, and MacBook Pro have all been targeted at high-level professionals in the past, the audience for the Apple Vision Pro is a lot less obvious. It’s one of the first times we’ve seen Apple launch a “pro” device without a corresponding entry-level equivalent since the MacBook Pro in 2006./news/where-to-stream-every-christmas-classic.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/where-to-stream-every-christmas-classic.htmlIt’s the holidays at last! I don’t want there to be any impositions on your time right now other than merriment so I went ahead and figured out where you can stream every single classic Christmas movie you could possibly want (no sequels). All you have to do is scroll down this alphabetical list. I even spent upwards of four months adding hyperlinks (just kidding! But I would do that for you)./news/who-is-jia-tan-the-coder-behind-the-xz-utils-linux-backdoor.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/who-is-jia-tan-the-coder-behind-the-xz-utils-linux-backdoor.htmlWho is ‘Jia Tan,’ the coder behind the XZ Utils Linux backdoor? The long-term plan to gain access, and the backdoor’s careful design have experts agreeing that “Jia Tan” was probably not a lone wolf. Security researcher Costin Raiu tells Wired the XZ Utils attack is far more “cunning” than anything he’d seen previously. Others have looked into when Tan submitted their code. Most uploads were linked to China’s time zone, while several were (perhaps accidentally) in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, and they continued working on notable Chinese holidays./news/will-the-apple-watch-ultra-make-garmin-the-next-nokia.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/will-the-apple-watch-ultra-make-garmin-the-next-nokia.htmlI had a funny feeling watching yesterday’s announcement of the Apple Watch Ultra: I’ve seen this show before. It wasn’t until Garmin watch fans on Reddit and Twitter started lampooning Apple that it hit me… this is Nokia all over again. Let’s get this out of the way first: I’m a longtime Garmin watch fan. Most of my friends and family have all purchased svelte Apple Watches. It’s a great smartwatch but I wanted a great outdoor adventure and fitness watch to pair with my iPhone instead./news/world-s-cutest-slugs-look-like-gooey-candy-bunnies.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/world-s-cutest-slugs-look-like-gooey-candy-bunnies.htmlJorunna is a genus of sea slugs that look like bunnies made of yummy gummy treats. I would like to adopt a Jorunna parva, a particularly cute Jorunna, but I also respect that the Jorunna parva cannot be contained. Every year, it must visit the home of children across the world, and leave little, colorful eggs made of yummy gummy treats. I don't know that to be true, but it is what I choose to believe./news/wowmouse-turns-your-smartwatch-into-a-gesture-based-bluetooth-mouse.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wowmouse-turns-your-smartwatch-into-a-gesture-based-bluetooth-mouse.htmlA company called Doublepoint announced a new app during CES this week called WowMouse that turns Android smartwatches like the Samsung Galaxy Watch into a gesture-based mouse for your computer. That means waving your arm around to move the mouse and pinching your fingers to click (similar to the Double Tap feature on the Apple Watch Series 9). The app is available now on the Google Play store. WowMouse works by broadcasting the watch as a Bluetooth Human Interface Devices (HID) mouse, allowing it to work with a variety of operating systems, by just pairing it like you would any other Bluetooth mouse./news/wyze-s-new-floodlight-security-camera-is-the-cheapest-floodlight-security-camera-you-can-buy.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wyze-s-new-floodlight-security-camera-is-the-cheapest-floodlight-security-camera-you-can-buy.htmlBudget smart home company Wyze announced its second generation wired floodlight camera this week, and it brings some significant upgrades over the first gen. These include bumping up the video resolution to 2K HD from 1080p, increasing the camera’s field of view to 160 degrees, and delivering up to 2800 lumens of light with the two floodlights, plus the option for using them as ambient lighting and not just security lighting./news/xbox-one-x-review-the-verge.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-one-x-review-the-verge.htmlThe first time I powered up the Xbox One X, I genuinely thought my house was falling down. Microsoft’s boot-up animation is bright, loud, and full of surround sound bass, perfectly epitomizing the bombastic nature of the company’s “true 4K” gaming message. Microsoft’s Xbox One X is the world’s most powerful console, and the company is beating its chest about its 4K capabilities. Microsoft has a lot of reasons it needs to be this bold./news/you-can-buy-the-xbox-series-x-at-costco-and-direct-from-microsoft-now.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-buy-the-xbox-series-x-at-costco-and-direct-from-microsoft-now.htmlLike other retailers, both Microsoft and Costco have had many moments where the consoles popped up with limited availability and instantly sold out, but right now, these listings are holding. Costco’s bundle offering of course appeals to a narrower audience since you have to be a Costco member and be willing to pay an additional $50 for a second black controller. Microsoft offers bundled accessory options of your choosing, but you’re not forced to buy them./news/you-can-now-stream-soundcloud-through-your-sonos-speakers.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-stream-soundcloud-through-your-sonos-speakers.htmlSoundCloud is the latest music service to hop on the Sonos bandwagon. You can now listen to SoundCloud's huge library of user-uploaded music, playlists, podcasts, comedy bits, newscasts, and more with Sonos' hi-fi audio systems. "You’ve already used SoundCloud to connect with your favorite artists: now, with a click of a button, they can send their freshest tracks and playlists direct to your home," SoundCloud announced today. Playback is handled with the Sonos controller app, which sadly means you can't (yet) control the speakers throughout your house with SoundCloud's redesigned iPhone app./news/you-can-now-trade-in-samsung-and-apple-tablets-for-google-s.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-trade-in-samsung-and-apple-tablets-for-google-s.htmlYou can now trade in Samsung and Apple tablets for Google’s. The US Google Store will give you up to $450 when you trade in select iPads, while Samsung tablets can net you up to $325, 9to5Google reports. Starting at $499, the 11-inch Pixel Tablet stands out due to its speaker dock which lets you use it as de facto smart display. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxyfI5ra2pqZmqAeHvYqKxmm5Gjeq%2B71marq5mUmnqquoysmKarpaO0bq3NnWSaqKChsm7AwJujnqyjYrOwvoygpqifnJrA/news/zoom-is-leaking-some-personal-email-addresses-and-user-photos.htmlMon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/zoom-is-leaking-some-personal-email-addresses-and-user-photos.htmlZoom is apparently leaking some email addresses, user photos, and allowing some users to initiate a video call with strangers because of an issue with how the app handles contacts that it perceives work for the same organization, according to a report by Vice. Typically, Zoom will group contacts with the same email domain into a “Company Directory” so you can, for example, search for a specific person, see their photo and email, and start a video call with that person./news/fallout-4-review-war-never-changes-and-that-s-just-fine.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fallout-4-review-war-never-changes-and-that-s-just-fine.htmlThere’s nothing quite like listening to “Crazy He Calls Me” as the sun rises over an abandoned highway. A radioactive scorpion could attack at any moment, sure, but when Billie Holiday is in your ears, the end of the world doesn’t seem so bad. The Fallout games are collision points of two disparate forces. On one hand, you have a role-playing game set during a horrific future in which nuclear war has decimated the population, forcing humans to become scavengers, fighting to survive alongside mutants and monsters./news/to-pimp-a-butterfly-kendrick-lamar-s-new-album-is-perfect.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/to-pimp-a-butterfly-kendrick-lamar-s-new-album-is-perfect.html* * * When I talk about Kendrick Lamar with people who follow hip-hop, there’s always a hushed exchange that takes place. "He could be it," one of us will say. "He could," the other will reply. Like a pitcher throwing a perfect game, it’s never spoken aloud. He’s only one album in. It would be foolish to even discuss it publicly. We need more evidence. More albums. More time./news/jobs-film-starring-ashton-kutcher-pulled-from-netflix-shortly-after-being-released-update.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jobs-film-starring-ashton-kutcher-pulled-from-netflix-shortly-after-being-released-update.htmlNetflix subscribers: if you've been waiting for the streaming service to offer Ashton Kutcher's take on Steve Jobs, your wait is officially over. Jobs is now available to stream on Netflix (previously, it was only available as a DVD or Blu-ray from rental service). The first biopic centering on Steve Jobs since the Apple founder's death wasn't exactly a success. Reviewers found the film bland, though Kutcher offered a surprisingly impassioned take on the man behind Apple./news/19th-century-vagina-sparks-french-lawsuit-against-facebook.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/19th-century-vagina-sparks-french-lawsuit-against-facebook.htmlA 149-year-old vagina is at the center of a legal dispute involving France, Facebook, and online censorship. As AFP reports, a Paris high court this week ruled that it has jurisdiction to decide a case brought by a French teacher whose Facebook account was suspended after he posted a photo of l'Origine du Monde — a famous 19th century painting of a woman's vagina. The man, whose name has not been disclosed, filed a complaint against Facebook in a French court, arguing that his rights to free speech had been compromised because the social network could not distinguish pornography from art./news/2018-winter-olympics-the-internet-is-obsessed-with-inmyeonjo-a-human-faced-sacred-bird.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/2018-winter-olympics-the-internet-is-obsessed-with-inmyeonjo-a-human-faced-sacred-bird.htmlNBC isn’t even streaming the Winter Olympics opening ceremony until 8pm ET tonight, but in the time since the event happened live yesterday in Pyeongchang, Korean netizens have made enough fan art and memes out of the ceremony’s man-faced bird that it’s trending nationally on Twitter, and hitting #1 on Yahoo! Japan trending search results. “인면조,” or Inmyeonjo, literally translates to “human-faced bird.” The trending tag “인면조 너무” translates to “Inmyeonjo is so,” which is a partial sentence people have completed in different ways, including “Inmyeonjo is so scary,” and “Inmyeonjo is so handsome./news/a-former-facebook-engineer-wants-to-help-you-make-your-own-cell-network.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-former-facebook-engineer-wants-to-help-you-make-your-own-cell-network.htmlA new company wants to let you become your own cell carrier, using your internet connection even when you’re away from home — and roaming onto the networks of other people doing the same. The company, helmed by former Facebook engineer Kashif Ali, is called Ukama, and it’s launching a crowdfunding campaign on engineering and maker-focused site Crowd Supply to get its devices out to people willing to try out the tech and start building the network./news/a-union-election-is-moving-forward-at-amazon-s-jfk8-warehouse.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-union-election-is-moving-forward-at-amazon-s-jfk8-warehouse.htmlWe’re skeptical that there are a sufficient number of legitimate signatures and we’re seeking to understand how these signatures were verified. Our employees have always had a choice of whether or not to join a union, and as we saw just a few months ago, the vast majority of our team in Staten Island did not support the ALU. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2pfZnxzgo5raXJoY2qFdXvAppizp55it6e3l2aumqqVnby2v8RmrKehn6N6prjEnKuip55iuaKuzqtkp6Silw%3D%3D/news/acer-s-chromebook-15-is-now-made-of-aluminum-and-a-lot-more-expensive.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/acer-s-chromebook-15-is-now-made-of-aluminum-and-a-lot-more-expensive.htmlAcer’s biggest Chromebook is getting a big refresh. Its palm rest and lid are now made out of aluminum, instead of plastic, and the laptop is now supposed to get 12 hours of battery life, up from 9 last year. But for those improvements, you’re going to be paying a lot more: the starting price is $399, whereas the last generation started at $299 and can now be found for well below that./news/adult-cam-site-camsoda-will-offer-virtual-intercourse-with-real-people-using-sex-dolls-and-vr.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/adult-cam-site-camsoda-will-offer-virtual-intercourse-with-real-people-using-sex-dolls-and-vr.htmlSex and technology make for strange, if frequent, bedfellows. The latest example comes from adult webcam site CamSoda, which from today is using VR headsets and internet-connected sex toys to offer what it calls “virtual intercourse with real people” (or VIRP for short). It works like this. Performers on the site will use Wi-Fi-enabled vibrators that connect to “male masturbators” owned by paying viewers. Whatever happens to the vibrator sensation-wise is sent to the masturbator as “pressure data,” supposedly mimicking the feel of intercourse./news/alaska-will-try-to-use-a-robot-to-scare-wildlife-from-around-an-airport.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alaska-will-try-to-use-a-robot-to-scare-wildlife-from-around-an-airport.htmlThe Alaskan government has a new four-legged friend keeping migratory birds and other animals away from the runways at Fairbanks International Airport: a dog-like Boston Dynamics robot dubbed “Aurora.” The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities posted its “new hire” on Instagram last month, saying that the robot will be trialed to “enhance and augment airport safety” by trying to prevent hazardous encounters between planes and wildlife. While addressing the Alaska House and Senate transportation committees on March 19th, robot handler Ryan Marlow said the agency opted to trial Aurora after plans to spray repellents like grape juice from flying drones were judged too risky./news/amazon-s-echo-dot-lets-you-put-alexa-inside-any-speaker.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-echo-dot-lets-you-put-alexa-inside-any-speaker.htmlThe Echo Dot does have a tiny speaker in it for use as an alarm clock or timer, but really, the value here is not that this thing will be a speaker that you blast music from. Amazon, at a press event in San Francisco yesterday, even had the Dot attached to a $2500 Bang & Olufsen speaker to underscore how much this little thing is not meant to be a stereo speaker./news/amazon-s-kindle-app-for-ios-updated-with-x-ray-for-books.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-kindle-app-for-ios-updated-with-x-ray-for-books.htmlAmazon has released a new version of its Kindle app for iOS, which has been updated with X-Ray for books. The feature — which had been exclusive to Kindle hardware until it was introduced for textbooks on iOS in late October — provides a useful graph that highlights all mentions of characters, places, and concepts throughout the entire book. For more information on a given topic, X-Ray points you to Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon's literature-focused community encyclopedia./news/android-6-0-marshmallow-review-the-verge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/android-6-0-marshmallow-review-the-verge.htmlSome of these changes, it must be said, make Android work a little bit more like the iPhone than it did before. For example, app permissions have gotten a huge overhaul in Marshmallow. The biggest change is that (once developers have updated their apps to support it) they'll only ask for permission to do stuff like access the camera when they need it instead of presenting you with a wall of arcane requests on first install./news/android-tv-s-new-home-screen-will-now-recommend-movies-shows-and-apps.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/android-tv-s-new-home-screen-will-now-recommend-movies-shows-and-apps.htmlGoogle has injected a new cinematic slideshow above the top row of apps in the Android TV interface to make it easier to find content you might like. It will contain curated TV show, movie, and app recommendations from Google as well as sponsored content. Google says that “each source will be clearly labeled on the content, giving users transparency,” so that users can differentiate between curated recommendations and paid advertisements, and it will contain only media and entertainment-related content./news/apple-iphone-14-review-it-s-the-iphone-13s.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-iphone-14-review-it-s-the-iphone-13s.htmlThe iPhone 14 is good. You probably shouldn’t buy an iPhone 14. If those two phrases sound at odds with each other, then let me explain. The iPhone 14 is highly capable. Its chipset can handle everything from day-to-day tasks to graphics-intensive gaming. Its cameras are capable of very good photos, and it records the best video clips you’ll see from any phone in its class. This is all true of the 14, but it’s also true of the iPhone 13./news/apple-is-putting-chatgpt-in-siri-for-free-later-this-year.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-is-putting-chatgpt-in-siri-for-free-later-this-year.htmlApple is partnering with OpenAI to put ChatGPT into Siri, the company announced at its WWDC 2024 keynote on Monday. ChatGPT will be available for free in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia later this year without an account, and Apple says that user queries won’t be logged. The popular chatbot will also be integrated into Apple’s systemwide writing tools. In addition, paid ChatGPT subscribers will be able to link their accounts to access premium features from OpenAI within Apple’s operating systems./news/apple-lockdown-mode-adds-extreme-protection-to-your-iphone-ipad-and-mac.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-lockdown-mode-adds-extreme-protection-to-your-iphone-ipad-and-mac.htmlLockdown Mode blocks many message attachment types, disables link previews, turns off certain web browsing technology by default, blocks invitations and FaceTime calls from unknown sources, locks down wired connections to computers or accessories while the device is locked, and disables the ability to add new configuration profiles or enroll in mobile device management (MDM). These are the areas that we know can be vulnerable, as Google’s Project Zero team detailed how iPhones of people targeted by the Pegasus software could be compromised in a “zero-click” scenario by using a GIF to exploit iMessage in the background./news/apple-music-has-an-icloud-problem.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-music-has-an-icloud-problem.htmlI really like Apple Music. Everything from the setup process (I kept hitting "more artists" until I couldn't anymore) through the entire user interface left me impressed yesterday. Apple has managed to reinvent its Music app by stuffing a subscription music service inside it — without making it all hopelessly confusing. Is there a learning curve? Oh yeah. But once you get it, you get it. And aside from the occasional, laugh-worthy miss, the recommendations I'm seeing in the For You section are on point./news/apple-pay-is-coming-to-new-york-city-s-mta-transit-system-this-summer.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-pay-is-coming-to-new-york-city-s-mta-transit-system-this-summer.htmlIt’s been nearly two years since we wrote that New York City would finally be upgrading its transit system to take “tap-to-pay” contactless payments, but Apple’s Tim Cook says it’s finally coming true — on the company’s Q2 earnings call today, the CEO told investors that Apple Pay will begin rolling out to New York City’s MTA transit system starting in “early summer” of this year, letting you tap a phone or watch to pay instantly./news/apple-s-iconic-fifth-avenue-store-is-back-and-bigger-than-ever.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-iconic-fifth-avenue-store-is-back-and-bigger-than-ever.htmlThe iridescent wrapping is now gone, and Apple’s Fifth Avenue “Cube” retail store in New York City will reopen its doors tomorrow, September 20th, at 8AM ET to coincide with the release of the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, and Apple Watch Series 5. The location has been closed and under renovation since 2017; Apple moved into a temporary space right next door for the interim and kept to the cube’s 24/7/365 operating hours./news/apple-s-journal-app-needs-to-read-the-room.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-journal-app-needs-to-read-the-room.htmlEver since I learned how to write, I’ve never been without a journal. There are currently six I use regularly on my desk, plus the Day One and Daylio apps on my phone. Each has its purpose, but I often wish for a single app or notebook to replace the rest. On paper, I’m the type of person Apple was appealing to when it announced the Journal app during this year’s WWDC keynote./news/at-t-reportedly-very-close-to-acquiring-directv.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/at-t-reportedly-very-close-to-acquiring-directv.htmlAT&T will soon announce its acquisition of satellite provider DirecTV, according to Bloomberg. The company will reportedly propose an aggressive takeover bid of $100 per share, which values DirecTV at around $50 billion and is higher than the $40 billion figure floated previously. Both parties expect the regulatory process to take somewhere around 12 months, the report says. If AT&T is successful in its pursuit, DirecTV's current management will apparently remain in place post-merger and continue running things./news/aurous-is-a-free-and-questionably-legal-way-to-stream-music.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/aurous-is-a-free-and-questionably-legal-way-to-stream-music.htmlAurous is like Apple Music, Spotify, and Rdio, in that it offers a selection of songs available to stream direct from dedicated apps. But unlike Apple Music, Spotify, and Rdio, Aurous is totally free with no ads. Where those other streaming services have negotiated expensive deals with record labels and artists to feature their music, Aurous has sidestepped that hurdle, pulling music instead from a variety of third-party sources. But while its library is still small, and its model not as obviously illegal as torrenting tracks directly, Aurous will nonetheless upset record labels and rights holders./news/basis-fitness-band-adds-rem-sleep-tracking-announces-new-carbon-steel-edition.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/basis-fitness-band-adds-rem-sleep-tracking-announces-new-carbon-steel-edition.htmlMonitoring how long a user sleeps is an increasingly common feature in activity trackers, but Basis is upping the ante with a new suite of advanced analytics that can actually break down the phases of sleep users experience over the course of the night. On top of the usual metrics of hours slept and number of times interrupted, Basis bands will soon be able to track whether users are in a state of light, deep, or REM sleep — the phase most often associated with dreaming./news/best-buy-just-spent-800-million-on-greatcall-the-company-that-made-the-jitterbug-phone.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/best-buy-just-spent-800-million-on-greatcall-the-company-that-made-the-jitterbug-phone.htmlBest Buy announced late yesterday that it has acquired GreatCall, the company behind the JitterBug phone for seniors, for $800 million. The company currently focuses primarily on its emergency response service that has over 900,000 paying subscribers. The service is accessible through a range of connected devices and wearables, like the Jitterbug, which include a button that’s preprogrammed to dial GreatCall’s emergency assistance hotline. In its release, Best Buy notes that the acquisition is a “manifestation of the Best Buy 2020 strategy to enrich lives through technology by addressing key human needs./news/best-buy-will-haul-away-your-old-tv-and-more-for-199.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/best-buy-will-haul-away-your-old-tv-and-more-for-199.htmlBest Buy’s offering to take away and recycle your unwanted tech and appliances for a $199 fee. The standalone haul-away service includes the pickup of two large items, like a TV or washing machine, as well as an unlimited number of smaller products, from laptops to printers. Best Buy will then send your products off to a “trusted recycling partner,” where they will be repurposed, repaired, or recycled. You can view the entire list of products Best Buy will pick up and recycle on its haul-away service page, separated by what it considers large and small items./news/big-sur-is-officially-macos-11-0-as-apple-finally-leaves-os-x-behind.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/big-sur-is-officially-macos-11-0-as-apple-finally-leaves-os-x-behind.htmlMac OS X is finally finished, with Apple confirming that it’s officially moving to macOS 11 with the newly announced Big Sur update after almost 20 years of OS X (or macOS 10.) That means that this fall, users will finally be upgrading from the 10.X versions that Apple has been using for nearly two decades to version 11.0. The original version of Mac OS X (which Apple rebranded to macOS to better match its iOS, watchOS, and tvOS software brands with the release of macOS Sierra back in 2016) was released as a public beta for $29./news/blue-yeti-x-microphone-adds-real-time-led-metering-for-streamers-and-podcasting.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/blue-yeti-x-microphone-adds-real-time-led-metering-for-streamers-and-podcasting.htmlBlue’s latest USB microphone, the Yeti X, is aimed directly at streamers, podcast hosts, and other content creators. The most visible upgrade: real-time LED metering on the microphone itself, letting you know when the gain is too quiet (or in the red) during your recording. The big knob on the face of the new mic is its command center, and you’ll probably use it a lot to adjust levels and switch between its three modes./news/control-is-coming-to-the-nintendo-switch-today-but-you-can-only-stream-it-from-the-cloud.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/control-is-coming-to-the-nintendo-switch-today-but-you-can-only-stream-it-from-the-cloud.htmlIn order to play the game, you’ll need a Nintendo Account to access cloud service and “a persistent high-speed internet connection to play the game.” (It includes similar technology to Stadia and Luna, but Control’s cloud game will be handled by Ubitus.) Any interruption in the connection will cause it to disconnect in minutes. In order to buy the game, players will be required to use a launcher application to test that their connection can handle its requirements for five minutes./news/crying-kurt-cobain-statue-with-uncanny-resemblance-to-jesus-finds-a-home.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/crying-kurt-cobain-statue-with-uncanny-resemblance-to-jesus-finds-a-home.htmlOn what would have been Kurt Cobain's 47th birthday, his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington, finally honored the rock star yesterday with a statue. Unfortunately, the statue looks more like a crying Jesus. Randi Hubbard of Aberdeen started making the odd statue out of cement 20 years ago, right after the Nirvana singer committed suicide. She finished it with the help of local art students and offered it to the town, but because of the cold relationship between Aberdeen and Cobain, the city refused it./news/dc-comes-for-marvel-on-the-small-screen-a-first-look-at-the-flash-and-constantine.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dc-comes-for-marvel-on-the-small-screen-a-first-look-at-the-flash-and-constantine.htmlWhile DC doesn’t have quite the spread of TV shows and movies that Marvel has developed, it’s a few months away from launching three new series based on the lower-profile parts of its comics empire. Wednesday night, we got a look at the pilots from two of those series: The Flash, airing on CW, and NBC’s Constantine. Both have potential, but they couldn’t be more different – and neither is a sure bet./news/death-stranding-director-s-cut-makes-the-most-of-the-ps5.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/death-stranding-director-s-cut-makes-the-most-of-the-ps5.htmlOkay, I’ll make the obvious joke: was there really anything cut from Death Stranding? For better and worse, Hideo Kojima’s deeply indulgent post-apocalyptic delivery simulator did not feel like it had been subject to heavy editing. But Kojima himself has said that he doesn’t like the name of this new PlayStation 5 version of the game, dubbed a “director’s cut,” arguing instead that it has simply had new content produced for it./news/directv-aims-to-deliver-live-4k-broadcasts-in-early-2016.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/directv-aims-to-deliver-live-4k-broadcasts-in-early-2016.htmlLack of content be damned, DirecTV says it'll be launching live 4K broadcasts early next year. SVP Phil Goswitz revealed the target timeframe at a recent conference in New York. "I think the belief that there are technology challenges is a bit of a misinformed myth," Goswitz said. "Technology throughout the entire ecosystem is ready. But I think content is king; the plane is ready to take off and there is no king on board./news/discord-is-going-to-give-out-warnings-instead-of-permanent-bans.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/discord-is-going-to-give-out-warnings-instead-of-permanent-bans.htmlDiscord is overhauling the way it moderates its platform with a new warning system and teen safety assist feature. Both are part of a round of feature additions coming to Discord in the coming months, including an in-app shop for Discord members, a new Midnight dark theme on mobile, and new ways to launch apps. The new Discord warning system has been totally revamped to be far more transparent, educating Discord users how they’ve broken rules and are restricted from parts of the service rather than permanently banning them./news/disney-delays-deadpool-3-and-other-marvel-films-as-actors-strike-ends.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-delays-deadpool-3-and-other-marvel-films-as-actors-strike-ends.htmlIt’s one of several Marvel Studios films to see their release dates change like falling dominos. Captain America: Brave New World, which had originally been due to release on July 26th, 2024, will now instead release on February 14th, 2025, and Blade has been pushed back from that date to November 7th, 2025. Finally, Thunderbolts has been delayed from December 20th, 2024, to July 25th, 2025.  The delays mean that Deadpool 3 is currently the only film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe set to release next year, a huge change after years of three or more films from the franchise being released annually./news/disney-just-laid-off-the-guy-it-bought-marvel-from-but-that-s-probably-a-good-thing.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-just-laid-off-the-guy-it-bought-marvel-from-but-that-s-probably-a-good-thing.htmlPerlmutter helmed Marvel during its sale to Disney and later served as an executive chair. During his 30-year tenure at Marvel, Perlmutter has been blamed for holding back the inclusion of women and people of color in the studio’s films. In a set of leaked emails from 2014, Perlmutter argued that past superhero movies with a female lead flopped, while a memoir from Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that he had to get past Perlmutter’s “roadblocks” when getting movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel into production./news/driving-the-taycan-porsche-s-first-electric-car.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/driving-the-taycan-porsche-s-first-electric-car.htmlThat’s the feeling, and also kind of the sound, I experienced when I mashed the throttle in the “launch control” mode of the Taycan, Porsche’s first electric car. Three seconds later, with my neck straining and the back of my skull rebounding from the headrest, I blew past 60 miles per hour, the car automatically switching to second gear in order to keep delivering 670 horsepower to the wheels below me./news/e-bike-startup-wheels-lays-off-staff-as-dockless-micromobility-struggles-continue.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/e-bike-startup-wheels-lays-off-staff-as-dockless-micromobility-struggles-continue.htmlWheels, a Los Angeles-based startup that rents electric bikes in over a dozen cities, is laying off 6 percent of its staff, The Verge has learned. The company is the latest micromobility firm to shed employees in the quest to find a profitable business model. Wheels was founded in early 2019 by Jonathan and Joshua Viner, brothers who also founded the popular dog-walking app Wag. Since its launch, Wheels has expanded to San Diego, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Scottsdale, Cleveland, Chicago, Tallahassee, Texas A&M, Orlando, and Salt Lake City, as well as Stockholm, Sweden./news/e3-2022-is-canceled-the-verge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/e3-2022-is-canceled-the-verge.htmlThere will be no E3 this year. In a tweet, Will Powers, PR for gaming peripheral manufacturer Razer, said that he received an email stating the digital event was canceled. IGN initially reported the news, saying they had also independently viewed the email confirming E3’s cancellation. The video game trade show and marketing event was originally scheduled to be held in person this year. However, in January, E3 was once again shifted from an in-person event to an online-only exhibition due to the pandemic./news/elon-musk-s-mars-colonization-plans-what-we-know-so-far.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-s-mars-colonization-plans-what-we-know-so-far.htmlIn less than a week, SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk will finally explain how he plans to colonize Mars within the next few decades. It’s a goal that he has adamantly championed for years, though he hasn’t given many specifics about it. That will change on September 27th, when Musk is expected to talk about the vehicles and technologies needed to bring people to the Red Planet, and then build a long-term settlement there./news/epic-adds-new-cabined-accounts-for-kids-in-fortnite-rocket-league-and-fall-guys.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-adds-new-cabined-accounts-for-kids-in-fortnite-rocket-league-and-fall-guys.htmlEpic Games is introducing a new type of account for kids playing its online multiplayer games. The new accounts, called Cabined Accounts, have some restrictions until a parent or guardian gives their approval for certain features. They’ll start rolling out in Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys, Epic said in a blog post on Wednesday. If someone tries to make an account and says they are under 13 years old (or below the age of digital consent for their country), that account will be a Cabined Account./news/epic-games-is-making-hundreds-of-temp-testers-into-full-employees-with-benefits.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-games-is-making-hundreds-of-temp-testers-into-full-employees-with-benefits.htmlEpic Games is hiring its US-based contingent workers full-time and with benefits, Epic confirmed to The Verge. The Fortnite developer is extending the offer to quality assurance (QA) testers, as well as other “eligible” contract-based employees. The news first surfaced in an employee-facing memo obtained by The Verge. In the memo, the company writes it will “offer full-time at-will employment to eligible US-based contingent workers,” and that “many of those offers will be effective April 4th, 2022./news/everyone-hates-april-fools-day-so-why-does-it-endure.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/everyone-hates-april-fools-day-so-why-does-it-endure.htmlI hate April Fools’ Day. I’m not alone, either — in fact, I’m probably among the majority of people. So why does such an unpopular holiday persist? “You can go right back to the beginning of the earliest records of it, and people always hated it.” Well, it’s positively medieval, says Alex Boese, the curator of the museum of hoaxes. “One of the interesting things about the holiday is that you can go right back to the beginning of the earliest records of it, and people always hated it,” Boese says./news/ex-twitter-security-head-claims-the-company-fired-him-to-flout-regulations.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ex-twitter-security-head-claims-the-company-fired-him-to-flout-regulations.htmlAlan Rosa, former head of security for Twitter, filed a lawsuit against X, Elon Musk, and company adviser Steve Davis, alleging that he was wrongly fired for protesting Musk-led cost-cutting measures. Lawyers for Rosa wrote in the complaint that the cuts hampered Twitter’s ability to comply with the regulatory demands of the Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission. The lawsuit alleged that Musk hired Steve Davis as an adviser and gave him broad authority, with which he immediately “began cutting Twitter’s products and services that supported and complied with the Twitter FTC Consent Decree./news/expensify-says-receipts-found-on-amazon-turk-were-from-testing-a-new-feature.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/expensify-says-receipts-found-on-amazon-turk-were-from-testing-a-new-feature.htmlExpensify is a popular app that helps employees quickly submit reports for business-related expenses. Expensify’s standout feature is its SmartScan OCR, or optical character recognition, technology. The feature saves data-entry time by scanning your receipt, verifying that the expense is compliant with your employer’s rules, and then organizing it into an expense report — all automatically. When the technology fails, however, Expensify says it has a team of secure technicians to intervene behind the scenes./news/facebook-home-review-are-people-more-important-than-apps.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-home-review-are-people-more-important-than-apps.htmlHome takes status updates out of the Facebook app and slaps them right on your homescreen. Instead of little boxes scrolling vertically, however, each update from your News Feed becomes a full-screen photo with small bits of text at the top. You can let them flow by until your screen goes dark or swipe through them one by one. The moment you power up your phone, you're greeted with the time up top, and your own profile picture at bottom in a little circle that Facebook calls a "/news/far-lone-sails-is-a-meditative-journey-through-the-end-of-the-world.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/far-lone-sails-is-a-meditative-journey-through-the-end-of-the-world.htmlIt can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our biweekly column Short Play we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend. Starting a game with a cold open — no title screen, no options — is risky. It’s something that could very likely be confusing. But in Far: Lone Sails, it sets the expectation that you, the player, are the impetus for everything./news/final-x-men-days-of-future-past-trailer-sets-the-stage-for-war.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/final-x-men-days-of-future-past-trailer-sets-the-stage-for-war.htmlWith its release less than two months away, the promotion has really been ramping up for X-Men: Days of Future Past, and today the film's final trailer has arrived. Directed by Bryan Singer, the film stars both the classic film cast — including Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier and Ian McKellen as Magneto — with their younger counterparts from the prequel X-Men: First Class. If the flurry of trailers and clips weren't enough, the film also recently received a new promotional site called 25 Moments, which details iconic events in history that were impacted by mutants (in the film's fictional universe, of course)./news/fire-emblem-heroes-review-deftly-striking-a-balance-between-free-and-fun.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fire-emblem-heroes-review-deftly-striking-a-balance-between-free-and-fun.htmlLike Super Mario Run before it, Fire Emblem Heroes is trying to be two very different things at the same time. On one side, it’s a major new release from Nintendo, in this case the latest entry in a long-running and greatly respected turn-based strategy series from renowned studio Intelligent Systems. With a dedicated fanbase, it has a lot to live up to. On the other side, it’s a free-to-play mobile title, a game designed in part to get players to fork out cash to play longer or unlock new characters./news/first-click-the-last-guardian-proves-that-the-technical-side-of-video-games-still-matters.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/first-click-the-last-guardian-proves-that-the-technical-side-of-video-games-still-matters.htmlWhen was the last time you thought the most impressive thing about a film were its special effects? It’s probably been a while. You couldn’t write a review of Jurassic Park in 1993 without mentioning how lifelike the dinosaurs were, but by the time Jurassic World came out in 2015 these things were taken for granted. Of course the dinosaurs look real. It’s a Hollywood movie. Isn’t the lack of coherent story more important?/news/ford-receives-9-2-billion-government-loan-for-ev-battery-factory-projects.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-receives-9-2-billion-government-loan-for-ev-battery-factory-projects.htmlFord will receive $9.2 billion as part of a conditional loan from the US Department of Energy to aid in the construction of three huge electric vehicle battery factories, the agency announced Thursday. The mammoth loan represents the biggest government offering to an automaker since the bailouts following the Great Recession of 2009. The loans are part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to boost EV manufacturing as it races to catch up with China, which controls around three-quarters of battery production globally./news/ford-s-first-electric-pickup-truck-will-be-called-the-f-150-lightning.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-s-first-electric-pickup-truck-will-be-called-the-f-150-lightning.htmlFord announced the name of its upcoming electric pickup truck: the F-150 Lightning. The new electric vehicle is set to debut on May 19th at an event held at the automaker’s Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters. It will also be live-streamed. The Ford F-150 has been the bestselling truck (and vehicle) in the US for more than 40 years, so its imminent electrification is a big deal. As such, Ford is treating the reveal as a major event, with dozens of ways to tune in across multiple platforms./news/fujifilm-x-t3-announced-with-26-1-megapixel-sensor-better-autofocus-and-4k-video-recording-at-60-f.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fujifilm-x-t3-announced-with-26-1-megapixel-sensor-better-autofocus-and-4k-video-recording-at-60-f.htmlFujifilm has just announced the $1,500 X-T3, which is the latest addition to the company’s X Series lineup of APS-C mirrorless cameras. It’s the follow-up to 2016’s X-T2, a beloved camera — among Fujifilm shooters, anyway — that’s grown more powerful and capable over time thanks to a bevy of firmware updates. The X-T2 of today is an entirely different beast than when I first tested it. Its autofocus, video capabilities, and subject tracking have all been extensively fine-tuned./news/galak-z-review-tough-love-works-in-space.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/galak-z-review-tough-love-works-in-space.htmlGalak-Z: The Dimensional is a game that seems to hate you. But once you play it for a while, you'll learn that it loves you. Developers 17-Bit made some design decisions that are off-putting at first, but turn out to be inspired; the result is one of the best games on the PlayStation 4. With its colorful art style and perky voice acting, Galak-Z doesn't look like the kind of game to test your patience./news/garmin-adds-youtube-music-to-the-mix.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/garmin-adds-youtube-music-to-the-mix.htmlGarmin adds YouTube Music to the mix. You do need a Music Premium account, but you can download playlists for offline playback. We love to see Garmin add to the ConnectIQ store, which... let’s face it, doesn’t have the largest selection as far as third-party smartwatch app stores go. Previously, you could choose between Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer. (But I’ve yet to meet anyone who used the latter two with the Garmin./news/gateway-14-review-it-s-blue.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gateway-14-review-it-s-blue.htmlI’ve just finished a day on the Gateway 14, one of the most talked-about laptops in the budget Windows space. And folks... I’m very impressed. We bought this at Walmart for $279 (discounted from $360 since it’s a couple generations old), and yes, it has the legendary cow spots on its lid. The Gateway brand from the 1990s that we all know and love is now licensed by Acer and has become a Walmart-exclusive brand./news/gateway-is-back-and-it-s-selling-amd-powered-budget-laptops-at-walmart.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gateway-is-back-and-it-s-selling-amd-powered-budget-laptops-at-walmart.htmlGateway, the major PC brand of the 1990s with the iconic cow-spotted logo, is back — well, kind of. Acer now owns the company and has decided to start selling Gateway-branded laptops again, exclusively at Walmart. As is often the case with Walmart-exclusive laptops, the main attraction is the price. On the most affordable end is the Gateway Ultra Thin series, which starts with a $179 11.6-inch laptop with an AMD A4, and spans up to a $499 15./news/godzilla-and-evangelion-are-forming-a-new-japanese-cinematic-universe.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/godzilla-and-evangelion-are-forming-a-new-japanese-cinematic-universe.htmlJapanese industry titans are teaming up for a new cinematic universe based on iconic properties. Toho, Toei, Khara, and Tsuburaya Productions have announced the upcoming launch of the Shin Japan Heroes Universe, which will include representation from the Godzilla, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Evangelion franchises. Toho is the company that created Godzilla, Toei is behind Kamen Rider, Tsuburaya produces Ultraman, and Khara is the animation studio founded by Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno./news/google-cuts-12-000-jobs-in-latest-round-of-big-tech-layoffs.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-cuts-12-000-jobs-in-latest-round-of-big-tech-layoffs.htmlGoogle is cutting approximately 12,000 jobs — the latest technology firm to initiate significant layoffs as inflation rises and global markets brace for a downturn. Google SEO Sundar Pichai announced the cuts in an email to staff on Friday and a blog post. The job losses constitute around 6 percent of Google’s global workforce, compared to recent layoffs at Microsoft (10,000 jobs or 5 percent of the workforce), Amazon (18,000 jobs / 6 percent), and Meta (11,000 / 13 percent)./news/google-is-investigating-another-top-ai-ethicist.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-investigating-another-top-ai-ethicist.htmlGoogle is investigating artificial intelligence researcher Margaret Mitchell, who co-leads the company’s Ethical AI team, and has locked her corporate account, Axios reports. The news comes a little over a month after another prominent AI ethicist, Timnit Gebru, said she was fired by the company. Mitchell’s account has now reportedly been locked for “at least a few days” but she hasn’t been fired, according to a tweet from Gebru. Mitchell did not immediately respond to a request for comment./news/google-is-removing-chrome-s-cleanup-tool-for-windows.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-removing-chrome-s-cleanup-tool-for-windows.htmlGoogle is retiring the Chrome Cleanup Tool, an application for Chrome users on Windows that detects and removes suspicious or unwanted software. The tool will be removed from user systems starting with the release of Chrome 111, at which point users will be unable to scan their device using Chrome Cleanup Tool through the web browser’s Safety Check feature or via the “Reset settings and cleanup” option in chrome://settings on Windows./news/google-is-using-ai-to-help-the-new-york-times-digitize-5-million-historical-photos.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-using-ai-to-help-the-new-york-times-digitize-5-million-historical-photos.htmlThe New York Times doesn’t keep bodies in its “morgue” — it keeps pictures. In a basement under its Times Square office, stuffed into cabinets and drawers, the Times stores between 5 million and 7 million images, along with information about when they were published and why. Now, the paper is working with Google to digitize its huge collection. The morgue (as the basement storage area is known) contains pictures going back to the 19th century, many of which exist nowhere else in the world./news/google-offered-epic-147-million-to-launch-fortnite-on-the-play-store.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-offered-epic-147-million-to-launch-fortnite-on-the-play-store.htmlGoogle has confirmed in court that Epic was offered a $147 million deal to launch its hit game Fortnite on Android’s Google Play Store. The deal, which Google’s VP of Play partnerships, Purnima Kochikar, says was approved and presented to Epic but not accepted, would have seen the money dispensed over a three-year period of “incremental funding” (ending in 2021) to the games publisher. It was meant to stem a potential “contagion” of popular apps bypassing Android’s official store and, with it, Google’s lucrative in-app purchase fees./news/google-one-adds-a-5tb-storage-plan-for-24-99-per-month.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-one-adds-a-5tb-storage-plan-for-24-99-per-month.htmlAfter it ended free unlimited storage for Google Photos in June, many Google users had figure out how to store images and other data in the Google accounts. They could keep their Google account stored data under 15GB, or pay for a Google One plan. Options included a 100GB plan for $1.99 per month, a 200GB plan for $2.99 a month, a 2TB plan for $9.99 a month, or a plan with 10TB of storage for $49./news/google-tests-adding-a-discover-feed-to-its-valuable-desktop-homepage.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-tests-adding-a-discover-feed-to-its-valuable-desktop-homepage.htmlGoogle is experimenting with the inclusion of a Discover Feed on its desktop homepage that shows recommended content alongside the company’s traditional search box. A screenshot from MSPowerUser, which spotted the change, shows a feed that includes news headlines, a weather forecast, sports scores, and stock information for a trio of companies. The search giant previously added the Discover Feed to its US homepage on mobile devices in 2018, Google spokesperson Lara Levin confirmed the change in a statement given to The Verge, noting that it’s an experiment that’s currently being run in India./news/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2-all-of-the-trailers-news-and-updates.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2-all-of-the-trailers-news-and-updates.htmlIn 2006, Bill Rosemann made the move to Marvel from rival DC and was immediately tasked with editing the “cosmic” portion of the company’s portfolio. You know, the stories about superpowered alien rings and far-flung wars in distant galaxies. One of his first projects started as a new series starring wisecracking Star-Lord, but it snowballed into something much bigger. Inspired by the “Annihilation” crossover storyline, Rosemann wanted to create an event that pulled in long-forgotten characters from the Marvel mythos, and eventually that turned into the modern edition of the Guardians of the Galaxy./news/hbo-max-abruptly-pulls-200-sesame-street-episodes.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hbo-max-abruptly-pulls-200-sesame-street-episodes.htmlIn potentially devastating news for kids and parents, about 200 episodes of Sesame Street have been removed from HBO Max, Variety reports. Many of the dropped episodes are from the show’s earliest seasons, and the number of Sesame Street episodes on the service has fallen from around 650 to 456, according to Variety. HBO and Sesame Street have been connected for years; WarnerMedia (now Warner Bros. Discovery) locked in a big five-year deal in 2019 to exclusively stream new episodes of the show, and Sesame Street first began airing on HBO in 2016./news/helldivers-2-will-require-steam-players-to-link-to-a-psn-account.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/helldivers-2-will-require-steam-players-to-link-to-a-psn-account.htmlAttention, Democracy Defenders: Helldivers 2 will soon require players on Steam to link their account to a PlayStation Network account. According to the announcement, all new players on Steam will be required to link to a PSN account starting May 6th, while current players will have a little bit longer, with mandatory enforcement delayed until June 4th. According to Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios, linking to a PSN account was always going to be a requirement for Steam players, and the policy is there to ensure players are protected from griefing and other in-game abuses./news/hertz-launches-1-000-per-month-car-subscription-service.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hertz-launches-1-000-per-month-car-subscription-service.htmlHertz is now the latest in an increasingly long line of companies piloting car subscription services. The rental car giant announced Tuesday that it is launching a pilot version of a subscription service called “Hertz My Car” in Austin, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia. The Hertz My Car subscription service will be offered in two tiers, both of which include full vehicle maintenance, roadside assistance, damage to the vehicle (though with a $1,000 deductible), and limited liability protection./news/how-elon-musk-wants-to-change-twitter-into-the-x-super-app.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-elon-musk-wants-to-change-twitter-into-the-x-super-app.htmlHeading into the first joint all-hands meeting with Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino at X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, employees were asked to submit questions ahead of time.  Since Musk walked into the building literally carrying a kitchen sink exactly one year ago, companywide communication from him has been nearly nonexistent at X, save for his random, terse emails asking for things to be fixed in the middle of the night./news/how-the-aerial-tramway-was-saved-from-being-twitter-s-least-popular-emoji.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-the-aerial-tramway-was-saved-from-being-twitter-s-least-popular-emoji.htmlIf you took a look at Twitter anytime in the past week, you might have noticed a debate around one of the least popular emoji in the standard Unicode character set; the “aerial tramway.” For the unfamiliar, these tramways are a bit like a car that’s suspended in midair, and travels via cable. This particular emoji (red if you’re on Twitter, or yellow if you’re using Apple’s iMessage) is the smaller, more unassuming cousin to other emoji like the mountain cableway and the suspension railway, and while those emoji are near the bottom of the list in terms of popularity, the tramway had the dishonor of being the very least used on Twitter./news/how-to-change-your-apple-id-password-in-three-different-ways.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-change-your-apple-id-password-in-three-different-ways.htmlYour Apple ID is your key to using the integrated services of Apple’s ecosystem, including the App Store, iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime, and Apple Music. You also need one to set up any new Apple device. As with any password, if you think it may have been compromised, you should change it immediately. It’s also a good idea to change it every few months to help keep it extra secure. When you do choose a new password, you’ll need to think of one that’s at least eight characters long and uses at least one number, one uppercase letter, and one lowercase letter./news/how-to-use-your-dslr-or-mirrorless-camera-as-a-webcam.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-use-your-dslr-or-mirrorless-camera-as-a-webcam.htmlIf you’ve been working from home for the past few weeks, you’ve probably had to join more than a few video conference calls. Or perhaps you’ve been using video chat apps to keep in touch with friends and family while social distancing. Either way, you’ve probably noticed that the webcam on your laptop is, well, crap. It leads to blurry, pixelated video calls, and unflattering viewing angles. There are a few ways to address this problem./news/how-tubi-ceo-anjali-sud-plans-to-compete-with-netflix-and-tiktok.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-tubi-ceo-anjali-sud-plans-to-compete-with-netflix-and-tiktok.htmlToday, I’m talking with Anjali Sud, the CEO of Tubi. Tubi is a free and very rapidly growing streaming TV platform — the company just announced that it has 80 million monthly active users, and according to Nielsen, it had an average of a million viewers watching every minute in May 2024, beating out Disney Plus, Max, Peacock, and basically everything else save Netflix and YouTube. All of those streaming service price hikes are driving people to free options, and Tubi is right there to catch them./news/hp-s-new-laptop-screen-can-prevent-people-from-spying-on-you.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-s-new-laptop-screen-can-prevent-people-from-spying-on-you.htmlSometimes you really don’t want the people around you to see what’s on your laptop screen, so HP has come up with a solution. It’s developed a new screen that can cut off viewing angles with the press of a button, making it much harder for anyone on either side of a laptop to see what’s being displayed. The feature works by preventing light from shooting off to the side. That way, when it’s active, you should only be able to see the laptop if you’re facing more-or-less straight on, within the the 70-degree arc right in front of it; 95 percent of light directed to either side of that is supposed to be cut off./news/huawei-watch-2-review-a-fitness-focus-that-falls-flat.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/huawei-watch-2-review-a-fitness-focus-that-falls-flat.htmlThe original Huawei Watch was one of my surprise favorites. It didn’t have an overabundance of features, but it ran Android Wear nicely and it looked good doing it. With the new $299.99 Huawei Watch 2, the company pivoted hard. It put an emphasis on function over form in an attempt to make it more of a fitness device rather than a casual fashion piece. That’s exactly what a number of other companies such as Apple, Samsung, and LG have done with their recent smartwatch attempts, but in the case of the Huawei, the result is a mixed bag./news/ikea-and-teenage-engineering-launch-co-developed-speakers-and-party-products.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ikea-and-teenage-engineering-launch-co-developed-speakers-and-party-products.htmlTeenage Engineering is best known for its music products like the iconic OP-1 synthesizer, so it’s no surprise that the Frekvens collection sees Ikea continue its expansion into the world of home audio. There are two speakers in the range, a $69.99 model and a more portable $19.99 option with a belt clip, along with a $149 subwoofer combo and a $10 light-up speaker base. “The Items got narrowed down towards sound,” Teenage Engineering founder Jesper Kouthoofd says./news/i-m-still-trying-to-generate-an-ai-asian-man-and-white-woman.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-m-still-trying-to-generate-an-ai-asian-man-and-white-woman.htmlI inadvertently found myself on the AI-generated Asian people beat this past week. Last Wednesday, I found that Meta’s AI image generator built into Instagram messaging completely failed at creating an image of an Asian man and white woman using general prompts. Instead, it changed the woman’s race to Asian every time. The next day, I tried the same prompts again and found that Meta appeared to have blocked prompts with keywords like “Asian man” or “African American man./news/in-pictures-rolls-royce-s-luxury-factory.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/in-pictures-rolls-royce-s-luxury-factory.htmlThis week, I visited the home of legendary car company Rolls-Royce in the south of England. Over the course of its 110-year history, the Rolls-Royce name has come to define what luxury means, both in the world of automobiles and beyond. If you haven't already, go and read my full report on how the recently resurrected Rolls-Royce is carrying on its fine tradition and legacy, and then come back here for all the eye candy from my tour of the factory floor./news/instagram-now-makes-you-ask-for-permission-to-dm-someone-you-don-t-follow.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-now-makes-you-ask-for-permission-to-dm-someone-you-don-t-follow.htmlInstagram is trying to make it more difficult for people you don’t follow to spam you with unwanted DM requests. After testing the feature in June, Instagram now only lets users you don’t follow send a one-message invite before they can start chatting with you. That message can also only contain text, so that means you should no longer see any unsolicited photos, videos, or voice messages popping up in your message requests./news/instagram-rolls-out-live-broadcasts-for-close-friends.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-rolls-out-live-broadcasts-for-close-friends.htmlInstagram is introducing a way to livestream to a smaller, more private audience. Beginning today, Instagram users will be able to host Live broadcasts only available to their curated list of Close Friends. Up to three other accounts can join the Live broadcast and stream with the original user. The feature rolls out globally. Until this point, beginning a Live broadcast meant that anyone could tune in and watch it if your account was public, and all followers could watch the stream if you had a private account./news/it-s-2015-why-are-we-still-talking-about-will-it-blend.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/it-s-2015-why-are-we-still-talking-about-will-it-blend.htmlThere was a time, I vaguely recall, when the notion of dropping a prized gadget into a blender and flipping the switch was interesting — even a little provocative, perhaps. It helped that the stunt was orchestrated by an affable older gentleman, Blendtec founder Tom Dickson, who was using the deliberately silly schtick to advertise the potency and durability of his blenders. Each video made the rounds on the blogs, and you moved on./news/it-s-easier-for-hackers-to-jailbreak-the-ps4-than-it-is-to-buy-a-ps5.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/it-s-easier-for-hackers-to-jailbreak-the-ps4-than-it-is-to-buy-a-ps5.htmlHackers have jailbroken the PS4 with a new kernel exploit, according to Wololo.net, a website that covers jailbreaking news, seemingly opening the door for people to run things like homebrew apps on Sony’s last-gen consoles. The jailbreak is called “pOOBs4.” It’s a major development, but it comes with a big catch: the jailbreak only works on PS4 firmware 9.00 or lower, according to one of the people involved with the jailbreak, SpecterDev, which isn’t the newest PS4 software available./news/john-kerry-arnold-schwarzenegger-wage-world-war-zero-on-climate-change.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/john-kerry-arnold-schwarzenegger-wage-world-war-zero-on-climate-change.htmlToday former Secretary of State John Kerry and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared war on climate change. The two led an all-star cast of lawmakers and celebrities to launch an initiative called World War Zero, which aims to get individuals, businesses, and governments to drastically slash greenhouse gas emissions. The initiative, for now, boasts a lot of glitzy names without many details on how it will achieve its goal. Its bipartisan founding members — which include Bill and Hillary Clinton, Richard Branson, Jimmy Fallon, Cindy McCain, and Al Sharpton, and more than 70 other notable names — plan to hold 10 million “climate conversations” in 2020, The New York Times reported over the weekend./news/jon-stewart-is-leaving-the-daily-show.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jon-stewart-is-leaving-the-daily-show.htmlJon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show. He has hosted the show on Comedy Central show since taking over for Craig Kilborn in 1999. Stewart apparently let the cat out of the bag at today’s episode taping when told the audience he is "retiring." There are currently no details on where he might be heading next or who might replace him, but he will leave the show later this year./news/jordan-peele-s-us-turns-a-political-statement-into-unnerving-horror.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jordan-peele-s-us-turns-a-political-statement-into-unnerving-horror.htmlWelcome to Cheat Sheet, our breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special-event releases. This review comes from the 2019 SXSW Interactive Festival. It has been updated to coincide with the film’s theatrical release. When Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out hit screens in 2017, it was a revelation. Peele was known as an incisive comedian from his racially frank, wide-ranging sketch show Key and Peele, but nothing in his history suggested he had such a talent for crafting mesmerizing horror stories./news/juicero-offering-refunds-to-all-customers-after-people-realize-400-juicer-is-totally-unnecessary.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/juicero-offering-refunds-to-all-customers-after-people-realize-400-juicer-is-totally-unnecessary.htmlJuicero is offering all of its customers the option to return their juicer for a full refund within the next 30 days, even if they bought it as far back as when the product launched a year ago. Juicero’s CEO, Jeff Dunn, who over took the position in November, posted a response on Medium today arguing that “The value of Juicero is more than a glass of cold-pressed juice. Much more./news/laundry-folding-robot-laundroid-s-seven-dreamers-has-filed-for-bankruptcy.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/laundry-folding-robot-laundroid-s-seven-dreamers-has-filed-for-bankruptcy.htmlSeven Dreamers, the Japanese company behind the AI-powered laundry-folding robot Laundroid, has filed for bankruptcy. The company is now in the process of selling and transferring its business, it announced on its website today, which was spotted by Bloomberg editor Gearoid Reidy. Backed by companies like Panasonic and Daiwa House, Laundroid had ambitious dreams to be the ultimate wardrobe organizer for the entire household. It had multiple cameras and robotic arms to scan a load of laundry, and used Wi-Fi to connect to a server that would analyze the clothing using AI to figure out the best way to fold it./news/leaked-photos-give-us-a-close-up-look-at-the-rumored-htc-bolt.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/leaked-photos-give-us-a-close-up-look-at-the-rumored-htc-bolt.htmlNew pictures have emerged of the HTC Bolt, a phone that’s rumored to be coming later this month. VentureBeat’s Evan Blass posted the images, which appear to show the physical phone — not a rendered version — for the first time. As we saw in an image Blassleaked in September, the Bolt looks similar to this year’s HTC 10 phone, but it’s supposedly going to be a midrange Android device, not a flagship product./news/lego-s-new-back-to-the-future-set-finally-does-the-delorean-right.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lego-s-new-back-to-the-future-set-finally-does-the-delorean-right.htmlLego has debuted a new Back to the Future DeLorean set, recreating the time-traveling car from the film series with its most accurate brick model yet — one that, unlike the original 2013 version, actually looks like the iconic vehicle. The $169 set has 1,856 pieces (compared to the 401 pieces in the original model) and is considerably bigger and more detailed in virtually every way. There’s functional gull-wing doors, a far less blocky hood, a brand-new windshield piece that Lego created specifically for the new set to match the real car, and a light-up flux capacitor (especially notable given the rarity of light-up pieces on Lego’s modern sets)./news/lighting-s-speedy-strike-electric-motorcycle-starts-at-13-000.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lighting-s-speedy-strike-electric-motorcycle-starts-at-13-000.htmlAfter weeks of teasing, Silicon Valley electric motorcycle manufacturer Lightning pulled the wraps off the Strike on Thursday, which will be the company’s first two-wheeled EV for the broader market. Starting at $13,000, the sporty Strike can last for 70 miles on the highway or 100 miles in the city on a single charge, but can be optioned up to a battery pack with double the range. The company is already taking preorders, and deliveries of the more expensive versions will start shipping in July./news/living-and-working-from-an-all-electric-vw-id-buzz.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/living-and-working-from-an-all-electric-vw-id-buzz.htmlLike most people, I’m intrigued by the idea of electric cars but not yet convinced it’s time to make the leap. I can name every Tesla model, a few pickups from Ford and Rivian, and that’s about it. But when Volkswagen announced the production model of the all-electric ID Buzz, which began hitting European roads late last year… well, suddenly, I was very interested. See, I’m the guy who spent a week living in a VW Transporter T5 “Ventje” last year and once rented a vintage Type 2 VW Microbus named “Fergus” for a summer just to wild camp around Scotland with my family./news/looking-for-the-best-small-phone-i-have-bad-news.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/looking-for-the-best-small-phone-i-have-bad-news.htmlEver Googled for “Best Small Phones”? I’ll save you the click: the guides you’ll find feature phones that are old, underpowered, or simply not small to begin with. I’ve long been a small phone guy. I loved my 2013 Moto X, with its 4.7-inch screen, and I’ve used a 5.4-inch iPhone Mini for years. But when Apple discontinued the Mini last month, I decided it was time to jump ship. I saved my money for the Pixel 8, figuring I’d eventually learn to live with a “new normal” of 6./news/luca-review-the-perfect-summer-movie.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/luca-review-the-perfect-summer-movie.htmlThe best way to watch Luca, the latest feature from Pixar, is when you’re that very particular kind of tired that comes from a long day at the beach. I recommend pulling out a projector so you can watch it outside, preferably as the sun starts to set, and ideally with some gelato to accompany you. What I’m saying is: this is just about the perfect summer movie. Okay, sorry, so what is Luca actually?/news/luminar-maker-of-lidar-for-autonomous-driving-lays-off-20-percent-of-its-workforce.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/luminar-maker-of-lidar-for-autonomous-driving-lays-off-20-percent-of-its-workforce.htmlThe company, which just announced shipments of its next-generation laser sensors to Volvo, said that it will transition to an “asset light” business model that will see more of its production outsourced to its partners. As part of the restructuring, at least 147 people will lose their jobs. Luminar has at least 730 employees based in the US, according to LinkedIn. “Many of these team members have been on our journey with us for years, which is why this is so difficult,” Luminar CEO Austin Russell said in a statement./news/maggie-shen-king-s-latest-novel-explores-a-china-we-need-to-know.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/maggie-shen-king-s-latest-novel-explores-a-china-we-need-to-know.htmlFor three decades, China has been running what amounts to a huge social experiment: a one-child policy that limits each family to have only one offspring. The policy has led to a greater gender imbalance than the global average. In 2015, Beijing relaxed this policy to allow two children per family. But in Maggie Shen King’s debut novel, An Excess Male, China continues to face this real-world dystopian scenario. In an alternate timeline set in the near future, the one-child policy has continued for several decades, radically changing the social structure./news/mark-zuckerberg-agrees-to-elon-musk-cage-match-challenge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mark-zuckerberg-agrees-to-elon-musk-cage-match-challenge.htmlAfter Elon Musk recently tweeted that he would be “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO shot back by posting a screenshot of Musk’s tweet with the caption “send me location.” I’ve confirmed that Zuckerberg’s post on his Instagram Stories is, in fact, not a joke, which means the ball is now in Musk’s court. “The story speaks for itself,” Meta spokesperson Iska Saric told me. After this story was published, Musk responded to it with two words: “Vegas Octagon./news/mars-is-emerging-from-an-ice-age-that-ended-about-400-000-years-ago.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mars-is-emerging-from-an-ice-age-that-ended-about-400-000-years-ago.htmlMars is emerging from an ice age, according to a new study. Studying the Martian climate and how it changes over time can help scientists better plan future missions to Mars and even understand climate change here on Earth, the study authors say. Models had already predicted that Mars underwent several rounds of ice ages in the past, but little physical measurements ever confirmed those predictions. Today’s study, published in the journal Science, is the first to map the ice deposits on the north and south pole and confirm that Mars is emerging from an ice age, in a retreat that began almost 400,000 years ago./news/meet-rick-and-morty-s-new-voice-actors.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meet-rick-and-morty-s-new-voice-actors.htmlAs new Rick and Morty episodes begin to air alongside reruns, viewers are going to be hard-pressed to differentiate between Roiland’s old performances and what newcomers Ian Cardoni (Rick) and Harry Belden (Morty) are now bringing to the table.  In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series showrunner Scott Marder and co-creator Dan Harmon said that was one of their goals when they first began their six-month-long search for new actors capable of taking over the roles./news/meta-open-sources-multisensory-ai-model-that-combines-six-types-of-data.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-open-sources-multisensory-ai-model-that-combines-six-types-of-data.htmlMeta has announced a new open-source AI model that links together multiple streams of data, including text, audio, visual data, temperature, and movement readings. The model is only a research project at this point, with no immediate consumer or practical applications, but it points to a future of generative AI systems that can create immersive, multisensory experiences and shows that Meta continues to share AI research at a time when rivals like OpenAI and Google have become increasingly secretive./news/meta-will-soon-let-young-kids-chat-in-vr-but-only-with-their-parents-approval.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-will-soon-let-young-kids-chat-in-vr-but-only-with-their-parents-approval.htmlMeta will soon let kids interact with other users in virtual reality, but only if they get parental approval. An upcoming change will let parents individually approve each user their 10- to 12-year-old can call, chat with, and join VR experiences with on Quest. Previously, Meta didn’t allow kids in that age range to use chats, make calls, or invite others to games. Last year, Meta lowered the minimum age for kids who can use its Quest headsets from 13 to 10 years old./news/mh370-report-reveals-black-box-battery-expired-a-year-before-flight.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mh370-report-reveals-black-box-battery-expired-a-year-before-flight.htmlPrecisely a year ago, on March 8th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 mysteriously disappeared over the Straits of Malacca. There's still no trace of the Boeing 777-200 or its 239 passengers and crew, but an exhaustive 584-page report released today reveals that the battery powering one black box's locator beacon expired over a year before the incident. The old battery means that crews searching the southern Indian Ocean likely wouldn't have picked up a signal from the black box even if they were floating right over it./news/microsoft-surface-laptop-go-2-review-a-little-laptop-for-light-work.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-surface-laptop-go-2-review-a-little-laptop-for-light-work.htmlSmall, premium laptops — truly small ones — have fallen out of fashion in recent years. The smallest computer Apple sells has a 13.3-inch screen. Dell’s tiniest XPS comes with a 13.4-inch panel. HP’s Spectre X360 line scales down to 13.5-inch screens, which the company lists as a 14-inch class. The 11- or 12-inch laptops you can buy (the ones that aren’t tablets trying to masquerade as something else) are typically cheap and slow./news/microsoft-s-bing-ai-like-google-s-also-made-dumb-mistakes-during-first-demo.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-bing-ai-like-google-s-also-made-dumb-mistakes-during-first-demo.htmlGoogle’s AI chatbot isn’t the only one to make factual errors during its first demo. Independent AI researcher Dmitri Brereton has discovered that Microsoft’s first Bing AI demos were full of financial data mistakes. Microsoft confidently demonstrated its Bing AI capabilities a week ago, with the search engine taking on tasks like providing pros and cons for top selling pet vacuums, planning a 5-day trip to Mexico City, and comparing data in financial reports./news/mozilla-s-new-service-tries-to-wipe-your-data-off-the-web.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mozilla-s-new-service-tries-to-wipe-your-data-off-the-web.htmlUpdate March 22nd, 5:20PM ET: Since the publication of this article, Mozilla has ended its partnership with Onerep after its CEO was found to have ties to data brokers. The original story follows below. Mozilla is introducing a new paid subscription privacy monitoring service called Mozilla Monitor Plus. For $8.99 a month under its annual subscription, Mozilla says it will automatically keep a lookout for your information at over 190 sites where brokers sell information they’ve gathered from online sources like social media sites, apps, and browser trackers, and when your info is found, it will automatically try to get it removed./news/mr-robot-finally-a-hacking-show-that-won-t-make-you-facepalm.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mr-robot-finally-a-hacking-show-that-won-t-make-you-facepalm.htmlThe portrayal of "hacking" has been abysmal in movies and television ever since Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum took down an alien invasion with a PowerBook in Independence Day. There’s something about the very notion itself that seems to foil most filmmakers, and even if they aren’t using it as a superpower to backdoor their characters out of a jam, they stumble when it comes to visuals — turning keystrokes and problem solving into overwrought special effects sequences with the visual coherence of a Michael Bay movie./news/mrbeast-and-t-series-battle-to-be-the-most-subscribed-youtube-channel.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mrbeast-and-t-series-battle-to-be-the-most-subscribed-youtube-channel.htmlDespite his immense popularity and online presence, Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast) has never been the most subscribed channel on YouTube — though that may not be the case for long. T-Series, India’s largest music label and movie studio, currently holds the top spot with 263 million YouTube subscribers, but MrBeast is rapidly closing in on that figure with 252 million subs. With its leading position now threatened, T-Series published a new video on Monday encouraging viewers to subscribe to the channel./news/myfitnesspal-is-putting-calorie-logging-behind-the-paywall.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/myfitnesspal-is-putting-calorie-logging-behind-the-paywall.htmlThe popular nutrition and weight loss app MyFitnessPal is moving its free barcode scanning feature behind the paywall. For years, users with free accounts have been able to use this tool to scan food barcodes for easy logging and tracking of daily calorie intake, but the company recently announced that beginning October 1st, a premium account will be required. MyFitnessPal’s daily calorie counting is a key component of the app, with the barcode scanner offering a shortcut to finding nutritional value for a specific food item in the app’s vast database of food./news/netflix-the-verge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-the-verge.htmlBabe wake up, the first Wake Up Dead Man set photo just dropped. It doesn’t reveal much about the next Benoit Blanc mystery, which started filming today, but it does confirm the detective will be sporting a new look in 2025. And he’ll be joined by quite the cast, including: Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church./news/new-report-reveals-how-the-climate-crisis-is-supercharging-extreme-weather.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-report-reveals-how-the-climate-crisis-is-supercharging-extreme-weather.htmlWe now have the clearest picture yet of how different the world is today as a result of human-driven climate change. The most comprehensive report to date on the physical science of climate change was published today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  “Climate change is a problem that is here now. Nobody’s safe, and it’s getting worse faster,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said in a press conference today./news/new-study-explains-why-trump-s-sad-tweets-are-so-effective.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-study-explains-why-trump-s-sad-tweets-are-so-effective.htmlDuring his campaign and presidency, Donald Trump has used Twitter to circumvent traditional media broadcasters and speak directly to the masses. He is particularly known for one specific tweet construction: he sets up a situation that he feels should inspire anger or outrage, then punctuates it with “Sad!” New research from New York University suggests a reason why this style is so effective: a tweet containing moral and emotional language spreads farther among people with similar political persuasion./news/new-york-state-passes-first-ever-right-to-repair-law-for-electronics.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-york-state-passes-first-ever-right-to-repair-law-for-electronics.htmlThe New York state legislature has passed the United States’ first “right to repair” bill covering electronics. Called the Fair Repair Act, the measure would require all manufacturers who sell “digital electronic products” within state borders to make tools, parts, and instructions for repair available to both consumers and independent shops. Having passed the legislature, it is awaiting signature by Governor Kathy Hochul, who is expected to support the measure. The measure will take effect one year after it passes into law./news/nexus-4-review-the-verge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nexus-4-review-the-verge.htmlCamera Probably the biggest updates in 4.2 are focused (no pun intended, really) on the camera. Google has completely revamped the way in which you interact with the shooter, now offering a wildly clever circular menu which can be activated by touching anywhere on the screen in the camera app. The contextual circle lets you quickly swipe in a variety of directions to tweak individual settings, making quick changes dead simple./news/nintendo-brings-miiverse-social-network-from-wii-u-to-the-web.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-brings-miiverse-social-network-from-wii-u-to-the-web.htmlMiiverse, the social network that Nintendo launched with its Wii U console, is now available in web browsers. The network lets you view friends' updates and posts to individual game communities in both text and — via the Wii U GamePad's touchscreen — written or drawn form. The web app, which Nintendo says is still in beta, features a simple, responsive design that scales down well to mobile devices. However, it doesn't look like the company is enabling the ability to make new posts from the web interface yet; for that, you'll still need to use your Wii U./news/nintendo-is-opening-its-second-us-store-in-san-francisco.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-is-opening-its-second-us-store-in-san-francisco.htmlNearly 20 years after opening its first store in the US, Nintendo is adding another location. The store will be located in San Francisco’s Union Square, with its doors opening to fans in 2025. Nintendo’s first — and only — American retail location opened in New York City in 2005. The two-story spot offers Nintendo games, merchandise, hardware, and accessories for sale on the first level, while the second floor features display cases dedicated to all of Nintendo’s consoles./news/nintendo-is-working-on-a-full-sequel-to-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-is-working-on-a-full-sequel-to-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild.htmlNintendo has announced that it’s working on a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch, in a surprise announcement at the end of the company’s E3 presentation. The news was accompanied by a short teaser, which showed the return of the iterations of both Link and Zelda from the previous title exploring a cave, before encountering what looks a whole lot like the corpse of Ganondorf himself beneath Hyrule Castle./news/nintendo-just-announced-a-labo-vr-kit-for-the-switch.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-just-announced-a-labo-vr-kit-for-the-switch.htmlNintendo’s getting into virtual reality, but not in the way you might expect. Today, the gaming giant announced the latest in its Labo line of DIY cardboard accessories, which turns the Nintendo Switch into a makeshift VR kit. As with previous Labo sets, there are a few options to choose from. The main VR kit costs $79.99 and includes six different cardboard kits to build, including VR goggles, a blaster, a camera, and an./news/nintendo-s-motion-controlled-arms-is-a-fun-but-frustrating-fighting-game.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-s-motion-controlled-arms-is-a-fun-but-frustrating-fighting-game.htmlAs one of a handful of new games announced for its Switch console, Nintendo’s fighting game Arms had pride of place in Tokyo today. I spent a few bouts getting acquainted with its motion controls, while getting punched in the face by an ultra-buff mummy with fizzing purple balls for fists. Arms’ control scheme is simple. Joy-Cons are detached from the base unit and held, one in each hand, in a thumbs-up pose./news/nissan-s-first-all-electric-car-leafs-a-mark-on-the-ev-industry.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nissan-s-first-all-electric-car-leafs-a-mark-on-the-ev-industry.htmlThe first-generation Nissan Leaf was a car that only an owner could love. It had bug eyes for headlights, the body of a Bulbasaur, a toy-like startup sound, and a large plastic nub in the center console that you moved like an air hockey paddle to put the Leaf in drive or reverse. I was one of those owners, and while I swooned at the 2018 redesign, I still only had eyes for my first-gen Leaf./news/no-buyouts-for-chevy-dealers-who-don-t-want-to-sell-electric-vehicles.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/no-buyouts-for-chevy-dealers-who-don-t-want-to-sell-electric-vehicles.htmlChevrolet won’t follow its sister brands Cadillac and Buick in offering buyouts to dealers who don’t want to make the necessary investments to upgrade to electric vehicles, Scott Bell, global vice president, told The Verge. In fact, the dealers who do elect to take buyouts from Cadillac and Buick could end up exclusively selling Chevy vehicles, which Bell argues is good for his brand. “The minute they pull back and say, ‘You know what, I’m not ready to go all in for those brands,’ they’re now 100 percent a Chevy dealer, which is a good thing for Chevrolet,” Bell said at a pop-up event in Manhattan celebrating the unveiling of the 2024 Chevy Equinox EV./news/nokia-lumia-920-review-the-verge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nokia-lumia-920-review-the-verge.htmlThe biggest and most important change to Windows Phone 8 over previous versions is one users don't see directly: internal software plumbing shared with Windows 8. Microsoft likes to say that it has managed to change the engine on a car speeding down the freeway without slowing down, and the metaphor is an apt one. It's remarkable that an OS can have its internals so radically changed and yet still feel the same on the outside./news/nook-miles-is-my-favorite-addition-to-animal-crossing-new-horizons.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nook-miles-is-my-favorite-addition-to-animal-crossing-new-horizons.htmlIn my first weekend playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I had grand designs to pay off my initial mortgage and plant a robust orchard of fruit — but I didn’t expect my proudest accomplishment to be picking more than 6,250 weeds. I was driven to complete that herculean feat because I was rewarded with Nook Miles, a new currency in the series that I’ve become obsessed with collecting. In New Horizons, you earn Nook Miles for doing just about anything on your island, such as traveling to other islands, talking to villagers, plucking weeds, or fishing./news/oneplus-12r-review-flagship-vibes-from-a-500-phone.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oneplus-12r-review-flagship-vibes-from-a-500-phone.htmlChoice is a beautiful thing. The OnePlus 12R has just arrived in the US, and not a moment too soon. It’s the first $500 smartphone we’ve seen in a while that gives the Samsung Galaxy A54 and Google Pixel 7A any serious competition. Each of these devices is a slightly different answer to the same questions: What’s absolutely essential in a phone? What do you keep when you can’t have it all?/news/oneplus-8-pro-has-an-accidental-x-ray-vision-filter-that-sees-through-plastic-and-clothes.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oneplus-8-pro-has-an-accidental-x-ray-vision-filter-that-sees-through-plastic-and-clothes.htmlWell, here’s a camera trick we’ve not seen in a smartphone before: X-ray vision. Or, at least, something that looks very much like it. It’s a feature of the new OnePlus 8 Pro, which seems to use the phone’s infrared sensors to see through a small subset of black materials. If you’ve got a OnePlus 8 Pro and want to try it out for yourself, just open up the camera app, swipe over to the “Photochrom” color filter, and point it some black objects./news/oneplus-sets-date-for-oneplus-6t-launch.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oneplus-sets-date-for-oneplus-6t-launch.htmlOnePlus has announced that the 6T, an enhanced version of the OnePlus 6 released earlier in the year, will be launching on October 30th at an event in New York City. The new model is expected to feature a tiny display notch and an in-display fingerprint sensor that’s responsible for the new handset’s “Unlock the Speed” tagline. Unfortunately, the 6T will see OnePlus drop the headphone jack for the first time, although it’s previously said that doing so will free up space for other technologies to be present in the device./news/options-bae-put-gang-and-the-new-stock-communities-showing-amateur-traders-how-to-make-bank.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/options-bae-put-gang-and-the-new-stock-communities-showing-amateur-traders-how-to-make-bank.htmlIn the spring of 2020, Alaina Bradley was working in the collections department at a storage facility in eastern Tennessee. She was already pretty miserable before, but it got worse when the pandemic hit and she was overseeing mass auctions of people’s treasured belongings on the daily. With not much to lose, she decided to take a chance on something wild — and maybe too good to be true — that she’d been following on Facebook./news/pebble-time-review-the-verge.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pebble-time-review-the-verge.htmlLet’s start with the Time’s hardware. It’s easily the best-looking Pebble yet, with a thinner body that curves slightly to fit your wrist, a curved piece of glass over its new display, and a stainless steel bezel framing the always-on color screen. The four physical buttons from the earlier Pebbles have carried over (there’s no touchscreen here), but there’s now a microphone on the left side for voice functions. The Time is water resistant to 30 meters, which means it was fine when I wore it in the shower./news/peloton-is-extending-its-free-home-trial-from-30-to-100-days.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/peloton-is-extending-its-free-home-trial-from-30-to-100-days.htmlComing off a fraught month, Peloton is now extending free at-home trials for its Bike, Bike Plus, and Tread from 30 to 100 days. According to Peloton’s website, this is a limited-time offer for new customers who buy a Peloton machine between March 3rd, 2022, 5PM ET and March 22nd, 2022, 2:59AM ET. Essentially, the program allows customers to buy a new Peloton device, try it for a little over three months, and then return the machine for a full refund if it’s not to their liking./news/pocket-adds-airplay-support-for-streaming-saved-videos-to-apple-tv.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pocket-adds-airplay-support-for-streaming-saved-videos-to-apple-tv.htmlPocket today updated its iOS app with full AirPlay integration, making it possible for users to stream their saved video clips to a nearby Apple TV. Most of us turn to Pocket to keep track of (and preserve) articles we intend to read later, but it turns out there are quite a few people taking advantage of its video features. More than 2 million videos are saved to the popular app every week, according to a blog post the company published today./news/popular-face-aging-app-now-offers-black-indian-and-asian-filters.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/popular-face-aging-app-now-offers-black-indian-and-asian-filters.htmlUpdate August 9th, 17:15PM ET: FaceApp’s CEO says: “The new controversial filters will be removed in the next few hours.” You might remember FaceApp — a selfie-editing app that transforms users’ pictures by making them look older, younger, or giving them an artificial smile. Well, earlier this month, the Russian app’s creators updated their software with four new filters: “Asian,” “Black,” “Caucasian,” and “Indian.” First spotted by Mic, users can select these options and the app will alter their appearance, changing the color of their skin and hair./news/processor-google-pixels-are-coming-oneplus-buds-are-seized-and-lg-is-making-weird-phones-again.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/processor-google-pixels-are-coming-oneplus-buds-are-seized-and-lg-is-making-weird-phones-again.htmlProcessor is a digest for what’s happening in the world of consumer technology, with incisive analysis (or maybe just jokes) from Dieter Bohn. Sign up for the newsletter here and check out the Processor video series on YouTube. Over the weekend, the US Customs and Border patrol gleefully praised itself for seizing counterfeit AirPods. Only they weren’t really knock offs, they were the new OnePlus Buds. Which, yes, kind of look like knock-off AirPods./news/project-chip-rebrands-as-matter-promises-to-simplify-your-smart-home.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/project-chip-rebrands-as-matter-promises-to-simplify-your-smart-home.htmlProject Connected Home over IP (CHIP) — the ambitious smart home partnership that will see Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, the Zigbee Alliance, and dozens of other companies work together on an open standard — has gotten a new name: Matter. The rebranding comes ahead of the first Matter certifications, which are set to arrive before the end of 2021. The new branding and logo are designed to help make it easier for customers to tell which devices work with Matter’s unified system, with the logo set to appear on future hardware products./news/psa-if-you-use-slack-on-android-you-might-want-to-update-your-password.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/psa-if-you-use-slack-on-android-you-might-want-to-update-your-password.htmlYou might want to change your Slack password if you used the app on Android. According to an email sent out by the company and published by Android Police, the Android version of the Slack app stored users’ credentials in plain text between December 21st and January 21st, theoretically meaning other apps on your phone could have had access to them. Slack says it hasn’t seen any unauthorized access, and that it’s already emailed all affected users and invalidated their passwords — so if you had to enter in a new password when you opened the app, that could be why./news/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-x-plus-and-elite-processors.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-x-plus-and-elite-processors.htmlOn Wednesday, Qualcomm announced the impending arrival of its Snapdragon X Plus laptop processor alongside more information for its previously announced Snapdragon X Elite chips. While this is not the first time we’ve seen Qualcomm processors in a laptop, it’s the first time the company could have a chip that rivals Apple, Intel, and AMD on speed. The Snapdragon X Plus is Qualcomm’s entry-level laptop chip. It has 10 cores, 42MB of cache, a maximum multithreaded frequency of 3./news/rca-accidentally-made-a-cool-tv-because-it-doesn-t-connect-to-the-internet.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rca-accidentally-made-a-cool-tv-because-it-doesn-t-connect-to-the-internet.htmlIt’s no surprise that internet connected household items are all over the show floor at CES 2017. My eyes glaze over when I see the word “smart” or “Wi-Fi” or “app” on a standing banner. That’s why this little friend, a 4.3” LED portable television from RCA that doesn’t connect to the world wide web and has no apps, gets me excited for gadgets at CES. RCA pretty much just never stopped making these, so I guess that's why they have one out now, but hey, a broken clock is right twice a day./news/review-dickinson-s-second-season-trades-death-for-fame.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/review-dickinson-s-second-season-trades-death-for-fame.htmlWriting is often the domain of obsessives, and Emily Dickinson — at least, the witty, chaotic version of her portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld on Apple TV Plus’ Dickinson — gives herself over to her obsessions fully. In the first season of the show, which is an irreverent, Riverdale-style take on the life of the famed young poet, her obsession was Death, played by Wiz Khalifa. (Like I said: irreverent.) In the latest season, Steinfeld’s Emily is obsessed with fame./news/review-the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield-is-a-beautiful-new-take-on-a-classic-story.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/review-the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield-is-a-beautiful-new-take-on-a-classic-story.htmlConsider, for a moment, the career of Armando Iannucci, noted Scottish satirist. He’s  famous for whip-smart and ruthless political comedies like the acidic TV show Veep and the brutally comic films In The Loop and The Death of Stalin. His latest project, out this week to rent or buy on demand, is quite different from all that. Here’s the swerve: The Personal History of David Copperfield is a relatively straightforward adaptation of Charles Dickens’ most famous novel, David Copperfield./news/rivian-teases-five-new-vehicles-and-i-have-no-idea-what-they-are.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rivian-teases-five-new-vehicles-and-i-have-no-idea-what-they-are.htmlI’ll admit, I was too distracted by Rivian’s surprise announcement of a $5 billion deal with Volkswagen to develop software and electric vehicles to notice that the buzzy California company was also planning an investor day event on June 27th. So when I woke up on Wednesday to see this shareholder letter — thanks to InsideEVs with an assist from BloombergNEF’s Corey Cantor on Threads — I was pretty surprised to see Rivian was essentially taking a page from Tesla by teasing us with some shroud-covered mystery vehicles./news/rogue-one-our-spoiler-free-star-wars-review.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rogue-one-our-spoiler-free-star-wars-review.htmlWhen Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012, the studio made it clear that it wanted to get the most out of the $4.05 billion it was paying. Not only would there be a new trilogy of Star Wars films, but the studio also wanted a series of spinoffs: films that took place inside George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away, but didn’t necessarily track the ongoing domestic squabbles of the Skywalker family./news/roku-channel-deal-with-lionsgate-will-bring-john-wick-4-borderlands-to-free-streaming.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roku-channel-deal-with-lionsgate-will-bring-john-wick-4-borderlands-to-free-streaming.htmlRoku has signed a multiyear deal with Lionsgate to exclusively offer the studio’s theatrical releases for free on its ad-supported Roku Channel immediately after their showing on Starz, starting with its 2022 release slate. It includes films like John Wick: Chapter 4, The Expendables 4, Borderlands, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and more, which will be available on the channel in two separate windows. The second window will be nonexclusive, however, so the Roku Channel will be the first place viewers can see the films for free./news/samsung-galaxy-watch-3-review-small-changes-to-a-known-formula.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-watch-3-review-small-changes-to-a-known-formula.htmlFive years since the first Apple Watch and a full seven years on from Samsung’s Galaxy Gear, we know what a smartwatch is. We know that it’s not going to replace your smartphone anytime soon, that it will need to be charged every day or two, and that its best functions are for fitness tracking and seeing notifications when your phone isn’t in your hand. Samsung’s latest smartwatch, the $399-and-up Galaxy Watch 3, does not do anything to change those expectations./news/samsung-galaxy-watch-5-watch-5-pro-feature-bigger-batteries.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-galaxy-watch-5-watch-5-pro-feature-bigger-batteries.htmlAfter weeks of leaks and rumors, Samsung finally announced the $279.99 Galaxy Watch 5 and $449.99 Galaxy Watch 5 Pro today at its Unpacked event. And while there weren’t too many surprises, it seems the company took criticisms about the Galaxy Watch 4’s poor battery life to heart. Both the Watch 5 and Watch 5 Pro boast bigger batteries, faster charging, and increased durability to boot. With the Galaxy Watch 5 series, Samsung once again is shaking up its smartwatch lineup./news/samsung-just-turned-its-soundbar-into-a-smartthings-hub.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-just-turned-its-soundbar-into-a-smartthings-hub.htmlAt its annual developer conference today, Samsung once again put its SmartThings smart home platform front and center, announcing that its newest soundbar, the HW-Q900C, is now capable of being a SmartThings hub, complete with support for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter. The electronics giant has been pushing SmartThings aggressively over the last couple of years as it works to connect all its appliances, TVs, smartphones, and gadgets from other manufacturers together in a unified IoT-based smart home ecosystem./news/senate-panel-advances-bills-to-childproof-the-internet.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/senate-panel-advances-bills-to-childproof-the-internet.htmlThe bills — the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and COPPA 2.0 — were approved by the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday by a unanimous voice vote. Both pieces of legislation aim to address an ongoing mental health crisis amongst young people that some lawmakers blame social media for intensifying. But critics of the bills have long argued that they have the potential to cause more harm than good, like forcing social media platforms to collect more user information to properly enforce Congress’ rules./news/should-california-expect-more-tropical-storms-like-hurricane-hilary.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/should-california-expect-more-tropical-storms-like-hurricane-hilary.htmlCalifornia is notoriously dry this time of year. Yet, over the course of a single day this weekend, some desert areas were hit with more than a year’s worth of rainfall. Hurricane Hilary threw California into a state of emergency after more than 80 years without a tropical storm making landfall there. This kind of storm is unusual for California, and it will probably remain a rare occurrence. Even so, strange and extreme weather is a hallmark of climate change./news/soon-you-ll-be-able-to-buy-a-real-star-trek-communicator-for-your-smartphone.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/soon-you-ll-be-able-to-buy-a-real-star-trek-communicator-for-your-smartphone.htmlThis might just be the ultimate Star Trek accessory: a faithful replica of the sci-fi show's iconic Communicator device that works as both a Bluetooth handset for your phone and as a portable speaker. Built by The Wand Company and making its debut appearance at San Diego Comic-Con this week, the Communicator is constructed from die cast aluminum and comes with a magnetic stand for wireless charging. As well as its Bluetooth functionality, the device is also filled with authentic Star Trek sounds and conversation fragments./news/spacex-s-new-starlink-satellite-internet-terminal-has-a-kickstand.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spacex-s-new-starlink-satellite-internet-terminal-has-a-kickstand.htmlSpaceX quietly introduced a new Standard Starlink terminal that’s slimmer and simpler than the previous version, with a 10 percent broader field of view and no motor for setting up — instead, it comes with a kickstand; to orient it, you simply move it. A Starlink support page says the kit is available “by invitation only to a small group of early customers in the US.” SpaceX bumped its weather resistance rating up from IP54 to IP67, meaning it should be totally dust-proof and can be submerged in one meter of water for as long as 30 minutes before potential damage./news/star-wars-celebration-2023-all-the-trailers-and-news.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/star-wars-celebration-2023-all-the-trailers-and-news.htmlThough we’re living in a golden age for Star Wars series, a new trio of big-screen projects are definitely underway that will each tell epic stories from different points in the franchise’s history. At Star Wars Celebration Europe today, Kathleen Kennedy was joined by Daisy Ridley on stage as she announced that James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy are all set to direct three upcoming Star Wars films due out in coming years./news/teenage-mutant-ninja-pixels-is-dbrand-s-turtles-themed-pixel-6a-skin.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/teenage-mutant-ninja-pixels-is-dbrand-s-turtles-themed-pixel-6a-skin.htmlA cool thing about Google’s Pixel 6 series phones is their unique camera bar design. If the finish of that strip were a different color than black — specifically blue, orange, purple, or red — it would totally look kind of like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And now that you can’t unsee the resemblance, device outfitter Dbrand would like to help make your Pixel 6 device look like one of your favorite childhood heroes./news/temu-joins-shein-in-facing-stricter-regulation-in-the-eu.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/temu-joins-shein-in-facing-stricter-regulation-in-the-eu.htmlTemu, the popular Chinese shopping platform, is about to face stricter EU regulations after the European Commission deemed it a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA). According to the Commission, Temu has confirmed that it has more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, the threshold for being considered a VLOP. That means it’ll have to comply with the strictest rules under the DSA, particularly around assessing “systemic risks” associated with its services, such as counterfeit goods, illegal products, and items that infringe on intellectual property rights./news/terry-crews-will-give-you-directions-on-waze-but-won-t-sing-you-a-thousand-miles.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/terry-crews-will-give-you-directions-on-waze-but-won-t-sing-you-a-thousand-miles.htmlGoogle-owned traffic navigation app Waze will soon allow users to be serenaded by the voice of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Terry Crews, according to Variety. Best known for his role in White Chicks, the actor joins comedian Kevin Hart as the program's second celebrity voice. To utilize Crews' vocal talents, users will need to first update their Waze app before going to Settings, Sound, and then selecting "English US – Terry Crews" as their desired language./news/tesla-battery-material-supplier-tops-list-of-human-rights-abuses-for-second-year-in-a-row.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-battery-material-supplier-tops-list-of-human-rights-abuses-for-second-year-in-a-row.htmlTesla buys battery materials from the mining giant with the most allegations of human rights abuses against it in a database of abuses tied to clean energy. Mining company Glencore has racked up at least 70 allegations since 2010, including accusations of corruption and poor working conditions, according to the nonprofit Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Both Tesla and Glencore say they take measures to address harms caused by mining operations./news/the-alienware-area-51m-is-a-full-fledged-desktop-disguised-as-a-laptop.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-alienware-area-51m-is-a-full-fledged-desktop-disguised-as-a-laptop.htmlAlienware needed to fix the gaming laptop. Today’s laptops aren’t broken, per se — they’re thinner, lighter, and more powerful than ever before. But as gaming desktops have become increasingly bombastic and over-the-top, most mobile machines are focusing on the “laptop” side of things over the “gaming” part. So what would it look like if you built a gaming laptop in 2019, one that could not only compete with its desktop counterparts but replace them entirely?/news/the-beautiful-limited-edition-new-3ds-xls-you-ll-probably-never-own.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-beautiful-limited-edition-new-3ds-xls-you-ll-probably-never-own.htmlIf you're in New York City, it seems you're in a pickle. GameStop's product map shows low inventory in a store in New Jersey and another near Philadelphia. Amazon has three left in stock, but you'll have to pay $550. It normally sells for $199. Not all hope is lost, especially if you're a fan of Monster Hunter. But while it's unlikely everyone will who wants the Majora's Mask New 3DS XL, will get it, they will at the very least have this collection of New 3DS glamor shots./news/the-best-free-apps-for-video-conferencing-in-2022.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-free-apps-for-video-conferencing-in-2022.htmlWhile many companies are encouraging their employees to return to the office, working remotely (when possible) seems to have caught on and is probably not going anywhere in the near future. Many of us are still using videoconferencing apps to keep in touch with work colleagues, family, and friends. Zoom continues to top the list of these meeting apps, but there are a bunch of other free applications out there that will allow you to meet others online./news/the-best-psp-game-ever-is-coming-to-phones-this-summer.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-psp-game-ever-is-coming-to-phones-this-summer.htmlThe running joke back in 2005 when the PSP came out went something like this: "you've bought the most powerful video game console ever created, and you're playing a 2D Tetris rip-off?!" Yet Q Entertainment's Lumines was the perfect fit for a platform that Sony envisaged as a 21st century Walkman, mixing hypnotic music with stylish widescreen visuals. It helped that the game's minimalist two-color system and looping structure made it destructively addictive./news/the-epic-games-store-still-isn-t-profitable.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-epic-games-store-still-isn-t-profitable.htmlThe Epic Games Store still isn’t profitable. We knew the company was spending millions to give away free games every week, but we’d heard it was a bit of a money sink despite not actually paying for each and every copy given away. In case you’re keeping track, Epic Games Store boss Steve Allison says on the witness stand his store isn’t profitable yet. The goal is still growth, he says./news/the-founder-of-lidar-maker-velodyne-is-going-to-war-with-his-own-spac.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-founder-of-lidar-maker-velodyne-is-going-to-war-with-his-own-spac.htmlDavid Hall, the founder of leading lidar manufacturer Velodyne, is going to war with the SPAC that acquired his company. In a letter, Hall is calling for the resignation of two of the company’s SPAC-appointed board directors, whom he blames for Velodyne’s “poor financial performance.” It’s the latest twist in the increasingly dramatic saga of Velodyne, a top maker of the laser sensors that are viewed as crucial for the operation of autonomous vehicles./news/the-genki-covert-dock-mini-makes-packing-the-nintendo-switch-a-cinch.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-genki-covert-dock-mini-makes-packing-the-nintendo-switch-a-cinch.htmlFriday afternoons growing up meant a trip to the video store. It was an utter thrill, like a little weekly Christmas, where my mom would turn my sister and me loose among the laminated, empty VHS boxes to pick out something to rent for the weekend. And as a rare treat, she would sometimes relent to our whining and let us take home the Holy Grail of rentals: a Sega console./news/the-hummer-ev-s-battery-weighs-more-than-a-honda-civic.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-hummer-ev-s-battery-weighs-more-than-a-honda-civic.htmlWe always knew that when General Motors decided to resurrect the Hummer brand as an electric truck, we were still going to get something excessively massive, as per its namesake. But I don’t think we were adequately prepared for the amount of truck bloat encapsulated in the Hummer EV. According to test data filed by GM with the Environmental Protection Agency — which was first spotted by Car & Driver — the GMC Hummer EV clocks in at an eye-watering 9,063 lbs./news/the-iphone-15-pro-version-of-the-resident-evil-4-remake-will-cost-60.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-iphone-15-pro-version-of-the-resident-evil-4-remake-will-cost-60.htmlIf you’re looking to grab the recently announced iPhone 15 Pro version of the Resident Evil 4 remake, you’ll be paying full console game prices. According to information nestled away in the Resident Evil 4 App Store listing, the base game will cost $59.99 when it’s released later this year — the same launch price as its PS5 and Xbox series S / X debut in March. An extra DLC pack is available for $19./news/the-messy-story-of-the-bleach-voice-acting-controversy-explained.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-messy-story-of-the-bleach-voice-acting-controversy-explained.htmlAs Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, a continuation of the popular Bleach anime — one of the “Big Three” of shonen anime series — continues its run, viewers were excited to see fan-favorite character Yoruichi make her first appearance in the show. But that excitement soured as fans and voice actors argued on social media over who has the “right” to voice a character of color, invoking the specter of racism versus nostalgia in voice casting./news/the-razer-kishi-v2-is-now-compatible-with-touchscreen-only-games.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-razer-kishi-v2-is-now-compatible-with-touchscreen-only-games.htmlThanks to a recent firmware update to Razer’s Kishi V2 mobile gaming controller and the Razer Nexus app, the controller can now support games that were previously touchscreen-only on Android. There is currently no firm launch window for a similar rollout for iOS devices, but the Virtual Controller Mode is slated to come to Razer’s Edge tablet controller sometime in Q1 2023. The Virtual Controller Mode allows you to reposition and remap touchscreen controls./news/the-second-avenue-subway-is-finally-open-and-people-are-flipping-out.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-second-avenue-subway-is-finally-open-and-people-are-flipping-out.htmlPassengers riding the New York City subway frequently encounter delays of 15 minutes or longer. It’s just something commuters come to expect when riding the nation’s largest, most overcrowded transit system. But waiting for a train for almost 100 years? Not a typical experience, unless the train you’re waiting for is the Second Avenue Subway. Knowing the Second Avenue Subway’s full story can help explain why people were flipping out with excitement when the long-delayed line finally opened to the public on January 1st./news/the-senate-will-hold-a-hearing-next-month-on-facebook-s-libra-currency.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-senate-will-hold-a-hearing-next-month-on-facebook-s-libra-currency.htmlOn Wednesday, the Senate Banking Committee announced it will be holding a hearing next month to question witnesses over Facebook’s new cryptocurrency initiative, Libra. The hearing, entitled “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy Considerations,” is set for July 16th at 10AM ET. The plans come shortly after Facebook formally announced its new cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem, Libra. Facebook’s plan was met with harsh criticism from lawmakers, as well as calls for investigation into the potential consumer risks./news/the-star-wars-kotor-ii-restored-content-dlc-for-the-nintendo-switch-has-been-canceled.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-star-wars-kotor-ii-restored-content-dlc-for-the-nintendo-switch-has-been-canceled.htmlThe Nintendo Switch port of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II is not getting the free Restored Content DLC that developer Aspyr Media promised at launch, the company announced late yesterday on Twitter. Instead, the studio is offering a consolation prize of free Star Wars game keys for anyone who has bought the game, which Aspyr says can be done through its support page (though it doesn’t specify how)./news/the-widgets-you-need-to-use-in-ios-17-and-ipad-os-17.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-widgets-you-need-to-use-in-ios-17-and-ipad-os-17.htmlHi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 7, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, first of all, hi, hello, welcome, and second of all, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)  This week, I’ve been reading about the AI writing lives of real writers, rewatching the John Wick movies to prepare for The Continental, shopping for StandBy-capable iPhone docks, getting back into VR exercise with Supernatural boxing, and really, really, really hoping Microsoft’s controller-first vision for the future of gaming comes true soon./news/the-xbox-design-lab-is-getting-even-louder.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-xbox-design-lab-is-getting-even-louder.htmlXbox is announcing a host of planned improvements to its hardware and services today. In addition to cloud gaming improvements and new supported platforms for the Xbox app, it was announced that Xbox will expand its Design Lab store with even more customization options. This includes new pastel colors — soft pink, orange, green, and purple — as well as new Camo Top cases with matching side caps — Mineral Camo, Arctic Camo, Forest Camo, Sandglow Camo, and Blaze Camo./news/there-s-an-astronaut-in-a-gorilla-suit-floating-around-the-iss.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/there-s-an-astronaut-in-a-gorilla-suit-floating-around-the-iss.htmlGetting cargo to the International Space Station is expensive and difficult — that's a huge part of why there's been so much buzz over commercial space flight operations like SpaceX. So if I were an astronaut living on board the ISS, I'd like to think I would pick my personal possessions very carefully, because I imagine the habitat is cramped and it might be a long time before I could get anything sent up again./news/there-s-now-a-nasa-gif-for-every-feel-you-ever-have.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/there-s-now-a-nasa-gif-for-every-feel-you-ever-have.htmlThis week, NASA continued its spread into the social media sphere by announcing two new accounts — one on Giphy and one on Pinterest. Seeing as how I had forgotten of Pinterest’s existence, half of this announcement matters very little to me. But the other half is very critical to my interests! It’s a brilliant move on NASA’s part, because sometimes astronauts, rockets, and artistic renderings of space are the only ways to truly express your feels./news/this-giant-next-generation-satellite-is-now-one-of-the-brightest-objects-in-the-night-sky.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-giant-next-generation-satellite-is-now-one-of-the-brightest-objects-in-the-night-sky.htmlThe enormous, next-generation communications satellite BlueWalker 3 has become one of the brightest objects visible in the night sky, according to new research published today in the journal Nature. While BlueWalker 3 is groundbreaking for its ability to essentially turn ordinary smartphones into satellite phones, it might also usher in a new generation of satellites that create way more light pollution than their older, smaller predecessors. Rapidly growing mega-constellations of internet satellites are already mucking up researchers’ observations of worlds beyond Earth./news/this-jigglypuff-bluetooth-speaker-could-be-a-sleeper-hit.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-jigglypuff-bluetooth-speaker-could-be-a-sleeper-hit.htmlFilings for a Bluetooth speaker that looks like Jigglypuff made by GameStop’s ThinkGeek brand have been published by the Federal Communications Commission. That means that if you’ve ever wanted a real-life Jigglypuff to sing you to sleep, you might be able to make that dream a reality sometime soon. It’s cute! I was especially charmed seeing photos of the Jigglypuff speaker in the lab, like the one at the top of this post and a couple more I found in the filings./news/this-ransomware-may-have-stolen-christmas-in-cities-states-and-companies-across-the-us.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-ransomware-may-have-stolen-christmas-in-cities-states-and-companies-across-the-us.htmlA ransomware attack is disrupting operations at many major companies, and some workers are concerned that it could affect their last paychecks before the holidays — because their payroll provider, Kronos, is the one that’s dealing with the ransom. The incident has left entire cities and states trying to come up with a plan to get paychecks out to their workers, and could affect HR operations at organizations like New York City’s Metro Transit Authority, Honda, GameStop, and more./news/this-untitled-goose-game-app-turns-your-windows-pc-into-pure-mayhem.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-untitled-goose-game-app-turns-your-windows-pc-into-pure-mayhem.html“What if the Untitled Goose Game was your entire computer?” asked nobody but Sam Chiet until this week. 18-year-old Chiet has created an app for Windows PCs that spawns a virtual goose to cause mayhem on your desktop. Much like the game, this goose is annoying and will spread virtual mud all over your screen while honking profusely. It also drags memes or cartoons above your apps, but don’t dare try to close them otherwise this wild fowl will grab hold of your mouse pointer and mess with you./news/tomtom-is-now-making-maps-for-autonomous-vehicles.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tomtom-is-now-making-maps-for-autonomous-vehicles.htmlAutonomous vehicles are going to need detailed maps of the world if they want to carefully get around, and TomTom wants to be one of the companies to provide those. It's starting to work with auto parts maker Bosch to develop road maps for self-driving vehicles. By the end of the year, TomTom wants to cover "all freeways and freeway-like roads in Germany," before eventually expanding to Europe and North America./news/tovala-launches-a-lighter-redesigned-second-generation-smart-oven.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tovala-launches-a-lighter-redesigned-second-generation-smart-oven.htmlTovala announced the second version of its eponymous oven today, featuring a complete redesign and a new version of its meal’s packaging. Like the original, the updated Tovala oven steams, bakes, toasts, and broils food, and while it can cook whatever you put inside, the company would recommend users subscribe to its $12 proprietary meal service The oven looks different, but the really big change is the introduction of three sets of physical controls: the top is for choosing the baking mode or seeing what step the meal is on; the middle tells you the temperature the oven is at and allows you to preset it; and the bottom tells the time left for cooking./news/toys-r-us-black-friday-deals.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/toys-r-us-black-friday-deals.htmlToys R Us has announced a Black Friday slate of discounts and deals for kids of all ages, with most stores actually opening Thanksgiving night to get the ball rolling early. If you're not able to rouse yourself from your post-feast slumber, fret not, as most deals will also be available online. Read on to see what you'll find! Most locations will be opening at 9pm on Thursday night, with the sale running through Saturday — but you might want to check the hours of your local store before heading out into the holiday rush./news/transformers-one-trailer-turns-cyberton-s-greatest-warriors-into-teens.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/transformers-one-trailer-turns-cyberton-s-greatest-warriors-into-teens.htmlParamount’s live-action Transformers movies have always made its alien robots seem like they were born ready for battle and knowing how to navigate the world, but the first trailer for director Josh Cooley’s Transformers One animated prequel reveals that to be anything but the case. Set in the distant past on the Cybertronian homeworld, Transformers One tells the story of how Orion Pax / Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 / Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) went from being best friends to mortal enemies soon after discovering their powers to turn into various kinds of vehicles./news/truth-lies-and-hair-products.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/truth-lies-and-hair-products.htmlFor a quarter of a century, I willfully deceived myself into believing that hair care was simple. I’d used the same Pantene 2-in-1 for a decade, didn’t own a blow dryer, and until two months ago thought Drybar — a fancy salon that does "blowouts" — was a place that sold Dippin’ Dots-like ice cream. I also didn’t know what a blowout was anyway. Then I succumbed to vanity and, inspired by the rising number of women going platinum, dyed my pixie cut blond./news/twitter-is-letting-anyone-apply-for-verification-for-the-first-time-since-2017.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-is-letting-anyone-apply-for-verification-for-the-first-time-since-2017.htmlTwitter is relaunching its public verification program, allowing anyone to apply for a coveted blue check mark. The company also previewed potential changes coming to profiles and the upcoming label for automated accounts. To make the grade for verification, users will have to meet Twitter’s revamped verification criteria, which includes having an account of public interest that falls under one of six different types of categorizations as well as being “authentic, notable, and active./news/twitter-wants-you-to-stop-saying-twitter-eggs.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-wants-you-to-stop-saying-twitter-eggs.htmlTwitter has changed the default profile picture for new accounts from an egg on one of seven different background colors to what they described to Fast Company as a “gumdrop-headed human.” They claim the human is genderless, and that is technically true, but society insists that the default gender is male and for my purposes right now in this blog (and at no other time) — so do I. Twitter product designer Jeremy Reiss told Fast Company that the goal of the design was to reflect a collection of words./news/twitter-s-new-beta-app-offers-threaded-replies-and-it-s-fine.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-s-new-beta-app-offers-threaded-replies-and-it-s-fine.htmlIn October, The Verge reported on new conversational features Twitter was testing in an effort to promote friendlier interactions on the often hostile site. Some of those features are now becoming more widely available — but only within twttr, a new public beta app that the company is using to test new features with the wider public. The Verge got access to twttr on Tuesday, and spent the past few hours reading and posting replies using the app’s new threading features./news/twitter-s-new-ceo-is-linda-yaccarino.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-s-new-ceo-is-linda-yaccarino.htmlTwitter has a new CEO, and it’s former NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino. Elon Musk announced her appointment in a tweet, saying she “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.” “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk writes. “Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app.” Yaccarino previously worked as chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU, where she has been since 2011./news/uk-man-arrested-for-posting-anti-muslim-tweets-after-brussels-attacks.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/uk-man-arrested-for-posting-anti-muslim-tweets-after-brussels-attacks.htmlA man in the UK has been arrested on charges of inciting racial hatred on social media, after he tweeted about asking a Muslim woman to "explain" the terror attacks in Brussels. As The Guardian reports, London's Metropolitan Police on Wednesday arrested a 46-year-old man believed to be Matthew Doyle, a partner at a London PR agency. Earlier Wednesday, Doyle tweeted: "I confronted a Muslim women [sic] yesterday in Croydon. I asked her to explain Brussels./news/vampire-survivors-is-being-turned-into-a-tv-show.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vampire-survivors-is-being-turned-into-a-tv-show.htmlVampire Survivors, one of the breakout games of 2022, is being turned into an animated television show. The show seems to be very early in production (it doesn’t yet have a writer and will be shopped around, Deadline reports), but I’m intrigued to see how the game will be adapted into a TV series. There’s no real plot in Vampire Survivors. The point of the game is to live for as long as you can against increasingly large waves of monsters while leveling up various weapons and items until you become so outrageously powerful that you can walk away from the game and still survive./news/vanmoof-s4-e-bike-review-the-one-to-buy.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vanmoof-s4-e-bike-review-the-one-to-buy.htmlWell, this is a surprise. Despite saying they’d be skipping straight from the 3-series to the 5-series of electric bikes, VanMoof just announced two new e-bikes — the full-size S4 and smaller X4 — days after its $4,000 S5 and A5 e-bikes started shipping. At $2,498 / £2,198 / €2,198 the S4 and X4 models are not only priced to compete, they should also require fewer support calls since there’s a lot less that can go wrong./news/watch-woman-yell-bear-don-t-eat-my-kayak-as-bear-eats-kayak.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-woman-yell-bear-don-t-eat-my-kayak-as-bear-eats-kayak.html"Please stop breaking my things!" she pleads, switching tactics with the bear as it openly defies her increasingly desperate orders. "It's not even food! It doesn't even taste good!" The situation looks dire for Maley, but even with a slavering bear at her front door, she's never once tempted to use any bad words. "Oh gosh darn it!" she screams, the beast destroying her link with civilization. Maley, who the Alaska Daily News reports was on a 107-mile kayak journey from Ketchikan to Petersburg in the southern tip of the state, says she was forced to swim out to a nearby sailing boat, hitching a ride back to the city of Wrangell to repair her damaged vessel./news/westeros-deserves-a-much-better-hero-than-jon-snow.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/westeros-deserves-a-much-better-hero-than-jon-snow.htmlAt this point, we’re halfway through the final season of Game of Thrones, and two things have become excessively clear. One, Jon Snow is the protagonist of this show now. Two, Jon Snow sucks. Where has Jon Snow ever actually succeeded on Game of Thrones? Spoilers below for all of Game of Thrones, including season 8. Both as a leader and as a protagonist, as one of the series’s primary load-bearing characters, Jon is one of the most ineffectual people on the entire show./news/world-of-horror-is-a-creepy-retro-and-completely-hypnotic-horror-game.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/world-of-horror-is-a-creepy-retro-and-completely-hypnotic-horror-game.htmlLittle is more terrifying than the unknown and the inevitable. The combination permeates the work of horror authors H.P. Lovecraft and Junji Ito, whose characters are driven to invariably horrible ends by mystifying forces, whether they’re an alien meteor or a rock full of human-shaped holes. World of Horror, a “1-bit horror game” that enters Steam Early Access tomorrow, blends nods to Ito and Lovecraft with the look of a 1980s HyperCard game./news/x-rolls-out-audio-and-video-calling-to-android-users.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/x-rolls-out-audio-and-video-calling-to-android-users.htmlX (formerly Twitter) is now rolling out its audio and video calling capabilities to Android users following their iOS launch last October. Users may need to update the app to see the feature, according to X developer Enrique Barragan, who also says that any user can receive calls, but only X Premium subscribers can place them. It’s unclear how long the rollout will take to reach all Android users, though we’ve confirmed that at least one of The Verge’s Android devices is showing the feature after the X app was updated./news/xiaomi-s-latest-foldable-is-durable-enough-to-survive-half-a-million-folds.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xiaomi-s-latest-foldable-is-durable-enough-to-survive-half-a-million-folds.htmlXiaomi has announced a new foldable for Chinese users to consider buying — and for the rest of the world to stare at wistfully from afar. The Mix Fold 3 is going on sale this week starting on August 16th, and based on Xiaomi’s approach with its Mi Mix Fold and Mix Fold 2, we won’t be holding our collective breath for an international release. The Mix Fold 3’s most eye-catching spec is perhaps the number of folding cycles it’s rated to withstand, which stands at 500,000, according to a certification from TÜV Rheinland./news/yale-smart-delivery-box-review-doesn-t-solve-the-porch-pirate-problem.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/yale-smart-delivery-box-review-doesn-t-solve-the-porch-pirate-problem.htmlYale’s Smart Delivery Box, which was first announced at CES earlier this year, is now available for purchase. The box, which is designed to sit on your porch as a safe place for packages to wait for you until you retrieve them, is available in two different designs ranging in price from $229.99 to $329.99, depending on whether you want Yale’s smart keypad. The idea behind the box is to prevent theft — the dreaded porch pirate — or to prevent damage to your deliveries from rain, snow, or other inclement weather./news/youtube-tv-offering-hbo-max-showtime-and-starz-for-5-less-in-new-bundle.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-tv-offering-hbo-max-showtime-and-starz-for-5-less-in-new-bundle.htmlFor YouTube TV customers who subscribe individually to HBO Max, Showtime, and Starz, the company is rolling out a new entertainment bundle that will save people $5. The optional package is $30 a month. Individually, HBO Max costs $15 a month, Showtime is $11 a month, and Starz is $9 a month, meaning customers who subscribe to all three spend $35 a month through the individual subscription plans. YouTube TV has steadily added more premium channels over the last couple of years, including inking a deal with WarnerMedia for HBO Max in February 2020./news/yuri-on-ice-everything-you-re-too-embarrassed-to-ask.htmlSun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/yuri-on-ice-everything-you-re-too-embarrassed-to-ask.htmlI never expected to love a show about men’s figure skating, but anime has proven me wrong. Yuri on Ice (stylized as Yuri!!! On Ice) debuted this year online to instant love and praise in social spaces like Twitter and Tumblr. The 12-episode sports anime, directed by Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine’s Sayo Yamamoto and written by Mitsurō Kubo, is an intimate look into the lives of international figure skaters./news/hands-on-with-facebook-m-the-virtual-assistant-with-a-real-human-touch.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hands-on-with-facebook-m-the-virtual-assistant-with-a-real-human-touch.htmlThere’s something eerie about realizing you live in a time people once considered a sci-fi fantasy. In Spike Jonze’s Her, Joaquin Phoenix's character uses an artificial intelligence-powered operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. He can ask her to oversee his calendar, play music to match his mood, and essentially manage his life. Of course, he eventually falls in love with her (it?). Facebook M, the social network’s text-based virtual assistant, is only in its infancy, but I couldn’t help feeling like Her’s Theodore Twombly when I had it order me a sausage breakfast burrito./news/xbox-on-voice-command-powers-up-console-faster-than-you-can-find-your-controller.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-on-voice-command-powers-up-console-faster-than-you-can-find-your-controller.htmlSome Xbox One pre-orders arrived early and revealed a 17-second boot time, but Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb’s most recent video shows a boot time of 13 seconds using voice activation. It’s not clear if this is a cold boot or whether it’s simply using Xbox One's standby-and-resume feature. Either way, Kinect will detect the player immediately and sign them into their relevant Xbox Live account "faster than you can find your controller./news/horse-ebooks-is-a-human-performance.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/horse-ebooks-is-a-human-performance.html@Horse_ebooks, the Twitter account that was until now largely thought to be a spambot, is in fact controlled by real people. And in an even more surprising twist, its random bits of text and phrases are meant to be part of a "conceptual art installation." The New Yorker today has the full story on one of the web's most bizarre mysteries. @Horse_ebooks, along with the popular YouTube channel Pronunciation Book, are the work of Jacob Bakkila and Thomas Bender./news/a-better-all-in-one-ai-app-is-finally-here.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-better-all-in-one-ai-app-is-finally-here.htmlHi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 20, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, welcome, hi, what’s up, how are you, welcome to the gang, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)  It’s our first issue of 2024, a number that still feels deeply strange to type — hope you had a good holiday and a nice break!/news/a-new-dating-app-mashes-up-hq-trivia-with-tinder.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-new-dating-app-mashes-up-hq-trivia-with-tinder.htmlA new app’s creators think they know the key to dating success: a trivia-oriented game show where the questions revolve around a bachelorette. It’s a unique idea, for sure, albeit one that I can’t imagine having wide appeal. The game, called Quiz Date Live, comes from a company called East Meets East, which has raised $4 million in funding to get its iOS show off the ground. The team plans to monetize in a way similar to the mobile HQ game show by giving users the option to purchase extra lives./news/a-streamer-is-staying-live-for-as-long-as-people-keep-subscribing.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-streamer-is-staying-live-for-as-long-as-people-keep-subscribing.htmlTwitch streamer Ludwig Ahgren has been live since March 14th, and today marked the fourth continuous day of his broadcast. The reason? Every time someone subscribes to his channel, it adds 10 seconds to the amount of time he plans to remain live. In other words: Ahgren is running an uncapped subathon because he’ll stay up as long as viewers keep subscribing. Since he’s one of the most popular streamers on Twitch — with 1./news/acer-chromebook-spin-513-review-a-chip-off-a-new-block.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/acer-chromebook-spin-513-review-a-chip-off-a-new-block.htmlThe $399.99 Acer Chromebook Spin 513 (currently listed at $349) is one of the very first Snapdragon-powered Chromebooks to hit the market. Specifically, it’s powered by the Snapdragon 7c Compute SC7180, the type of chip you’d generally expect to see in a tablet or phone. Just from seeing that name, some readers can probably predict exactly what this device is going to be: a lightweight, mediocre performer with excellent battery life./news/adobe-s-new-firefly-model-makes-it-easier-to-use-photoshop-s-ai-tools.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/adobe-s-new-firefly-model-makes-it-easier-to-use-photoshop-s-ai-tools.htmlAdobe is adding some new generative AI tools to its Photoshop creative software that aim to give users additional ways to control the designs they generate. Powered by Adobe’s new Firefly Image 3 foundation model, these new tools are available today via the Photoshop beta desktop app, and will be generally available “later this year” according to Adobe’s Press release. The most notable tool is Reference Image, which uses user-uploaded images to inspire the output generated by Adobe’s AI, matching similar elements in style and color./news/alexa-hunches-can-now-suggest-actions-based-on-daily-behavior.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alexa-hunches-can-now-suggest-actions-based-on-daily-behavior.htmlAmazon is now launching Alexa Hunches, where the voice assistant will predict your future needs. It uses deep neural networks to understand behavior and Alexa Hunches is first going to focus on the smart home. How it works is that Alexa will feel like it’s getting a “hunch” and if it’s confident enough, it will say something like, “Hey, I think you left the porch light on, would you like me to turn it off?/news/amazon-adds-50-electric-trucks-to-its-delivery-fleet-in-a-bid-to-reduce-pollution.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-adds-50-electric-trucks-to-its-delivery-fleet-in-a-bid-to-reduce-pollution.htmlAmazon is deploying 50 battery-electric heavy-duty trucks in California, which it claims is the largest such fleet in the country. The company says the new trucks represent an important step in its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations — even as its carbon emissions have spiked in recent years. Amazon says the trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, in which goods are moved from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, in which packages are transported from fulfillment centers to delivery centers./news/amazon-halo-view-review-the-fitbit-clone-no-one-asked-for.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-halo-view-review-the-fitbit-clone-no-one-asked-for.htmlThe Amazon Halo View looks like a Fitbit and acts like a Fitbit, and if that’s all it did, that would’ve been fine. But despite all appearances, this is not a Fitbit. To stand apart from the crowd, Amazon added a few exclusive features to its Halo platform with some admittedly impressive technology. However, instead of a straightforward, budget fitness tracker, Amazon created a baffling device that doesn’t quite know what it’s supposed to be./news/amazon-kindle-cloud-reader-debuts-for-safari-and-chrome-optimized-for-ipad.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-kindle-cloud-reader-debuts-for-safari-and-chrome-optimized-for-ipad.htmlIt's happened to all of us at some point: a violent accident or catastrophe separates you from your PC, smartphone, and Kindle e-reader just as you're about to find out what really happened between Karrine Steffans and P. Diddy. All you have is a Chromebook, a reliable internet connection, and an insatiable hunger for Hollywood gossip. What do you do? Well, as of this morning, you turn to the Kindle Cloud Reader./news/amazon-renews-the-expanse-for-a-sixth-and-final-season.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-renews-the-expanse-for-a-sixth-and-final-season.htmlThe Expanse will come to a (second) end after its sixth season, Amazon Studios announced today. The news arrives ahead of the show’s fifth season premiere. Amazon first picked up The Expanse when it was canceled by SyFy in 2018, bringing the show to its Amazon Prime Video streaming service for a fourth season. The season became the seventh most in-demand title in the United States, according to Business Insider, likely helping Amazon Studios executives’ decision to renew for a fifth season./news/amd-releases-the-opteron-6200-the-first-ever-16-core-x86-cpu.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amd-releases-the-opteron-6200-the-first-ever-16-core-x86-cpu.htmlAfter a long wait, AMD is finally making its high-end Bulldozer Opteron CPUs available. The 6200 (Interlagos) brings a world first to the table, with 16 cores and four memory channels, while the 4200 (Valencia) chip offers eight cores with two memory channels. Both come clocked at speeds of up to 3.3GHz, with an additional 1GHz Turbo Boost available on some models. You could use these chips to bask in Battlefield 3's ultra settings, but the Opterons are the kind of CPU that are more likely to be powering supercomputers at the US Department of Defense./news/america-s-typical-heroin-user-is-now-a-white-woman-in-the-suburbs.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/america-s-typical-heroin-user-is-now-a-white-woman-in-the-suburbs.htmlContrary to what researchers reported 50 years ago, today's average first-time heroin user isn't a 16-year-old male of color. She's actually much more likely to be a 23-year-old white woman. This, researchers conclude in a study published today in JAMA Psychiatry, represents "a marked shift in the demographics of heroin users seeking treatment over the past several decades." 52 percent of users who seek treatment are women According to the study, caucasian women and men have embraced prescription pills as their drug of choice./news/ampler-curt-e-bike-review-electric-doesn-t-have-to-mean-big-and-ugly.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ampler-curt-e-bike-review-electric-doesn-t-have-to-mean-big-and-ugly.htmlBuying an electric commuter bicycle is expensive. The best ones usually start around $2,500, but can quickly approach the price (and weight) of a small car. That’s a lot of money to entrust with a bicycle upstart like Ampler, a company that hails from Tallinn, a capital city of a country I once had to Google. Can an obscure company started by three childhood friends with its origins in crowdfunding really make a bicycle worthy of all that cash?/news/anker-s-qi2-wireless-chargers-will-fast-charge-iphone-13-14-and-15-at-15w.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/anker-s-qi2-wireless-chargers-will-fast-charge-iphone-13-14-and-15-at-15w.htmlApple has not responded to a request for comment, but presumably, this support will extend to all Qi2 chargers. The only problem left is that there are no certified products available for purchase yet, despite companies like Anker, Belkin, and Mophie announcing Qi2-compatible hardware a few months ago. However, even if the products aren’t named yet, Paul Golden of the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC, which manages the Qi2 spec) tells The Verge that six brands of transmitters have already been certified, from Belkin, Anker, BH-EVS, Shenzhen Chipvision Microelectronics, NuVolta, and Dongguan Aohai Technology./news/appeals-court-blasts-peta-for-using-selfie-monkey-as-an-unwitting-pawn.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/appeals-court-blasts-peta-for-using-selfie-monkey-as-an-unwitting-pawn.htmlOn Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a copyright lawsuit brought by a selfie-taking monkey. The parties in Naruto v. Slater settled last September, but the appellate court refused to grant their joint motion to dismiss, imposing this decision against their respective wills, for no apparent reason other than to repeatedly dunk on People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). “How do we prevent people (or organizations, like PETA) from using animals to advance their human agendas?/news/apple-arcade-finally-got-the-boost-it-needed.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-arcade-finally-got-the-boost-it-needed.htmlLast week, Apple Arcade received its biggest update since launching back in 2019. More than 30 titles were added to the subscription service, including much-anticipated games like Hironobu Sakaguchi’s roleplaying epic Fantasian. But while the quantity and quality of titles added were impressive, the most important part of the announcement was a change in direction. Among those big-name exclusives were a number of classics, ranging from Monument Valley to chess to Threes, that help round out the service./news/apple-considering-a-large-new-data-center-in-oregon.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-considering-a-large-new-data-center-in-oregon.htmlApple's major push into the cloud was accompanied by the launch of a massive $1 billion data center in North Carolina in 2010, and now it's looking to build a new server warehouse in Prineville, Oregon, according to The Oregonian. If Apple does go forward with the plans, it won't be a huge surprise given the scale of iCloud; the service allows users to store up to 5GB of data from a variety of Apple services and have that content sync with all of their Apple / iOS devices wirelessly./news/apple-ios-16-review-unlocking-the-lock-screen.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-ios-16-review-unlocking-the-lock-screen.htmlThe story of iOS 16 is all the things that your phone does when you’re not using it. Apple has been saying for years that we need a reset in our relationship with technology and that picking up our phones hundreds of times a day is not the right outcome. Apple, of course, is probably the company most to blame for that problem. And so, part of the idea with its new smartphone software is that there might be ways for your smartphone to be useful without you having to use it so much./news/apple-ipod-nano-review-2012.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-ipod-nano-review-2012.htmlHere’s the thing: you can’t really write a review of the new iPod nano. What is there to say? It is a small slab of aluminum with a multitouch screen that plays music files exactly as well as every iPod before it. That is to say, it plays MP3 and AAC files extremely well. It also does a handful of other things, but all of them are secondary to playing back MP3 and AAC files, which, as I’ve mentioned, the iPod nano does really well./news/apple-music-replay-is-back-and-it-s-still-mostly-a-web-experience.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-music-replay-is-back-and-it-s-still-mostly-a-web-experience.htmlApple Music Replay has arrived. The year-end summary of your most-listened-to songs, artists, albums, and more is now available from Apple Music’s webpage — just days before Spotify is expected to drop its Wrapped stats. While Apple launched Replay in 2019, it gave the feature a major update last year that makes it a lot more like Spotify Wrapped. But unlike Wrapped, which offers a set of super shareable charts, the stats presented in Apple Music Replay just aren’t as attractive to post online, and they’re not directly available within the Apple Music app./news/apple-won-t-wait-until-next-year-for-some-ios-18-siri-improvements.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-won-t-wait-until-next-year-for-some-ios-18-siri-improvements.htmlSiri may do more than make the edges of your iPhone a glowy rainbow when iOS 18 drops this fall. Apple Intelligence features won’t be out until 2025 for anyone not testing them in beta this year, but reports suggest that Siri itself will still get natural language updates and other key features before the year is out. Apple could offer instructions for how to do things in iOS this year./news/apple-s-iphone-se-is-the-nail-in-the-mmwave-5g-coffin.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-iphone-se-is-the-nail-in-the-mmwave-5g-coffin.htmlWhen I rejoined The Verge in 2018, my first big assignment looked like an absolute peach — fly to the gorgeous Hawaiian island of Maui, sip cool drinks on the sand (The Verge paid for my trip; we don’t accept junkets), and become one of the first journalists to experience blazing 5G speeds at a Qualcomm event. Instead, I found myself exposing a lie. The first real-world 5G test turned out to be a dud, the speeds misleading at best, covering up the fact Verizon and AT&T’s millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G wasn’t ready./news/apple-s-last-gen-ipad-pro-with-lte-is-more-affordable-than-ever-at-b-h-photo.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-last-gen-ipad-pro-with-lte-is-more-affordable-than-ever-at-b-h-photo.htmlIf you’re looking to upgrade your iPad but don’t necessarily need the latest or most powerful version of the iPad Pro, you can save a lot of money on the previous generation of the iPad Pro from 2018 for a limited time. It’s steeply discounted, and what’s better, this model includes support for 4G LTE in addition to Wi-Fi, which is handy if you’re on the go and want to stick a SIM card into it./news/arms-review-is-nintendo-s-new-fighting-game-for-you.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/arms-review-is-nintendo-s-new-fighting-game-for-you.htmlNintendo’s latest venture is something of a hybrid game. Called Arms, it stars a cast of near-future fighters with Slinkies for arms, who duel in stadium-like arenas packed with adoring crowds. It’s a fighting game, yes, but it’s not exactly a traditional one like Street Fighter or Tekken. At the same time, it’s also not as immediately intuitive in the way that boxing in Wii Sports was. It straddles the line between depth and accessibility, and that can make it unclear who the target audience of Arms actually is./news/assassin-s-creed-odyssey-is-getting-a-story-creator-mode-and-it-s-out-now.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/assassin-s-creed-odyssey-is-getting-a-story-creator-mode-and-it-s-out-now.htmlAssassin’s Creed Odyssey is getting a story creator mode, allowing players to create their own quests and share them with other players. The mode uses a web-based tool to create narrative-driven quests, according to a Ubisoft blog posted ahead of the company’s E3 presentation. There are six different quest objectives for players, including “assassination, rescue, or visiting a specific place,” according to the blog. Once the objective is chosen, people can create their own unique dialogue and path options./news/asus-proart-cinema-pq07-135-inch-microled-display-hands-on.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-proart-cinema-pq07-135-inch-microled-display-hands-on.htmlSo, look. I understand that Apple just put out some fancy ski goggles, and now everybody and their mother is proclaiming the end of the physical screen as we know it. But like that one guy at the back of your college seminar, I would like to offer a quick counterpoint. It’s called MicroLED. Specifically, I would like to discuss the Asus ProArt Cinema PQ07, a gadget that I spent far too long staring at in Asus’ show floor booth at Computex 2023./news/at-t-charges-more-for-fiber-internet-if-google-s-not-in-your-town.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/at-t-charges-more-for-fiber-internet-if-google-s-not-in-your-town.htmlThe same story seems to be true wherever you look. In Dallas, where AT&T's headquarters are located, the company charges the full $110. In North Carolina, AT&T launched its gigabit service at $120 a month, but when Google moved in, it dropped the price to $70. This is not to mention that it's also mandatory for AT&T users paying for the above mentioned gigabit speeds to sign up for "AT&T Internet Preferences"/news/avatar-frontiers-of-pandora-is-coming-out-later-this-year.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/avatar-frontiers-of-pandora-is-coming-out-later-this-year.htmlUbisoft’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a video game entry in James Cameron’s hit movie franchise, is coming out on December 7th, the company announced at its Ubisoft Forward event on Monday. In addition to some details on the game’s story, a new trailer showed some brief glimpses at the first-person action-adventure experience. In addition to exploring the colorful world of Pandora as a Na’vi, you’ll be doing some skydiving and, uh, shooting guns./news/axie-infinity-ronin-blockchain-reportedly-hacked-with-fake-job-offer.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/axie-infinity-ronin-blockchain-reportedly-hacked-with-fake-job-offer.htmlThe blockchain of high-profile crypto game Axie Infinity was reportedly hacked with an elaborate phishing scheme involving fake LinkedIn job offers. The Block reported the news today, citing two sources with knowledge of the incident. It revealed a new dimension to one of the biggest decentralized finance, or DeFi, hacks to date. According to The Block, hackers — identified by the US government as North Korean group Lazarus — targeted employees of Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis./news/battery-percentage-finally-returns-to-ios-16-and-it-s-hideous.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/battery-percentage-finally-returns-to-ios-16-and-it-s-hideous.htmlApple released the iOS 16 beta 5 today and with it comes the long-awaited return of battery percentage to the status bar. Unfortunately, it’s ugly as hell and unreadable to boot. Previously, battery percentage appeared to the left of the battery icon. However, Apple removed it starting with the iPhone X because there wasn’t enough space to cram it in thanks to the notch. To find out battery percentage, you currently have to swipe down to Control Center./news/beats-pill-review-much-easier-to-swallow-this-time.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/beats-pill-review-much-easier-to-swallow-this-time.htmlBeats has been out of the speaker game for a long time. Its last speaker, the Pill Plus, was discontinued in 2022 after being introduced years earlier. Since then, Beats’ parent company, Apple, has focused on home speakers like the HomePod and HomePod Mini, ceding the portable market to brands like Bose, Sony, JBL, Anker, and countless others. But now, after a not-at-all-subtle celebrity teaser campaign, the Beats Pill is making a comeback./news/black-friday-and-cyber-monday-2022-the-verge-s-guide-to-the-best-deals.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/black-friday-and-cyber-monday-2022-the-verge-s-guide-to-the-best-deals.htmlBlack Friday has come and gone. The annual deals extravaganza that closes out the year is over, yet many retailers — including Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Best Buy — are still offering some of their best savings of the year now that we’re in the midst of Cyber Monday. This means it’s still a great time to score a steep discount on a wide range of tech, including noise-canceling headphones, smart displays, OLED TVs, robot vacuums, gaming laptops, and a bevy of other popular gadgets from the likes of Apple, Amazon, and Google./news/cbs-internet-tv-service-is-now-available-on-roku.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cbs-internet-tv-service-is-now-available-on-roku.htmlCBS's internet TV service is arriving on Roku today. For $5.99 a month, Roku owners will be able to subscribe to CBS All Access, which gives subscribers streams of many current and past CBS TV series and allows viewers to actually watch CBS as it's live on the air, so long as they're within certain areas. It's the exact service that people who want to ditch cable are looking for, making this an important grab for Roku./news/chip-n-dale-rescue-rangers-review-disney-goes-meta.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/chip-n-dale-rescue-rangers-review-disney-goes-meta.htmlDisney’s new feature-length, hybrid live-action / animated Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie from director Akiva Schaffer is the perfect example of everything that’s wonderful and terrible about Hollywood’s current era of reboots. In its frantic attempt at lighting up the warm, fuzzy nostalgia centers of your brain, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers forgets that callbacks to the good old days really aren’t enough to make these sorts of big-screen reimaginings work./news/chrome-now-instantly-captions-audio-and-video-on-the-web.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/chrome-now-instantly-captions-audio-and-video-on-the-web.htmlGoogle is expanding its real-time caption feature, Live Captions, from Pixel phones to anyone using a Chrome browser, as first spotted by XDA Developers. Live Captions uses machine learning to spontaneously create captions for videos or audio where none existed before, and making the web that much more accessible for anyone who’s deaf or hard of hearing. When enabled, Live Captions automatically appear in a small, moveable box in the bottom of your browser when you’re watching or listening to a piece of content where people are talking./news/cnet-s-parent-company-is-reportedly-looking-to-sell.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cnet-s-parent-company-is-reportedly-looking-to-sell.htmlCNET’s parent company is reportedly looking to sell. Under ownership of private equity-backed marketing firm Red Ventures, CNET secretly published AI-generated articles, pushed journalists to be more favorable to advertisers, and laid off dozens of staffers. Workers unionized in May, citing the company’s use of AI and a need for editorial independence. Now Axios is reporting that Red Ventures is looking for a buyer. Red Ventures acquired CNET in 2020 and owns a slew of other websites including Bankrate, Healthline, and The Points Guy./news/cyber-criminals-try-to-frame-researcher-as-a-drug-smuggler.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cyber-criminals-try-to-frame-researcher-as-a-drug-smuggler.htmlCyber security expert Brian Krebs of the blog Krebs on Security has had a rough year so far at the hands of his online adversaries. Back in March, he described how his website suffered a denial-of-service attack at the same time as a "swatting," when armed police officers surrounded his home in Annandale, Virginia, in response to a false, anonymous emergency call claiming Krebs' wife had been shot. But more recently, Krebs reports he was the victim of "/news/cyberpunk-2077-review-huge-ambitious-and-safe.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cyberpunk-2077-review-huge-ambitious-and-safe.html“Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button.” That line, from William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, helped define the genre now known as cyberpunk. The book conjures a world where today’s cutting-edge trends are tomorrow’s embarrassing cliches and where desperate hustlers can rise overnight and fade without a trace. Cyberpunk 2077, the long-awaited game by Witcher studio CD Projekt Red, is about a place called Night City./news/doctor-who-season-14-hits-disney-plus-on-may-10th.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/doctor-who-season-14-hits-disney-plus-on-may-10th.htmlDisney Plus announced today that Doctor Who season 14 starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby Sunday will premiere with two new episodes on May 10th in the US and internationally, except for the United Kingdom. UK viewers will be able to stream the new episodes via BBC iPlayer beginning at 12AM on May 11th (GMT) before it is available on BBC One later in the day./news/dreamtown-s-david-weinberg-on-small-town-corruption-and-the-future-of-narrative-podcasts.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dreamtown-s-david-weinberg-on-small-town-corruption-and-the-future-of-narrative-podcasts.htmlThis is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. I have a packed issue of Hot Pod for you today. First off, I have a Q&A with David Weinberg, the host of Crooked Media’s Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto. The WGA’s special alliance for audio workers came out with some guidelines on fiction podcasts. Also in this issue is Tribeca Festival’s audio lineup. Finally, I talked to the person behind one of Elon Musk’s favorite podcasts — turns out the feelings aren’t mutual./news/dyson-s-pure-cryptomic-air-purifier-is-a-stupidly-expensive-way-to-get-formaldehyde-out-of-your-ho.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dyson-s-pure-cryptomic-air-purifier-is-a-stupidly-expensive-way-to-get-formaldehyde-out-of-your-ho.htmlDyson’s latest air purifier, the Pure Cryptomic, can eliminate formaldehyde that’s floating around in your home. It’s the main selling point that distinguishes this model from the presently-available Pure Cool and Pure Hot + Cool, which can only capture formaldehyde, not destroy it. But before you drop $649 on a formaldehyde-fighting device there are a few things that you should know. First, it is almost guaranteed that there is formaldehyde in your home./news/elden-ring-dlc-will-get-an-update-to-make-the-game-easier.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elden-ring-dlc-will-get-an-update-to-make-the-game-easier.htmlShadow of the Erdtree is gonna get easier. Bandai Namco has seemingly heard the great hue and cry from reviewers and players alike that Erdtree is far too difficult. In response, the publisher is implementing a “calibration update” that will reduce the level of difficulty by making players stronger. According to the patch notes for this update: The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual./news/elon-musk-claims-he-was-coerced-into-settling-with-the-sec-over-his-funding-secured-tweet.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-claims-he-was-coerced-into-settling-with-the-sec-over-his-funding-secured-tweet.htmlTesla CEO Elon Musk is asking a federal judge to toss a consent decree with the Securities and Exchange Commission that requires his tweets to be approved by a lawyer before he can post them. Musk sent the notorious tweet on August 7th, 2018, in which he claimed to have the funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share. (Tesla has been a publicly traded company since 2010.) “trample on Mr./news/elon-musk-s-new-xai-company-launches-to-understand-the-true-nature-of-the-universe.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-s-new-xai-company-launches-to-understand-the-true-nature-of-the-universe.htmlxAI, Elon Musk’s newly formed AI company, has revealed itself with a new website detailing its mission and team at https://x.ai/. Musk tweeted the company’s intent is to “understand reality” without any other details or explanation. “The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe,” according to the website. The team is headed up by Elon Musk and includes team members that have worked at other big names in AI, including OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and DeepMind (which was recently folded into Google)./news/epic-games-will-cover-refunds-of-shenmue-iii-to-protect-developer-after-backlash.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/epic-games-will-cover-refunds-of-shenmue-iii-to-protect-developer-after-backlash.htmlGame studio Ys Net, its publishing partner Deep Silver, and distributor Epic Games have come to a solution to appease angry fans over the PC exclusivity of upcoming, Kickstarter-backed game Shenmue III. In an upcoming survey, the trio plan to offer refunds to any backers upset the game won’t be available on Valve’s Steam storefront at launch, after Epic secured exclusivity of the PC version of the game for its own marketplace./news/every-movie-ending-is-better-when-it-s-soundtracked-by-dire-straits.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/every-movie-ending-is-better-when-it-s-soundtracked-by-dire-straits.htmlThe Walk of Life Project hinges on a simple, pure, and extremely goofy question: what would happen if you laid Dire Straits' 1985 hit "Walk of Life" over a handful of iconic final sequences from the last half-century of movies and TV? I know it's the brainchild of Peter Salomone, a film nerd and ostensible fan of hyper-popular '80s pop-rock, and I don't want to know much more. If there's an inciting incident or a complicated backstory, I don't want to hear about it./news/facebook-s-new-full-screen-video-player-looks-a-lot-like-tiktok.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-s-new-full-screen-video-player-looks-a-lot-like-tiktok.htmlFacebook is launching an updated mobile video player that will bring the vertical look made ubiquitous by TikTok and Reels to all of the platform’s video content, Meta announced in a blog post on Wednesday. Under the new design, Reels, Facebook Live, and longform videos will default to a full-screen portrait-oriented video format. The new video player will debut on iOS and Android in the US and Canada in the next few weeks before launching globally in the months to follow./news/fitbit-pay-s-days-might-be-numbered.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fitbit-pay-s-days-might-be-numbered.htmlIt’s been more than two years since Google plopped down $2.1 billion for Fitbit, but there hasn’t been much integration between the two companies’ products thus far. That looks like it’ll change this fall. Not only is the upcoming Pixel Watch set to get a shiny Fitbit integration, but it also appears that the rumored Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 might have some kind of Google Wallet integration as well./news/former-ubisoft-executives-arrested-after-sexual-harassment-investigation.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/former-ubisoft-executives-arrested-after-sexual-harassment-investigation.htmlAccording to the paper, in 2021, French police received complaints from the Solidaires Informatique union — a French union that serves digital, consulting, and video game workers — and two individuals. After more than a year of investigation involving extensive interviews with around 50 current and former Ubisoft employees, the arrests were carried out over October 3rd and 4th. Of the five individuals arrested, only two are named — former chief creative officer Serge Hacosët and editorial vice president Tommy François, both of whom left the company in 2020./news/fortnite-introduces-new-zero-build-mode.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-introduces-new-zero-build-mode.htmlAs part of its latest season, Fortnite removed building, one of the game’s most iconic features. And now, developer Epic appears to be making the change a more permanent part of the experience with the introduction of Zero Build mode. As the name implies, the mode is a combat-focused option where players can’t gather resources to build defensive structures; Fortnite recently introduced a new shield and more mobility options to make up for it, making for a faster-paced experience./news/ftc-blocks-acquisition-of-harry-s-razor-company-citing-its-role-as-a-key-competitor.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ftc-blocks-acquisition-of-harry-s-razor-company-citing-its-role-as-a-key-competitor.htmlThe Federal Trade Commission plans to block the sale of on-demand razor company Harry’s to competitor Edgewell Personal Care (the parent company of Schick) because it says the acquisition “would eliminate one of the most important competitive forces in the shaving industry.” That’s a new take on the direct-to-consumer razor market, essentially making the argument that one brand is critical to prevent big companies from dominating — or rather, continuing to dominate — the $3 billion razor industry./news/future-perfect-meet-the-man-who-wants-to-be-president-and-then-live-forever.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/future-perfect-meet-the-man-who-wants-to-be-president-and-then-live-forever.htmlImagine our world characterized not by scarcity, but by abundance. In a future, not too far from now, hunger, disease, war, poverty, aging, and death itself will be things of a barbaric human past. Environmental degradation will be solved, and climate change will be nothing to worry about. Work too will become a thing of the past, as intelligent machines allow us to indulge our dreams and live with absolute, unbounded freedom./news/game-of-thrones-cinematographer-isn-t-sorry-he-shot-last-episode-s-battle-of-winterfell-so-dark.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/game-of-thrones-cinematographer-isn-t-sorry-he-shot-last-episode-s-battle-of-winterfell-so-dark.htmlSpoiler alert: Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3, “The Long Night.” Know that the decision to film the episode in such a fashion was a purposeful one, according to cinematographer Fabian Wagner, and he blames your TV settings or the quality of your screen if you had trouble making out what was happening. After all, Wagner says the show was directed and shot like a cinematic experience that could be viewed in a movie theater, even though it’s predominantly streamed at compressed quality to screens of all shapes and sizes./news/gazelle-brings-back-its-phone-trade-in-program-two-months-after-discontinuing-it.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gazelle-brings-back-its-phone-trade-in-program-two-months-after-discontinuing-it.htmlTrade-in provider Gazelle exited the online trade-in business back in February, and now the company says it’s changing its mind. Gazelle is back to accepting online trade-ins of iPhones, Samsung phones, Google Pixel devices, and iPads and other tablets on its website, the company confirms to The Verge. The program resumed accepting new offers on April 5th, a Gazelle representative clarified. “Earlier this year, we announced that we will no longer be offering our trade-in option on Gazelle./news/gmail-can-now-search-inside-attachments.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gmail-can-now-search-inside-attachments.htmlGoogle has introduced the ability to search inside attachments contained within Gmail. Adding the prefix "has:attachment" followed by your keywords into Gmail’s search box will prompt Google’s algorithm to scour documents and presentations as well as PDF files. Queries can also be limited to specific file types by using the "has:attachment filename:extension" format. Currently, searches seem to be restricted to files that have been indexed by Google’s servers, so older documents may not be searchable just yet./news/google-begins-rollout-of-tab-groupings-in-chrome-for-android.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-begins-rollout-of-tab-groupings-in-chrome-for-android.htmlChrome’s Android app is being updated with a new interface for switching tabs, and a new tab grouping feature to help organize open web pages, 9to5Google reports. The new interface and functionality has reportedly been appearing for some users after the release of version 88 of Chrome last month, but doesn’t appear to be live for everyone just yet.  The grid layout replaces the previous interface consisting of a vertical list of tabs, and is similar to Chrome’s existing iOS tab interface./news/google-deepmind-made-an-ai-tool-for-analyzing-soccer-tactics.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-deepmind-made-an-ai-tool-for-analyzing-soccer-tactics.htmlGoogle DeepMind made an AI tool for analyzing soccer tactics. In a research paper published on Tuesday, Google DeepMind revealed that it has teamed up with Liverpool FC to develop TacticAI, an AI system that soccer coaches can use to get insights on corner kicks and player setups. TacticAI uses generative and predictive AI to help coaches figure out which player is most likely to receive the ball during corner kicks, whether a shot will be taken, and how to adjust player setup./news/google-docs-began-as-a-hacked-together-experiment-says-creator.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-docs-began-as-a-hacked-together-experiment-says-creator.htmlIf Google Docs is the mother of modern word processing, Sam Schillace is probably its father. Back in 2005 he built Writely, a web-based text editor, which Google acquired in 2006. One month later, 90 percent of the company was using it. Writely formed the foundation of Google Docs, a product Schillace led for years before heading to Box to be its senior vice president of engineering and take on the next age of online collaboration./news/google-i-o-2019-all-of-the-big-news-announcements-and-more.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-i-o-2019-all-of-the-big-news-announcements-and-more.htmlGoogle announced its newest, most affordable phones today — the Pixel 3A and 3A XL — and for the first time with Pixel phones, more carriers than just Verizon will sell them in stores. Google confirmed today that T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, and US Cellular will sell the phones, along with the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. AT&T will also support the 3A and 3A XL, which means that people can insert a SIM and use the phone, but the carrier won’t place it on store shelves./news/google-pixel-6a-s-camouflage-tool-makes-magic-eraser-a-lot-better.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-pixel-6a-s-camouflage-tool-makes-magic-eraser-a-lot-better.htmlGoogle’s clever Magic Eraser tool debuted on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. It’s an editing feature that’s designed to remove people or objects you don’t want in the background of your photos. Considering that it’s dead simple to use, the results are okay, but it’s definitely not putting Adobe out of business anytime soon. But with the Pixel 6A — and coming soon to the 6 and 6 Pro — Google has added a new Magic Eraser function that I like a lot more than the standard erase tool: Camouflage./news/google-plans-giant-ai-language-model-supporting-world-s-1-000-most-spoken-languages.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-plans-giant-ai-language-model-supporting-world-s-1-000-most-spoken-languages.htmlGoogle has announced an ambitious new project to develop a single AI language model that supports the world’s “1,000 most spoken languages.” As a first step towards this goal, the company is unveiling an AI model trained on over 400 languages, which it describes as “the largest language coverage seen in a speech model today.” Language and AI have arguably always been at the heart of Google’s products, but recent advances in machine learning — particularly the development of powerful, multi-functional “large language models” or LLMs — have placed new emphasis on these domains./news/google-releases-youtube-vr-for-steam.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-releases-youtube-vr-for-steam.htmlYouTube VR is one of the best reasons to use Google's Daydream VR platform, but the company didn't make it available for higher-end PC headsets. That's just ended with the release of a Steam VR version designed for the HTC Vive. It's available to download right now. I'd love to tell you how it is, but for some reason it doesn't work on my PC — it crashes instantly on start, and a lot of people in the Steam forums are having the same problem./news/google-will-give-you-the-new-chromecast-for-free-if-you-pay-for-one-month-of-youtube-tv.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-will-give-you-the-new-chromecast-for-free-if-you-pay-for-one-month-of-youtube-tv.htmlGoogle just announced a new Chromecast yesterday, and the company is already offering a good deal on one — all you have to do is sign up for YouTube TV and pay for one month of the service. If you want to take advantage of the deal, you should be able to access it here. There are a few caveats, however. You can only take advantage of this if you’re a first-time YouTube TV subscriber, according to the deal’s terms./news/google-s-ar-translation-glasses-are-still-just-vaporware.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-ar-translation-glasses-are-still-just-vaporware.htmlAt the end of its I/O presentation on Wednesday, Google pulled out a “one more thing”-type surprise. In a short video, Google showed off a pair of augmented reality glasses that have one purpose — displaying audible language translations right in front of your eyeballs. In the video, Google product manager Max Spear called the capability of this prototype “subtitles for the world,” and we see family members communicating for the first time./news/happy-valentine-s-day-microsoft-s-internet-explorer-divorce-is-complete.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/happy-valentine-s-day-microsoft-s-internet-explorer-divorce-is-complete.htmlYou might be receiving flowers, chocolates, or heart-shaped gifts today, but Microsoft is delivering an arrow straight through the heart of Internet Explorer. The software giant is retiring Internet Explorer today, permanently disabling the browser through a Microsoft Edge update on most versions of Windows 10. Microsoft officially retired Internet Explorer in June last year, sunsetting it in favor of Microsoft Edge, with support officially withdrawn for IE 11. But today’s update to Microsoft Edge will make sure you can no longer launch Internet Explorer 11 on most client versions of Windows 10./news/here-are-the-7-biggest-games-from-sony-s-state-of-play-event.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-are-the-7-biggest-games-from-sony-s-state-of-play-event.htmlSony showed off a lot of PlayStation games during its latest State of Play event, including more details about the remastered version of Death Stranding and an extended gameplay preview of PS5 exclusive Deathloop. We’ve rounded up some information about seven of the biggest games from the event. And if you want to watch the State of Play in full, you can check it out right here. Sony debuted a trailer for Moss: Book II, which is in development for PSVR./news/here-s-your-first-look-at-liam-hemsworth-in-the-witcher.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-your-first-look-at-liam-hemsworth-in-the-witcher.htmlA new actor, but the same white wig. We already knew that Liam Hemsworth was taking over as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, replacing Henry Cavill. But now we have our first (official, anyway) look at the actor in the role, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. And he looks like, well, Liam Hemsworth with Geralt’s iconic white hair. It’s not clear if the shift between actors will be referenced in the show itself, but this early image makes it seem like the transition might be relatively seamless./news/how-hoist-the-colours-became-the-official-song-of-north-sea-tiktok.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-hoist-the-colours-became-the-official-song-of-north-sea-tiktok.htmlNo one on North Sea TikTok ever seems to know how they got there. They were just innocently scrolling their feeds from dance challenge to gardening tip to relationship update to workout video to standup comedy clip, when suddenly, they’re dropped into some of the most treacherous waters on the planet.  The videos are almost always the same: 60 seconds of waves crashing over the hulls of unsuspecting ships, workers hanging off of oil rigs while storms roil around them, water coming onto the deck of a boat at such speed, you can’t imagine how even the camera survived./news/how-humans-are-beating-machines-in-the-effort-to-fight-the-spread-of-covid-19.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-humans-are-beating-machines-in-the-effort-to-fight-the-spread-of-covid-19.htmlLast week I wrote about a set of predictions that I got spectacularly wrong. Today, to soothe my fragile ego, let’s talk about a case where I was a closer to the mark. In April, after talking with public health experts, I wrote about why Bluetooth-based approaches to finding new cases of COVID-19 seemed likely to fall short. A combination of human behaviors and technical challenges seemed likely to limit the effectiveness of a pandemic response scheme that relied on our phones passively pinging each other wherever we went./news/how-many-cinematic-universes-can-universal-cinematically-universe-after-dark-universe.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-many-cinematic-universes-can-universal-cinematically-universe-after-dark-universe.htmlThe Mummy hits theaters this weekend, and it’s clear that it’s more than just a movie: it’s Universal Studios’ attempt to jumpstart a Marvel-style cinematic franchise that will bring together its various classic monster properties under the Dark Universe banner. It’s an ambitious goal, but there are already signs that it’s coming out of the gate on shaky feet. On the off chance that this effort flops, Universal has plenty of options to try again./news/how-to-block-a-number-on-apple-s-iphone.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-block-a-number-on-apple-s-iphone.htmlWhether you’re trying to get rid of spam or avoid hearing from a former friend or ex, blocking someone’s phone number is a vital tool for helping to preserve your privacy. We’ve covered various methods of protecting yourself from robocalls, spam, and other daily annoyances. But blocking a number is often the quickest and easiest way of shutting down unwanted digital intrusions. When you block a number, you’ll no longer receive phone calls, texts, or FaceTime requests that come in from the blocked number./news/how-to-bulk-delete-your-old-facebook-posts.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-bulk-delete-your-old-facebook-posts.htmlIf you’ve been on Facebook for any amount of time, it’s likely that you’ve accumulated a lot of posts, some of which you may wish you hadn’t, well, posted. You may want to hide your past entries from a potential employer or a college admissions board — or you may just want to enhance your personal security by eliminating identifiable information. Early in June, Facebook announced a new bulk-delete feature for the mobile app that it calls Manage Activity, and that makes it easier to get rid of all of your past posts./news/how-to-create-pdfs-on-iphones.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-create-pdfs-on-iphones.htmlIt may sound funny to say this, but PDF files — electronic copies of printed documents — are still around and are still very useful. Short for Portable Document Format, PDFs allow you to create a digital version of a paper document, letting you store and access them a lot easier than having to rifle through a filing cabinet. While there are a variety of PDF apps available — Adobe Acrobat being the most well known — you actually don’t need to download one to create a PDF from an existing paper document with your iPhone or iPad./news/how-to-get-a-year-of-free-disney-from-verizon.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-get-a-year-of-free-disney-from-verizon.htmlDisney+ promises to be popular among viewers, especially children, Star Wars fans, animation enthusiasts, and Marvel lovers. The streaming service went live today, and while the normal cost is $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year (there are several bundled services also available), a subset of Verizon customers can save quite a bit of money by getting a year of Disney+ for free. All you have to do is go to Verizon’s Disney+ page (you can’t get it through the Disney+ site) and sign up./news/how-to-make-sense-of-your-fitness-app-s-privacy-policy.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-make-sense-of-your-fitness-app-s-privacy-policy.htmlOne of the ways that connected fitness apps keep you exercising is by using accountability — the ability to share your workouts with friends so you can urge each other onward — but wanting to share with your pals is different than wanting to share with an app developer or some anonymous marketer.  How much of your data is shared, and to whom, is usually set out in the privacy policy that most people accept (and don’t bother to read) when they are installing an app./news/how-to-move-all-your-data-to-your-new-iphone.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-move-all-your-data-to-your-new-iphone.htmlIf you’ve just upgraded — or are planning to upgrade — to Apple’s new iPhone 13, congratulations! You’re going to want to try out your snazzy new phone as soon as you open that box. But first, you need to get all of the apps and data from your old iPhone onto your new one. It’s actually very easy — in fact, if you haven’t upgraded for a while, you’ll find it easier than ever./news/how-to-run-the-pugetbench-benchmark-for-adobe-premiere-pro.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-run-the-pugetbench-benchmark-for-adobe-premiere-pro.htmlIf you’re currently a video creator or are interested in trying it out, you may want to know how well your PC can perform various tasks in Adobe Premiere Pro. One of the best ways to do that is the Puget Systems benchmark for Premiere Pro. Puget Systems is a PC manufacturer that specializes in professional workstations. They offer a number of different benchmarks for testing hardware in a variety of applications, but the Premiere Pro benchmark is the one we use the most./news/how-to-set-a-google-photos-screen-saver-on-an-android-phone.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-set-a-google-photos-screen-saver-on-an-android-phone.htmlIf you have more images in your Google Photos app than you know what to do with, why not put your phone to work displaying them? With a few simple steps, you can use your Android phone’s screen saver feature to turn your phone screen into a digital picture frame while it charges. This works especially well for phones with wireless charging (so you can see your photos with the phone propped up on a charger), but it will work with any kind of charging mode or if you connect your phone to a dock./news/how-to-set-up-and-use-email-templates-in-gmail.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-set-up-and-use-email-templates-in-gmail.htmlIf you, like me, find yourself writing the same email over and over again or copying and pasting the same message multiple times, Gmail gives you an easier option. By creating and saving email templates, you can insert them the next time you compose a message and save yourself some time. You can store up to 50 templates at a time, so it’s easy to create different templates for different situations./news/hulu-was-down-for-a-lot-of-people-but-now-it-s-fixed.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hulu-was-down-for-a-lot-of-people-but-now-it-s-fixed.htmlHulu was having an outage, with as many as 50,000 reports noted on Down Detector late on Monday night. There’s no indication of what has caused the outage, but the official Hulu Support account on X acknowledged the issue, following up with posts from customers after about 11:15PM ET, saying, “Our developers were able to put changes in place to mitigate the interruption. Please reboot your device to start streaming, and let us know if you run into any further trouble./news/iconic-adventure-game-myst-debuts-on-android-today.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iconic-adventure-game-myst-debuts-on-android-today.htmlOne of the best-selling games of all time is finally launching on Android. Starting today, the revamped version of iconic adventure Myst — known as realMyst — is available on Google Play for $6.99. The port is being handled by mobile studio Noodlecake, in partnership with original developer Cyan, and will feature several useful modern additions, including a bookmarking tool and built-in hint guide in case you get stuck. In addition to touchscreen controls, the Android version of realMyst also supports Bluetooth controllers./news/ikea-s-inexpensive-sonos-remote-control-is-worth-every-penny.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ikea-s-inexpensive-sonos-remote-control-is-worth-every-penny.htmlApps and voice commands are fine for controlling music in the home but sometimes you want to grab a dial and crank it, not shout a wake word (causing the music to soften) or fish out your phone only to be delayed by the lock screen. Ikea’s here to slake that need for owners of Sonos speakers. The Symfonisk Sound remote controls play / pause, next / previous, and volume of your Sonos-compatible Symfonisk speakers (sold only by Ikea) and regular Sonos speakers as well./news/inside-the-roblox-college-fashion-class.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/inside-the-roblox-college-fashion-class.htmlAt a recent presentation in New York, Parsons School of Design students showcased outfits they created over the course of a semester. The looks include a pale pink mock neck top and pants set with deep sea-themed patterns, a strapless mini dress made from glimmering gold feathers, and a patterned gown with strings of gravity-defying water droplets swirling its orbit. But none of the clothes are modeled by humans. They don’t even exist in the physical world./news/ios-7-will-come-to-iphones-and-ipads-on-september-18th.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ios-7-will-come-to-iphones-and-ipads-on-september-18th.htmlApple's iOS 7 will arrive on the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 4 on September 18th. The all-new OS will also head to the iPad mini, the second-, third-, and fourth-generation iPads, as well as the fifth-generation iPod touch on the same day. In today's keynote, Tim Cook boasted that the operating system will soon be "the world's most popular operating system." Announced back in June, iOS 7 is the first major visual overhaul of the OS since its initial introduction in 2007./news/iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-hands-on-with-3d-touch-and-the-new-cameras.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-hands-on-with-3d-touch-and-the-new-cameras.htmlThe new iPhones feel, well, like iPhones. They have the same basic look as last year and still feel remarkably light. Apple claims that it has a new aluminum body and stronger glass on the front — but neither affects the basic textures of these devices. They look like iPhones, they feel like iPhones, and they act like iPhones. Read next: The iPhone 6S review. Apple has always produced excellent, industry-leading smartphone cameras — but it's also insisted on keeping the megapixel count locked to 8./news/j-j-abrams-reportedly-walked-away-from-a-500-million-exclusivity-deal-with-apple.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/j-j-abrams-reportedly-walked-away-from-a-500-million-exclusivity-deal-with-apple.htmlAbrams and his team at Bad Robot, including co-CEO Katie McGrath, were reportedly uninterested in signing a 100 percent exclusive deal with Apple for the company’s new streaming service, Apple TV Plus, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His deal with WarnerMedia allows Abrams to direct, write, and produce projects at Bad Robot for other third-party companies, according to the original announcement. For someone like Abrams, who still has projects in development at Paramount Pictures (his previous feature film home), a new Star Wars movie landing in December, and other possible titles on the table, it’s an important element to any overall deal./news/jaws-is-a-box-office-hit-again-thanks-to-national-cinema-day-and-3d.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jaws-is-a-box-office-hit-again-thanks-to-national-cinema-day-and-3d.htmlThis Saturday was dubbed “National Cinema Day,” in which theaters around the US cut their ticket prices to $3 in an effort to keep bringing people back to the movie theater. And it worked! More than 8.1 million people went to the movies on Saturday, Variety found, compared to 1 million the day before and 1.7 million the day after. National Cinema Day brought the biggest crowds to theaters of any day in 2022, which leads to one inevitable conclusion: people will go to movies when movies only cost three bucks./news/juicy-marbles-filet-mignon-is-good-plant-based-meat-but-not-great-steak.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/juicy-marbles-filet-mignon-is-good-plant-based-meat-but-not-great-steak.htmlIt’s hard to stand out in the world of plant-based meats, but Juicy Marbles is trying to do so by attempting to replicate not just a steak but also one of the higher-end cuts: the filet mignon. When the company reached out to The Verge asking if we wanted to try its steaks, its promises of a tender filet that’s marbled and cooks like a real steak caught my attention, as someone who swore off eating meat for two years (but who still gets a little jealous of the delicious-looking things my wife eats)./news/killer-clowns-are-taking-over-the-fall-of-2017.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/killer-clowns-are-taking-over-the-fall-of-2017.htmlI’m sorry to do this to you, but do you remember the fall of 2016? If not, here is a refresher. In October 2016, a month that took place approximately 900 million years ago, there was a rash of “killer clown” or “crazed clown” sightings across the United States. Kentucky, Ohio, New York, Alabama — the clowns were everywhere. If you actually stepped back and looked at the big picture, there were not so many clowns./news/lambda-school-the-high-cost-of-a-free-coding-bootcamp.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lambda-school-the-high-cost-of-a-free-coding-bootcamp.htmlBethany Surber was sleeping on friends’ couches and living out of her car when she first heard about Lambda School, a buzzy coding bootcamp that promised world-class instructors and a top-tier curriculum. Best of all, it wouldn’t cost a cent — at least not up front. The school encouraged students to defer tuition until they landed a stable job, then pay back a share of their income. Surber and her boyfriend, an instructor at the local community college, quickly started making plans./news/lenovo-launches-faster-versions-of-its-legion-7-and-legion-slim-7.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lenovo-launches-faster-versions-of-its-legion-7-and-legion-slim-7.htmlLenovo’s highest-end gaming laptops for 2022 have been unveiled. The 16-inch Legion 7 and 7i (the “i” denotes Intel CPUs) can be configured with the current best of the best in terms of processors and graphics. The Legion 7 is one of a few gaming laptops that can be configured with AMD’s Ryzen 9 6900HX processor along with Radeon RX6850M XT graphics. On the Intel side, it can be configured with up to Intel’s 12th Gen Core i9-12900HX and with Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, which has an impressive 175W of total graphics power./news/lenovo-legion-5i-pro-2022-review-faster-and-pricier.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lenovo-legion-5i-pro-2022-review-faster-and-pricier.htmlThe 2021 Lenovo Legion 5 Pro was my favorite gaming laptop of last year. I loved its keyboard, its 16-inch QHD 16:10 aspect ratio display, and, of course, its powerful RTX 3070 GPU. What I loved the most was that Lenovo achieved in a $1,599.99 machine what most competitors charge close to $2K or more for.  The 2022 version of the Legion 5 Pro brings more of the same but with an as-tested $1,999 price that costs $500 more than the AMD-based version that we tested last year./news/let-this-retro-wordart-generator-take-you-back-to-1997.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/let-this-retro-wordart-generator-take-you-back-to-1997.htmlEveryone I’ve ever met has warm, fuzzy feelings about the disaster of Microsoft Office’s Clippy and the hideous design choices of 1997-era Powerpoint. It’s hard to say why. Maybe it just reminds you of a simpler time, when all you were expected to do was type “Causes of the Cold War” in bubble letters in order to get a pat on the back and a gold star. Maybe you are just more at home with slowly blinking paper clips than you are people./news/mars-like-soil-can-be-pressed-into-strong-bricks-which-could-make-building-easier-on-the-red-pla.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mars-like-soil-can-be-pressed-into-strong-bricks-which-could-make-building-easier-on-the-red-pla.htmlSimulated Mars soil can be packed together into a solid brick-like material — without needing any added ingredients to hold it together. That might mean real Martian soil could be easily used as a tool for building structures like habitats on the Red Planet’s surface, which could make human missions to Mars less complicated to pull off. A group of engineers figured this out by using a high-pressure hammer to mash together material known as Mars soil simulant./news/max-has-arrived-and-it-ll-feel-very-familiar-to-hbo-max-customers.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/max-has-arrived-and-it-ll-feel-very-familiar-to-hbo-max-customers.htmlToday marks Warner Bros. Discovery’s big debut of Max, the new streaming service that bundles all of the company’s entertainment together inside one single destination. All the eggs are going into one basket, and yes, HBO is still getting a prominent focus — even if it’s no longer in the name. I got an early preview of Max at Warner Bros. Discovery’s New York City office last week, and I was initially struck by just how closely it resembles the HBO Max app that it’s replacing./news/meet-harry-beck-the-genius-behind-london-s-iconic-subway-map.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meet-harry-beck-the-genius-behind-london-s-iconic-subway-map.html© Ken Garland, courtesy of London Transport Museum You won't find Harry Beck's face on any coins or postage stamps, but his fingerprints are all over London. Born in 1902, Beck was an English engineering draftsman who sparked a small revolution in the early 1930s when he created a radical new map of the London Underground. His linear, color-coded diagram was at first greeted with apprehension from transit authorities, but soon proved popular among London commuters./news/meta-s-ar-glasses-reportedly-won-t-feature-the-high-end-displays-it-planned.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-s-ar-glasses-reportedly-won-t-feature-the-high-end-displays-it-planned.htmlThe first part of Meta’s augmented reality glasses it sells to the public won’t come with the high-end displays originally planned for the device, according to a new report from The Information. Sources tell the outlet that Meta’s AR glasses will instead feature older glass lenses and display technology. As reported last year by The Verge, Meta’s first pair of consumer-facing AR glasses, codenamed Artemis, are set to be released in 2027./news/meta-s-threads-app-has-almost-100-million-users-says-mark-zuckerberg.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-s-threads-app-has-almost-100-million-users-says-mark-zuckerberg.htmlThe rumors of Threads’ early demise have been exaggerated. Meta’s competitor to Elon Musk’s X has hit “just under” 100 million monthly users since it was released in early July, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday during his company’s quarterly earnings call. “We’re three months in now, and I’m very happy with the trajectory,” he said, echoing the bullish comments he made about how Threads is doing during a recent interview with The Verge./news/michael-shannon-explains-how-his-name-became-slang-on-the-shape-of-water.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/michael-shannon-explains-how-his-name-became-slang-on-the-shape-of-water.htmlMichael Shannon isn’t just a screen villain. He’s frequently played soulful, sympathetic heroes, particularly in the films of writer-director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Midnight Special). His stage career, as an actor, director, and co-founder of Chicago’s Red Orchid Theatre, has let him take on a wide variety of characters, like the embattled, disintegrating romantic lead in the stage and film version of Tracy Letts’ grueling Bug. And he’s been nominated twice for Best Supporting Actor Oscars, in both cases for sympathetic parts: as a mentally ill man in Revolutionary Road, and a fascinating detective in Nocturnal Animals./news/microsoft-backs-apple-watch-early-with-onedrive-update.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-backs-apple-watch-early-with-onedrive-update.htmlMicrosoft was quick to support Google's Android Wear smartwatches last year, and it's ready to do the same for the Apple Watch. A new app update for Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service provides the first Apple Watch support through Microsoft's various iOS apps and services. OneDrive for Apple Watch will simply display photos on the smartwatch, allowing Apple Watch owners to view albums, delete photos, and find photos through tags all on the wrist./news/microsoft-defends-windows-rt-fails-to-answer-criticisms.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-defends-windows-rt-fails-to-answer-criticisms.htmlMicrosoft is facing growing criticism over its Windows RT operating system. Performance issues with the OS were apparent from the very first Microsoft shipment of the ARM-based Surface RT hardware. The software maker has been shipping updates each month that have improved the situation gradually, but there are still questions over the benefits of Windows RT and how Microsoft intends to fix and improve it going forward. In a timely response to recent criticism, Microsoft's ecosystem and planning chief, Mike Angiulo, reached out to CNET to defend Windows RT./news/microsoft-is-working-with-nvidia-amd-and-intel-to-improve-upscaling-support-in-pc-games.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-is-working-with-nvidia-amd-and-intel-to-improve-upscaling-support-in-pc-games.htmlMicrosoft has outlined a new Windows API designed to offer a seamless way for game developers to integrate super resolution AI-upscaling features from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. In a new blog post, program manager Joshua Tucker describes Microsoft’s new DirectSR API as the “missing link” between games and super resolution technologies, and says it should provide “a smoother, more efficient experience that scales across hardware.” “This API enables multi-vendor SR [super resolution] through a common set of inputs and outputs, allowing a single code path to activate a variety of solutions including Nvidia DLSS Super Resolution, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, and Intel XeSS,” the post reads./news/microsoft-launches-party-chat-for-xbox-app-on-android-and-ios.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-launches-party-chat-for-xbox-app-on-android-and-ios.htmlAfter first testing the feature in its beta apps, Microsoft today rolled out party chat to its public Android and iOS Xbox mobile apps. The feature allows Xbox Live users to communicate with their gaming pals via both voice and text when they’re out of the house and away from the console. That heightens the community feel of party chat and brings it more in line with something like Discord, as Tom Warren pointed out when Microsoft first announced this was coming./news/microsoft-surface-go-2-review-don-t-push-it.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-surface-go-2-review-don-t-push-it.htmlMicrosoft’s Surface Go 2 is easy to fall in love with but hard to live with.  The small tablet has updates in it that go a long way toward addressing the problems with the original Surface Go, but not entirely. The screen is bigger, and there’s an option for a faster processor, both of which make this a better computer. It starts at $399.99, but that price isn’t really what you’ll pay./news/microsoft-teams-new-front-row-layout-arrives-later-this-year.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-teams-new-front-row-layout-arrives-later-this-year.htmlMicrosoft has been teasing its vision for the future of Teams meetings recently, and it’s now committing to making parts of it a reality this year. Front row is the official name for the new Microsoft Teams layout, which includes methods designed to bridge the hybrid work gap between those physically present in a meeting and remote participants. “Visually, this new layout moves the video gallery to the bottom of the screen so in-room participants can see remote colleagues face to face across a horizontal plane–similar to if they were in the same room,” explains Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365./news/microsoft-updates-outlook-teams-and-powerpoint-to-be-hybrid-work-ready.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-updates-outlook-teams-and-powerpoint-to-be-hybrid-work-ready.htmlMicrosoft was one of the first companies to warn other businesses that the pandemic would forever change work habits. Two years later, Microsoft has embraced remote work both in its products and in practice with regard to how and where its employees get work done. Today it’s announcing changes to Microsoft Teams, Outlook, PowerPoint, and even Surface hardware to improve the hybrid realities of remote and office work. As more businesses return to offices and contemplate a mix of remote and office work, Microsoft is updating Outlook to make it easier to see if colleagues are planning to attend meetings in person or not./news/microsoft-wanted-to-acquire-square-enix-as-part-of-plan-for-mobile-game-pass.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-wanted-to-acquire-square-enix-as-part-of-plan-for-mobile-game-pass.htmlAccording to the documents, Microsoft had a number of reasons for being interested in Square Enix. Part of it was to bolster Xbox’s historically scant presence in Asian markets. There was another obvious reason: to add more content to drive growth of Xbox Game Pass through new blockbuster Square Enix releases as well as the company’s extensive back catalog. A more surprising reason for the potential acquisition, however, was to gain a step up in mobile — which could help “future mobile-exclusive Game Pass offerings./news/microsoft-winds-down-its-business-in-russia-lays-off-more-than-400-people.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-winds-down-its-business-in-russia-lays-off-more-than-400-people.htmlMicrosoft says it’s “significantly” scaling down its business in Russia, more than three months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The software giant first pulled the plug on “new” sales of products and services in Russia in early March, and now Bloomberg News reports that the company is laying off 400 employees in Russia as it begins to wind down its business there. “As a result of the changes to the economic outlook and the impact on our business in Russia, we have made the decision to significantly scale down our operations in Russia,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to Bloomberg News./news/microsoft-won-t-let-you-set-google-as-default-search-on-some-new-lumias.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-won-t-let-you-set-google-as-default-search-on-some-new-lumias.htmlThe Verge understands phone makers and operators have the ability to choose the default search engine on their devices, and Nokia previously chose to offer the ability for Windows Phone users to switch to Google on their handsets. Existing Lumia handsets, even those updated to Windows Phone 8.1, appear to be unaffected by the change. In our testing on unlocked Lumia 930 and Lumia 630 devices, the Google option is missing./news/musicians-are-hooking-up-synthesizers-to-plants-for-new-sonic-possibilities.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/musicians-are-hooking-up-synthesizers-to-plants-for-new-sonic-possibilities.htmlIllustration by Sean Dong / The Verge When Stan Smeets posted a video titled “I made a synthesizer that plays plant-based music using microscopes and sensors” to a synthesizer Reddit group, the users thought it was funny that he had stumbled into a meme. “[There’s a] stereotype of synth people loving plants,” one user explained to him. Stereotype or not, there is a growing community of people who use various sensors connected to plants and mushrooms as inspiration for synthesized music./news/nasa-has-freed-the-bennu-asteroid-sample-after-three-months-of-trying.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nasa-has-freed-the-bennu-asteroid-sample-after-three-months-of-trying.htmlNASA has freed the Bennu asteroid sample after three months of trying. After its successful OSIRIS-REx mission to set an unmanned craft down on and retrieve a sample from the Bennu asteroid, two stubborn screws kept NASA’s scientists out of the canister. Now the screws are out, and there’s video to prove it. The US space agency says it will release a catalog of the sample to scientists this spring. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZnxyf45ra2lrZ2mAeHvNmqqaZZiWwG6y0Z6cnWWknbJursSnpa5lkajBpr7Ooptmq5Giva2xjJqdrZ2iYsGpvsSeZKannqm1tHnOn2Stqqmeu6g%3D/news/nasa-s-europa-report-details-how-it-could-land-a-spacecraft-on-jupiter-s-moon.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nasa-s-europa-report-details-how-it-could-land-a-spacecraft-on-jupiter-s-moon.htmlAt the end of 2015, Congress gave NASA a big directive: develop a spacecraft that can land on Jupiter’s moon Europa — an icy world that is thought to harbor a saltwater ocean underneath its surface. Because of the likelihood of liquid water on Europa, the moon has become an enticing place of study for researchers and is considered a top candidate in the search for alien life in our Solar System./news/nerf-reveals-hyper-its-next-gen-high-capacity-blasters-with-the-fastest-reloads-ever.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nerf-reveals-hyper-its-next-gen-high-capacity-blasters-with-the-fastest-reloads-ever.htmlNerf maker Hasbro has heard you loud and clear, Adam Savages of the world: you want to be able to shoot foam projectiles for days, without carrying around a belt full of magazines or constantly stooping down to reload. Today, the company’s announcing Nerf Hyper, a new line of blasters that not only shoots harder (up to 110 feet per second) than any stock blaster but also features the company’s fastest reloads yet, thanks to a smaller foam projectile that takes up so little space, you can fit 40 of them inside a pistol-sized blaster./news/netflix-no-longer-offers-free-trials-in-the-us.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-no-longer-offers-free-trials-in-the-us.htmlNetflix has removed the option for potential subscribers in the United States to test the service with a free trial, the company confirmed to The Verge. The company started phasing out the option for US-based subscribers this month, but has spent the last couple of years phasing out the option in a number of countries around the world. To replace the free trial, Netflix is introducing new ways to try and attract potential subscribers, including posting some educational content on YouTube for free and other forms of content sampling./news/netflix-s-iboy-is-a-boring-superhero-movie-about-a-teen-with-a-smartphone-in-his-head.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-iboy-is-a-boring-superhero-movie-about-a-teen-with-a-smartphone-in-his-head.htmlOn its surface, Netflix’s new original movie iBoy sounds like a bad idea. But on closer inspection, it’s also a bad idea that’s been poorly executed. The movie, based on a YA novel by Kevin Brooks, is about a high schooler named Tom (Bill Milner) who’s left with bits of his cellphone embedded in his brain after a violent attack. (There’s no real explanation; it just gets shoved in there.) As freak accident would have it, getting a cellphone lodged in his skull bestows Tom with a set of special powers./news/nhtsa-rules-to-finally-allow-adaptive-driving-beam-technology-in-us.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nhtsa-rules-to-finally-allow-adaptive-driving-beam-technology-in-us.htmlThe National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced a final ruling this week that permits automakers to finally add Adaptive Driving Beams (ADB) for vehicles on US roads. Adaptive headlights, available on many vehicles in Europe, Canada, and Japan, have been prohibited in the US due to rigid and outdated federal regulations. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (standard no. 108) specified requirements for lamps and reflectors dating back to 1967, which standardized binary hi / low beams, which as a result stifled newer headlight technology./news/nintendo-direct-june-2024-all-the-news-and-trailers.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-direct-june-2024-all-the-news-and-trailers.htmlDragon Quest III HD-2D Remake finally has a release date. The game, first announced in 2021, is coming out on November 14th, 2025, and it looks incredible in a new trailer. It’s set to release on Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Steam, and Windows. And that’s not all: an HD-2D remake of the first two Dragon Quest games is coming in 2025. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3xyhI5ra2pwYGaFdHvNoqWtnZ6ZvG6wyKucnKxdn8KvsYxrZ2tsXaOyuL%2BMramaoZyav7Q%3D/news/nintendo-is-readying-a-way-to-transfer-wii-games-and-save-files-to-wii-u.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-is-readying-a-way-to-transfer-wii-games-and-save-files-to-wii-u.htmlNintendo's Wii U Developer Discussion has been going on for quite some time, recapping much of NintendoLand and other announcements from this morning's press conference. But here's something interesting from the Q&A portion: asked if Wii owners will be able to transfer their downloaded Wii and Virtual Console games over to Wii U, a Nintendo producer answered rather positively: "we are readying the system to be able to transfer saves and everything you've bought./news/nintendo-japan-will-no-longer-repair-the-wii-u.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-japan-will-no-longer-repair-the-wii-u.htmlNintendo Japan will no longer repair the Wii U. A year after Nintendo Japan announced it would stop repairing the Wii U when its supply of parts ran out, the company confirmed this week its Japanese support teams are no longer able to fix the 12-year-old console, as spotted by Nintendo Life. After Nintendo shuttered the console’s online play in April, this week’s announcement feels like the Wii U’s final death blow./news/norm-macdonald-wrote-an-extended-twitter-poem-about-the-romance-of-rail-travel.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/norm-macdonald-wrote-an-extended-twitter-poem-about-the-romance-of-rail-travel.htmlSaturday Night Live-alum Norm Macdonald's Twitter is perhaps best known for beautifully dead-pan award show reactions and extremely dry live coverage of sporting events, but a recent existential crisis seems to have jump-started a change of pace. Norm expresses disdain for poetry, then continues to create a gorgeous Hemingway-style work of morosity. Please enjoy this modernist masterpiece with a glass of Wild Turkey 101 in your hand. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnam1fbHx4e5dyZ2xpZW58r7vRpmSmmZOZvK%2Bty51kra%2BZqcGmvoyppp6soq56tb7AoqWs/news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-review-4k-pc-gaming-finally-makes-sense.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-review-4k-pc-gaming-finally-makes-sense.htmlNvidia is promising big things with its new generation of graphics cards. The GeForce RTX 3080 is supposed to deliver twice the performance of the RTX 2080 at the same price. It’s even supposed to surpass the RTX 2080 Ti, providing solid 4K gaming performance for much less than Nvidia’s last-generation cards cost. This is all while taking advantage of ray tracing and Nvidia’s special AI-powered DLSS tech that boosts frame rates while maintaining image quality./news/obi-wan-kenobi-review-entirely-predictable-but-still-fun.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/obi-wan-kenobi-review-entirely-predictable-but-still-fun.htmlGiven its placement in the Star Wars timeline, sitting snugly between the end of the prequel trilogy and the beginning of A New Hope, there are certain things that Obi-Wan Kenobi simply can’t do. At its core, the Disney Plus series is a slowly simmering battle between its titular lead and his former protege, Darth Vader. But, no matter how epic the lightsaber battles might be, we know neither of them can really die./news/octopus-escapes-laboratory-continuing-long-tradition-of-octopi-outsmarting-humans.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/octopus-escapes-laboratory-continuing-long-tradition-of-octopi-outsmarting-humans.htmlI think Inky should be praised for simply leaving the laboratory. Other octopi might have disassembled the entire lab. Because if there's one thing octopi are better at than escaping, it's causing hijinks. They are the Ashton Kutchers of the animal kingdom. Here's an octopus in a trucker hat: In 1875, Brighton aquarists discovered octopi were sneaking from their tanks, across the laboratory, and into other tanks full of lumpfish. After feasting on the less wily fish, the octopi made their way back from whence they came./news/onward-review-a-perfectly-fine-pixar-movie-with-a-bizarre-twist.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/onward-review-a-perfectly-fine-pixar-movie-with-a-bizarre-twist.htmlOver the last decade, Pixar has added a new trick to its considerable list of talents: the missable blockbuster. A truly bad Pixar movie is still extremely rare, but a serviceable one that doesn’t necessarily feel like an event? They’re now a part of the studio’s repertoire, even if they feel odd every time. Onward is the latest and strangest of these: a Pixar movie that doesn’t quite look like a Pixar movie, even though it almost feels like one./news/openai-will-open-its-custom-chatgpt-store-next-week.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-will-open-its-custom-chatgpt-store-next-week.htmlAfter delaying its launch, OpenAI’s GPT store is almost ready to open for business. GPT Store, where users can sell and share customized AI agents based on OpenAI’s large language models, will officially launch next week, OpenAI said in an email to people signed on as GPT Builders. The email asked users to double-check that their GPT creations meet brand guidelines and reminded people to make their GPTs public. Email sent to GPT Builders./news/oracle-thinks-you-can-copyright-a-programming-language-google-disagrees.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oracle-thinks-you-can-copyright-a-programming-language-google-disagrees.htmlOracle's case against Google has evolved primarily into a copyright infringement suit over the past several months, and with the full trial scheduled to begin this coming Monday, the court is making an effort to get down to the nuts and bolts of copyright law. The judge issued an order last week requiring that both Google and Oracle provide their respective positions on a fundamental issue in the case: That's right, the judge is asking the lawyers representing two hugely successful software companies to commit to potential limits on software protection./news/outlier-creating-the-most-high-tech-pants-you-ve-ever-worn.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/outlier-creating-the-most-high-tech-pants-you-ve-ever-worn.htmlOutlier is a New York-based company that makes really nice pants for the modern urban man: they're as comfortable as pajamas, water resistant, smell-proof, and handsome — all due to some pretty cool technology created by Swiss fabric alchemists Schoeller Technologies. In a talk Friday at the PSFK conference in New York, we heard the whole story of how Outlier was founded. Five years ago, New Yorker Abe Burmeister decided that he needed some new pants./news/pakistan-bans-tiktok-for-immoral-and-indecent-videos.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pakistan-bans-tiktok-for-immoral-and-indecent-videos.htmlPakistan’s telecom regulator has banned TikTok, claiming the app failed to remove “immoral” and “indecent” content. The ban comes just over a month after the regulator, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, banned dating apps, including Tinder and Grindr, for the same reason. TikTok had been installed 43 million times in Pakistan, according to the analytics firm Sensor Tower. That made it the app’s 12th largest market in terms of installs. The firm estimates TikTok has been installed 2./news/parkinson-s-meds-are-hard-to-grab-so-tiktok-users-crowdsourced-a-solution.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/parkinson-s-meds-are-hard-to-grab-so-tiktok-users-crowdsourced-a-solution.htmlJimmy Choi’s TikTok page is filled with the typical videos of a high-level athlete: clips of himself doing one-armed pushups, climbing ropes, holding planks with weights on his back. If you look closely, though, you’ll notice that even before he begins his feats of strength and endurance, his hands are shaking. Choi has Parkinson’s disease, a central nervous system disorder that causes tremors, and he often posts about what it’s like to live with the disease./news/pennslyvania-man-will-plead-guilty-in-celebgate-nude-photo-hack.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pennslyvania-man-will-plead-guilty-in-celebgate-nude-photo-hack.htmlRyan Collins, a 36-year-old Pennsylvania man accused of playing a key role in the "Celebgate" breach in 2014, will plead guilty to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which will mark the first conviction related to the high-profile hack. Collins spent roughly two years tricking victims online, some of which worked in Hollywood, into handing over sensitive data like email addresses and passwords by pretending to work for Apple and Google, according to federal prosecutors./news/pinterest-introduces-lens-a-shazam-for-objects-in-the-real-world.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pinterest-introduces-lens-a-shazam-for-objects-in-the-real-world.htmlPinterest today introduced Lens, a new visual search tool that uses machine vision to detect objects in the real world and suggest related items on the service. Lens, which is now in beta, is a tool inside the Pinterest mobile app that functions as a kind of Shazam for objects. Point it at food, furniture, or even the night sky, and Pinterest will return objects that it believes are related. In a demonstration, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp used Lens to detect a pomegranate./news/pubg-mobile-now-runs-at-90fps-in-the-us-but-it-s-exclusive-to-oneplus-for-a-month.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pubg-mobile-now-runs-at-90fps-in-the-us-but-it-s-exclusive-to-oneplus-for-a-month.htmlIf you wanted to play PUBG Mobile at a frame rate higher than 60fps, it was a bit tricky. You either needed to live in China or download the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile (well, it’s actually called Game for Peace), plus you needed a phone with a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate. Now, Tencent Games is finally adding support for 90fps in the US and other countries, but you’ll need to wait a month unless you have some specific OnePlus phones./news/quest-3s-could-be-the-name-of-meta-s-more-affordable-vr-headset.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/quest-3s-could-be-the-name-of-meta-s-more-affordable-vr-headset.htmlMeta appears to have confirmed the name of its next virtual reality headset: the Quest 3S. In a Quest Store listing spotted by UploadVR, Meta lists the Quest 3S as a supported device. At this time of writing, you can see the Quest 3S listed alongside the Quest 3, Quest, Pro, and Quest 2 in the listing for the upcoming Alo Moves XR app. Other upcoming titles, such as Miracle Pool and Rival Stars Horse Racing: VR Edition, also include the Quest 3S./news/ramy-season-2-review-the-hulu-show-takes-cringe-comedy-to-a-dark-and-funny-place.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ramy-season-2-review-the-hulu-show-takes-cringe-comedy-to-a-dark-and-funny-place.htmlThe United States is a difficult country to live in if you believe in anything. Our nation’s institutions fail us frequently and disastrously; our politics favor corporations over people; our cultural discourse is frequently weighted toward the cynical and disingenuous. Faith must be practiced, and a belief in most things — social justice, an equitable society, even the American Dream — is rarely rewarded.  Religious faith is even harder. Any non-Christian belief is barely recognized or accommodated, and even if you fall into a form of widely accepted Christianity, its prominence in the culture is rarely felt from within, eschewed in favor of an endless war against secular culture./news/reddit-faces-lawsuit-for-failing-to-remove-child-sexual-abuse-material.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/reddit-faces-lawsuit-for-failing-to-remove-child-sexual-abuse-material.htmlA woman has sued Reddit for allowing an ex-boyfriend to repeatedly post pornographic images of her as a 16-year-old. The lawsuit applies controversial measures instituted in 2018 under FOSTA-SESTA to a site that’s drawn particular criticism for child sexualization. The resulting case will test the limits of platforms’ legal shields amid ongoing efforts to pare back the law behind them. The woman, identified under the pseudonym Jane Doe, argues that “Reddit knowingly benefits from lax enforcement of its content polices, including for child pornography./news/ring-steps-back-from-sharing-video-with-police-mostly.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ring-steps-back-from-sharing-video-with-police-mostly.htmlRing will no longer let local police publicly ask people for doorbell footage through its Neighbors app. The Amazon-owned company announced it’s going to sunset its Request for Assistance tool this week, forcing police to obtain a warrant for most of its video requests. This change might seem like a step in the right direction, but it may actually make the clip-requesting process less transparent, as police can still request clips from Ring during what they consider “emergencies./news/rivian-is-working-on-an-e-bike.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rivian-is-working-on-an-e-bike.htmlElectric automaker Rivian is developing an electric bike, according to sources speaking to Bloomberg. CEO RJ Scaringe apparently told staff about the e-bike effort during a company meeting on Friday, noting that a small team is currently working on it.  Bloomberg says it’s unclear if Scaringe was talking about a battery-assisted bicycle (aka an e-bike) or an electric motorcycle. However, Scaringe has teased an entry into micromobility in the past and the company has patents for e-bike designs and components./news/samsung-adds-tv-plus-and-art-mode-to-the-family-hub-refrigerator.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-adds-tv-plus-and-art-mode-to-the-family-hub-refrigerator.htmlSamsung is releasing a new update for its Family Hub refrigerators that brings Samsung TV Plus — the tech giant’s free, ad-supported live TV service — to its fridges with a tablet built-in. At its second annual Bespoke Home event on Tuesday, the company said the update (which was first announced last year) will arrive this July on Family Hub 2.0 models (2017 and later). The live TV option is only available in the U./news/samsung-developed-its-own-font-called-samsungone.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-developed-its-own-font-called-samsungone.htmlBespoke typefaces have become all the rage in Silicon Valley. Google has its Roboto font family that’s become a cornerstone of the identity of many of their Material Design applications. Apple has its custom-made San Francisco, which recently became the default typeface across the entire Apple family of devices. And while Microsoft can’t take credit for developing Segoe, the company has made the font its own, using it as a core part of the Microsoft, Windows, and Office branding./news/samsung-s-fake-moon-photos-aren-t-a-giant-leap-for-mobile-photography.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-fake-moon-photos-aren-t-a-giant-leap-for-mobile-photography.htmlIt’s a debate as old as photography itself. On Friday, Reddit user u/ibreakphotos posted a few photos of the Moon that had the internet grappling with a familiar question: what is “truth” in photography? The images in question show a blurred Moon alongside a much sharper and clearer version. The latter is a better image, but there’s one major problem with it. It’s not real — at least in the sense that most of us think of a photo as real./news/sandy-hook-truther-arrested-for-doxxing-grieving-dad.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sandy-hook-truther-arrested-for-doxxing-grieving-dad.htmlA man who spread conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook shooting and allegedly harassed victims’ families was arrested Monday morning in Florida. The hoaxer, Wolfgang Halbig, was charged with “unlawful possession of personal identification of another person” and released after paying a $5,000 bond. The arrest was first reported in The New York Times. Halbig is alleged to have repeatedly emailed the social security number, birth date, and other personal information from the father of one of the shooting victims to a number of recipients, according to the Times./news/siriusxm-may-acquire-pandora-according-to-reports.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/siriusxm-may-acquire-pandora-according-to-reports.htmlSiriusXM is in talks to acquire Pandora, according to reports from CNBC and the New York Post. Given that SiriusXM’s parent company Liberty Media and Pandora have been in off and on discussions for over a year at this point, the talks aren’t surprising in the least. But it doesn’t mean a sale is imminent. Last year, Liberty Media reportedly made a $3.4 billion bid to purchase Pandora, which was declined by the board of the streaming service, due to a disagreement on the valuation of Pandora./news/snapchat-releases-my-ai-chatbot-powered-by-chatgpt.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/snapchat-releases-my-ai-chatbot-powered-by-chatgpt.htmlSnapchat is introducing a chatbot powered by the latest version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, it’s a bet that AI chatbots will increasingly become a part of everyday life for more people. Named “My AI,” Snapchat’s bot will be pinned to the app’s chat tab above conversations with friends. While initially only available for $3.99 a month Snapchat Plus subscribers, the goal is to eventually make the bot available to all of Snapchat’s 750 million monthly users, Spiegel tells The Verge./news/sonos-getting-rid-of-recycle-mode-that-needlessly-bricked-its-older-devices.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sonos-getting-rid-of-recycle-mode-that-needlessly-bricked-its-older-devices.htmlSonos is doing away with Recycle Mode, a controversial part of the company’s trade-up program that rendered old devices inoperable in exchange for a 30 percent discount on a newer Sonos product. The trade-up program still exists, and customers who own eligible legacy products can get the same discount, but they’re no longer required to permanently brick devices that might still work just fine. With the change, Sonos is now giving customers full control over what happens with the older gadgets they’re “trading” up from./news/sony-s-project-morpheus-vr-headset-will-launch-in-2016.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-project-morpheus-vr-headset-will-launch-in-2016.htmlAt last year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony unveiled its virtual reality headset, called Project Morpheus. One year later, the company has finally announced a release timeframe for the device: the first half of 2016. "A year ago, we were here at GDC to unveil Project Morpheus," explained Shuhei Yoshida, President of World Wide Studios. "And for the last year we all have seen the VR world explode. More people than ever have tried VR at a variety of events./news/sony-s-200-dualsense-edge-for-ps5-will-have-moderately-shorter-battery-life.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-200-dualsense-edge-for-ps5-will-have-moderately-shorter-battery-life.htmlI just published my hands-on impressions of Sony’s new DualSense Edge gamepad — the $200 answer to Microsoft’s Xbox Elite controllers — and I came away fairly impressed. But you should know that there’s one not so impressive change from the original DualSense controller. It’s got less battery life, Sony confirms to The Verge. Here’s the company’s full statement about that: The DualSense Edge wireless controller’s operating time is moderately shorter than the original DualSense wireless controller because we’ve included many more features within the same form factor and ergonomic design as the original DualSense controller./news/sony-s-first-major-ps5-redesign-will-reportedly-have-a-detachable-disc-drive.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-first-major-ps5-redesign-will-reportedly-have-a-detachable-disc-drive.htmlThe next revision of the PlayStation 5 could include a removable disc drive, potentially letting you play games using a drive connected via USB-C, according to Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming. The report says that we could see this new model of PS5 around September 2023. The PS5 currently comes in two versions: one with a disc drive built in and a “Digital edition” that can’t read discs, even if you plug a USB drive into it./news/sony-s-next-state-of-play-stream-is-30-minutes-of-ps5-and-vr-games.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-next-state-of-play-stream-is-30-minutes-of-ps5-and-vr-games.htmlSony’s showcase is expected to be densely packed, lasting 30 minutes but featuring 14 titles. That’s a game roughly every two minutes or a handful of premium games at several minutes apiece, with a shotgun blast of smaller games. Regardless of how the timing shakes out, we can probably expect some big announcements. Sony’s not the only presentation slotted for tomorrow. At 7PM ET, conveniently after the State of Play is over, Konami’s putting on a Silent Hill Transmission event that will likely feature new info on Silent Hill F, Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake, and the upcoming movie./news/spotify-s-exclusivity-era-nears-its-end.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spotify-s-exclusivity-era-nears-its-end.htmlThis is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. I just got back from Puerto Rico and wow, there is a lot of podcast news! Let’s get into it. Call Her Daddy is getting wide distribution It’s very nearly the end of the exclusivity era for Spotify. The audio streamer announced today that Call Her Daddy, Spotify’s second-most-popular original podcast, is getting wide distribution across podcast platforms./news/steam-deck-review-it-s-not-ready.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/steam-deck-review-it-s-not-ready.htmlIn February 2022, the Steam Deck shipped unfinished, broken, buggy — and full of potential. I said it wasn’t ready. I called it a “glorious mess.” But while I don’t regret a single word of my original review, or the original video above, the Steam Deck I reviewed in 2022 simply isn’t the device you’ll buy today. Valve has shipped over 100 updates that have made it dramatically more reliable and responsive, made countless games run and run better, and added new features that help put the handheld Linux gaming PC in a league of its own./news/surface-pro-x-vs-pro-7-review-comparison-arm-performance-and-battery-life.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/surface-pro-x-vs-pro-7-review-comparison-arm-performance-and-battery-life.html“I just wish the Surface Pro 7 looked like a Surface Pro X with an Intel chip inside.” That’s what I wrote about the Surface Pro 7 last month after reviewing Microsoft’s latest 2-in-1. I’ve now been using the Surface Pro X, an ARM-based version with an updated design, for the last week, and my wish for a Surface Pro X with an Intel chip inside couldn’t ring truer. At times, performance has been erratic, battery life underwhelming, and using the keyboard obnoxious./news/tcl-s-verizon-tablet-is-the-only-one-you-ll-find-with-5g-for-399.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tcl-s-verizon-tablet-is-the-only-one-you-ll-find-with-5g-for-399.htmlTCL, the company best known for its affordable Roku-equipped 4K TVs, has a new budget-oriented $399.99 5G tablet — the Tab Pro 5G. The device is available to order via Verizon’s online “Buy More, Save More” promo, which takes $100 off if purchased with a qualifying Android device on a Verizon plan. Similar to its newer TVs that now offer Google TV in the US, TCL’s Tab Pro 5G continues the company’s trend with a standard set of Google apps./news/the-best-new-ios-game-is-about-growing-trees.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-new-ios-game-is-about-growing-trees.htmlWhen the iPhone was new and the idea of touchscreen controls was still novel, mobile gaming was a hotbed of creativity. New, completely original games came out so quickly that it was hard to keep up. Today the App Store is a far different place, dominated by me-too clones and free-to-play licensed games. But every so often, a game comes out that reminds you of those early, promised-filled years. They're rare — Alto's Adventure is arguably 2015's only such release so far — but you can add Prune to that short list./news/the-eu-might-need-to-reassess-microsoft-s-activision-blizzard-deal-after-restructuring.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-eu-might-need-to-reassess-microsoft-s-activision-blizzard-deal-after-restructuring.html“The Commission is carefully assessing whether the developments in the UK require another notification to the Commission,” says European Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta in a statement to The Verge. Another notification to the EU could signal a further review of a deal that regulators at the European Commission cleared earlier this year. While the EU had cloud gaming concerns just like the EU, it secured remedies as part of that approval, granting EU consumers a free license to stream via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice” all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games that they have a license for./news/the-ev-boom-is-being-fueled-by-exploited-cobalt-miners.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ev-boom-is-being-fueled-by-exploited-cobalt-miners.htmlAndre clocks into his job at the Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo at 7 in the morning, and he leaves at 6 at night. The work is physically demanding, and while KCC provides Andre with lunch, he says the food quality is poor, and he’s often hungry afterward. He is also thirsty, with only a little over a liter of water provided to him a day, despite toiling deep underground in a mine that gets swelteringly hot./news/the-final-trailer-for-valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets-shows-an-incredible-sci-fi-univers.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-final-trailer-for-valerian-and-the-city-of-a-thousand-planets-shows-an-incredible-sci-fi-univers.htmlThe final trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is here, and like the two trailers that preceded it, it’s packed to the gills with wall-to-wall sci-fi action. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets stars Dane DeHaan as the titular Valerian, and Cara Delevingne as his partner, Laureline, who are tasked with saving Alpha — the aforementioned City of a Thousand Planets, an intergalactic melting pot of a metropolis — from a dark threat that could endanger both the city and the entire universe./news/the-futurama-crew-touches-down-in-fortnite.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-futurama-crew-touches-down-in-fortnite.htmlPlanet Express, meet battle royale. As was teased yesterday, a collaboration between Futurama and Fortnite kicked off today, which mostly involves three characters from the show being available in the item shop. You can now fight your way through the game as Fry, Leela, or Bender, and the Planet Express ship is also available as a glider. Also in the shop: an emote that lets you shuffle like Dr. Zoidberg. Curiously, there is no emote related to the show’s most famous meme./news/the-new-yale-keypad-touch-brings-fingerprint-unlocking-to-august-smart-locks.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-new-yale-keypad-touch-brings-fingerprint-unlocking-to-august-smart-locks.htmlThe Yale Keypad Touch is a fingerprint-enabled wireless keypad for Yale and August retrofit locks that works with the fourth-gen August Wi-Fi Smart Lock, third-gen August Smart Lock Pro, third-gen August Smart Lock, and the new Yale Approach Lock with Wi-Fi. In addition to fingerprint and code unlock, it offers one-touch locking on your way out. It’s available now for $109.99 at ShopYaleHome.com and August.com. That’s a steep upgrade for those who already have an August lock, though it might be worth it for that touch-to-unlock ease./news/the-reflections-in-a-pop-star-s-eyes-told-a-selfie-stalker-exactly-how-to-find-her.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-reflections-in-a-pop-star-s-eyes-told-a-selfie-stalker-exactly-how-to-find-her.htmlIn September, a Japanese man was arrested for reportedly stalking a pop star and attacking and groping her at her home, according to Japanese news organization NHK. Allegedly, this man found the woman’s home by studying photos she posted on social media, observing a train station reflected in her eyes, finding that train station using Google Street View, waiting for her at the train station, and following her home. The man also apparently learned more about where the woman lived by studying videos she posted from inside her apartment, observing her curtains and how light came through her windows./news/the-ship-from-asteroids-is-hidden-in-plain-sight-in-your-gps-system.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ship-from-asteroids-is-hidden-in-plain-sight-in-your-gps-system.htmlDuring development, [longtime Bushnell collaborator Alan Alcorn] snuck into nearby Atari's coin-op division building with Etak engineers to show them the hit 1979 arcade title Asteroids. The game used a vector display that produced fluid animations with low-cost hardware. It's little surprise, then, that Etak's final on-screen representation of the car in its shipping product was a vector triangle nearly identical to the ship from Asteroids. More than 30 years later, that bit of Atari-derived inspiration lives on: Many car navigation systems today still use a triangle with a slightly inverted base as a symbol for your car, and it comes directly from Asteroids./news/there-s-a-lion-in-london-s-trafalgar-square-that-eats-words-and-roars-ai-generated-poetry.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/there-s-a-lion-in-london-s-trafalgar-square-that-eats-words-and-roars-ai-generated-poetry.htmlThe four bronze lions that surround Nelson’s Column in London’s Trafalgar Square are pretty passive-looking creatures. They sit on all fours and gaze blankly ahead, more sphinx than lion. Legend has it that their sculptor originally planned for the animals to be posed in more active stances, stood up on their hind legs and roaring at the square. But Queen Victoria reportedly vetoed the decision as too shocking. Now, 151 years after they were originally unveiled, the lions have a new colleague, and he is definitely turning heads./news/this-is-not-adobe-s-new-logo.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-is-not-adobe-s-new-logo.htmlAdobe has started using some new branding across the most recent promotional videos for its generative AI apps. The new branding combines the current Adobe corporate mark (the triangular “A” logo) with the company’s Adobe Clean typeface (which is used in the software giant’s current logo) to spell out the name Adobe. You’d be forgiven for assuming this was an update to the logo introduced in 2020, but according to Adobe, this “wordmark” isn’t replacing the official logo that the company currently uses./news/this-projector-smartwatch-turns-your-arm-into-a-terrible-touchscreen.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-projector-smartwatch-turns-your-arm-into-a-terrible-touchscreen.htmlResearchers at Carnegie Mellon University and ASU Tech have unveiled a new “first-of-its-kind” smartwatch that can turn your arm into a touchscreen. The prototype LumiWatch projects an interactive surface area on the wearer’s arm or hand, allowing them to tap and swipe on their skin to use the watch. The prototype shows how an on-body interface might work: you swipe left to unlock the watch, and apps are then displayed along your arm./news/this-real-life-transformer-might-be-one-of-the-coolest-robot-toys-ever-made.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-real-life-transformer-might-be-one-of-the-coolest-robot-toys-ever-made.htmlI’ve always loved toys that have more than meets the eye. Hidden spring-loaded projectiles. Secret passages in my LEGO sets. And of course, Transformers toys. But while many of the best toys rely on a healthy imagination, it always felt like the Transformers were a little too slow for make-believe skirmishes and adventures; the good ones took far longer to turn into a robot than they did in the show. That’s why I’m sad I didn’t personally attend CES in Las Vegas this year — where you can see an unofficial Transformer toy that transforms from car to robot all by itself./news/this-robotic-mop-will-clean-your-home-but-not-without-plenty-of-help.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-robotic-mop-will-clean-your-home-but-not-without-plenty-of-help.htmlRobotic vacuums are becoming increasingly powerful and intelligent, but they can only clean up dry dust and debris. For the assorted gunk and goobers that can coat hardwood and tile floors, you still need a liquid clean, and that often means using a mop. Over the last week I took the iRobot Braava, the water-spitting cousin of the Roomba, for a spin. It’s not nearly as capable as the robotic vacuums on the market, but it’s much cheaper than those offerings, and good enough to get the job done./news/tiamat-s-wrath-raises-the-stakes-as-the-expanse-nears-the-end.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiamat-s-wrath-raises-the-stakes-as-the-expanse-nears-the-end.htmlOver the course of eight books, The Expanse has felt a bit like one of those videos that zooms out from Earth into the larger universe. Part of the appeal of Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War was that they were a space opera set in our local neighborhood, dealing with issues that are relevant to the world we now live in: war, racism, justice, all accompanied by power armored-marines, spaceship battles, and a menacing alien threat./news/ticwatch-pro-3-review-and-fossil-gen-5-review-wear-os-smartwatches.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ticwatch-pro-3-review-and-fossil-gen-5-review-wear-os-smartwatches.htmlFor the past month, I’ve been testing the two most powerful Wear OS watches you can buy: the TicWatch Pro 3 from Mobvoi and the Fossil Gen 5 LTE. They’re not spec-for-spec identical, but they do share a basic shape: big, chunky, round, and black. If you’re using Android and want a smartwatch, they’re at the top of a persistently tiny list of top-flight smartwatches. Despite Wear OS’s reputation, both watches are perfectly competent and can do the basics of what many people want out of a smartwatch./news/toyota-finally-caves-and-announces-cars-with-android-auto-compatibility.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/toyota-finally-caves-and-announces-cars-with-android-auto-compatibility.htmlOne of the last major holdouts in adding Android Auto compatibility has finally caved. Toyota announced on Thursday that the 2020 models of the 4Runner, Tacoma, Tundra, and Sequoia will feature Android Auto. The 2018 Aygo and the 2019 Yaris (in Europe) will also get Android Auto. Toyota was one of the last big automakers to build CarPlay compatibility into its cars, too. The company announced in January 2018 that CarPlay would come to the 2019 Avalon./news/tron-founder-justin-sun-and-his-many-escapes.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tron-founder-justin-sun-and-his-many-escapes.htmlJustin Sun, a budding Chinese cryptocurrency mogul, walked through the shiny lofted atrium of the departure terminal at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport. It was September 2017, an early height of the crypto craze, and Sun had every reason to be nervous after his first ICO. An ICO, or initial coin offering, is like an initial public offering for a new stock. It’s the first time cryptocurrency traders have the opportunity to buy a brand-new token./news/trump-campaign-using-targeted-facebook-posts-to-discourage-black-americans-from-voting.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/trump-campaign-using-targeted-facebook-posts-to-discourage-black-americans-from-voting.htmlWhile the Trump campaign continues to flounder weeks before Election Day, a new report is providing some inside information on the candidate's strategy, including an unorthodox use of Facebook. Plan to "depress" votes in Clinton-leaning demographics Businessweek, which published a major look into the campaign this morning, explains how the Trump team has quietly organized a data enterprise to sharpen its White House bid. According to the magazine, the campaign is meanwhile attempting to depress votes in demographics where Hillary Clinton is winning by wide margins./news/truth-social-is-now-available-on-the-google-play-store.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/truth-social-is-now-available-on-the-google-play-store.htmlTruth Social, the social media app created by former President Donald Trump, is now available for download on the Google Play Store (via CNBC). In August, Google banned the app over “insufficient” content moderation policies. Truth Social, which offers a Twitter-like social experience, markets itself as a platform that “encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation.” It first launched on the Apple App Store in February before attempting to offer its app through the Google Play Store./news/turn-twitch-clips-into-tiktoks-with-streamlabs-new-crossclip-tool.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/turn-twitch-clips-into-tiktoks-with-streamlabs-new-crossclip-tool.htmlLogitech-owned Streamlabs, maker of the popular livestreaming app Streamlabs OBS, is releasing a new tool today called Crossclip that lets you take your favorite Twitch clips and turn them into social videos formatted for platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram. The tool is free for anyone to use on the Crossclip website. It has some smart features that let you quickly generate a shareable video that highlights both the streamer and the game they’re playing./news/twitter-reinstates-zero-hedge-account-saying-its-earlier-suspension-was-an-error.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-reinstates-zero-hedge-account-saying-its-earlier-suspension-was-an-error.htmlZero Hedge says in a post on its site Saturday that Twitter told them the suspension was for violating its rules against abuse and harassment, and reiterated its position that the suspension was “motivated by reasons other than the stated ones.” Its post argues Zero Hedge did not dox the scientist in question, but used publicly available information in its report. In its January blog post, Zero Hedge included what it said were the scientist’s name, photo, email, and phone number, adding that people should “pay [him] a visit./news/twitter-was-a-harassment-machine.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-was-a-harassment-machine.htmlSarah Jeong @Sarah Jeong I’ve had a really good time on here. I’ve also had a really bad time on here lol 8:47 PM· Nov 17, 2022 heThe first tweet was already unsettling. It was a composite image of things I’d said — largely dug up from five years earlier — screencaps of posts with tiny archive links appended to each one. Out of context, some of my old posts looked bad./news/two-flights-grounded-in-atlanta-following-twitter-bomb-threats.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/two-flights-grounded-in-atlanta-following-twitter-bomb-threats.htmlTwo US passenger planes were targeted by bomb threats today. Delta flight 1156 and Southwest flight 2942, both bound for Atlanta, were escorted by F-16 fighter jets before landing. According to Reuters and the AP, passengers safely exited the aircraft before the planes were swept and cleared by bomb-sniffing dogs. The cause for the commotion? Apparently a couple of tweets. As spotted by Buzzfeed, Twitter user @kingZortic told the official Delta and Southwest accounts earlier today that he was responsible for a bomb on each of the aircraft./news/vlc-4-0-coming-this-year-with-new-interface-for-the-popular-video-player.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/vlc-4-0-coming-this-year-with-new-interface-for-the-popular-video-player.htmlVersion 4.0 of VLC, the popular cross-platform media playing software, is planned for release in the coming months, Protocol reports. The big new feature is a redesigned interface, which VideoLAN foundation president Jean-Baptiste Kempf hopes will look “a bit more modern.” Protocol also reports that the team is working on integrating more online content into the software, as well as a new way of running VLC in a webpage. It also has an IMDb competitor in the works./news/watch-beck-s-lush-cover-of-david-bowie-s-sound-and-vision-with-360-degree-interactive-cameras.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-beck-s-lush-cover-of-david-bowie-s-sound-and-vision-with-360-degree-interactive-cameras.htmlBeck's rich adaptation of David Bowie song "Sound and Vision" is impressive on its own, but in keeping with other artists who have made interactive visuals for their music, he's teamed up with music video director Chris Milk to offer a new look at its live performance last week. "Hello, Again" gives users limited control over three cameras panning around the stage, matching each with a different microphone so you can hear and see from the viewpoint of the audience or the stage itself./news/watch-dogs-2-s-fashion-atrocities-crocs-tiny-bags-and-a-hat-made-from-guy-fieri-s-shirt.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-dogs-2-s-fashion-atrocities-crocs-tiny-bags-and-a-hat-made-from-guy-fieri-s-shirt.htmlAfter a long night of hacking into the computer system of a massive corporation, it was time to reward Marcus with a new outfit. Until this point, my colleague Megan had been working her way through Watch Dogs 2, but a clothing shop seemed as safe a space as any to hand over the controller — it’s like how you can’t let a baby put together a puzzle, but you can let him play with the box it came in./news/watch-rivian-s-r2-reveal-event-in-5-minutes.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-rivian-s-r2-reveal-event-in-5-minutes.htmlWatch Rivian’s R2 reveal event in 5 minutes. All the highlights from Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe’s presentation of the smaller, cheaper R2 SUV are right here, as well as the surprise debut of an even smaller electric crossover, with the R3 and sport-trim R3X taking the stage. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaHx4e5FtZ3JrZm6DcMPArZqhZaKew6qtzaxkq2pdp7K3scClZJ6ulaPBbrXNZmxmpZmjwrWx0g%3D%3D/news/we-might-get-another-poo-emoji.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/we-might-get-another-poo-emoji.htmlIt’s the glorious time of year again when our emoji-making overlords descend from the mountains with tales of smiling yellow faces that may one day join all the others on our phones. And this year, the potential emoji are plentiful. The Unicode Consortium has approved 67 emoji for possible inclusion in version 11 of the Unicode standard, which defines emoji and a lot more important stuff about character standardization on computers and phones, too./news/welcome-to-hell-elon-has-now-been-cited-in-a-supreme-court-brief.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/welcome-to-hell-elon-has-now-been-cited-in-a-supreme-court-brief.html“Welcome to hell, Elon” has now been cited in a Supreme Court brief. Amicus briefs in the big First Amendment case against the bad Texas and Florida social media laws are getting filed, and Public Knowledge’s submission contains a citation to Welcome to hell, Elon as support for the idea that the real product of any social platform is content moderation. I truly hope Clarence Thomas reads this thing. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2tfZn9wg45ranJxYmaCcnvWnqOcp52aerW7jKGcpaRdmrmwuoyhmKxlnqTEbq7EnqVmm5mpsqV5yKdkmmWjqr2zscyeZJynpafBbq7Ropyf/news/whatsapp-can-now-silence-calls-from-unknown-numbers.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/whatsapp-can-now-silence-calls-from-unknown-numbers.htmlWhatsApp’s latest feature can automatically mute incoming calls if they’re from an unknown number, the service announced today. The setting is available by going into WhatsApp’s settings, hitting “Privacy,” selecting “Calls,” and turning on the “Silence Unknown Callers” toggle. WhatsApp says the feature will help “screen out spam, scams, and calls from unknown people for increased protection.” When enabled, the feature silences all signs of incoming calls from unknown numbers including both sound and visual alerts in the app./news/windows-10-s-new-desktop-wallpaper-is-made-out-of-light.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/windows-10-s-new-desktop-wallpaper-is-made-out-of-light.htmlLike every other version of Windows, Microsoft has created a special desktop wallpaper for Windows 10. While Microsoft opted for daisies in Windows 8 and an aurora in Windows Vista, the default Windows 10 wallpaper uses a Windows logo just like Windows 7 did. It's not just any old logo, either. Microsoft travelled to a San Francisco studio to build two installations to create the Windows logo out of light. The software company used camera mapping techniques, lasers, and projectors to create the new hero image that will be used on millions of PCs that ship with Windows 10./news/wooting-two-he-review-an-analog-keyboard-in-a-digital-world.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wooting-two-he-review-an-analog-keyboard-in-a-digital-world.htmlLike most PC gamers, I split my time between playing using a mouse and keyboard and a console controller. Nothing beats the precision of a mouse in first- and third-person shooters, but for me, a keyboard is no match for an analog stick in racing games or platformers. They both have different strengths. Wooting’s Two HE keyboard, which starts at $174.99 without keycaps, is the company’s latest attempt to bridge that gap, offering some of the benefits of analog control in the form factor of a keyboard./news/wyze-cameras-let-some-owners-see-into-a-stranger-s-home-again.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wyze-cameras-let-some-owners-see-into-a-stranger-s-home-again.htmlUpdate: After an AWS outage this morning, our servers got overloaded and it corrupted some user data. We have now identified a security issue where some users were able to see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab. Fortunately, they were not able to view live streams or watch these videos, only the thumbnails were visible. So far we’ve collected 14 reports of this happening, but we are currently identifying all affected users./news/xbox-cloud-gaming-is-coming-to-amazon-s-fire-tv-sticks-in-july.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xbox-cloud-gaming-is-coming-to-amazon-s-fire-tv-sticks-in-july.htmlMicrosoft is launching its Xbox TV app on Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks in July. The Xbox app will provide access to Xbox Cloud Gaming so subscribers to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate can stream a variety of games directly to Fire TV devices. Microsoft will support the Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Stick 4K models for its Xbox app, which will be available in more than 25 countries. All you’ll need is a compatible Fire TV Stick, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller, and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to stream Xbox games./news/you-can-escape-this-room-but-you-ll-never-escape-google-docs.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-escape-this-room-but-you-ll-never-escape-google-docs.htmlFor anyone who’s been lucky enough to spend the majority of the pandemic working from home, the idea of escaping the room (or couch) that’s become a makeshift office is probably a relatable one. Enter this series of “escape rooms” built in Google Docs, that let you do just that, inside web software you’ve probably become far too familiar with. “Part 3” of the game was finally released Tuesday, but you’ll never fully escape using Google Docs./news/youtube-apologizes-to-lgbtq-creators-over-issues-with-its-policies.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-apologizes-to-lgbtq-creators-over-issues-with-its-policies.htmlFollowing complaints from users, YouTube has apologized for some of the problems that its LGBTQ creators have faced regarding its monetization and ad policies in recent months. The apology comes at the end of Pride month, and the video platform says that it will do better by its creators. In a series of tweets yesterday, YouTube says that it “let the LGBTQ community down — inappropriate ads and concerns about how we’re enforcing our monetization policy,” and that “that we hear concerns about how we’re implementing our monetization policy, we take them seriously and make improvements if needed./news/youtube-expands-non-skippable-ads-to-more-creators.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-expands-non-skippable-ads-to-more-creators.htmlYouTube is expanding non-skippable ads on its platform. Today, the company announced that all creators who can already monetize content on YouTube will soon be able to turn on non-skippable ads on all videos. The change is rolling out next week and eligible creators will get a notification in their dashboard. Advertisers usually pay creators more for non-skippable ads, so this could be a way for YouTubers to incentivize creators to stick around on its platform and produce more content, with each ad sale earning the Google-owned company a cut./news/youtube-is-demonetizing-all-videos-about-momo.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-is-demonetizing-all-videos-about-momo.htmlYouTube isn’t running ads on videos about the recent Momo Challenge resurgence, even those coming from respected news organizations and popular creator commentators. Multiple news organizations including CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox, and local affiliate channels have uploaded segments on Momo — a viral hoax about a creepy sculpture by Keisuke Aisawa that’s alleged to promote self-harm. These videos aren’t monetized, and some have warning windows alerting viewers to disturbing content./news/youtube-will-start-sharing-ad-money-with-shorts-creators-on-february-1st.htmlSat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-will-start-sharing-ad-money-with-shorts-creators-on-february-1st.htmlYouTube has announced that creators can start making ad revenue on Shorts starting February 1st, following a promise from September that the monetization option was on its way. The change is coming as part of a broader update to YouTube’s Partner Program, which will require everyone who’s currently part of it to sign new agreement terms, whether or not they’re looking to make money from Shorts. Creators have been able to make some money from the format that rolled out in 2021 for a while via things like Super Chats and shopping integrations, as well as a creator fund that the company had set up, but that model wasn’t all that much better that TikTok’s monetization scheme./news/michael-bay-s-benghazi-movie-is-an-unexpectedly-apolitical-rorschach-test.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/michael-bay-s-benghazi-movie-is-an-unexpectedly-apolitical-rorschach-test.htmlThere's been plenty of public sneering about the idea of Michael Bay, director of the Bad Boys and the Transformers films, bringing his semi-coherent style to a fatal attack on American citizens abroad. But perhaps surprisingly, Bay seems determined to keep his film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi out of the political realm. It turns out his motives are no different than they've ever been: he's a commercial purveyor of adventure stories aimed at excitable teenagers./news/more-human-than-human-the-making-of-ex-machina-s-incredible-robot.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/more-human-than-human-the-making-of-ex-machina-s-incredible-robot.htmlBryan Bishop: Let’s talk about making Ava. Other than the restrictions with budget and time, what were the biggest challenges? Andrew Whitehurst: I think there’s a sort of film historical precedent issue, which is we didn’t want Ava to look obviously like a robot from any other film that people would be used to seeing. The C-3POs, and Maria from Metropolis; that kind of thing. I made a rule which I applied to myself as much as anybody else who was on the team working on it, which was no one is allowed to look at robots./news/terrence-malick-s-knight-of-cups-is-a-beautiful-experiment-that-doesn-t-connect.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/terrence-malick-s-knight-of-cups-is-a-beautiful-experiment-that-doesn-t-connect.htmlEarly on in Terrence Malick’s new film Knight of Cups, Rick — a self-indulgent screenwriter with a failed marriage behind him who soothes his existential ails with a parade of random models, actresses, and high-fiving Hollywood buddies — is shaken from sleep by a massive earthquake. It’s not exactly subtle; as played by Christian Bale, Rick is a man who’s lost his moral compass and feels his life shifting (literally) beneath his feet./news/the-borrowed-time-animators-on-how-evolving-pixar-tech-made-them-scramble-to-not-fall-apart.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-borrowed-time-animators-on-how-evolving-pixar-tech-made-them-scramble-to-not-fall-apart.htmlThe short animated film Borrowed Time, made over the course of five years as a side project by two animators at Pixar Animation Studios, has been circulating at film festivals since 2015. But this week it was made publicly available on Vimeo, which marked the first time most of the public could see it. The internet response has been tremendous. Writer-directors Lou Hamou-Lhadj and Andrew Coats say that as artists working on a huge team at a large company, they're used to being out of the public eye, and they've been overwhelmed by the direct, personal positive attention their film has drawn./news/the-chevy-bolt-is-electric-but-that-s-not-the-really-good-part.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-chevy-bolt-is-electric-but-that-s-not-the-really-good-part.htmlThough it's the first electric car that is both affordable and has a range over 200 miles, the Chevy Bolt is almost aggressively normal. Slipping into the driver's seat, it feels like any number of other cars I've driven. There's a steering wheel, a couple of pedals, a shift knob, and all the other stuff one expects from a car built in 2016. The only hint to the high-tech infrastructure hiding beneath the floor is the complete lack of noise when I hit the power button./news/dance-dance-revolution-has-a-new-endurance-champion.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dance-dance-revolution-has-a-new-endurance-champion.htmlForget Wii Fit — a new bar has been set for physical exertion through video games. 17-year-old Alexander Skudlarek of Rochester, Minnesota is now the holder of the Guinness World Record for "Longest video games marathon playing Dance Dance Revolution" after an epic performance of 16 hours, 18 minutes and 9 seconds. Granted, he took a ten minute break every hour, but we're still impressed — we tend to get tired after ten minutes of Konami's rhythmic arcade hit./news/danny-trejo-s-vengeance-woz-with-a-coz-ios-game-lands-just-in-time-for-thanksgiving.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/danny-trejo-s-vengeance-woz-with-a-coz-ios-game-lands-just-in-time-for-thanksgiving.htmlSteve Wozniak and Danny Trejo have arrived to make your Thanksgiving a little more action-packed. Announced earlier this month, Danny Trejo's Vengeance: Woz with a Coz is a retro-style action platformer for iOS in which the oddly-matched duo take to the streets to rescue Wozniak's kidnapped wife. The game is a tie-in to Trejo's upcoming movie Vengeance, and according to the App Store description the game's story was written by none other than Wozniak./news/spam-king-who-sent-27-million-facebook-messages-gets-30-months-in-jail.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spam-king-who-sent-27-million-facebook-messages-gets-30-months-in-jail.htmlA hacker who sent more than 27 million spam messages to Facebook users has been sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $310,000 in fines. Sanford Wallace, who promoted himself as the "Spam King," compromised more than 500,000 Facebook accounts between November 2008 and March 2009, sending users links to external websites that harvested their log-in credentials and friend lists. Wallace then spammed these users with links to other websites, earning money by directing traffic their way./news/thomas-was-alone-is-the-ipad-s-most-charming-game.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/thomas-was-alone-is-the-ipad-s-most-charming-game.htmlYou've probably never felt an emotional connection to simple geometric shapes before, but that will change when you play Thomas Was Alone. What at first appears to be little more than a simple platform game, where you control plain-looking squares and rectangles, turns into a surprisingly touching tale of friendship and loneliness — and it's a story told entirely through narration. The basic structure of Thomas Was Alone is similar to countless other games./news/30-million-year-old-whale-provides-insight-into-how-modern-whales-began-filter-feeding.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/30-million-year-old-whale-provides-insight-into-how-modern-whales-began-filter-feeding.htmlScientists have discovered a 30-million-year-old whale that used its teeth to both bite and catch prey, and filter seawater for food. This ancestor of the modern baleen whale gives us new information on how cetaceans evolved, showing that ancient whales were filter feeders even before developing the filtering structures modern whales use today. Modern baleen whales — like the blue whale or the humpback whale — catch their food by taking in vast quantities of water into their mouths, and expelling the water through keratin sieves called baleen./news/a-quick-review-of-the-sitpack-campster-2.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-quick-review-of-the-sitpack-campster-2.htmlA quick review of the Sitpack Campster 2. Not every chair is a gadget, but this one sure is. Its lightweight, one-piece, collapsible design packs down small but still feels rock solid when sitting on uneven ground. The Campster 2 costs $110 before adding accessories like an insulated beer holster and a cozy quilted cover. Click through the gallery for details and more impressions. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfanxzhY5ra2puZm2FcnvAZqiuoZOgerOx1aKcsGWfm3q1tMRmqqKsoJawrHnCmqSpq6Sav25%2B/news/a-stream-deck-mini-is-the-perfect-little-zoom-controller.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-stream-deck-mini-is-the-perfect-little-zoom-controller.htmlOne of my missions during the extended work-from-home transition of the past few years has been to find little ways to make the annoying parts of the experience slightly better and less annoying. Like many others, I’ve found a comfortable, ergonomic chair, set up a dedicated standing desk that is only used for work, and explored leveling up my video call quality by repurposing a mirrorless camera as a webcam./news/a-us-judge-has-blocked-montana-s-tiktok-ban.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-us-judge-has-blocked-montana-s-tiktok-ban.htmlA US judge has blocked Montana’s TikTok ban. US District Judge Donald W. Molloy issued a preliminary injunction (pdf) blocking the ban on Thursday, as reported by Reuters. The ban had been set to take effect on January 1st. TikTok sued Montana shortly after Governor Greg Gianforte signed SB 419 in May. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2tfZn5wf49oaWxxaGiBdX%2BOmmSuq12fwqWzxGafmqtdl7mwr8qem2aln6PBorrArGStoZupvKx5wZql/news/airpods-max-teardown-makes-sony-and-bose-headphones-look-like-toys.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/airpods-max-teardown-makes-sony-and-bose-headphones-look-like-toys.htmliFixit’s long in the making AirPods Max teardown is finally complete, giving an exhaustive look at the internals of Apple’s debut over-ear headphones and an idea of how easy they are to repair. iFixit even went as far as to teardown Sony’s WH-1000XM4 and Bose’s NC 700 headphones for comparison. Until now, iFixit has refused to grant Apple a single repairability point for any of its AirPods, but the AirPods Max buck the trend with a surprisingly high score of six out of ten./news/amazon-echo-show-8-second-gen-review-still-the-best-alexa-smart-display.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-echo-show-8-second-gen-review-still-the-best-alexa-smart-display.htmlAmazon’s midsize Echo Show 8 is the best smart display in its lineup. It is larger and more capable than the diminutive Echo Show 5, while costing far less than the larger Echo Show 10. The Echo Show 8 is handy for watching video, listening to music, getting weather reports, controlling smart home devices, making video calls, and more. So it’s no surprise that the second-generation model, which sells for $129./news/amazon-s-electric-dreams-is-more-optimistic-about-the-future-than-black-mirror.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amazon-s-electric-dreams-is-more-optimistic-about-the-future-than-black-mirror.htmlThese days, it’s almost impossible to talk about any kind of science-fiction TV anthology without comparing it to Charlie Brooker’s future-fears series Black Mirror. It’s the question most SF fans and telephiles will immediately ask. The new Amazon Prime Video anthology Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams does have some comparison points to Brooker’s series, and it’s unlikely that either Amazon or its UK television partner, Channel 4, mind having their fledgling series mentioned alongside Netflix’s well-established, buzzy technological creepshow./news/andy-rubin-has-left-his-own-incubator-but-he-s-still-in-the-building.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/andy-rubin-has-left-his-own-incubator-but-he-s-still-in-the-building.htmlAndy Rubin used to be primarily known as the “father of Android,” but he’s also becoming known for leaving companies amid scandal — in this case Playground Global, the tech incubator he founded after leaving Google in 2014. Rubin confirmed to The Verge today that he’s no longer with the incubator, following a BuzzFeed report that he was “quietly shown the door.” But that turn of phrase isn’t quite appropriate — because Rubin’s smartphone startup Essential happens to share the very same building as Playground Global in Palo Alto, California./news/apple-employees-circulate-petition-demanding-investigation-into-misogynistic-new-hire.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-employees-circulate-petition-demanding-investigation-into-misogynistic-new-hire.htmlIf you had been standing on the corner of Broadway and MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland the night of March 7, 2010, you would have seen a curious sight. A heavily pregnant woman, bent over in pain and scarcely able to walk, was being half carried, half dragged across the street by a tall, goateed man. The woman could barely stand, and needed to pause and cling to either the man, or any fixed object, as they struggled across the last couple hundred feet./news/apple-explains-why-the-m1-ultra-equipped-mac-studio-is-two-pounds-heavier.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-explains-why-the-m1-ultra-equipped-mac-studio-is-two-pounds-heavier.htmlWhen Apple published the spec sheets for its new Mac Studio computer, people were quick to voice their confusion about why on earth the version with the new M1 Ultra chip weighed a whole two pounds (almost a kilogram) more than the version with the M1 Max. While the M1 Ultra is basically two M1 Maxes stuck together, that’s not the reason for the weight difference, according to Apple. It turns out, it comes down to the metal used in the computer’s thermal systems./news/apple-loses-attempt-to-halt-apple-watch-sales-ban.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-loses-attempt-to-halt-apple-watch-sales-ban.htmlApple has lost its bid to delay an import and sales ban on the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2. In a filing on Wednesday, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) denied Apple’s motion to stay the ban while awaiting an appeal. On Monday, Apple announced its plans to pull the Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 from store shelves in response to an October ruling from the ITC, which said the company’s SpO2 sensors infringed on patents from medical device maker Masimo./news/apple-releases-chrome-extension-for-icloud-passwords.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-releases-chrome-extension-for-icloud-passwords.htmlApple has released an official extension for the Windows and Mac versions of Chrome that lets you use passwords stored in your iCloud Keychain. For anyone who uses Chrome as their browser and iCloud Keychain in lieu of a dedicated password manager, this could make bouncing between Windows and Mac computers much easier. The release of the extension means that if you’ve used Safari to automatically generate strong passwords on other platforms, those can now be available to you in Chrome when you’re prompted for a login./news/apple-removes-parler-from-the-app-store.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-removes-parler-from-the-app-store.htmlTo the developers of the Parler app, Thank you for your response regarding dangerous and harmful content on Parler. We have determined that the measures you describe are inadequate to address the proliferation of dangerous and objectionable content on your app.  Parler has not upheld its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or dangerous content encouraging violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines./news/apple-s-decision-to-cancel-its-csam-scanning-draws-praise-and-criticism.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-decision-to-cancel-its-csam-scanning-draws-praise-and-criticism.htmlWhen Apple introduced its slate of initiatives to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, last year, they were controversial, to say the least. While some praised the company for taking action, there was also no shortage of detractors, some of whom said that Apple’s plans to do on-device scanning for illegal content would require an unacceptable huge hit to user privacy. The backlash caused Apple to delay some of the features in September 2021, and earlier this week, the company confirmed it has abandoned its efforts to create the hashing system that would’ve searched people’s iCloud photo libraries for illegal materials./news/apple-s-midrange-pro-m3-chip-isn-t-looking-like-a-huge-upgrade.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-midrange-pro-m3-chip-isn-t-looking-like-a-huge-upgrade.htmlApple’s new M3 Pro chip is looking like an odd duck in an otherwise solidly improved MacBook Pro laptop. For most people who need a computer with a bit of oomph over dreary office tasks and need multiple external monitors, the M3 Pro will serve their needs and have great battery to boot. But year-over-year computer upgraders who might already have a Mac with an M2 Pro chip or even an M1 Pro might not see many (if any) performance improvements unless they shell out more dough for an M3 Max./news/are-bone-conduction-headphones-good-enough-yet.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/are-bone-conduction-headphones-good-enough-yet.htmlSound is a vibration and the more you think about that fact the weirder it gets. It means that everything you’ve ever heard in your life started off as a movement in the physical world. Something hit or scraped or brushed against something else, and that made the air around it wobble. That wobbly air moved as a sound wave — a pattern of alternating low and high air pressure — and bounced off buildings, trees, loved ones, etc./news/audible-tries-book-recommendations-based-on-your-streaming-history.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/audible-tries-book-recommendations-based-on-your-streaming-history.htmlAudible is testing a new section that provides audiobook recommendations based on your Prime Video viewing history. The test is rolling out to half of all users with both Audible and Amazon Prime, and there’s no way to opt out for now. If you have both services, you might see a new carousel on the mobile and web app titled “Based on what you watched recently on Prime Video.” It will contain audiobooks relevant to what you’ve watched on Prime Video, such as Dune, Project Hail Mary, and Fourth Wing./news/bambu-p1p-vs-creality-k1c-an-easy-3d-printer-showdown.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bambu-p1p-vs-creality-k1c-an-easy-3d-printer-showdown.htmlIf you asked me to recommend an “easy” consumer 3D printer, I’d warn you first: despite countless innovations, you still can’t quite hit a button to reliably photocopy a 3D model. Buying a 3D printer is buying an entire hobby, one where — if you’re a lazy bum like me — many attempts will turn into worthless gobs of plastic. But if you persisted, I’d tell you my one clear choice for lazy bums: the Bambu P1P./news/bbc-pulls-its-podcasts-from-google-podcasts-and-assistant.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bbc-pulls-its-podcasts-from-google-podcasts-and-assistant.htmlThe BBC has removed its podcasts from the Google Podcasts app and is also making them inaccessible to Google Assistant — and by extension, Google Home speakers. The broadcaster published a blog post taking issue with Google’s tendency to steer users who search for a podcast toward its own app “rather than BBC Sounds or other third-party services.” (The BBC Sounds app is unavailable outside the UK.) Kieran Clifton, the BBC’s director of distribution and business development, said the public service company is “not comfortable” with Google reducing a listener’s choice in this way and has expressed those concerns to Google directly./news/beats-announces-solo-pro-on-ear-headphones-with-noise-cancellation.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/beats-announces-solo-pro-on-ear-headphones-with-noise-cancellation.htmlSorry to interrupt, Google, but Apple decided to announce a product at the exact time of your Pixel 4 event — and it’s a pretty significant one, at that. Beats is today introducing the Solo Pro, a $299.95 set of wireless headphones that add noise cancellation to the on-ear form factor shared by the company’s long line of previous Solo headphones. These are, for all intents and purposes, the Solo 4 Wireless, but they’ve been rebranded to match the Powerbeats Pro (and iPhone 11 Pro and every other tech product that now has “pro” tacked on to its name)./news/best-buy-is-testing-a-tiny-digital-first-store-that-opens-its-doors-tuesday.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/best-buy-is-testing-a-tiny-digital-first-store-that-opens-its-doors-tuesday.htmlBest Buy is opening a digital-first, small-format store on Tuesday in Monroe, North Carolina, that takes a very different approach than most of its “big box” retail locations. The 5,000-square-foot location is only about 15 percent as big as the typical 35- to 40,000-square-foot Best Buy location and is even smaller than many smaller Apple Stores, which are typically between 6,000 to 8,500 square feet. Bloomberg reported last year that Best Buy was testing downsized locations of about 27,000 square feet to as small as 15,000 square feet, but this is much smaller, squeezing nearer to the now-closed Best Buy Mobile footprint./news/bose-connect-app-is-sharing-private-listening-data-claims-lawsuit.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bose-connect-app-is-sharing-private-listening-data-claims-lawsuit.htmlBose’s proprietary Bluetooth system may have been collecting more data than it let on. A proposed class action lawsuit filed this morning alleges that Bose’s Connect app was collecting and sharing information on users’ listening habits, as first reported by Fortune. Bose’s Connect app is meant to improve pairing between music sources and Bose speakers and headphones — and because it sits between the player and the speaker, the app has easy access to basic data on every song being streamed./news/calendars-by-readdle-makes-its-way-from-the-iphone-and-ipad-to-the-mac.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/calendars-by-readdle-makes-its-way-from-the-iphone-and-ipad-to-the-mac.htmlReaddle, best known for its PDF and document productivity apps for iOS, also makes a comprehensive Calendars app that combines tasks, to-dos, and reminders — and, today, that app is now available for Mac (via 9to5Mac). Officially titled Calendars by Readdle, it joins the Ukraine-based company’s collection of Mac apps like PDF Expert and Spark email. Fans of the Calendars by Readdle app will be excited to know that the Mac app syncs up with the iPhone / iPad versions and that cross-device use will not cost extra on top of the $19./news/call-of-duty-s-city-based-league-kicks-off-in-january.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/call-of-duty-s-city-based-league-kicks-off-in-january.htmlProfessional Call of Duty is changing in a big way, and today Activision revealed that its upcoming city-based Call of Duty League will be kicking off in January. The debut weekend will take place from January 24th to the 26th at the 8,400-seat Minneapolis Armory, hosted by CDL team Minnesota Røkkr. All 12 teams in the fledgling league will compete over the three-day-long event. The CDL will be Activision’s second foray into the world of city-based e-sports leagues./news/check-out-these-custom-logos-apple-made-for-its-october-30th-event.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/check-out-these-custom-logos-apple-made-for-its-october-30th-event.htmlApple has officially announced an event on October 30th where the company is expected to announce a new bezel-less iPad Pro and possibly some updated MacBooks. But unlike its usual event invitations, this year, Apple has done something different: it created tons of unique, colorful versions of its logo, and everyone seemingly received a different style on their invitation. Didn’t get an invite or just interested in some of the cool designs?/news/chevy-silverado-ev-turns-into-a-mobile-generator-with-gm-s-new-home-energy-bundle.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/chevy-silverado-ev-turns-into-a-mobile-generator-with-gm-s-new-home-energy-bundle.htmlGeneral Motors’ initial new home energy products are now available to purchase, including the equipment necessary to turn your GM-made electric vehicle into a mobile power generator for your home. GM has been teasing its new home energy products for months, including a home EV charger and vehicle-to-home (V2H) kit that enables a home to pull energy from an EV battery in the event of a blackout. That equipment is now available to customers but only those who live in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan, and New York./news/climate-change-is-erasing-previous-gains-in-air-quality-fires-are-mostly-to-blame.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/climate-change-is-erasing-previous-gains-in-air-quality-fires-are-mostly-to-blame.htmlAir quality in the US is projected to backslide in the coming decades, landing back where it was in the mid-2000s as a result of climate change, according to a new report. The report comes with an online tool for users to zoom in on individual properties to see what kind of air quality residents might experience there in the future. It paints a picture of a changing landscape for regulators, who are going to have to adapt to evolving threats./news/comcast-founder-ralph-roberts-dies-at-95.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/comcast-founder-ralph-roberts-dies-at-95.htmlRalph Roberts, who over decades turned a tiny Tupelo, Mississippi cable operation into the communications titan that Comcast is today, has died at age 95. In a press release, the company announced that Roberts — who had been serving as chairman emeritus since 2002 — died of natural causes. "Ralph was a born entrepreneur, a visionary businessman, a philanthropist and a wonderful human being," Comcast said. "Ralph built Comcast into one of America's greatest companies and his vision and spirit have been at the heart of Comcast and our culture for 50 years./news/consumer-genetic-tests-may-have-a-lot-of-false-positives.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/consumer-genetic-tests-may-have-a-lot-of-false-positives.htmlConsumer genetic tests may bring up a lot of false positives, according to a new study that compared results from direct-to-consumer tests to results from clinical laboratories. In this case, 40 percent of the results from the consumer tests were false positives. But it’s important to note that the findings, published online this week in the journal Genetics in Medicine, cover a very small sample size and don’t show that consumer tests always have a 40 percent false positive rate./news/crazy-plan-to-cover-the-nation-s-roads-with-solar-panels-raises-1-million.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/crazy-plan-to-cover-the-nation-s-roads-with-solar-panels-raises-1-million.htmlIdaho couple Julie and Scott Brusaw of Solar Roadways have raised more than $1 million on Indiegogo to pursue the extremely ambitious goal of replacing the nation’s roads with solar panels. The design will now move from prototype to manufacturing, a dangerous phase for any technology project — and while the dream is exciting, the logistics of actually pulling it off are less so. The Brusaws are not scammers or wackos./news/dell-s-new-latitude-13-is-a-business-version-of-the-best-windows-laptop.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dell-s-new-latitude-13-is-a-business-version-of-the-best-windows-laptop.htmlThe similarities to the XPS 13 don't stop there. The Latitude 13 comes with the same "InfinityEdge" screen, so the bezel are almost nonexistent. The screen type will also be customizable, with options for a 1080p non-touch or a QHD+ touch screen model. Dell is touting the same 10-hour battery life that we got from the XPS 13 in our battery test (though that was closer to seven or eight hours in real world use)./news/destiny-2-s-forsaken-expansion-might-be-the-best-the-series-has-ever-been.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/destiny-2-s-forsaken-expansion-might-be-the-best-the-series-has-ever-been.htmlDestiny 2 is a tough video game to judge. It is not anything like, say, the new Spider-Man, which came out last week to near-universal acclaim. If you understand that the latter is a story-driven, single-player action game, and you trust what people are saying and sharing about it, then you likely have a reasonable expectation about whether you’ll enjoy Spider-Man. Meanwhile, you could have spent 300 hours of the last 365 days playing Bungie’s Destiny 2, and I would not be able to say with certainty that you will find the game’s new Forsaken expansion, which also came out last week, to be fun or worth the time, effort, and money it demands of you./news/disney-plus-subscribers-are-getting-first-dibs-at-new-marvel-and-star-wars-merchandise.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-plus-subscribers-are-getting-first-dibs-at-new-marvel-and-star-wars-merchandise.htmlHaving a Disney Plus subscription isn’t just about entertainment anymore: customers will now get first dibs on Disney merchandise before it’s made available to the general public. Today, the company announced “a limited test” in the United States that will grant Disney Plus subscribers exclusive access to a curated mix of holiday merch from Star Wars, Black Panther, Frozen, and more. The window of exclusivity begins today and will last for seven days. After that, anyone will be able to purchase the merchandise — though a few Frozen and Lightyear items will remain available only to Disney Plus subscribers even after the test ends./news/disney-teases-a-flying-animatronic-spider-man-for-disneyland-s-avengers-campus.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-teases-a-flying-animatronic-spider-man-for-disneyland-s-avengers-campus.htmlWhen Disney Imagineering revealed in 2018 that it was working on “Stuntronics”, its own brand of stunt-double animatronics designed to perform aerial tricks, demo videos of its prototype robots conjured up images of superheroes flying through the air. Now the robots are suited up and Disney is unveiling their true purpose: to become the incredible Spider-Man, swinging across the upcoming Avengers Campus at Disneyland’s California Adventure Park. The video, via Fast Company, shows the 90-pound Stuntronics figure launched from a wire to fly 60 feet in the air./news/disney-wants-full-control-of-hulu-but-doesn-t-want-to-lose-any-shows.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-wants-full-control-of-hulu-but-doesn-t-want-to-lose-any-shows.htmlDisney currently owns about 70 percent of Hulu, but Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed today that preliminary conversations with Comcast to purchase the remaining roughly 30 percent are underway. On the business side of things, that means Disney could finally expand Hulu into international territory without input from Comcast. Content wise, there are obvious questions about what Disney owning 100 percent of Hulu means for the future of content owned by WarnerMedia (AT&T) and NBCUniversal (Comcast) on the platform./news/don-t-date-robots-their-privacy-policies-are-terrible.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/don-t-date-robots-their-privacy-policies-are-terrible.htmlTalkie Soulful Character AI, Chai, iGirl: AI Girlfriend, Romantic AI, Genesia - AI Friend & Partner, Anima: My Virtual AI Boyfriend, Replika, Anima: AI Friend, Mimico - Your AI Friends, EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate, and CrushOn.AI are not just the names of 11 chatbots ready to play fantasy girlfriend — they’re also potential privacy and security risks. A report from Mozilla looked at those AI companion apps, finding many are intentionally vague about the AI training behind the bot, where their data comes from, how they protect information, and their responsibilities in case of a data breach./news/doomsday-seed-vault-meant-to-survive-global-disasters-breached-by-climate-change.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/doomsday-seed-vault-meant-to-survive-global-disasters-breached-by-climate-change.htmlThe seed bank designed to preserve the world’s crops and plants in the event of global disaster isn’t prepared to withstand the greatest global disaster facing our planet: global warming. Melting permafrost on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, where the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located, has seeped into the seed bank, raising questions of how the structure will be able to survive in the future as the Earth keeps warming./news/elden-ring-s-world-is-full-of-mystery-but-i-d-rather-wait-for-a-guide.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elden-ring-s-world-is-full-of-mystery-but-i-d-rather-wait-for-a-guide.htmlIt seems like everyone, even people who don’t usually partake in FromSoftware games, is playing Elden Ring. It’s currently the seventh most played game on Steam based on number of concurrent players and has a score of 97 on Metacritic, putting it on track to be this year’s highest rated game. And while I have enjoyed the bits of Elden Ring I’ve played, I’m not too keen on joining the rest of my Tarnished colleagues in the Lands Between just yet./news/eufy-launches-the-next-generation-of-its-home-security-camera-system.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/eufy-launches-the-next-generation-of-its-home-security-camera-system.htmlSmart home company Eufy’s new wireless security camera, the EufyCam 3, bumps up the resolution to 4K and adds a built-in solar panel to extend the year-long battery life even further. But its best features come from the new HomeBase 3 hub the camera connects to wirelessly. This adds local processing of video to send you an alert when it spots a person, pet, or vehicle, plus facial recognition so it can tell you if it’s a stranger or a family member./news/everyone-s-watching-anime-the-verge.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/everyone-s-watching-anime-the-verge.htmlEveryone’s watching anime. Well, everyone of a certain age, anyway. Over at Polygon, they’ve surveyed more than 4,000 Americans over 18 to find out the truth of anime’s reach in popular culture. Netflix’s number one spot on the “Where are you watching anime?” list explains its sudden One Piece obsession, and the survey has even more results about who is watching and why they watch. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZnxzfo5ra2lsZ2iAcXvEr5yrsZ%2BjsrR51pqrnKCZo7Rurc2ipJ4%3D/news/facebook-is-testing-its-standalone-video-chat-app-bonfire.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/facebook-is-testing-its-standalone-video-chat-app-bonfire.htmlIn July, The Verge learned that Facebook was testing a standalone group video chat app called Bonfire. Now, as spotted by The Next Web, it appears it’s popped up in the Danish Apple App Store. At the time, the app was rumored to be incredibly similar to other group video chat app Houseparty, and The Next Web confirms this is the case. The app lets you not only hold video chats with multiple people at once, but you can also apply Snapchat-like effects, and share pictures to Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger./news/fbi-used-geofence-warrant-in-seattle-after-blm-protest-attack-new-documents-show.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fbi-used-geofence-warrant-in-seattle-after-blm-protest-attack-new-documents-show.htmlFederal investigators served Google with a geofence warrant as part of an investigation into an attempted arson against a police union headquarters in Seattle during protests of the shooting of Jacob Blake, as shown by documents unsealed today in federal court. The attempted arson took place on August 24th, 2020, one day after police officers shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving him paralyzed. Amidst broader protests in Seattle and across the country, two people threw Molotov cocktails at the rear entrance of the headquarters of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG)./news/firefox-drops-google-as-default-search-engine-signs-five-year-deal-with-yahoo.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/firefox-drops-google-as-default-search-engine-signs-five-year-deal-with-yahoo.htmlToday, Yahoo and Mozilla announced a five-year partnership that would make Yahoo the default US search engine for Mozilla's Firefox browser on mobile and desktop. In December, Yahoo will roll out an enhanced new search function to Firefox users, and will also support Do Not Track functions in Firefox as a result of the partnership. The agreement also sets the stage for future product integrations, but so far the companies are keeping quiet on what those might be./news/flixster-video-is-shutting-down-for-good-today.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/flixster-video-is-shutting-down-for-good-today.htmlFlixster Video no longer supports redemption of digital codes or playback of videos in the U.S. In addition, Flixster Video will be shutting down its website and discontinuing all related operations in the U.S. effective February 20, 2018. However, you will still be able to watch all of the videos in your collection and redeem your digital codes through Vudu. If you have not done so already, we encourage you to sign up or log in to your account at Vudu and to link your UltraViolet library to your Vudu account./news/forbes-publishes-30-under-30-hall-of-shame.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/forbes-publishes-30-under-30-hall-of-shame.htmlForbes publishes 30 Under 30 “Hall of Shame.” Several dubious characters have made it onto Forbes’ lists in the 13 years it’s been putting them out. Here are ten it regrets: • Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX • Caroline Ellison, Co-CEO of Alameda Research • Charlie Javice, Founder of Frank • Nate Paul, Founder of World Class Capital Group • Martin Shkreli, Founder of MSMB Capital • Cody Wilson, Founder of Defense Distributed • James O’Keefe, Founder of Project Veritas/news/ford-s-europe-only-explorer-ev-gets-an-estimated-375-miles-of-range.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-s-europe-only-explorer-ev-gets-an-estimated-375-miles-of-range.htmlFord neglected to share the maximum range of its newest all-electric Explorer when it announced the Europe-only EV last year. We’ve gotten those details today, however, in an announcement Ford made detailing specs and availability. It came alongside word that it’s set a new world record with renowned traveler Lexie Alford as the first to circumnavigate the globe with an electric vehicle. The Explorer EV’s 375-mile range (602km) is above average for the American automaker and impressive for an SUV in general, even if it’s calculated using the EU’s more forgiving WLTP formula for testing and calculating total range./news/ford-s-first-fully-self-driving-car-is-probably-going-to-look-a-lot-like-an-suv.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ford-s-first-fully-self-driving-car-is-probably-going-to-look-a-lot-like-an-suv.htmlThis summer, Ford decided to spin out its budding self-driving car program into its own business. During a recent interview on The Vergecast, Ford AV CEO Sherif Marakby shared his vision for the automaker’s autonomous push, including a few new details about the status of the company’s first dedicated self-driving car, which is due out in 2021. That car is supposed to be the linchpin of a fully autonomous shuttle and cargo service that will launch the same year, and it’s already past the design and clay modeling phase, Marakby said./news/fortnite-s-generous-new-creator-economy-has-an-epic-catch.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-s-generous-new-creator-economy-has-an-epic-catch.htmlEpic Games is changing the way Fortnite creators are paid, and it could have a transformative effect on the ecosystem of the game. Now, 40 percent of all the money Epic rakes in from Fortnite — hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions — is up for grabs. Last week, Epic introduced what it calls “Creator Economy 2.0.” Under the new system, Epic will pay out 40 percent of Fortnite’s net revenues each month to creators based on how much players engage with their islands./news/foxconn-in-wisconsin-everything-you-need-to-know.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/foxconn-in-wisconsin-everything-you-need-to-know.htmlIn 2017, Wisconsin offered Foxconn a record-breaking subsidy to build an LCD factory in the state, only to see the promised factory fall behind schedule and grow progressively smaller. Now, the Wisconsin Department of Administration has requested a reassessment of the costs and benefits to the state regarding the far-tinier facility. The report, which was conducted by Tim Bartik of the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, finds that the smaller facility raises the already unusually high cost per job even further./news/galaxy-nexus-signal-problems-acknowledged-by-verizon-update-being-developed.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/galaxy-nexus-signal-problems-acknowledged-by-verizon-update-being-developed.htmlWe haven't experienced any real issues with signal strength on our LTE Galaxy Nexus units in the few days we've been using them since release, but Verizon is now saying that there is an issue — and it's working on a fix. In a response tweeted by official Verizon account @VZWSupport today, the company says that reported signal issues are "currently being investigated" and that a software update is in the works, but there's no release date yet./news/github-ceo-discussed-evolving-position-on-china-in-private-all-hands-meeting.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/github-ceo-discussed-evolving-position-on-china-in-private-all-hands-meeting.htmlTensions continue to grow over a GitHub contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as employee activists pressure the company to cut ties with the agency. In a standing-room-only meeting yesterday, executives answered questions from employees on the controversial contract. CEO Nat Friedman fielded questions from employees and attempted to explain why the company would renew a $200,000 contract with the immigration agency. The Verge has obtained a transcript of the conversation./news/give-me-a-bigger-iphone-se.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/give-me-a-bigger-iphone-se.htmlIt’s hard to be too disappointed by the iPhone SE. It’s cute, has great specs for the price, and now has 5G. It, along with the iPhone 13 Mini, fills that small phone niche for people with tiny hands. But as a big phone convert, I’m cheesed that the SE only comes in one size. A cheaper smartphone with a big screen isn’t a novel idea. There are plenty of them out there — but not if you’re on iOS./news/gmail-will-soon-alert-users-about-unencrypted-emails.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gmail-will-soon-alert-users-about-unencrypted-emails.htmlGoogle is taking security threats for Gmail users seriously. To help alert users about the risk in opening unencrypted email, the search company is currently working on warnings that will pop up when messages from unencrypted sources are received. In a recent blog post, Google unveiled the results of its research into email security. The joint study, which was conducted in partnership with the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan over the course of two years, revealed promising results, showing increased reliance on encryption industry-wide:/news/google-discontinues-daydream-view-vr-headset-and-drops-daydream-support-from-pixel-4.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-discontinues-daydream-view-vr-headset-and-drops-daydream-support-from-pixel-4.htmlGoogle has essentially abandoned its Daydream virtual reality platform. The company confirmed to The Verge that the new Pixel 4 phone won’t support Daydream, and Google told Variety and The Verge that it will also no longer sell the Daydream View mobile headset. It will continue to support the app — which only works on older phones — for existing users. “There hasn’t been the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped, and we’ve seen decreasing usage over time of the Daydream View headset,” a spokesperson said./news/google-hire-is-the-next-google-tool-to-be-shut-down.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-hire-is-the-next-google-tool-to-be-shut-down.htmlGoogle says it will shut down Google Hire, its G Suite tool built for recruiters at small and midsized companies, on September 1st, 2020, despite launching only two years ago. Google did not give a specific reason as to why it’s shutting down the tool beyond saying that it’s “focusing our resources on other products in the Google Cloud portfolio.” Hire is the latest of several Google products that have shut down recently, joining social network Google+, chat app Allo, and email app Inbox in the Google graveyard./news/google-maps-live-activities-when.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-maps-live-activities-when.htmlGoogle Maps Live Activities when. Some lucky early testers are starting to see Live Activities pop up while using Google Maps on iOS. In a few shots posted to X and reddit, Maps navigation appears in Live Activities on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island. It seems to be in very limited testing and I, for one, can’t wait until I have glanceable transit directions on my lock screen./news/google-photos-just-let-me-copy-text-from-a-photo-into-my-web-browser.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-photos-just-let-me-copy-text-from-a-photo-into-my-web-browser.htmlThe desktop Google Photos website seems to be getting the ability to scan for text in an image and turn it into copy-and-pasteable text, thanks to Google’s Lens technology (via 9to5Google). Lens has been available in many places on Android for a while, but its optical character recognition (OCR) feature coming to the desktop could make Google Photos an easy and free way to get real-life text onto your computer./news/google-to-revamp-nest-aware-with-simpler-pricing-and-new-features.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-to-revamp-nest-aware-with-simpler-pricing-and-new-features.htmlSince 2015, Google has offered Nest Aware as a premium subscription for its Nest security cameras for $5, $10, or $30 per month. The subscription gives you 24/7 continuous recording, access to video history, and more options for alerts, but if you wanted to use Nest Aware with multiple cameras, you had to pay a discounted monthly fee per additional camera. When the new pricing is available, Google says one monthly fee for Nest Aware will cover all of your Nest cameras, as well as some Nest and Google Home speakers and displays./news/google-s-most-lucrative-queries-a-rare-look-at-how-search-makes-money.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-s-most-lucrative-queries-a-rare-look-at-how-search-makes-money.htmlNot all Google searches make Google money. Google often says that it only shows ads on about 20 percent of queries, the ones it calls “commercial queries.” You can probably guess what qualifies. “US president in 1836” is not something you type when you’re about to buy something; neither is “facebook” because all you’re looking for is Facebook. But if you type in “best new car 2023” or “cheap flights to London” there are a lot of advertisers that would like to be the first thing you see, and there’s a lot of money for Google to be made in the process./news/here-s-a-closer-look-at-apple-s-canceled-airpower-wireless-charger.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-a-closer-look-at-apple-s-canceled-airpower-wireless-charger.htmlSpeaking to The Verge, Giulio Zompetti, a 28-year-old from Italy, says he has been able to purchase a prototype AirPower unit from Chinese e-waste sources. “The unit lacks all of its exterior housing, and shows this beautiful and heavy stainless steel chassis,” says Zompetti. In photos supplied to The Verge, you can see the AirPower mat powering a prototype iPhone, with its 22 coils on the front-facing side and 22 controller circuits on the rear./news/hidden-agenda-is-a-gritty-violent-crime-drama-turned-into-a-party-game.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hidden-agenda-is-a-gritty-violent-crime-drama-turned-into-a-party-game.htmlIn 2015, game studio Supermassive released Until Dawn, a title that looked and played out much like a typical, almost cliche, horror movie. But there was one aspect of the game that made it feel different: choice. Horror movies are filled with people making seemingly inexplicable decisions that lead to death, and Until Dawn was your chance to show how smart you are by making the right choices and keeping everyone alive. Though it was a single-player game, Until Dawn became something of a social experience, with people sitting around a television yelling what they think the on-screen characters should do./news/honda-debuts-new-global-ev-series-honda-zero-coming-in-2026.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/honda-debuts-new-global-ev-series-honda-zero-coming-in-2026.htmlHonda announced a new global electric vehicle series, dubbed Honda Zero, presenting it as an antidote to the recent trend of “thick, heavy” EVs seen on the road today. Honda says it will introduce its first model, based on a sleek, sedan-like concept called the Saloon, starting in North America in 2026. In addition to the Saloon, Honda also introduced a boxier van-esque concept called the Space-Hub. The concepts are meant to demonstrate Honda’s lighter approach to EV development, riding atop a “thin” vehicle architecture with a low floor that’s meant to accentuate aerodynamics./news/honda-s-adorable-ev-prototype-is-looking-more-and-more-like-a-real-car.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/honda-s-adorable-ev-prototype-is-looking-more-and-more-like-a-real-car.htmlHonda revealed more details Wednesday about the all-electric city car it first revealed back in 2017. One surprise: apparently the first version we saw, the Urban EV, was actually a prototype to the prototype; this latest version, dubbed the Honda e Prototype, will make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show next week. And as you can see, it’s still cute. a range of over 200 km (124 miles) This adorably retro vehicle will go into production later this year, after which it will be available for purchase first in Europe, followed by other markets, Honda says./news/how-an-irate-developer-briefly-broke-javascript.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-an-irate-developer-briefly-broke-javascript.htmlAt around 5:30PM ET on Tuesday, JavaScript broke. More specifically, npm, the package manager used by most JavaScript developers to source, test, and prepare their code for release, began failing. For thousands of developers all over the world, the most essential tool in their workflow wouldn't work. Soon after, a new issue, titled "npmjs.org tells me that left-pad is not available (404 page)," was opened on a little-known GitHub repository: azer/left-pad./news/how-every-tech-gatekeeper-is-responding-to-the-dma.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-every-tech-gatekeeper-is-responding-to-the-dma.htmlMarch 6th marks a long-awaited moment of change: it’s the deadline for tech’s biggest “gatekeepers” to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, or DMA. The DMA requires powerful companies to allow more interoperability and avoid preferencing their own digital services. It’s generated disputes over which services should be included, sparked excitement among smaller competitors, and resulted in changes to how companies handle fundamental parts of their business. And in March 2024, after years of debate, the rules are coming into force./news/how-the-pandemic-inspired-creative-uses-of-technology-in-2020.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-the-pandemic-inspired-creative-uses-of-technology-in-2020.htmlThe year that brought us the coronavirus pandemic, murder hornets, and the deaths of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Alex Trebek is probably one most people won’t be sad to bid adieu. Parents and kids were stuck together during lockdowns, trying to manage remote school and work, and everyone’s feeling good and frayed at this point.  At the start of the pandemic, media was abuzz with the notion that this pandemic and the resulting lockdowns would be a boon for the creative process./news/how-to-add-skills-to-your-amazon-alexa.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-add-skills-to-your-amazon-alexa.htmlAlexa-powered devices can do a vast number of things, driven by app-like abilities called “skills.” They can enable you to play games, listen to soothing sounds, enjoy an audio book, follow exercise routines, and get daily reminders to follow those routines. If you have the right tech, they can also turn on the lights in your house, start your car, close your garage door, and arm your security system. In the same way that you’d download apps for your phone, you can download skills for your Alexa device./news/how-to-choose-between-the-surface-pro-x-and-surface-pro-7.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-choose-between-the-surface-pro-x-and-surface-pro-7.htmlIf you were in the market for a new Microsoft Surface laptop or tablet, the choices used to be relatively simple — Surface Book for a potent laptop with a detachable screen, Surface Pro for a capable tablet with an optional detachable keyboard, or the Surface Laptop or Surface Go if you don’t need as much power and don’t care as much about tablet or laptop modes. Decisions, decisions Microsoft just blew all that up by announcing the Surface Pro X and Surface Pro 7 portable 2-in-1s on the very same day — not to mention the Surface Neo dual-screen tablet and Surface Duo folding phone./news/how-to-find-your-spotify-wrapped.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-find-your-spotify-wrapped.htmlOne of the more popular end-of-year items this year (and many of the past few years) is Spotify Wrapped, where the music service puts together a roundup of everything you listened to that year in various statistical formats, wrapped up (well, that’s what it’s called, right?) in bright, fun graphics. You can see what music categories you followed, get a playlist of your top 100 songs, see where you stand compared to others, and find out what your listening personality is./news/how-to-use-ios-s-app-library-to-organize-your-apps.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-use-ios-s-app-library-to-organize-your-apps.htmlIf you’re an organization junkie and an iPhone user, then iOS has provided you with a useful tool: the App Library, which organizes your apps in labeled groups to make them easier to find. Introduced with iOS 14, all your current apps can be found there, and any apps you download are placed there as well. (You can decide whether you want the apps to also be visible on your homescreen; we’ll tell you how later in this article./news/how-to-work-from-home-even-if-you-don-t-have-coronavirus.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-work-from-home-even-if-you-don-t-have-coronavirus.htmlIf you’re starting to work from home or just got a remote position, you’re probably looking forward to not spending time on a frustrating commute and staying in your pajamas until noon. Enjoy that for the first day or two! But if you’re planning to work from home for an extended period of time — or permanently — there are a few ways to make sure you can be productive at your job while still enjoying the perks of not having to travel to an office./news/htc-one-for-at-t-the-best-android-phone-yet.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/htc-one-for-at-t-the-best-android-phone-yet.htmlFrom a design perspective, the AT&T version of the One is virtually identical to its international relative — and that's a wonderful thing. The One is by far the nicest piece of Android hardware I have ever held, and its design and build quality really give Apple's iPhone 5 a run for its money. Other Android manufacturers (*cough* Samsung *cough*) have been content with using cheap feeling, unimpressive plastics on their devices, but HTC has really pushed the envelope with premium materials and top-notch fit and finish on the One./news/huawei-has-a-plan-to-get-a-bigger-cut-of-5g-even-with-its-phone-sales-limited.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/huawei-has-a-plan-to-get-a-bigger-cut-of-5g-even-with-its-phone-sales-limited.htmlHuawei has a plan to compete in 5G without being able to sell its 5G phones everywhere. Today, the technology company announced that it intends to seek royalties from companies like Apple and Samsung in exchange for the use of its patents, according to Bloomberg. Huawei believes it can strike licensing deals despite sanctions in the US, and it plans to use its earnings to invest even further into research and development./news/hulu-locks-up-exclusive-rights-for-brooklyn-nine-nine-and-the-mindy-project.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hulu-locks-up-exclusive-rights-for-brooklyn-nine-nine-and-the-mindy-project.htmlThe deal will also bring reality shows like Top Chef and Keeping Up With the Kardashians to Hulu. Past seasons of the Amy Poehler comedy Parks and Recreation are also included, though they won't be exclusive to the service. The battle for exclusive rights to individual shows has been heating up lately, with Amazon snagging 24 from Netflix earlier this week. Despite being one of Hulu's parent companies (alongside Disney and Fox), NBCUniversal claims Hulu was given no preferential treatment in the deal./news/i-drove-the-chevy-bolt-gm-s-electric-car-for-everyone.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/i-drove-the-chevy-bolt-gm-s-electric-car-for-everyone.htmlWhat exactly do I mean by "unremarkable"? Decent, usable acceleration (which, in typical EV fashion, is eerily smooth in the Bolt); handling that prioritizes comfort over performance; and, for the young families that could become a core target demo for cars like this, space. Space! I actually commented to the GM staff on hand that the Bolt has an optical illusory flair to it, because it's got a freakish amount of rear passenger legroom considering the compact dimensions./news/if-you-want-the-jet-black-iphone-learn-to-love-the-scratches.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/if-you-want-the-jet-black-iphone-learn-to-love-the-scratches.htmlAs soon as Apple announced the new high-end jet black finish for the iPhone 7, the company warned that it’s more prone to scratching and scuffing than the alternative matte aluminum options. That warning’s even in the small print when you go to buy the phone from the Apple website, so we all knew, or should have known, to expect the extra glossiness to result in extra scratches. Even so, seeing The Verge’s jet black review handset in person was surprising to me: the device had been used extensively for the review, but entirely conventionally./news/imgur-has-been-bought-by-the-owner-of-kik-genius-and-worldstarhiphop.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/imgur-has-been-bought-by-the-owner-of-kik-genius-and-worldstarhiphop.htmlPopular image-sharing site Imgur has been acquired by MediaLab, a Santa Monica-based firm that describes itself as a “holding company of consumer internet brands.” The company owns a number of B-list tech and internet services, including messaging apps Kik and Whisper, lyrics annotator Genius, and viral video aggregator WorldStarHipHop. Imgur, which currently claims some 300 million users, says the move will help the company “keep the main Imgur team focused on what we do best: creating the best place for community-powered entertainment online./news/introducing-the-world-s-first-thirst-person-shooter.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/introducing-the-world-s-first-thirst-person-shooter.htmlIntroducing the world’s first thirst-person shooter. In The Crush House, launching sometime this year, you’re tasked with running a reality TV show. You’re encouraged to capture all the salacious moments between cast mates, like fighting and flirting, in order to keep those ratings high. That’s an intriguing enough premise on its own, but it gets even more interesting as the trailer hints that things in The Crush House may not be what they seem./news/j-j-abrams-bad-robot-is-launching-a-video-game-division-backed-by-tencent.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/j-j-abrams-bad-robot-is-launching-a-video-game-division-backed-by-tencent.htmlJ.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot is launching a new gaming division — and it’s being backed by arguably the biggest company in games. Simply called Bad Robot Games, the new division is being announced alongside a “strategic relationship” with Chinese internet giant Tencent. Warner Bros is also a minority investor in the new venture. According to Bad Robot, the studio will focus exclusively on original games. “Bad Robot Games will team up with traditional game developers to create both large and indie-scale projects for mobile, PC, and console — leveraging its world-building and storytelling expertise, in-house creative directors and network of visual artists, musicians, sound designers, writers and other world-class talents,” the company explains./news/jamaica-sees-green-in-ganja.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jamaica-sees-green-in-ganja.htmlIt seems the United States is inching ever closer to decriminalizing marijuana, following the passage of new laws in Colorado and Washington, but on the seemingly weed-friendly shores of Jamaica — birthplace of reggae music and the Rastafari — pot remains as illegal as it's been for more than a century. It's a paradox for an island nation that has become synonymous with names like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, but Jamaican politicians and legalization advocates say change is coming soon — perhaps as soon as this year./news/jbl-s-clip-5-can-go-more-places-and-connect-to-more-speakers-with-auracast.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jbl-s-clip-5-can-go-more-places-and-connect-to-more-speakers-with-auracast.htmlThe JBL Clip 5 that’s launching at CES 2024 adds a slightly wider carabiner to clip onto more items and an updated sound system that makes it up to 15 percent louder with 10 percent more bass compared to the previous model. This lightweight, portable speaker will go on sale this year for $79.95 and also supports Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio and Auracast, along with the rest of a 2024 lineup that includes the new $379./news/ke-ha-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-ces-corporate-afterparty.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ke-ha-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-ces-corporate-afterparty.htmlTrent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the latest in the series. For two years in high school I was a cashier at Whole Foods. We were at a busy intersection right in the middle of three fancy prep schools, so we maintained a pretty steady flow of soccer moms doing wheatgrass shots or going really hard at the salad bar with each other all day long./news/lithium-ion-batteries-have-a-forever-chemical-problem.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lithium-ion-batteries-have-a-forever-chemical-problem.htmlRechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in everyday gadgets, electric vehicles, and to store renewable energy could be a growing source of the “forever chemicals” that pollute soil and waterways, new research suggests. “Forever chemicals” encompass thousands of different kinds of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). For decades, they’ve been used to make products more resistant to water, stains, and heat. More recently, a particular subclass of PFAS called bis-perfluoroalkyl sulfonimides (bis-FASIs) has been used as electrolytes and binders in lithium-ion batteries./news/lyft-planning-to-introduce-a-rewards-program-for-riders.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lyft-planning-to-introduce-a-rewards-program-for-riders.htmlLyft announced a new loyalty program on Monday, in which riders accumulate points that can be exchanged for trip upgrades or access to more experienced drivers. The rewards program, which launches next month, is further evidence of Lyft’s effort to introduce new products ahead of a planned IPO in 2019. Details about Lyft’s rewards program were scant (a spokesperson said further information would be released at launch in December), but based on the company’s blog post, the rewards program won’t be available to everyone who uses Lyft at first./news/marvel-s-midnight-suns-delayed-with-ps4-xb1-and-switch-now-tba.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/marvel-s-midnight-suns-delayed-with-ps4-xb1-and-switch-now-tba.htmlLast fall during Gamescom, Take-Two studio Firaxis Games announced a new turn-based tactical RPG from the XCOM team called Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Taking place on the “darker side of the Marvel Universe,” and pitting well-known heroes like Iron Man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Blade, Captain America, and Captain Marvel against Lilith, a supernatural villain, it was originally scheduled for release in March before being pushed back until October 7th. Along with reporting Q1 2023 earnings, today the publisher announced another delay without many specific details on when the game will be released./news/marvel-s-spider-man-2-finally-has-a-release-date.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/marvel-s-spider-man-2-finally-has-a-release-date.htmlAfter relentless teasing, showcases, and extended gameplay trailers, we now know when we can play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. During Summer Game Fest, game director Bryan Intihar made an appearance to share the last bit of the game we haven’t seen — a release date. On October 20th players can suit up as Miles and Peter to take down Kraven the Hunter and Venom in Spider-Man 2. Also during the presentation, Intihar shared a bit more about one of the game’s villains, Kraven the Hunter./news/meta-launches-reels-in-facebook-globally-with-more-ads-and-editing-features.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/meta-launches-reels-in-facebook-globally-with-more-ads-and-editing-features.htmlMeta is launching its TikTok-clone Reels worldwide on Facebook, making the feature available through the service’s iOS and Android apps in more than 150 countries. In addition to expanding access to Reels, the social media conglomerate is adding new editing features to the Facebook version of the platform and expanding advertising options. Most of these features are already available on Facebook Reels in the US and elsewhere and in Instagram Reels in the US and more than 50 countries./news/michael-dell-gambled-billions-and-saved-his-company-but-can-he-do-it-again.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/michael-dell-gambled-billions-and-saved-his-company-but-can-he-do-it-again.htmlThe first reports broke over five years ago: Michael Dell was planning to take his eponymous technology company off the public market. The news came after a particularly bad year for Dell. Revenue in 2012 was down 7 percent year over year, and profits were tumbling. As Dell’s SEC filing from that year notes, Windows 8 PC sales weren’t taking off quite the way that Microsoft or its hardware partners had hoped to see from the supposedly next-generation OS, and hardware sales were flagging./news/microsoft-partners-with-mistral-in-second-ai-deal-beyond-openai.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-partners-with-mistral-in-second-ai-deal-beyond-openai.htmlThe deal will see Mistral’s open and commercial language models available on Microsoft’s Azure AI platform, the second company to offer a commercial language model on Azure after OpenAI. Much like the OpenAI partnership, Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral will also be focused on the development and deployment of next-generation large language models. Mistral is announcing a new AI model today, called Mistral Large. It’s designed to more closely compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model./news/microsoft-says-activision-was-already-planning-significant-layoffs.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-says-activision-was-already-planning-significant-layoffs.htmlMicrosoft says Activision was already planning ‘significant’ layoffs. Microsoft has responded to the FTC’s claims that Microsoft laying off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees runs counter to its representations in court. “Activision was already planning on eliminating a significant number of jobs while still operating as an independent company,” says Microsoft lawyers in a new filing today. The FTC is still appealing a district court’s decision not to block Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition./news/microsoft-unveils-collaborative-inking-whiteboard-app-for-windows-10.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-unveils-collaborative-inking-whiteboard-app-for-windows-10.htmlMicrosoft is unveiling a new Whiteboard app for Windows 10 today. It's an app that's designed for the company's Surface devices, and provides two-way inking for Windows 10. Currently in private preview for Surface Hub devices, the new whiteboard includes collaborative inking, geometry recognition, table conversion, and automatic table shading. It’s really designed to let people share ink across multiple devices, and will be available on all Surface devices later this year./news/microsoft-s-cortana-is-now-available-on-the-android-lock-screen.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-cortana-is-now-available-on-the-android-lock-screen.htmlMicrosoft has been tweaking Cortana on Android and iOS recently, and the latest addition is a new lock screen option for Android today. While the feature has been in beta since January, it’s rolling out to everyone today. Microsoft isn’t replacing existing lock screens with Cortana, but you’ll be able to access the digital assistant simply by swiping left or right on a floating logo, making it just as quick to access as Google’s own options./news/microsoft-s-new-ai-copilot-arrives-in-onenote-in-november.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/microsoft-s-new-ai-copilot-arrives-in-onenote-in-november.htmlMicrosoft is bringing its new Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant to OneNote in November. Originally unveiled earlier this year, Copilot in OneNote will be able to generate lists, draft plans, rewrite your notes, and much more. Microsoft 365 Copilot is launching November 1st for Microsoft 365 customers on certain business and enterprise plans, and OneNote will be part of the lineup of launch apps, according to a Microsoft 365 roadmap entry. Copilot running inside OneNote./news/mossberg-i-just-deleted-half-my-iphone-apps-you-should-too.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mossberg-i-just-deleted-half-my-iphone-apps-you-should-too.htmlWelcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Recode. Over the past few days, I’ve methodically deleted 165 apps from my iPhone, about 54 percent of the 305 apps I had on the phone when I started culling the herd. When I was done, I had significantly decreased the phone’s clutter: I’d gone from 15 home screens to eight, and reclaimed nearly 8GB of free space, about a 24 percent gain in my case./news/moto-g5-plus-review-a-new-value-champion.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/moto-g5-plus-review-a-new-value-champion.htmlThe lesson of Lenovo’s new Moto G5 Plus is simple: cheap smartphones have no business feeling cheap anymore. The "below this price, you get a lackluster device" line that once existed has officially evaporated when you can buy a phone for as little as $229 with a metal build, phenomenal display, great performance, and satisfactory battery life. And best of all, it’s a phone that you can take to any major carrier, and it’ll just work./news/motorola-s-2024-razr-plus-is-a-fun-and-flawed-flip-phone.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/motorola-s-2024-razr-plus-is-a-fun-and-flawed-flip-phone.htmlIt’s rare to feel delighted by a phone in 2024, but that’s the Motorola Razr Plus, baby. Sure, phones are amazing little computers. For $999, which is what the Razr Plus costs, they should be. But they’re mature products — tools rather than objects of delight — and for the most part, they’ve blended into the background noise of our lives. But the Razr Plus is different, and not just because it folds in half./news/netflix-launched-a-game-controller-app-on-apple-s-app-store.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-launched-a-game-controller-app-on-apple-s-app-store.htmlNetflix has launched a mysterious new gaming controller app for iOS on the App Store, as reported by TechCrunch. The free app, simply called “Netflix Game Controller,” can be downloaded now and says you can “connect to your TV to play” but doesn’t yet have a listed compatible game. The app’s description says that you’ll be able to use it to play Netflix games on your TV. “Coming soon to Netflix,” the description says./news/netflix-s-next-game-show-is-million-dollar-secret.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-s-next-game-show-is-million-dollar-secret.htmlNetflix has a new game show on the way called Million Dollar Secret. Netflix says that the eight-episode series will set 11 contestants on the hunt for a 12th one who’s been given a $1 million prize in an effort to be the last person standing (and win that prize). The show seems to be aimed at the same audience that made the similarly dystopian-in-tone Squid Game: The Challenge the 15th-most watched TV show on Netflix in the second half of 2023 with over 33 million views (enough to slightly edge out CoComelon S1, Suits S1, and The Crown S6 but still well short of CoComelon S8)./news/new-firefox-os-nightly-builds-available-to-download.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-firefox-os-nightly-builds-available-to-download.htmlEarlier today, Mozilla uploaded new nightly builds of its web standards-based mobile operating system, Firefox OS. You can download and try them for yourself, but be warned: this isn't your garden variety application install. You'll first have to install one of the nightlies from Mozilla's website, then use the command line to download and configure Gaia, the HTML 5 UI layer. Don't worry if we've already lost you — these builds are mostly intended to be used as a tool for developers to test their webapps against./news/nine-hours-in-a-capsule-sleeping-in-a-sci-fi-hotel-that-wants-you-to-leave.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nine-hours-in-a-capsule-sleeping-in-a-sci-fi-hotel-that-wants-you-to-leave.htmlI'd been looking forward to this night's sleep more than most in recent memory. I'd heard that Nine Hours, a capsule hotel in Kyoto known for its stark sci-fi design and innovative sleeping technology, would be closing down at the end of October, and I knew I'd have to make the trip across Japan while I still had time. Capsule hotels are up there with sushi and Hello Kitty in the pantheon of things that foreigners think about when they think about Japan, and yet I'd never actually stayed in one despite close to five years spent living here./news/nokia-details-history-of-41-megapixel-808-pureview-image-sensor-inspired-by-satellites.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nokia-details-history-of-41-megapixel-808-pureview-image-sensor-inspired-by-satellites.htmlNokia's 41-megapixel 808 PureView was one of the highlights of Mobile World Congress 2012, and we managed to get a few details about the device's development from Nokia's head of imaging Damian Dinning at the event. But in a post on Nokia's Conversations blog, Dinning has written a more in-depth account of how the PureView technology went from concept to reality. It actually started back in 2006, when Nokia began experimenting with including optical zoom on its devices./news/not-just-nokia-samsung-s-ativ-s-neo-windows-phone-is-coming-to-at-t.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/not-just-nokia-samsung-s-ativ-s-neo-windows-phone-is-coming-to-at-t.htmlMicrosoft's Nokia acquisition has cast doubt over the future of Windows Phones from competing manufacturers, but there'll be at least one more release on a major carrier this year. The Samsung Ativ S Neo, a variant of last year's Ativ S that came to Sprint in August, will be available on AT&T from November 8th for $99.99 with a two-year contract. It has a 4.8-inch 720p display, an 8-megapixel camera, a microSD slot, and a 1./news/nothing-forever-is-set-to-return-to-twitch-with-new-guardrails-in-place.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nothing-forever-is-set-to-return-to-twitch-with-new-guardrails-in-place.htmlNothing, Forever, an AI-powered Seinfeld spoof show on Twitch, was quickly becoming the next big thing on the platform. During the always-on stream, a cast of Seinfeld-adjacent characters had befuddling conversations, made weird jokes, and moved through a world of crude, blocky graphics, all backed by a laugh track and directed by AI. But then it was suspended for two weeks after the Jerry Seinfeld-like character made transphobic remarks. That suspension is set to lift on Monday, and while its creators at Mismatch Media have been working to make sure transphobic comments won’t happen again, they can’t guarantee it./news/nvidia-s-rtx-video-hdr-is-coming-to-vlc-soon.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-s-rtx-video-hdr-is-coming-to-vlc-soon.htmlNvidia’s RTX Video HDR is coming to VLC soon. The free VLC media player will soon get Nvidia’s RTX Video HDR feature on top of its existing Super Resolution support. RTX Video HDR uses AI to convert SDR color space videos into HDR ones, ideal for the latest crop of OLED HDR monitors. DaVinci Resolve is also getting RTX Video support to upscale lower-quality videos up to 4K and HDR./news/opensea-2-0-starts-with-mass-layoffs-as-the-nft-balloon-deflates.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/opensea-2-0-starts-with-mass-layoffs-as-the-nft-balloon-deflates.html‘OpenSea 2.0’ starts with mass layoffs as the NFT balloon deflates. CEO Devin Finzer says OpenSea is “shifting to a smaller team with a direct connection to users.” Decrypt reports about 50 percent of employees are impacted. When it laid off 20 percent of its employees last year, around 230 people remained. This chart shows OpenSea activity peaked with over 50,000 active wallets (around the time it wasvalued at $13 billion) and $140 million in daily volume, which has dropped to fewer than 8,000 active wallets and $2./news/plastic-bins-better-than-boxes.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/plastic-bins-better-than-boxes.htmlI associate lots of things with moving — stress; cursing landlords for raising the rent. But mostly, I think of cardboard boxes — big ones; small ones; half-opened boxes that linger for several weeks in my new home until I find a spot for all my stuff; and finally, piles of cardboard waiting for recycling day once those boxes are broken down. After I decided to move late last year, I braced myself for yet another Boxpocalypse./news/playstation-vita-imports-simplified-with-hong-kong-launch.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/playstation-vita-imports-simplified-with-hong-kong-launch.htmlWe think the main potential issue for importers is language. The Vita console has multiple language support, but Japanese game cards often don't. Fortunately, the system was launched in Hong Kong today, bringing with it a host of "Asia version" games that have a higher chance of being in English - on systems like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Asia versions are usually in English and either region-free or, in the case of the 360, often NTSC-J./news/repairing-the-new-apple-tv-remote-is-harder-than-simply-unscrewing-it.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/repairing-the-new-apple-tv-remote-is-harder-than-simply-unscrewing-it.htmlApple, a company notorious for making its products difficult to repair, has given us a real head-scratcher of a repair situation with its next-generation streaming remote. At issue here are a pair of screws that would appear to make repair semi-straightforward but absolutely do not. iFixit tore down the second-generation Siri Remote, which will ship with the latest Apple TV 4K streaming box, and found that these two screws on the outside of the remote do basically nothing./news/rivian-has-already-received-68-000-reservations-for-the-r2.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rivian-has-already-received-68-000-reservations-for-the-r2.htmlLess than 24 hours since its launch, the Rivian R2 is already proving to be quite popular. The company’s CEO, RJ Scaringe, said it’s already taken in “more than 68,000 reservations” for the $45,000 midsize electric SUV. “We are thrilled to see this vehicle resonate so strongly with our community!” Scaringe said in a post on X. Rivian unveiled the R2, as well as the more compact R3 and R3X, at an event in Laguna Beach, California, on Thursday./news/rivian-will-build-a-second-5-billion-ev-plant-in-georgia.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/rivian-will-build-a-second-5-billion-ev-plant-in-georgia.htmlAmazon-backed EV startup Rivian is going to build a second factory in Georgia where it will assemble up to 400,000 electric vehicles per year. The company made the announcement on Thursday alongside state representatives after months of speculation over where it would look to expand its manufacturing footprint. Rivian will start construction of the $5 billion facility in the summer of 2022 and expects to start making vehicles there in 2024./news/robin-williams-had-early-stages-of-parkinson-s-disease-wife-says.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/robin-williams-had-early-stages-of-parkinson-s-disease-wife-says.htmlRobin spent so much of his life helping others. Whether he was entertaining millions on stage, film or television, our troops on the frontlines, or comforting a sick child — Robin wanted us to laugh and to feel less afraid. Since his passing, all of us who loved Robin have found some solace in the tremendous outpouring of affection and admiration for him from the millions of people whose lives he touched./news/roku-and-best-buy-team-up-to-sell-new-tvs-and-ads.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roku-and-best-buy-team-up-to-sell-new-tvs-and-ads.htmlRoku’s upcoming Select and Plus TV sets will be a Best Buy exclusive, and the streaming hardware company is planning to cross-pollinate its ad data with Best Buy’s own ad system. The partnership includes the whole TV lineup that Roku announced at CES this year, and outside brands can partner with the duo to target product ads to Roku viewers based on their Best Buy shopping habits. The news comes just as Roku released its system OS 12 software that’s rolling out in the coming weeks./news/roku-s-idea-of-showing-ads-on-your-hdmi-inputs-seems-like-an-inevitable-hell.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roku-s-idea-of-showing-ads-on-your-hdmi-inputs-seems-like-an-inevitable-hell.htmlIn this week’s edition of his Lowpass newsletter, Janko Roettgers covered a Roku patent that seems to telegraph that the company is planning some heavy advertising tactics for those who purchase Roku TV televisions. The patent centers around the idea of displaying ads on these TVs whenever they’re tuned to an HDMI input that’s paused or idle. Theoretically, this would allow Roku to present ads throughout your whole TV experience — and in places where it’s not viable to do so today./news/russia-says-it-will-no-longer-sell-rocket-engines-to-the-united-states.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/russia-says-it-will-no-longer-sell-rocket-engines-to-the-united-states.htmlRussia’s state space corporation Roscosmos has issued its latest round of threats in response to global sanctions, this time claiming Russia will no longer sell rocket engines to the United States. Most rocket launches in the US should not be affected, but the decision could change how cargo is sent to the International Space Station. The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the new policy in an interview with the Russia 24 TV channel./news/samsung-combines-mobile-and-consumer-electronics-businesses.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-combines-mobile-and-consumer-electronics-businesses.htmlSamsung Electronics has announced an internal reorganization of its businesses with several changes to leadership. The company will have two new CEOs overseeing two divisions: Device Solutions, which is the semiconductors business, and a new SET Division that includes mobile, TVs, and consumer electronics. It’s the biggest change to Samsung’s structure since 2017, when the company appointed three leaders for three separate divisions. Jong-hee (JH) Han, the head of the Visual Display business, is also now a co-CEO with responsibility for the SET division./news/samsung-s-chaton-im-app-now-available-for-blackberry-phones-optimized-for-android-tablets.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-chaton-im-app-now-available-for-blackberry-phones-optimized-for-android-tablets.htmlAfter launching on Android in October, iOS in January, and on the web in February, the chat app everyone isn't talking about is finally available on BlackBerry. As well as expanding its availability to all BlackBerry users (it was available for the BlackBerry Torch last month), Samsung has released a tablet-optimized version for Honeycomb and ICS tablets, which is available in Google Play now. ChatON has been downloaded from Google Play between half a million and one million times, which pales in comparison to the 10,000,000+ downloads the Android version of WhatsApp, its nearest cross-platform competitor, has racked up./news/samsung-s-reportedly-cutting-its-phone-production-for-2022.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-s-reportedly-cutting-its-phone-production-for-2022.htmlSamsung is reportedly scaling back the number of phones it’s planning on producing in 2022, from 310 million to 280 million, according to SamMobile, which cites a report from Korean outlet Maeil Business News. In absolute terms, that’s still quite a lot of phones, but it’s a relatively sharp decrease from the company’s original goal (and from the reported number of phones it and its partners produced last year). It seems that there may be a trend of manufacturers preparing for the economy to get worse before it gets better./news/screenshots-reveal-what-extra-information-the-robinhood-hackers-accessed.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/screenshots-reveal-what-extra-information-the-robinhood-hackers-accessed.htmlScreenshots obtained by Motherboard reportedly show the internal Robinhood tools that a hacker used to access “more extensive account details” for some of the trading platform’s accounts. The heavily redacted screenshots show that hackers had access to buttons labeled “Disable MFA” (multi-factor authentication) and “Add to Trusted Device Email Code Whitelist,” along with information about what devices were logged into the account, and the ACH bank transfers the user had done./news/shooting-8k-videos-on-the-galaxy-s20-requires-600mb-per-minute.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/shooting-8k-videos-on-the-galaxy-s20-requires-600mb-per-minute.html8K footage recorded on the Samsung Galaxy S20 will take up around 600MB per minute, according to Samsung, meaning that storage could quickly become an issue if you want to record video at the highest-possible resolution. Samsung also told us that five minutes of 8K footage would take up around 3GB of space. The amount of storage space you’ll need isn’t the only limitation that applies to recording 8K video on the phone./news/snapchat-s-ar-filter-can-now-paint-your-nails.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/snapchat-s-ar-filter-can-now-paint-your-nails.htmlSnapchat’s newest AR filter will paint your nails for you — or at least give you an idea of what they might look like. The new AR lens applies color and other 2D designs to a Snapchat user’s fingernails, allowing them to virtually “try on” colors or designs before purchasing a bottle of nail polish. The new AR nail segmentation technology is launching in a partnership with OPI, a drugstore and nail salon mainstay./news/someone-at-scotus-pushed-the-wrong-button-and-accidentally-published-a-draft-opinion-in-a-pending-ab.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/someone-at-scotus-pushed-the-wrong-button-and-accidentally-published-a-draft-opinion-in-a-pending-ab.htmlSomeone at SCOTUS pushed the wrong button and accidentally published a draft opinion in a pending abortion case. A draft opinion for Moyle v. US — a still-undecided abortion case — was briefly published to the Supreme Court website today. According to Bloomberg, the draft would allow emergency abortions in Idaho. The court is behind schedule with ten decisions left to go, including the NetChoice cases. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3xzgo5ra2pwZmx%2BcXvSqKSep56aeqLAjKyaqKylqHqxwdKhnKxlp6e8r7OMm6ytrJ%2BjeqKvwqKbnqaklrmtxYyprJukmai1pr%2BMnamanqRivLG1zaKmp2WZo3qirs6rq6KnnmKwor%2FE/news/something-mikerosoft-is-going-on-at-microsoft.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/something-mikerosoft-is-going-on-at-microsoft.htmlSomething Mikerosoft is going on at Microsoft. The many Michaels and Mikes at Microsoft woke up to a larger than normal amount of emails this week. “Someone accidentally(?) added every Mike/Michael at Microsoft to a discussion alias,” reveals Bing VP Michael Schechter. Copilot summarized the email thread and it says some of the Michaels are concerned “they might be hunted for sport” 😅. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxyg45ra2prYm2FeXvSqKSerJieu6h5zKKinqqfqLynwIyiqmafn567qHnOp2SarF2itqS%2Bzqymn6w%3D/news/sony-brought-its-new-ps5-colors-to-ces.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-brought-its-new-ps5-colors-to-ces.htmlThe PlayStation 5 “slim” is barely a couple months old, but Sony is already preparing to release new sideplates for the console. And the company is showing off a trio of those new color options — blue, silver, and red — here at CES 2024. The side covers will start at $54.99 when they go on sale in the near future. Unlike the standard white PS5 slim, these don’t have the glossy / matte split between the top and bottom plates./news/sony-s-break-apart-dualshock-controller-brought-to-life-coming-to-kickstarter.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-break-apart-dualshock-controller-brought-to-life-coming-to-kickstarter.htmlMad Genius Controllers believes it can make Sony's idea of a break-apart DualShock controller a reality with its new splittable motion controller prototype. The Mad Genius Motion Capture System mimics an Xbox 360 controller in its current form, but is able to bring motion control and tracking to any game on Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, and PC using its camera-less sensor technology. Mad Genius shows how the Motion Capture System performs while playing the Xbox 360 version of Skyrim./news/sony-s-portable-ultra-short-throw-projector-will-turn-any-surface-into-a-tv.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-s-portable-ultra-short-throw-projector-will-turn-any-surface-into-a-tv.htmlThe latest products in Sony's aspirational Life Space UX range of home electronics have prices and release dates, at least for the company's home country of Japan. The Portable Ultra Short Throw Projector, a tiny projector that can beam an image onto a wall or any other surface from a very short distance, will be out on February 13th for around ¥93,000 ($798). Sony makes a much larger 4K projector that does the same ultra-short-throw trick, but this one will be a lot easier to integrate into the home./news/starbucks-says-it-ll-block-porn-on-its-public-wi-fi-next-year.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/starbucks-says-it-ll-block-porn-on-its-public-wi-fi-next-year.htmlFor years, Starbucks has caught flak for not preventing its customers from watching porn on its in-store Wi-Fi. Now the coffee retailer says that next year it will introduce a filter that prevents customers from viewing porn and other explicit material in stores, as first reported by Business Insider. Starbucks said to The Verge, “While it rarely occurs, the use of Starbucks public Wi-Fi to view illegal or egregious content is not, nor has it ever been permitted./news/starbucks-will-soon-accept-apple-pay.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/starbucks-will-soon-accept-apple-pay.htmlStarbucks will soon take Apple Pay as a form of payment in the U.S., according to Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay. Bailey revealed the news in an interview with Recode's Ina Fried today at the Code Mobile conference in Half Moon Bay, CA. This means that any consumer with a newer iPhone or Apple Watch — Apple devices that come with NFC technology — will be able to pay at Starbucks by tapping that device at a Starbucks terminal./news/status-symbols-pioneer-kuro-the-verge.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/status-symbols-pioneer-kuro-the-verge.htmlStatus Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation. There was a span of a couple years in my career as a technology journalist where I would endlessly flit from demo to showcase to product launch. Whether via bike or skateboard, I was everywhere in Manhattan, taking in product spiel after product spiel./news/stylish-home-hub-maker-silk-labs-shuts-down-its-kickstarter-funded-hardware.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/stylish-home-hub-maker-silk-labs-shuts-down-its-kickstarter-funded-hardware.htmlSilk Labs, the makers of a stylish home hub that received more than $150,000 on Kickstarter earlier this year, has announced that it's giving up the hardware game before it even gets started. The company says it is no longer going to build its Sense hub as a physical product, but will instead focus on integrating its software with other commercial manufacturers. All Kickstarter backers of the Sense hub will be refunded "/news/t-mobile-mytouch-and-mytouch-q-review.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-mytouch-and-mytouch-q-review.htmlFeaturephones, dumbphones, "messaging phones." No matter what you call them, it's clear that these devices are quickly being replaced by cheap smartphones at the low end of the cellphone market. We've seen devices like the LG Lucid and the HTC One V, or the Sony Xperia U in the UK, all of which bring lower specs and weakened performance, but still offer all (or at least most) of a smartphone's connectivity and functionality./news/tablet-reviews-the-verge.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tablet-reviews-the-verge.htmlA celebrated science fiction author reviews the iPad Pro. I love John Scalzi’s books, he’s one of my favorite authors in my favorite genre. But what’s also great about John is he’s a nerd at heart, and his recent blog post about his experiences of using an iPad Pro on the road (in place of a Pixelbook, no less!) is a joy to read. John, do get the matte screen protector — not only will it make writing with the Pencil easier and reduce glare, it helps a ton with the finger grease problem./news/tado-adds-matter-to-new-smart-heating-range.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tado-adds-matter-to-new-smart-heating-range.htmlTado just launched a new range of heating products — called Tado X — that supports the Matter smart home protocol. It joins Nest as being one of the few (only?) European smart heating control systems to support the new standard designed to improve interoperability between devices from any smart home ecosystem, and the first to run natively on a Thread mesh network.  The Tado X system is designed to replace traditional thermostats to control a boiler, underfloor heating, and radiator valves./news/tesla-offering-free-supercharging-for-a-limited-time-during-the-holiday.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-offering-free-supercharging-for-a-limited-time-during-the-holiday.htmlFor Tesla drivers, in particular, it’s quite common to see delays at certain choke points in routes that have fewer supercharging options. And the problem may only get worse should Tesla follow through on its plans to open up its network to non-Tesla EV owners. Tesla’s solution to combat congestion this year is to offer free off-peak charging. This deal is only available at 75 supercharging destinations out of about 1,400 Tesla Supercharger locations in the US./news/tesla-sued-over-model-3-suspension-failure-that-allegedly-caused-a-deadly-crash.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-sued-over-model-3-suspension-failure-that-allegedly-caused-a-deadly-crash.htmlA civil lawsuit has been filed accusing Tesla and a service manager at one of its stores of negligence stemming from a fiery crash that killed a 20-year-old man, Reuters reports. Nicholas Garcia and a passenger, Jazmin Alcala, died in a crash on September 13th, 2021, while driving in his 2021 Model 3 after its underbody struck the road’s surface as it drove through an intersection near his home in Coral Gables, Florida./news/the-best-part-about-delta-emulator-it-s-for-your-tv-too.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-part-about-delta-emulator-it-s-for-your-tv-too.htmlThe best part about Delta Emulator: it’s for your TV, too. Webster already wrote about this, but I’m seriously wowed at how easy it was to turn an iPhone into a retro console for my TV. Once you add a gamepad, everything but joystick-sensitive games (sorry, GoldenEye fans) feels playable! Delta dev Riley Testut tells me he’s “definitely open” to adding joystick sensitivity adjustment. For now, it uses Apple’s default calibrations./news/the-best-shows-on-paramount-plus-in-2023.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-shows-on-paramount-plus-in-2023.htmlI am a Paramount Plus apologist. I know — going by subscription numbers alone — that I have to be because people do not subscribe to the streaming service at the same rate as Netflix or Amazon Prime, but I spend more time in the Paramount Plus app than the other two. It’s got older shows like Star Trek, Frasier, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and newer splashy shows like... everything Taylor Sheridan produces and Frasier./news/the-book-of-boba-fett-is-another-mandalorian-spinoff-show-coming-to-disney-plus-in-2021.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-book-of-boba-fett-is-another-mandalorian-spinoff-show-coming-to-disney-plus-in-2021.htmlAfter years of speculation about whether Boba Fett would get his own spinoff of some kind, The Mandalorian’s season 2 finale confirmed that a new Boba Fett series, titled The Book of Boba Fett, will hit Disney Plus in December 2021. Executive producer Jon Favreau appeared on Good Morning America on December 21st to confirm The Book of Boba Fett as a new series (following some speculation that Book of Boba Fett was some sort of subtitle for The Mandalorian’s third season./news/the-candle-that-smells-like-a-new-mac-got-an-update.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-candle-that-smells-like-a-new-mac-got-an-update.htmlApple accessories maker Twelve South made headlines last year with the release of its “New Mac”-scented candles. It cost $24 to make your home smell like a freshly unboxed Apple Mac, which Twelve South interpreted as a mix of mint, peach, basil, lavender, mandarin, and sage. The candle sold out pretty quickly and has since been out of stock — until now. Say hello to Twelve South’s flagship candle, the Inspire [mac candle N°2]./news/the-dating-app-future-of-black-mirror-s-hang-the-dj-isn-t-implausible.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-dating-app-future-of-black-mirror-s-hang-the-dj-isn-t-implausible.htmlThe fourth season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on December 29th, 2017. In this series, six writers will look at each of the fourth season’s six episodes to see what they have to say about current culture and projected fears.  Spoiler warning: This essay does not give away the ending of “Hang The DJ,” but does offer plot details not seen in the episode trailer./news/the-division-resurgence-hits-smartphones-this-fall.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-division-resurgence-hits-smartphones-this-fall.htmlThe Division is coming to your smartphone later this year. At its Ubisoft Forward event, the company confirmed that The Division Resurgence, a mobile spinoff of the near-future shooter series, will be launching in fall 2023. As with the previous games in the series, Resurgence is set in a “mid-crisis” version of New York, one thrown into a crisis following an outbreak of a genetically engineered virus known as the “dollar flu./news/the-first-trailer-for-the-boys-spinoff-gen-v-looks-bloody-good.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-first-trailer-for-the-boys-spinoff-gen-v-looks-bloody-good.htmlThe first trailer for The Boys spinoff show Gen V shows us that superpowered college students are just as flippantly violent as the grown-up supes from the original series. The show takes us to Vought International’s Godolkin University — a college that specializes in educating the next generation of superhumans — where it appears the students are getting a head start on all of the murder and mayhem inflicted by established heroes like Homelander./news/the-future-of-cars-is-a-subscription-nightmare.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-future-of-cars-is-a-subscription-nightmare.htmlAs cars get more expensive to make and profit margins dwindle, automakers are coming up with new and loathsome ways to squeeze more money out of their customers. Subscription-based access to vehicle features, like heated seats or remote-start key fobs, are the latest attempt to charge people for things their car already came with. The question is whether customers are going to lay down and take it. Earlier this week, some media outlets noticed that BMW was selling $18-a-month subscriptions to heated seats in a number of countries, including South Korea./news/the-game-makers-who-found-careers-as-asset-store-creators.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-game-makers-who-found-careers-as-asset-store-creators.htmlWhen Jonathan van Immerzeel goes on vacation, he packs a decidedly unusual suitcase. In addition to sunblock, swimming shorts, and a passport, the intrepid creator takes a drone, green screen, and audio recording equipment. This is so that he can document every aspect of his surroundings, usually untouched wilderness, in as much high-fidelity detail as possible.  He does so in the name of research, seeking inspiration for his next hit shader, essentially a program that renders graphics, which he then publishes on the Unity Asset Store./news/the-gardens-between-is-an-unexpected-lesson-in-theoretical-physics.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-gardens-between-is-an-unexpected-lesson-in-theoretical-physics.htmlIt can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our biweekly column Short Play we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend. The Gardens Between is about two kids, Ariana and Frendt, exploring surreal islands that are made from objects in their shared memories. But you don’t actually control either character directly — you control the flow of time./news/the-green-bubble-problem-is-about-to-get-even-worse.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-green-bubble-problem-is-about-to-get-even-worse.htmlApple has spent years slowly making green bubbles feel like a worse kind of message — no typing indicators, tiny photos, no end-to-end encryption — but those constraints have always been limited to conversations in Messages; use any other app on your iPhone, and there’s generally parity with Android. But with iOS 17 later this year, Apple will expand those platform differences to phone calls, adding a big, splashy sign that your friend or family member bought the wrong phone./news/the-homestar-runner-creators-are-making-a-new-series-of-animated-shorts-for-disney.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-homestar-runner-creators-are-making-a-new-series-of-animated-shorts-for-disney.htmlSince beloved internet toon Homestar Runner went on a lengthy hiatus some five years ago, its creators Matt and Mike Chapman have kept themselves busy with a variety of other projects, but today they announced another project that they're doing in partnership with Disney. Two More Eggs is a series of cartoon shorts that'll first appear on the Disney XD YouTube channel and website before eventually airing on the Disney XD cable channel itself./news/the-nba-app-is-going-to-let-you-digitally-possess-a-live-player.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-nba-app-is-going-to-let-you-digitally-possess-a-live-player.htmlThe NBA app is getting a way to overlay yourself on another player in a live game so that it looks like you are that player. Yes, it’s as strange as it sounds. Here’s how it works — at least, as shown in an on-stage demo with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Ahmad Rashad. With the NBA app, you’ll be able to scan the person you want to drop into an NBA game by walking around that person and pointing your camera at them./news/the-nba-is-partnering-with-infinite-objects-to-put-your-top-shot-nfts-on-display-irl.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-nba-is-partnering-with-infinite-objects-to-put-your-top-shot-nfts-on-display-irl.htmlNBA Top Shot moments are one of the most high-profile NFT successes so far, part of the initial early hype wave for the blockchain-based art that’s become one of the biggest buzzwords of 2021. And thanks to a new partnership with Infinite Objects, Top Shot owners will soon be able to immortalize their favorite clips in the real world with officially licensed looping video frames from Infinite Objects. Starting today, Top Shot owners will be able to log into Infinite Object’s portal, connect their Dapper account, view all their currently owned moments, and order a “Video Print” of the clip./news/the-perfect-lego-nintendo-game-boy-doesn-t-exist.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-perfect-lego-nintendo-game-boy-doesn-t-exist.htmlNick Lever, video editor and Lego Masters Australia finalist, has recreated the original Nintendo Game Boy in bricks — and with such droolworthy depth that I hereby petition Lego to make it into an official set. It’s just 364 pieces, only 115 different parts, most of them common enough you can find ‘em dirt cheap. Almost every recognizable facet of the Game Boy is represented, from the angled rice-grain Start / Select buttons to the distinctive tint of the screen — achieved here by placing lime green tiles underneath a trans-blue window./news/the-ps4-has-its-female-superhero.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ps4-has-its-female-superhero.htmlInfamous: First Light is typical in a lot of ways. It's a downloadable spin-off to the solid PS4 title Infamous: Second Son, one that delves into the origin story of a super-powered character capable of harnessing neon light to do everything from glide through the air to shoot glowing pink laser bolts at bad guys. It only lasts around five hours, but First Light gives you everything you'd expect out of a superhero action game./news/the-t-mobile-sidekick-s-jump-button-made-mobile-multitasking-easy.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-t-mobile-sidekick-s-jump-button-made-mobile-multitasking-easy.htmlBefore the iPhone, before Android, before webOS, a revolutionary soap bar of a phone made it incredibly easy to get shit done. The Danger Hiptop, better known as the T-Mobile Sidekick, made the internet portable and affordable like no phone before. Button of the MonthIn today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month is a monthly column that explores the physical pieces of our phones, tablets, controllers, and beyond./news/the-us-government-seized-1-billion-in-bitcoin-from-dark-web-marketplace-silk-road.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-us-government-seized-1-billion-in-bitcoin-from-dark-web-marketplace-silk-road.htmlEarlier this week, the bitcoin community was shocked when a digital wallet containing roughly $1 billion in bitcoin — thought to be proceeds from the now-shuttered dark web drug marketplace Silk Road — was emptied by an unknown individual. Now, those responsible for cleaning out the funds have revealed themselves: it was the US government. The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it had seized the wallet’s contents as part of a civil forfeiture case targeting the Silk Road./news/the-verge-archives-samsung.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-verge-archives-samsung.htmlSamsung’s irregular heart rhythm monitoring is coming to more countries. Galaxy Watches were already capable of taking EKGs, but those are just spot checks. This feature is more passive, and works in the background to detect signs you may have atrial fibrillation. Samsung already got FDA clearance for this feature last month, but now it’s got Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to sign off too. Plus, it’ll be introduced to 11 more countries across South America, Europe, and the Middle East whenever the One UI 5 Watch update arrives later this year./news/the-zotac-zone-is-a-big-boi-bigger-than-lenovo-s-legion-go.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-zotac-zone-is-a-big-boi-bigger-than-lenovo-s-legion-go.htmlThe Zotac Zone is a big boi — bigger than Lenovo’s Legion Go. Zotac just confirmed the dimensions of its new PC gaming handheld to me — plus a few other specs — and wow is it large. The 7-inch handheld is wider, taller, and almost as thick as the 8-inch Lenovo Legion Go, and notably bigger than Steam Deck. (Deck is technically thicker than both, but a lot of that’s down to taller joysticks./news/there-s-now-a-museum-dedicated-to-robert-moog-and-synthesis-called-the-moogseum.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/there-s-now-a-museum-dedicated-to-robert-moog-and-synthesis-called-the-moogseum.htmlRobert Moog changed the landscape of music forever when he launched the first commercial synthesizer in the ‘60s. Since then, the Moog name has become synonymous with synthesis and iconic pieces of hardware like the Minimoog. Now, the Bob Moog Foundation has opened the Moogseum — a museum dedicated to Moog’s work and other important music devices — in Asheville, North Carolina. The museum had its soft opening this week but will officially celebrate a grand opening on August 15th./news/this-japanese-mascot-is-an-enema-disguised-as-an-adorable-penguin.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-japanese-mascot-is-an-enema-disguised-as-an-adorable-penguin.htmlJapan has a mascot for just about everything, and the newest addition is Kan-chan, an adorable pink penguin from Tokyo-based Ichijiku Pharmaceutical Co. If you’re having trouble trying to figure out what Kan-chan is, we’ll help you out: this perky, kawaii little creature is... an enema. Kan-chan gets her name from the Japanese word for enema, kancho, and her character is the result of an online competition Ichijiku Pharmaceutical held to create a new mascot for the company./news/this-skull-may-provide-a-new-link-between-neanderthals-and-modern-humans.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-skull-may-provide-a-new-link-between-neanderthals-and-modern-humans.htmlIt's history frozen in time: an expansive cave in Northern Israel where early humans lived for thousands of years, locked away and preserved after its entrance collapsed some 30,000 years ago. It's in this time capsule of human evolution that researchers say they've found a partial skull that serves as a "connecting link" between ancient and modern humans — "the first direct fossil evidence that modern humans inhabited the Levantine corridor"/news/this-wacom-ai-debacle-has-certainly-taken-a-turn.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-wacom-ai-debacle-has-certainly-taken-a-turn.htmlThis Wacom AI debacle has certainly taken a turn. It turns out the “third-party vendor” Wacom sourced its suspicious campaign imagery from is likely Adobe Stock, though none of the now-deleted stock images were tagged as AI-generated. It’s little wonder artists feel betrayed if the creative-focused companies that have supported them for decades can’t even identify poor-quality AI images from authentic human-made art. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZnxyfI5ra2lrYmuEc3vToaCsZaeWsLC5jJqgZpyVl66kuMRmn5qrXZiys8DAoqWlsV2prqyxzWaYZqylp7s%3D/news/thousands-of-autonomous-delivery-robots-are-about-to-descend-on-us-college-campuses.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/thousands-of-autonomous-delivery-robots-are-about-to-descend-on-us-college-campuses.htmlThe quintessential college experience of getting pizza delivered to your dorm room is about to get a high-tech upgrade. On Tuesday, Starship Technologies announced its plan to deploy thousands of its autonomous six-wheeled delivery robots on college campuses around the country over the next two years, after raising $40 million in Series A funding. It’s a big step for the San Francisco (née Estonia)-based startup and its robots, which have been tested in over 100 cities in 20 different countries, traveled 350,000 miles, crossed 4 million streets, and just marked the milestone of completing its 100,000th delivery./news/time-warner-cable-brings-on-demand-programming-to-twc-tv-website.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/time-warner-cable-brings-on-demand-programming-to-twc-tv-website.htmlTime Warner Cable has added on-demand content to its PC and Mac web application, TWC TV. With today's update, Time Warner Cable subscribers can watch over 4,000 shows and movies from 91 providers, according to the company, for free. That selection is certainly limited compared to the offerings on your TV itself, but some on-demand programming from premium networks (that you subscribe to) like HBO and Showtime will be available. The update follows a similar upgrade to the TWC TV iOS app last year that introduced on-demand programming, and the TWC TV web app launched in beta nearly a year ago with selected live streaming./news/tinder-will-now-let-you-super-like-the-people-you-really-like.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tinder-will-now-let-you-super-like-the-people-you-really-like.htmlLast month, Tinder began testing a "Super Like" option in Australia to help users differentiate between the people who just kinda liked them and people who super liked them. Today, "Super Like" is available to everyone. This is your new superpower Here's how it works: if you "Super Like" someone (it's an upward swipe) that person will see that you like them before they make the decision to swipe left (and never talk to you) or right (and begin the rest of your lives together)./news/trim-seeks-out-and-destroys-awful-monthly-subscriptions.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/trim-seeks-out-and-destroys-awful-monthly-subscriptions.htmlIn the age of Netflix, Spotify, and unwanted LinkedIn Premium subscriptions, it can be difficult to keep track of where your money is going on a monthly basis. Trim, a San Francisco startup from former venture capitalists Thomas Smyth and Dan Petkevich, wants to ensure you never end up paying for something you don't need or remember signing up for. The free web service, which launched last month, lets you plug in your credit card and phone number to receive a text message that day relaying all of your various subscriptions./news/twitch-walks-back-controversial-ad-rules-policy.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitch-walks-back-controversial-ad-rules-policy.htmlOn Tuesday, Twitch released new rules concerning the way streamers could display ads on the platform. The rules prohibited “burned in” video, display, and audio ads — the first two of which were popular and common formats used throughout Twitch. Twitch apparently did not discuss the new rules with ambassadors or streamers beforehand, and many were furious about the new policies. Twitch content creators took to social media to decry the changes./news/twitter-ex-cto-is-cornell-s-founding-entrepreneurial-officer-for-its-nyc-tech-campus.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-ex-cto-is-cornell-s-founding-entrepreneurial-officer-for-its-nyc-tech-campus.htmlCornell University's new campus has a mandate to kickstart innovative technology projects and companies in New York City. It has a substantial endowment and a long-term home on city-owned land on Roosevelt Island, won after a long courtship and fierce competition with other top schools. It has a short-term home in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, donated by Google just this week, for when its first students arrive this fall. Its founding dean, Dan Huttenlocher, is assembling the faculty who will teach those students./news/ubisoft-and-take-two-are-also-blocking-game-sales-in-russia.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ubisoft-and-take-two-are-also-blocking-game-sales-in-russia.htmlUbisoft and Take-Two Interactive are suspending game sales in Russia in light of its invasion of Ukraine, joining a growing list of companies that have decided to cut ties with the country (via Engadget). In an updated post on its blog, Ubisoft announced its decision to pause sales in Russia, citing the “ongoing tragedy in Ukraine.” The blog post itself doesn’t go into detail about the ban, but a report from Bloomberg indicates it includes both physical and digital game sales./news/uk-regulators-fine-sony-for-preventable-2011-psn-hack-update-sony-will-appeal.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/uk-regulators-fine-sony-for-preventable-2011-psn-hack-update-sony-will-appeal.htmlSony Computer Entertainment Europe strongly disagrees with the ICO’s ruling and is planning an appeal. SCEE notes, however, that the ICO recognises Sony was the victim of “a focused and determined criminal attack,” that “there is no evidence that encrypted payment card details were accessed,” and that “personal data is unlikely to have been used for fraudulent purposes” following the attack on the PlayStation Network. Criminal attacks on electronic networks are a real and growing aspect of 21st century life and Sony continually works to strengthen our systems, building in multiple layers of defence and working to make our networks safe, secure and resilient./news/umbrella-academy-season-3-review-the-best-season-yet.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/umbrella-academy-season-3-review-the-best-season-yet.htmlBy the end of the second season of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, the series had tackled two apocalypses and begun teasing out details on the small screen that hadn’t yet become canon in Dark Horse’s The Umbrella Academy comics from writer Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá. In its third season, Netflix’s show finally starts to answer many of the mysterious questions that have been weighing heavily on the Hargreeves siblings’ minds since we first met them and digs into the world-ending strangeness that seems to follow them no matter which reality or timeline they find themselves in./news/unicorn-warriors-eternal-looks-like-genndy-tartakovsky-s-most-epic-series-yet.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/unicorn-warriors-eternal-looks-like-genndy-tartakovsky-s-most-epic-series-yet.htmlThere might not have been all that much noise being made about Adult Swim’s upcoming series Unicorn: Warriors Eternal from creator Genndy Tartakovsky, but the animated series’ action-packed first trailer might just change that. Set in a world that’s been plagued by a malevolent presence since the dawn of time, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal tells the tale of a group of ancient heroes who, through countless reincarnations, have spent multiple lifetimes fighting to keep the forces of darkness at bay./news/unopened-copy-of-super-mario-bros-sells-for-a-record-2-million.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/unopened-copy-of-super-mario-bros-sells-for-a-record-2-million.htmlAn anonymous buyer paid $2 million for a never-opened copy of Super Mario Bros., according to collectibles site Rally. First reported by the New York Times, the sale price of the 1985 game broke a record that was set less than a month ago, when a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 went for $1.56 million at auction. Over the past year, the record for most expensive video game has been broken numerous times, as the demand for childhood collectibles remains hot./news/valheim-is-steam-s-hottest-new-pc-game-and-it-s-now-sold-5-million-copies.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/valheim-is-steam-s-hottest-new-pc-game-and-it-s-now-sold-5-million-copies.htmlThe other day, I saw a game named Valheim atop the Steam Early Access sales charts, with overwhelmingly positive reviews. Polygon seemed to like the $20 Viking-themed survival game, and I thought friends might like it, too. I wasn’t ready to commit quite yet — I waffled a while before giving it a go. Know who bought it while I was making up my mind? One million other people. On February 10th, just eight days after launch, indie developer Iron Gate announced that Valheim had already sold 1 million copies./news/video-really-caught-dolphins-in-a-venice-canal-this-time.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/video-really-caught-dolphins-in-a-venice-canal-this-time.htmlTwo dolphins were caught on video swimming through Venice canals near the iconic St. Mark’s Square yesterday. The pair, an adult and a calf, visited during heightened coronavirus-related restrictions in the city. The sight was “a great joy in a dark period for everyone,” Luca Folin told local newspaper La Nuova di Venezia e Mestre. The paper reports that Folin took one video of the dolphins that went viral. Unlike fake reports of dolphins splashing through Venice canals near the start of the pandemic last year, this week’s sighting is legitimate./news/watch-epic-s-nineteen-eighty-fortnite-short-mocking-apple-right-here.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/watch-epic-s-nineteen-eighty-fortnite-short-mocking-apple-right-here.htmlEpic just premiered a new short mocking Apple shortly after the iPhone-maker kicked Fortnite from the App Store for violating its guidelines on Thursday. The short, titled “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite,” directly mocks Apple’s iconic “1984” ad, taking famous imagery from the ad and giving it a cartoony Fortnite twist. A man with an apple for a face on a giant screen talks to a soulless, black-and-white audience. “Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the platform unification directives,” says the apple in a menacing voice./news/wattpad-has-a-community-problem-so-it-s-killing-dms.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/wattpad-has-a-community-problem-so-it-s-killing-dms.htmlCommunity publishing platform Wattpad is removing the ability for users to send each other direct messages, claiming that the feature has “only been relevant to a small percentage” of its global user base. Users will retain access to their DMs until May 6th, after which all existing messages will be deleted and the feature will no longer be available, according to Wattpad’s help center. Wattpad is instead encouraging its users to communicate via the public commenting feature on stories or the conversation section of profile pages./news/waymo-and-jaguar-will-build-up-to-20-000-self-driving-electric-suvs.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/waymo-and-jaguar-will-build-up-to-20-000-self-driving-electric-suvs.htmlWaymo and Jaguar Land Rover have inked a deal that will add tens of thousands of all-electric I-Pace SUVs to the Alphabet unit’s growing lineup of self-driving taxis. The I-Pace, which made its global debut earlier this month, is not as much of a people-mover as Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica minivans, but it will serve as a more high-end ride for those willing to pay a premium for their driverless transportation. The first prototype I-Pace with Waymo’s self-driving technology will hit the road for public testing at the end of 2018, and officially become part of Waymo’s commercial ride-hailing service starting in 2020./news/welcome-to-the-beautiful-electric-future-of-transistor.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/welcome-to-the-beautiful-electric-future-of-transistor.htmlThere’s something to be said for any game that can spin a story about a struck-dumb singer with a talking sword and provoke an emotional reaction. Transistor, the second title from San Jose’s Supergiant Games, is exactly that; it’s a gorgeous cyberpunk adventure that will confuse, charm, and addict you. Supergiant’s first game, Bastion, was a breakout indie success that sold millions of copies across almost every platform imaginable. Transistor has three obvious things in common with Bastion: it uses an isometric perspective with beautiful hand-drawn 2D art, it’s an action role-playing game where you level up your character’s abilities through countless battles, and it has a gritty voiceover that serves as your constant accompaniment./news/what-in-the-world-is-nuclear-fusion-and-when-will-we-harness-it.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-in-the-world-is-nuclear-fusion-and-when-will-we-harness-it.htmlNuclear fusion is back in the news. This week, the US Department of Energy announced what it called a “major scientific breakthrough” in fusion power research: for the first time, a fusion experiment had produced more energy than the energy used to kick off the reaction. It’s not the first time we’ve heard about fusion progress. There have been decades of headlines touting breakthroughs large and small, usually implying that we’re closer than ever to generating all the clean energy we’ll ever need from nuclear fusion./news/what-time-do-black-friday-deals-start-at-amazon-walmart-and-other-retailers.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-time-do-black-friday-deals-start-at-amazon-walmart-and-other-retailers.htmlBlack Friday officially kicks off on November 24th this year, but if you plan to make that the only day you buy gifts this holiday season, you’re missing out. Several prominent retailers, including Best Buy and Target, have already started rolling out their holiday discounts online and in-store. Both retailers are offering price protection through most of the holiday shopping season as well, so if you buy early and the same item drops to a lower price, you can retroactively get that better deal./news/what-we-know-about-intel-s-20-billion-bet-on-ohio.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-we-know-about-intel-s-20-billion-bet-on-ohio.htmlOn Friday, Intel announced it would build the “largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet” here in the United States, on a 1,000-acre plot of land in New Albany, Ohio. Hours later, President Biden, Ohio governor Mike DeWine, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and other executives and local officials suggested the up-to-$100 billion development could be a panacea for a wide variety of issues, too — including global competitiveness, national security, the chip shortage, the high price of cars, racial and gender gaps in STEM employment, even inflation itself./news/woorld-is-a-new-augmented-reality-game-from-the-creator-of-katamari.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/woorld-is-a-new-augmented-reality-game-from-the-creator-of-katamari.htmlKeita Takahashi has a new game, and it’s just as weird as you’d expect. The designer best known for the seminal PS2 ball-roller Katamari just announced his latest project, an augmented reality game called Woorld that, according to studio Funomena, is being built "for Tango technology." Just what exactly Woorld is isn’t entirely clear, but it looks cute and whimsical in a way that Takahashi’s games are known for. The debut trailer shows a living room transformed into a colorful garden — and then later pyramids, toilets, and UFOs are tossed into the mix./news/x-is-about-to-start-hiding-all-likes.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/x-is-about-to-start-hiding-all-likes.htmlX is rolling out private likes as soon as today, according to a source at the company. That means what users like on the platform will be hidden by default, which is already an option for X’s Premium subscribers. Following the publication of this story, X owner Elon Musk reshared a screenshot of it, saying it’s “important to allow people to like posts without getting attacked for doing so!” A few weeks ago, X’s director of engineering, Haofei Wang, said the upcoming change is meant to protect users’ public image — because “many people feel discouraged” to like “edgy” content./news/you-can-now-ask-google-to-remove-images-of-under-18s-from-its-search-results.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-ask-google-to-remove-images-of-under-18s-from-its-search-results.htmlGoogle has launched a new safety feature that lets under-18s request the removal of images of themselves from the company’s search results. The feature was originally announced in August (along with new restrictions of ad targeting of minors) but is now widely available. Anyone can start the removal process from this help page. Applicants will need to supply the URLs of images they want removed from search results, the search terms that surface those images, the name and age of the minor, and the name and relationship of the individual that might be acting on their behalf — a parent or guardian, for example./news/you-can-now-install-windows-11-s-next-big-update-early.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-install-windows-11-s-next-big-update-early.htmlMicrosoft is releasing its next Windows 11 update to its Release Preview ring today. It’s the final ring of testing before the 24H2 update will be available to all Windows 11 users. The update includes HDR background support, energy saver, Sudo for Windows, Rust in the Windows kernel, and more. Microsoft will officially roll the update out through Windows Update later this year, but you can grab the final version through the Windows Insider option inside the Windows Update section of Windows 11./news/youtube-music-may-be-laying-the-groundwork-for-a-trim-silence-podcast-feature.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-music-may-be-laying-the-groundwork-for-a-trim-silence-podcast-feature.htmlYouTube Music may be laying the groundwork for a “trim silence” podcast feature. It appears Google is further optimizing YouTube Music for podcasts as it prepares to sunset Google Podcasts at the end of this month. 9to5Google reports spotting a line of code that indicates it is building out a “trim silence feature,” which is standard on Google Podcasts and other podcast listening apps. It automatically skips long stretches of silence that appear in an episode, saving the listener a bit of time./news/youtube-removes-account-of-far-right-creator-soph-for-hate-speech.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-removes-account-of-far-right-creator-soph-for-hate-speech.htmlThe 12-minute video, called “Pride and Prejudice,” came from far-right YouTuber Soph. It focused on the LGBTQ community and included a line of threats at the end of the video. The video also asked viewers to blame Soph in “your manifesto,” a reference to online documents that mass shooters have published on sites like 8chan. At the time, YouTube took down a couple of Soph’s videos, citing rules stating that the “platform is for children 13 and older,” and she had uploaded the videos prior to turning 13./news/youtube-says-it-will-block-predatory-comment-sections-on-videos-of-minors.htmlFri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/youtube-says-it-will-block-predatory-comment-sections-on-videos-of-minors.htmlAfter a Verge story detailed glaring examples of predatory comments on videos of children, YouTube announced today that it will turn off comments entirely on videos where it detects predatory behavior. “Comments of this nature are abhorrent” Last week, The Verge reported on the scope of the problem: videos of young children doing activities like gymnastics were being targeted by commenters making sexual comments, or inviting the children to talk. At the time, YouTube removed several of the videos provided by The Verge, some of which had hundreds of thousands or more views./news/how-google-s-new-pixel-phones-compare-to-the-latest-iphone-and-android-competition.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-google-s-new-pixel-phones-compare-to-the-latest-iphone-and-android-competition.htmlGoogle’s new Pixel phones are here. After years of overseeing reference Nexus devices running stock Android, Google is finally stepping into the smartphone fray to show what its vision of Android looks like. The Pixel and Pixel XL feature deep software integration to Google’s services, including Google Assistant, Daydream, and Google Photos. Unlike most current Android phones, it actually ships with the latest Android Nougat operating system and will continue to receive the latest OS and security updates./news/star-wars-print-dresses-hit-the-runway-at-new-york-fashion-week.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/star-wars-print-dresses-hit-the-runway-at-new-york-fashion-week.htmlModels for design house Rodarte made their debut at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week today with Star Wars prints emblazoned on their dresses, making it probably the best show of the week. Rodarte's fall line — showing off five dresses with accents from the original trilogy — is a breathe of fresh air at a decidedly un-geeky event devoted more to couture than to, say, science fiction. Fashion is having a more pronounced crossover moment than it has in previous years with respect to technology and geek culture./news/starcraft-mmo-uses-kickstarter-campaign-to-get-the-game-finished.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/starcraft-mmo-uses-kickstarter-campaign-to-get-the-game-finished.htmlStarcraft Universe, a Starcraft II mod that turns the game into an open-world MMO in the vein of World of Warcraft, is turning to Kickstarter to meet its goals and get the product launched after several years of development. The Kickstarter just opened and is seeking $80,000 to complete the game's first act and release it into public beta. The game itself is being built by developer Upheaval Arts and will be distributed through Blizzard's Battle./news/the-uncle-who-works-for-nintendo-is-your-childhood-insecurities-made-creepy-flesh.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-uncle-who-works-for-nintendo-is-your-childhood-insecurities-made-creepy-flesh.htmlUnlike, apparently, everyone else who plays games, I never had a childhood friend whose uncle "worked for Nintendo." Or Sega, or Blizzard, or anywhere that would supposedly get them access to the latest games or consoles or rumors. So the central conceit behind The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo isn't something I have personal experience with. But I think everyone had at least one friend they were jealous of, who seemed to magically be the best at everything./news/11-science-fiction-adventures-to-escape-into-this-thanksgiving-holiday.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/11-science-fiction-adventures-to-escape-into-this-thanksgiving-holiday.htmlHere’s the scene: your family is coming in from all parts of the country for the big day. It’s great to see everyone, but you honestly would rather deal with them through Facebook this year. You need a quick and easy way to escape the crowd, so you power up your e-reader and jump into a new world. Books are an amazing portal to leave everything behind for a few (let’s face it, more than a few) hours at a time, and a space opera will get you off this planet altogether./news/2023-toyota-prius-review-ev-reality-check.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/2023-toyota-prius-review-ev-reality-check.htmlIt’s a weird time to be the Toyota Prius. On the one hand, no car is more synonymous with eco-conscious virtue signaling than this ubiquitous lozenge-shaped hybrid. But on the other hand, the Prius’ gasoline-fed powertrain is a stark reminder of Toyota’s reluctance to follow its competitors’ leads and go all in on EVs. So where does that leave the swanky new 2023 model that’s just now hitting dealers? Toyota’s fifth-generation Prius certainly has a lot to like./news/a-nearly-waterproof-big-ass-battery.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/a-nearly-waterproof-big-ass-battery.htmlA nearly waterproof big ass battery. If you own a solar generator then chances are you’ve been caught out when the sun unexpectedly yields to rain. Bluetti’s new scalable AC240 features an IP65 rating, making it highly resistant to dust and water jets. It also supports up to 1200W of solar input to charge its 1536Wh LFP battery (expandable to 20,272Wh), and delivers 2400W of AC output with an option to double up units for 4800W./news/adobe-releases-new-organization-tool-for-premiere-pro-called-productions.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/adobe-releases-new-organization-tool-for-premiere-pro-called-productions.htmlAdobe is launching a new feature in Premiere Pro today called Productions, making it easier to work on the same project with multiple people. Adobe previewed the feature at Sundance, saying it was designed with filmmakers in mind. The new Productions panel offers a Google Drive-like experience so creatives can share assets easier. Multiple editors can work on the same project using local or shared storage, and it’ll all show up on a file system inside Premiere./news/aliro-aims-to-unify-digital-access-to-smart-locks-using-smartphones-and-smartwatches.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/aliro-aims-to-unify-digital-access-to-smart-locks-using-smartphones-and-smartwatches.htmlApple, Google, and Samsung have teamed up with lock makers and chip makers, including Allegion (Schlage), Assa Abloy (Yale), Qualcomm, and NXP, to build an open standard for smart locks and digital keys, using devices like your smartphone or smartwatch. Launching Thursday, the effort is called Aliro, and if you’ve ever enjoyed using Apple’s Home Key technology on your watch or phone to unlock your door, you’ll be excited about this new standard./news/alison-brie-stars-in-a-sex-romp-that-s-more-wet-hot-american-summer-than-monty-python.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/alison-brie-stars-in-a-sex-romp-that-s-more-wet-hot-american-summer-than-monty-python.htmlThe Little Hours certainly looks like a spiritual sequel to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A drunk priest, a gang of frisky nuns, and a pair of trash-talking soldiers keep busy in a 14th century Italian convent, doing drugs, sipping the sacramental wine, and having sex in the dirt. Quyen Tran’s lovely cinematography intentionally calls to mind the softcore porn farces and raunchy comedies of the 1970s. But that’s where the similarities stop./news/amtrak-is-giving-24-people-a-writer-s-residency-on-its-trains.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/amtrak-is-giving-24-people-a-writer-s-residency-on-its-trains.htmlThe first train-based authors' residency program is preparing to leave the station. Amtrak has announced two dozen recipients of its residency awards, which will send writers on a long-distance trip where the romance of an aging transportation system with an illustrious history will hopefully inspire them to create beautiful, possibly train-related work. The list tends towards journalists and other nonfiction writers, but also includes novelists, playwrights, comic authors, and poets. Amtrak says it aimed to "/news/ancient-fish-sawed-through-prey-with-a-spiral-blade-of-teeth.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ancient-fish-sawed-through-prey-with-a-spiral-blade-of-teeth.html"Imagine that... instead of having a tongue, you have this large spiral of teeth." That's how the Helicoprion, a fish that lived over 270 million years ago, captured and ate its prey. The distinct stretch of teeth on the nearly 25-foot long creature was a source of uncertainty to scientists, but researchers at Idaho State University have determined how the seemingly deadly jawline works."As the mouth closes, the teeth spin backwards./news/animal-crossing-new-horizons-is-tearing-my-family-apart.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/animal-crossing-new-horizons-is-tearing-my-family-apart.htmlMornings have always been a blur in my house: a family of four rushing about, trying to get ready for a day of school or work, the chaos of half-eaten bowls of cereal and unzipped jackets. Lately, though, there’s been a different kind of rush with everyone trying to be the first to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Like most games in the series, New Horizons is meant to be a social experience./news/apple-and-spotify-have-revealed-their-top-podcasts-of-2023-here-is-what-they-do-and-don-t.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-and-spotify-have-revealed-their-top-podcasts-of-2023-here-is-what-they-do-and-don-t.htmlThis is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. It’s that time of year again, when all your friends share their Spotify Wrapped and you (read: me) reply with your boring Apple Music Replay and nobody cares. I do also have Spotify, but my Wrapped isn’t loading, maybe because it has been crashing from overuse. I did receive a tip from acclaimed author Olivia Wolfgang-Smith that if Taylor Swift is your number one artist on Spotify “they show you a little video of her saying thanks for being a simp./news/apple-discussed-moral-obligation-to-health-in-secret-fda-meeting.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-discussed-moral-obligation-to-health-in-secret-fda-meeting.htmlApple roused the interest of fans and industry onlookers earlier this year when a government calendar revealed that several of its executives had taken a meeting with the Food and Drug Administration to discuss "mobile health," and now thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, more details are available on what they met about. According to Apple Toolbox, which made the FOIA request, the discussion revolved around how medical apps and hardware are being regulated./news/apple-is-allegedly-threatening-to-fire-an-employee-over-a-viral-tiktok-video.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-is-allegedly-threatening-to-fire-an-employee-over-a-viral-tiktok-video.htmlApple is allegedly threatening to fire an employee who posted a TikTok video with basic iPhone security tips. The employee, Paris Campbell, says she was told that she breached company policy by identifying herself as an Apple employee and posting about Apple-related topics. The company’s social media policy warns employees against posting about customers, colleagues, or confidential information — but Apple doesn’t specifically bar employees from posting about the technology entirely./news/apple-s-rumored-macbook-pros-could-get-higher-resolution-screens-according-to-beta-leak.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/apple-s-rumored-macbook-pros-could-get-higher-resolution-screens-according-to-beta-leak.htmlThe latest macOS Monterey beta contains clues about the resolution of Apple’s rumored 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, MacRumors reports. The seventh beta of the upcoming operating system contains references to “3456 x 2234 Retina” and “3024 x 1964 Retina,” which are two resolutions not supported in any of Apple’s current Macs. MacRumors theorizes that the two new resolutions correspond to Apple’s much rumored 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, which are widely expected to launch this year with new designs and a new Arm-based Apple processor called the M1X./news/asus-rog-flow-x13-review-a-game-ready-2-in-1.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/asus-rog-flow-x13-review-a-game-ready-2-in-1.htmlIf I saw the Asus ROG Flow X13 in the wild, I would never guess it was a gaming laptop. It’s a 13.4-inch 2-in-1 convertible that’s just 2.9 pounds and .62 inches thick. Flip the screen around, and you can use it as a tablet.  A 13-inch gaming laptop with those proportions isn’t unheard of, but it’s certainly unusual. How is Asus pulling it off? The secret is that the real gaming hardware is on the outside./news/at-t-announces-ps-vita-3g-data-plans-and-pricing.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/at-t-announces-ps-vita-3g-data-plans-and-pricing.htmlWe've just got the first official confirmation of what you'll be paying for 3G data on the PlayStation Vita. AT&T let the world know via its CES 2012 Developer summit that 250MB a month will cost $14.99, and 2GB will go for $25. The good news is that there aren't any term contracts involved, so you should be able to cancel and restart at will. We weren't convinced by the need for 3G data on the Vita in our review, though, and the 3G model will carry a $50 premium when the system launches February 22nd./news/audio-technica-r70x-review-the-definition-of-neutral-studio-headphones.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/audio-technica-r70x-review-the-definition-of-neutral-studio-headphones.htmlJapan’s Audio-Technica thinks of itself as a producer of professional audio equipment that just happens to also do some consumer-grade stuff. Its best-selling and most widely known pair of headphones, the M50x, fit that image perfectly: designed for professional use, but embraced by the wider public. They’ve grown popular almost by accident, benefiting from word of mouth recommendations and a consensus endorsement among YouTube video producers. Only thing is, the M50x aren’t Audio-Technica’s best pair of headphones for the pros./news/ava-duvernay-doesn-t-mind-she-didn-t-get-a-best-director-nomination.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ava-duvernay-doesn-t-mind-she-didn-t-get-a-best-director-nomination.htmlAva DuVernay is real. Thoughtful, necessary, and real. During her keynote address at South by Southwest, the director held forth about her work. About how she made her first narrative film, I Will Follow, and the road to Middle of Nowhere, her second film, winning the Best Director Prize at Sundance in 2012. Mostly, though, she spoke about Selma. Selma, the first feature film about Dr. Martin Luther King to hit theaters./news/belkin-wemo-s-new-smart-dimmer-switch-with-thread-is-exclusively-for-apple-s-homekit.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/belkin-wemo-s-new-smart-dimmer-switch-with-thread-is-exclusively-for-apple-s-homekit.htmlWemo, the smart home arm of Belkin, announced an updated version of its in-wall dimmer switch this week. The new Wemo Smart Dimmer with Thread ($59.99) is a wired smart switch that lets you dim and turn lights on and off remotely. It works exclusively with Apple’s HomeKit platform over Thread or Bluetooth and is available now from Belkin’s web store (and coming soon to Amazon). This HomeKit focus follows a recent trend for the company, whose last few products — the Wemo Stage Scene Controller, smart plug, and video doorbell — only work with Apple’s smart home platform./news/bmw-s-e-bike-concepts-are-motorcycles-outside-the-city-bicycles-within.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bmw-s-e-bike-concepts-are-motorcycles-outside-the-city-bicycles-within.htmlBMW recently showed off not one, but two e-bike concepts. The announcements are sprinkled with tons of gee-whiz claims that are easy to make when something only lives on paper, not roads. But one idea stood out to me as a real solution: the use of geofencing to limit fast e-bike speeds inside congested cities. Especially since BMW already has a working geofencing solution deployed around Europe. In Europe at least, fast e-bikes known as speed-pedelecs (or Class 3 e-bikes in the US) are capable of going 45km/h (28mph), just like BMW’s new concept bikes, the BMW i Vision AMBY and BMW Motorrad Vision AMBY./news/bungie-sues-destiny-youtuber-for-sowing-chaos-with-fake-copyright-strikes.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/bungie-sues-destiny-youtuber-for-sowing-chaos-with-fake-copyright-strikes.htmlBungie has sued a Destiny player who allegedly filed dozens of fake copyright strikes in its name. The lawsuit, covered by TheGamePost, says California YouTube creator Nick Minor turned a single Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice into 96 fraudulent claims against other YouTubers. The complaint claims Bungie “brand protection” contractor CSC Global sent Minor a legitimate copyright notice in December 2021, asking him to remove music from the soundtrack of Destiny expansion The Taken King./news/buying-guide-the-verge.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/buying-guide-the-verge.htmlI once bought an e-reader with a 30-day warranty that broke on day 35. Don’t make the same mistake. If you’re planning on buying an e-reader to read by the pool this summer, do your research. I tested dozens and narrowed down the very best in this guide – and not one of them broke. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jq2foqtdnsBuudhmpZ6wpA%3D%3D/news/call-of-duty-league-team-owner-suing-activision-blizzard-for-680-million.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/call-of-duty-league-team-owner-suing-activision-blizzard-for-680-million.htmlRodriguez — whose company owned and operated the Call of Duty League’s OpTic Texas team — and now-retired OpTic player Seth “Scump” Abner are seeking $680 million in damages. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the pair claim that Activision Blizzard’s “unlawful 100 percent monopoly” over the league forced them into financially ruinous partnerships at the risk of being unable to compete in the League. Before the arrival of the Call of Duty League, competitive Call of Duty tournaments were hosted by independent third-party organizers and featured an “open” structure whereby any team could sign up and participate./news/can-darpa-spark-a-diy-brain-scanning-movement.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/can-darpa-spark-a-diy-brain-scanning-movement.htmlA working prototype of a low-cost electroencephalography device funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made its debut in New York this weekend, the first step in the agency’s effort to jumpstart a do-it-yourself revolution in neuroscience. Dr. Lindsay Allen was sitting in a booth at Maker Faire, the annual gathering where 70,000-some hackers and tinkerers display their projects, wearing a blue cap stuffed with electrodes. Her brain’s electrical signals were feeding into a green chip the size of a baseball card mounted atop an inexpensive Arduino microcontroller, which was outputting through some software built for the demonstration./news/cvs-reportedly-wants-to-punish-other-pharmacies-that-still-sell-tobacco.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/cvs-reportedly-wants-to-punish-other-pharmacies-that-still-sell-tobacco.htmlOther pharmacies won't be happy about this The result would be twofold: other pharmacies may begin feeling pressure to cut off tobacco sales, and CVS would become a more appealing place to fill prescriptions. When CVS originally announced its plan to end tobacco sales, it said that it wanted to focus more on health-related services, and this would play right into that. CVS may find itself making more money filling prescriptions, as customers head there to save money — or, worryingly for smaller pharmacies, head to CVS because they aren't sure if they'll be charged the additional fee elsewhere./news/daisy-is-apple-s-new-iphone-recycling-robot.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/daisy-is-apple-s-new-iphone-recycling-robot.htmlAhead of Earth Day, Apple has debuted a new robot named Daisy that can take apart iPhones in order to recover valuable materials inside, as reported by TechCrunch. The robot is a successor to Liam, another recycling robot made by Apple that was revealed in 2016. In fact, Daisy was created with some of Liam’s old parts, making it a recycled robot that helps recycle iPhones. Daisy is capable of taking apart nine different versions of the iPhone, and it can disassemble up to 200 iPhones an hour./news/dating-app-hinge-is-rewarding-successful-couples-with-milestone-gifts.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dating-app-hinge-is-rewarding-successful-couples-with-milestone-gifts.htmlIf you’ve successfully navigated the hellscape that is modern app-driven dating (in this case, specifically the Hinge plane), the company has a reward in store for you. Hinge is running a weeklong online promotion in which couples who met on the app can redeem their love for a physical gift. The reward system is measured through “milestones” like becoming exclusive, moving in, or getting married. Each monumental moment has a corresponding present, such as a pillow, a bottle of wine, or one of those vibrators recently involved in a class action lawsuit./news/dell-put-fast-120hz-panels-in-its-latest-ultrasharp-monitors.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/dell-put-fast-120hz-panels-in-its-latest-ultrasharp-monitors.htmlDell has announced four new UltraSharp monitors that have the potential to be good gaming displays in addition to playing to the brand’s traditional strength of offering color-accurate screens for work. The two 27 inchers have 1440p resolutions, while the other two 24-inch monitors are 1080p. All of them have IPS LCD displays with 120Hz refresh rates, double the 60Hz that Dell has typically offered with its UltraSharp models.  While 120Hz monitors have traditionally been of most interest to gamers, who arguably have the most to gain from a screen that updates twice as quickly as a standard model, Dell is pitching the faster refresh rates in these UltraSharp models as part of a suite of features to enhance visual comfort and reduce eye strain./news/discord-opens-up-to-games-and-apps-embedded-in-its-chat-app.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/discord-opens-up-to-games-and-apps-embedded-in-its-chat-app.htmlDiscord will soon allow developers to build new games and apps that can be used directly in its chat app. A selection of minigames and apps have been available to Discord users for months now, but starting March 18th, all Discord developers will get access to a new Embedded App SDK that lets them build these special embedded apps. Discord has used its Activities feature to enable apps like YouTube, promote minigames like poker, and even encourage users to play with a shared whiteboard experience./news/disney-s-gargoyles-will-live-again.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/disney-s-gargoyles-will-live-again.htmlGargoyles, one of Disney’s weirdest and best ’90s cartoon experiments, is coming back. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Gary Dauberman and James Wan, who also made the whole Annabelle series of scary movies, are adapting the series as a live-action show for Disney Plus. Dauberman will write, executive produce, and showrun the series. The series will presumably follow a similar path to the original cartoon, also available on Disney Plus./news/drake-pulls-out-a-solid-gold-encased-psp-in-his-new-music-video.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/drake-pulls-out-a-solid-gold-encased-psp-in-his-new-music-video.htmlDrake dropped a new music video this week for his song “Jumbotron Shit Poppin,” and he’s playing with a classic PSP in it. But it’s not just any PSP; this is a real gold-shelled one that was, until recently, owned by Pharrell Williams (via Kotaku). The custom PSP-1000 was sold on Pharrell’s auction site, Joopiter, in November for nearly $20,000. According to the listing, its case is made of 14-karat solid gold that weighs 659./news/ea-origin-access-premier-launch-date-and-price-announced.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ea-origin-access-premier-launch-date-and-price-announced.htmlEA is launching Origin Access Premier, its new unlimited PC gaming subscription service, next week. The service will go live on Monday July 30th, CFO Blake Jorgensen said during the company’s quarterly earnings call (via Variety), and will cost $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year. EA already has a $29.99-a-year PC downloads service called Origin Access, as well as the similar EA Access plan for Xbox One, but subscribers to those have to wait several months for new titles to come to the “vault” of available EA games./news/earth-is-steadily-leaking-plasma-out-into-the-universe.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/earth-is-steadily-leaking-plasma-out-into-the-universe.htmlEarth looks like such a solid and stable blue marble from outer space. But looks can be deceiving. Our planet is actually quietly leaking the equivalent of about 90 metric tons of plasma into outer space every day, according to new data collected by the European Space Agency's Cluster mission. Plasma is an invisible, electrically charged gas that forms in the upper atmosphere when air particles are heated by the Sun's ultraviolet rays./news/eartrumpet-is-the-windows-10-volume-control-app-microsoft-should-have-created.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/eartrumpet-is-the-windows-10-volume-control-app-microsoft-should-have-created.htmlMicrosoft has made some steady improvements to audio control in Windows over the years, but if you use multiple outputs, headsets, or digital-to-analogue converters then you probably already know that Windows 10 doesn’t handle them well. Thankfully, a third-party app has been trying to solve these issues recently and is getting a big update today. Former Microsoft engineer Dave Amenta, developer David Golden (of MetroTwit fame), and Microsoft MVP Rafael Rivera have teamed up to create EarTrumpet./news/editing-photos-on-google-s-pixel-fold-has-totally-sold-me-on-the-form-factor.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/editing-photos-on-google-s-pixel-fold-has-totally-sold-me-on-the-form-factor.htmlI don’t particularly love editing my photos on a regular old slab phone anymore. Even on something large like the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the aspect ratio demands more zooming and panning than I’d like. Slapping on a quick filter or making some light tweaks is fine, but anything more than that, and I’m itching for my Mac or an iPad. None of this is the fault of software, mind you; Adobe’s been on a run of some phenomenal Lightroom updates this year, and indie developers like the team behind Pixelmator are impressively keeping pace./news/elena-anaya-reveals-the-secret-motives-and-tragic-history-behind-her-wonder-woman-villain.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elena-anaya-reveals-the-secret-motives-and-tragic-history-behind-her-wonder-woman-villain.htmlFans of Spanish actress Elena Anaya might have had a hard time recognizing her in Patty Jenkins’ superhero sensation Wonder Woman. Anaya is a headliner in Spain, with starring roles in films including Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In, the drama They Are All Dead, and the ghost story Fragile. She’s become an international star as well, in the UK’s Swung, France’s high-profile criminal profile Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy #1, and Chile’s The Memory of Water./news/elon-musk-capitulates-twitter-will-default-to-dark-mode-but-still-offer-a-light-option.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/elon-musk-capitulates-twitter-will-default-to-dark-mode-but-still-offer-a-light-option.htmlUpdate July 28th, 2:51AM ET: After saying that Twitter / X would “soon only have a ‘dark mode’” because it’s “better in every way,” Musk now says that “A lot of people have asked to keep light mode, so we will, but the default will be dark and dim will be deleted.” The following article appears as it was originally published. Just when you think Elon Musk can’t get any more divisive, he’s weighed in on the light mode versus dark mode debate — and Twitter, currently undergoing a rebranding to X, is apparently going all in on the latter./news/even-pok%C3%A9mon-are-getting-in-on-the-asmr-mukbang-trend.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/even-pok%C3%A9mon-are-getting-in-on-the-asmr-mukbang-trend.htmlThe Pokémon Company has released two ASMR videos to kick off your weekend: one featuring a Charmander peacefully snoozing beside a crackling fire, and one with a Chespin munching away on some macarons. “This is a ASMR video for those who need a gentle Pokémon touch in everything!” the description reads. Headphones are recommended for optimal effect, so you can take in the full sounds of the crunching and crackling. ASMR and pokémon are really a perfect match, because the tingly sensation I get from listening to soft sounds and voices are one and the same as the warm fuzzies I get from looking at cute pokémon./news/fcc-changes-consumer-complaints-process-as-commissioner-calls-move-bonkers.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fcc-changes-consumer-complaints-process-as-commissioner-calls-move-bonkers.htmlThe Federal Communications Commission voted 3–1 today to change how it handles consumer complaints, but questions over what those changes mean turned into a heated exchange among the agency’s commissioners. Earlier this week, House Democrats said in a letter to the agency that a proposed change could lead consumers filing free informal complaints with the agency to file formal ones instead — a process that costs $225.  The Republican leadership at the agency disputed the letter, and said during the vote today that changes in language had no practical effect on how the agency handles informal complaints, only formal ones./news/former-away-employees-describe-a-toxic-work-environment-at-the-luggage-company.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/former-away-employees-describe-a-toxic-work-environment-at-the-luggage-company.htmlAvery felt out of place at Away. Like many of the executives at the popular direct-to-consumer luggage brand, she’d gone to an Ivy League college, worked at a popular startup, and honed an intense work ethic that set her apart from the pack. But the higher-ups, who were almost all white and straight, still never gave her the time of day. “It was very clear who was in the clique,” she says./news/fortnite-chapter-5-season-2-brings-greek-gods-to-the-battle-royale.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/fortnite-chapter-5-season-2-brings-greek-gods-to-the-battle-royale.htmlFirst up, the new locations. A number of mythological locales have been added to the map, including Mount Olympus and the underworld, which, naturally, is guarded by Cerberus. To go along with this are a number of power-ups and items to collect, including the Wings of Icarus so you can fly, Zeus’ bolts which let you “rise into the air and hurl lightning bolts at your target,” and a weapon called the Chains of Hades that’s coming later on./news/frank-ocean-and-the-cars-of-blonde.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/frank-ocean-and-the-cars-of-blonde.htmlIn the essay on the Tumblr account that accompanies his site-specific magazine and album release of Blonde and Endless, Frank Ocean asks, "How much of my life has happened inside of a car?" He recalls his time in a "sinewy crossover SUV," how his manager once rescued him from a bad trip in a Porsche truck, and how after money and fame and London living, he ordered a Porsche GT3 RS, essentially because as a made musician, he could./news/from-apple-s-first-iphone-to-the-iphone-14-a-visual-history.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/from-apple-s-first-iphone-to-the-iphone-14-a-visual-history.htmlFifteen years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the very first iPhone. He described it as three devices in one: a “widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device.” But since its first unveiling, the iPhone has become much more than that. It’s a symbol of the tech industry, of the modern era as a whole, and has made Apple the largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization./news/gamestop-has-an-xbox-series-x-bundle-available-right-now-update-sold-out.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gamestop-has-an-xbox-series-x-bundle-available-right-now-update-sold-out.htmlUpdate January 26th, 12:23PM ET: The bundles have sold out and are currently unavailable. GameStop has just restocked the Xbox Series X, with one caveat: it’s only available as part of a bundle. The $648.98 bundle includes an extra controller, a three-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and a $50 GameStop gift card. While many of GameStop’s recent restocks have been restricted to PowerUp Pro Rewards subscribers, this restock is available to everyone./news/genetic-sequencing-opens-new-doors-and-concerns-for-home-health-testing.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/genetic-sequencing-opens-new-doors-and-concerns-for-home-health-testing.htmlAt-home health testing company LetsGetChecked has acquired the genetic testing company Veritas Genetics and spinoff Veritas Intercontinental, it announced Tuesday. It’s the latest pivot for a direct-to-consumer genetics company, most of which have spent the past few years struggling to sell DNA test kits to consumers more and more concerned about genetic privacy. Partnering with an industry like home testing, which grew over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, is one path forward./news/george-lucas-changed-han-solo-s-scene-with-greedo-in-star-wars-disney-confirms.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/george-lucas-changed-han-solo-s-scene-with-greedo-in-star-wars-disney-confirms.htmlDisney+ arrived with seven chapters of the Skywalker saga, but people have started to notice something strange about the first Star Wars film, A New Hope: it has an entirely different edit than the ones fans have seen before. The change was “made by George made prior to the Disney acquisition,” a Disney representative told The Verge. The new edit, which was first spotted by the Star Wars Visual Comparisons Twitter account, features an entirely new insert of the Rodian bounty hunter Greedo saying something while talking to Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine./news/gm-should-just-bring-back-the-chevy-volt.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gm-should-just-bring-back-the-chevy-volt.htmlGeneral Motors’ shift from an internal combustion engine-producing company to one that makes electric motors is sputtering. EV sales are up, but growing slower than expected. The company’s next-generation Ultium platform, in particular, isn’t meeting expectations. GM’s new electric trucks and SUVs seem perennially delayed — or full of buggy software. I think I have an easy solution to a lot of these problems: bring back the Chevy Volt. Remember the Volt, GM’s scrappy Toyota Prius fighter from the mid-2010s?/news/google-adds-autoplaying-videos-to-search-results-on-android.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-adds-autoplaying-videos-to-search-results-on-android.htmlThe next time a video shows up at the top of your Google search results, it might start playing automatically — fortunately, with the sound muted. Google is beginning to add what it calls “video previews” to search results. They’ll start out on Android, where they’ll appear for searches made in Chrome and the Google app. At first, they’ll only be in English and in the US, but Google plans to expand the feature globally and in all languages in the future./news/google-buys-1-billion-plot-of-land-for-new-central-london-hq.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-buys-1-billion-plot-of-land-for-new-central-london-hq.htmlGoogle is building its new UK headquarters in central London. The company this week purchased a 2.4-acre plot in the King's Cross Central development, where it will begin construction on a new, 1 million square foot office. Google did not disclose an official price for the land, though a source close to the deal told Reuters that the company is investing £650 million ($1.04 billion) in the project. By the time construction is completed in 2016, the building is expected to be valued at more than £1 billion ($1./news/google-is-reportedly-working-on-a-project-that-lets-ai-models-tell-someone-s-life-story.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-is-reportedly-working-on-a-project-that-lets-ai-models-tell-someone-s-life-story.htmlGoogle is reportedly working on a project that lets AI models tell someone's “life story.” Project Ellmann, named after biographer and literary critic Richard David Ellmann, will take users’ search results and photos to make a chatbot able to answer “previously impossible questions.” CNBC saw documents presenting Ellmann and said the goal is to present a “bird’s-eye” approach to a person’s life. Ellmann allegedly categorizes moments into chapters: for example, the “college” chapter or the “becomes a parent” chapter./news/google-maps-is-making-it-easier-to-hike-through-national-parks.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-maps-is-making-it-easier-to-hike-through-national-parks.htmlGood news, nature lovers! Google is making it easier to explore national parks with Google Maps. The updates will start to roll out this month ahead of National Park Week starting on April 22nd, the day entrance fees are waived. Until now, finding directions to a trailhead has been a crapshoot on the app. Navigating the trail itself can be even harder without a preview of the route on Maps. For national parks at least, that should start to change./news/google-may-be-readying-new-chromebook-x-branding-for-more-premium-chromeos-laptops.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-may-be-readying-new-chromebook-x-branding-for-more-premium-chromeos-laptops.htmlGoogle could be about to launch a new branding initiative for Chromebooks dubbed “Chromebook X,” according to a new report from 9to5Google. The publication has pulled together several code commits referencing the new name, which suggests that the branding could be used for laptops that meet certain spec requirements and allow them to offer exclusive features. One source tells 9to5Google that the first Chromebook X laptops could launch before the end of the year./news/google-mobile-homepage-now-shows-recent-searches-from-your-computer.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-mobile-homepage-now-shows-recent-searches-from-your-computer.htmlGoogle has added a bunch of features like places and flight information to its iOS and Android search homepage over the past months, and today there's a new one: recent search results. While it sounds just like a boring old web history, it's actually more than that — if you search for a restaurant or other venue on your computer when signed into your account, you'll see a "recent" tab on the Google homepage on your phone that will show you that last search./news/google-play-warns-users-it-doesn-t-carry-fortnite-battle-royale.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/google-play-warns-users-it-doesn-t-carry-fortnite-battle-royale.htmlGoogle is warning Android users that it doesn’t carry Fortnite Battle Royale in the Play Store. If you search for Fortnite in the Play Store, it will return a notice from Google. “Fortnite Battle Royal by Epic Games, Inc is not available on Google Play,” the sign says, likely as a clarification to users, as first spotted by 9to5Google. By saying upfront that the Play Store doesn’t have Fortnite, Google is attempting to protect unknowing users who might download some malicious clone of the app./news/gpt-4-turbo-comes-to-paid-chatgpt.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/gpt-4-turbo-comes-to-paid-chatgpt.htmlGPT-4 Turbo comes to paid ChatGPT. ChatGPT Plus will be able to give more thought-out answers and understand longer prompts thanks to GPT-4 Turbo. The updated model, released on preview in November, trained on data until April 2023, so its knowledge base is also more recent. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxyfo5ra2pqaGiAcXvGqatmbF2pwrOuzmaaqKWVqHq1u4ypmKKcXZi1osDGqas%3D/news/grab-the-jaw-dropping-matrix-awakens-tech-demo-before-it-s-delisted-this-week.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/grab-the-jaw-dropping-matrix-awakens-tech-demo-before-it-s-delisted-this-week.htmlIf you’ve wanted to experience the impressive visuals in The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience and haven’t downloaded it yet, you’ll want to act fast — according to Unreal Engine’s website, it’ll be removed from the PlayStation and Xbox stores on Saturday, July 9th. After that date you’ll still be able to play and download it, but only if you added it to your library before the cutoff./news/hbo-max-has-removed-hundreds-of-iconic-looney-tunes-shorts.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hbo-max-has-removed-hundreds-of-iconic-looney-tunes-shorts.htmlAt one point in history, the Warner Bros. name (now Warner Bros. Discovery) was almost synonymous with its catalog of iconic cartoon shorts, featuring characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Wile E. Coyote. Despite that legacy, Warner Bros. Discovery has now pulled hundreds of classic Looney Tunes shorts from its HBO Max streaming platform, alongside 78 episodes of The Flintstones. Variety has confirmed that seasons 16–31 of Looney Tunes have been removed from HBO Max as of December 31st, totaling 256 episodes that originally aired between 1950 and 2004./news/here-is-the-cover-art-for-kanye-west-s-new-album-the-life-of-pablo.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-is-the-cover-art-for-kanye-west-s-new-album-the-life-of-pablo.htmlWith less than an hour to go before Kanye West unveils his new album, The Life of Pablo at the world's biggest listening party begins, he's finally given the world our first look at the album artwork. Designed (typed?) by the Belgian artist Peter De Potter, the post-modern cover features The Life of Pablo in all caps and featuring a small family photo in the bottom corner. Much will be made about the cover, but regardless of how it looks, the only thing that truly matters about The Life of Pablo is how it sounds./news/here-s-how-the-ipad-s-new-trackpad-actually-works.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/here-s-how-the-ipad-s-new-trackpad-actually-works.htmlSo the mouse support is there, but how will it work? The iPad and iPadOS are touch-based operating systems meant to be used with your big fat fingers, not tiny little pointers. Even when the Apple Pencil was introduced, they have stayed that way. Plus, more recently, iPadOS has increased the level of complexity for multitasking to 11 with support for multiple windows, split screens, slide-over windows, custom gestures for text editing, and more./news/hi-fi-rush-a-new-rhythm-action-game-from-the-developers-of-the-evil-within-is-out-today.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hi-fi-rush-a-new-rhythm-action-game-from-the-developers-of-the-evil-within-is-out-today.htmlTango Gameworks, a Bethesda studio known for The Evil Within series and last year’s Ghostwire: Tokyo, announced a new rhythm-action brawler during Wednesday’s Xbox Developer Direct called Hi-Fi Rush. And best of all, it will be available on Wednesday. In the game, you’ll explore a colorful animated world and smash baddies and robots in your way. Because of the rhythm-action focus, you’ll do better as you string hits in time with the music./news/how-facebook-is-using-ai-to-combat-covid-19-misinformation-and-detect-hateful-memes.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-facebook-is-using-ai-to-combat-covid-19-misinformation-and-detect-hateful-memes.htmlFacebook on Monday released a new report detailing how it uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human fact-checkers and moderators to enforce its community standards. The report — called the Community Standards Enforcement Report, which usually encompasses data and findings from the prior three to six months — has a large focus on AI this time around and the progress Facebook is relying more on software instead of people, given the extreme toll the job can take on human moderators./news/how-spotify-s-discover-weekly-cracked-human-curation-at-internet-scale.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-spotify-s-discover-weekly-cracked-human-curation-at-internet-scale.htmlIn the ‘90s, Aby Ngana Diop was the queen of taasu, a practice of ritual poetry performed by female griots in Senegal. Diop’s distinctive vocals made her a sought-after performer at the weddings and funerals of the rich and powerful, but only a single album of her work is widely available — Liital, originally released in 1994. Liital took the traditional spoken word art form and merged it with the raucous modernity of electronic synth and drum loops./news/how-to-change-your-gmail-signature.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-change-your-gmail-signature.htmlAdding an email signature is a considerate thing to do when you’re communicating professionally. You can have all of the necessary information — such as your full name, position, and contact information — right there, and you don’t have to worry if you accidentally forget to sign off your emails. It’s also useful if you’re in a hurry or sending an email from your phone. (You can also set it up on your mobile app./news/how-to-download-apps-for-your-fitbit.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-download-apps-for-your-fitbit.htmlSo you’re the owner of a brand-new Fitbit Versa or Ionic smartwatch. Congratulations! If you’ve never used a smartwatch before, you may be (understandably) overwhelmed. If you swipe left from the home screen, you’ll see that there are dozens of different things to click on: Spotify, Wallet, Weather, and more. But those apps are only a fraction of what Fitbit has to offer. There are hundreds of third-party apps available for your smartwatch, which you can use to really make it your own./news/how-to-manage-app-permissions-on-your-iphone.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-manage-app-permissions-on-your-iphone.htmlEvery time you install an app on your iPhone, it comes with permissions attached — permissions that determine what it can and can’t do. These permissions cover some pretty fundamental parts of iOS, including access to the iPhone camera, microphone, and current location. The permissions get asked for one by one as they’re needed, so you’ve got plenty of control over how your apps are behaving.  But sometimes, especially when you’re in a hurry, it’s easy to accidentally give permission for an app to access data it doesn’t really require./news/how-to-manage-your-android-lock-screen.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-manage-your-android-lock-screen.htmlThe lock screen of your Android phone can be very useful, showing notifications and letting you access certain features without having to unlock your phone first. (Something that may be even more useful if you’ve got a Pixel 6 or 6 Pro and are still having problems with the fingerprint sensor.) Here are some ways you can tweak the settings for your lock screen. These were tested using a Pixel 6 running Android 12; as always, different Android phones can have somewhat different procedures./news/how-to-manage-your-new-slack-notification-schedules.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-manage-your-new-slack-notification-schedules.htmlSlack is now letting you choose when you get notifications on a per-day basis, meaning you can finally stop getting Slack pings over the weekend. Previously, Slack let you set when you were “available” to receive notifications, but those preferences would also roll over to the weekends. That meant you could get Slack distracting and unnecessary notifications on your computer or phone while you were enjoying an otherwise lazy Sunday./news/how-to-manage-your-shopping-lists-with-alexa.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-manage-your-shopping-lists-with-alexa.htmlI usually remember that I was supposed to buy something at the supermarket the instant I get home from my weekly grocery run. For whatever reason, I’m bad at keeping written lists, and making a note on my phone is just too complicated. But telling Alexa? Yeah, I can do that. You don’t have to do anything to set it up, either; Alexa comes ready with a shopping list feature already installed./news/how-to-share-a-google-doc-privately.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-share-a-google-doc-privately.htmlRecently, I got Slacked by a colleague who was really annoyed and had to let off a bit of steam. It seems that a writer had shared a new Google Docs article with them (a usual way of submitting a freelance piece), and when my colleague opened the article, they found another, unknown person was already reading it — somebody who was definitely not on our staff. What had happened? The writer, probably in too much of a hurry to share the document with specific people, had simply made it public so that anybody could have access to it./news/how-to-use-android-12-s-clever-new-auto-rotate-system.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-use-android-12-s-clever-new-auto-rotate-system.htmlGoogle’s upcoming Android 12 update has plenty of eye-catching features, but don’t let yourself be fooled: sometimes, it’s the smaller, less obvious elements that are most deserving of your attention. That’s certainly the case with the software’s new auto-rotate system. With Android 12, Google has introduced a smarter way to control when your screen switches between its vertical and horizontal orientations. And while the improvement isn’t getting all that much time in the spotlight, you’d better believe it has the potential to make your life a whole lot easier./news/how-to-verify-your-threads-account-using-your-mastodon-profile.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/how-to-verify-your-threads-account-using-your-mastodon-profile.htmlAs explained in a recent article, Meta has rolled out the ability to verify a link to your Threads profile on social media platforms like Mastodon, according to a Threads post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri. In other words, the Mastodon account on your profile will show a verified checkmark for a Threads profile — so you’re using your Threads account to signal to people looking at your profile on Mastodon that you own the Threads link you’re pointing to./news/hp-chromebook-11-review-the-verge.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/hp-chromebook-11-review-the-verge.htmlJust by virtue of its form factor, the Chromebook 11 is better than a tablet for a lot of things, but the specs here don’t add up to anything special. It works fine, with no deal-breaking issues, but it’s not exactly fluid — scrolling is slow and stuttery on heavy webpages, HD videos often stutter and drop frames and occasionally just stop playing entirely, and even typing can lag behind your fingers./news/iconic-shining-picture-was-actually-a-shopped-photograph-from-1923.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iconic-shining-picture-was-actually-a-shopped-photograph-from-1923.htmlThose who have seen Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (which should be just about everyone; if you haven't, go fix that right now) are familiar with Kubrick's tendency to twist time, space, and reality in such a way that makes you question everything you see. The meaning of the photograph in the film's final shot has been hotly debated for decades, but did you ever stop to question the photograph itself? Recently discovered photos posted on The Overlook Hotel show that the image is actually a composite, and Jack Nicholson's head was edited into the 1923 photograph./news/if-you-want-to-order-groceries-online-ordering-local-is-a-greener-option.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/if-you-want-to-order-groceries-online-ordering-local-is-a-greener-option.htmlBuying groceries and toiletries online can lower the carbon emissions from your purchase, but only if they’re delivered from a brick-and-mortar shop nearby, according to a new study from the UK. If your local grocer offers deliveries, that could have a smaller environmental impact (at least when it comes to planet-heating greenhouse gases) than driving to the store to pick them up yourself. In contrast, buying the same products from an online market (like, say, Amazon) will contribute more to climate change because more emissions are generated when the items are shipped from a distribution center via courier./news/in-doom-patrol-you-can-save-the-world-no-matter-how-broken-you-are.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/in-doom-patrol-you-can-save-the-world-no-matter-how-broken-you-are.htmlMost TV shows aren’t weird enough. Weird things happen on them — everyone’s seen Twin Peaks and loves an homage — but truly weird TV shows are rare. Rarer still are shows like Doom Patrol, a series that is genuinely strange and unexpected at every turn, but also just as deeply interested in empathy as it is grossing you out or making you laugh. Calling it a “superhero show” feels like a disservice; it’s more like therapy that happens to feature superheroes as well as talking cockroaches and paintings that eat people./news/indie-smash-hit-flappy-bird-racks-up-50k-per-day-in-ad-revenue.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/indie-smash-hit-flappy-bird-racks-up-50k-per-day-in-ad-revenue.htmlThe enigmatic and oppressively difficult mobile game Flappy Bird has turned into quite the cash cow for Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen. In an interview with The Verge, Nguyen revealed that the game, which has been sitting atop the App Store and Google Play Store charts for nearly a month, is earning on average $50,000 a day from in-app ads. If you're only now hearing of Flappy Bird, the game goes as follows: you tap the screen to propel a tiny, pixelated bird upwards./news/inside-the-high-tech-plot-to-save-the-northern-white-rhino-from-extinction.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/inside-the-high-tech-plot-to-save-the-northern-white-rhino-from-extinction.htmlImmediately after the world’s last male northern white rhino died on March 19th, a team of vets got to work. Within 30 minutes, they had collected tissue from the ears, gums, spleen, windpipes, and testicles of the 45-year-old rhino, named Sudan. The precious genetic material was put in a solution and then frozen at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where Sudan spent the last nine years of his life. Those cells could one day bring the northern white rhino back from the brink of extinction./news/inside-the-huge-complex-world-of-undersea-internet-cables.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/inside-the-huge-complex-world-of-undersea-internet-cables.htmlHundreds of cables. Hundreds of thousands of miles. The internet runs, in vastly more ways than we realize or think about, through a series of garden-hose size tubes on the ocean floor. Without those tubes, the modern world sort of collapses. And the folks responsible for keeping them functioning have bigger, harder, stranger jobs than you might think. Then, we chat with The Verge’s Tom Warren and Joanna Nelius about the new generation of PCs that Microsoft and others seem to think are going to be huge improvements over anything we’ve seen before./news/insight-how-nasa-got-its-next-mars-lander-to-the-launch-site.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/insight-how-nasa-got-its-next-mars-lander-to-the-launch-site.htmlInside a bright, cavernous room, a giant white metal box is rising toward the ceiling. A cable and pulley system tugs the box upward, and it ascends at just an inch a minute. I’m staring at this box along with 30 or so other people, all of whom are wearing white. No, not wearing white — covered in white. Every person sports a white cloth onesie. No hands or shoes can be seen; all are shrouded in gloves and booties./news/instacart-claims-absolutely-no-impact-from-planned-workers-strike.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instacart-claims-absolutely-no-impact-from-planned-workers-strike.htmlGrocery delivery company Instacart said today that a planned work stoppage by its shoppers had “absolutely no impact on Instacart’s operations” and claims it sold more groceries over the past 72 hours “than ever before.” “Today, we saw 40 percent more shoppers on the platform compared to the same day and time last week,” the company said in a statement emailed to The Verge. “In the last week alone, 250,000 new people signed up to become Instacart full-service shoppers and 50,000 of them have already started shopping on the platform./news/instagram-adds-gif-comments-the-verge.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/instagram-adds-gif-comments-the-verge.htmlRIP to the comment sections on Instagram because now everyone can finally drop in GIFs to posts and Reels in lieu of a thoughtful analysis or a masterful quip. So if you’re only on Instagram for the comments, you can finally just add a Michael Jackson-eating popcorn GIF. The feature was already enabled for some users in a limited availability phase. Now, Meta has unlocked the feature for global use, and it should be available for everyone today./news/intel-announces-bleeding-edge-intel-14a-targeting-2027-with-high-na-euv.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/intel-announces-bleeding-edge-intel-14a-targeting-2027-with-high-na-euv.htmlIntel announces bleeding-edge Intel 14A, targeting 2027 with High-NA EUV. Intel has said 2025 is the year it leads the world in chips again (TSMC begs to differ). Beyond that lies Intel 14A — the company’s smallest node yet, thanks to High-NA EUV. But Intel is hedging its bets with a tick-tock 18A successor, where the P in “18A-P” stands for performance jump. What does 14A stand for? Intel didn’t say./news/iphone-4s-launch-day-at-t-sees-record-activations-sprint-sees-best-ever-day-of-sales.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/iphone-4s-launch-day-at-t-sees-record-activations-sprint-sees-best-ever-day-of-sales.htmlOf course, there have been intermittent reports of activation delays for buyers on AT&T today, so record activation numbers certainly don't come as a surprise. Sprint, meanwhile, has previously touted record single-day sales for the Evo 4G only to pull back on its verbiage a few days later — but seeing how this is Sprint's very first iPhone, the claim seems pretty believable this time around. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnamlfZn1wfZNoaW1xYG6Fd3vIqZ%2BoppVigbR5y5qsp5uYYrGixYyaq2asXaiypr%2BMq5ycp6KZeqKv06KtmqyZpLu0edKpqaKmpGLAprHSZpmeq6Q%3D/news/is-the-level-lock-plus-about-to-become-the-first-matter-over-thread-lock-with-home-key.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/is-the-level-lock-plus-about-to-become-the-first-matter-over-thread-lock-with-home-key.htmlIs the Level Lock Plus about to become the first Matter-over-Thread lock with Home Key? Possibly. HomeKit Insider spotted that the sleek-looking smart lock is now Matter-certified, indicating Level might be readying its promised Matter/Thread update. A year ago, Level told The Verge all its existing locks could be upgraded to both, allowing them to work with more platforms (among other benefits). So far, the company has only released a new Wi-Fi bridge, but with this news that may be about to change./news/issey-miyake-fashion-pioneer-and-designer-of-steve-jobs-turtlenecks-dies-at-84.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/issey-miyake-fashion-pioneer-and-designer-of-steve-jobs-turtlenecks-dies-at-84.htmlI had never held a piece by Issey Miyake before the tail end of a trip back home to Japan in 2019, when I wandered into the Pleats Please boutique in the Narita International Airport before my flight. Candy-colored clothes hung like streaks of paint against the perfectly white laminated walls. Store attendees patiently strolled about as travelers with luggage fumbled with scarves, jostled hangers, and cocked their heads sideways, assessing how to wear the seemingly shapeless garments./news/jeffrey-epstein-liked-palling-around-with-scientists-what-do-they-think-now.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jeffrey-epstein-liked-palling-around-with-scientists-what-do-they-think-now.htmlJeffrey Epstein’s presence has loomed large over the scientific community for several decades. To some of the most high-profile scientists around the world, Epstein was a generous benefactor, a strong supporter of their research, and even a personal friend. He’s also a convicted sex offender, who was recently arrested and charged with allegedlysex trafficking young girls in New York. The Verge reached out to over a dozen different scientists and institutions who have been publicly linked to Epstein, with questions about their history with the multimillionaire and their reactions to his recent arrest./news/jesse-ventura-i-move-around-in-mexico-so-drones-can-t-find-me.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/jesse-ventura-i-move-around-in-mexico-so-drones-can-t-find-me.htmlFormer Minnesota governor and pro wrestler Jesse Ventura is currently on the press circuit around the launch of his talk show Off the Grid, but only from an undisclosed location in Mexico, safe from the prying camera-eyes of drones. "I'm off the grid," he said in aninterview with CNBC yesterday. "I move about with my TV show so that the drones can't find me, and that you won't know exactly where I am as long as we have solar power and we can reach the satellite./news/kaina-of-the-great-snow-sea-review-dark-sci-fi-with-an-environmental-twist.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kaina-of-the-great-snow-sea-review-dark-sci-fi-with-an-environmental-twist.htmlFans of Tsutomu Nihei — the creator of manga and anime series like Blame! and Knights of Sidonia — generally know what to expect from his works. There’s usually a sliver of humanity living perilously in some dark future, an alien or technological force they have to overcome, and all kinds of incredible ships, weapons, and architecture for design nerds to ogle over. They’re the kinds of bleak sci-fi tales that can make you feel small and insignificant./news/kia-s-2024-ev9-electric-suv-starts-at-54-900.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kia-s-2024-ev9-electric-suv-starts-at-54-900.htmlThe 2024 Kia EV9 will start at $54,900 for the Light RWD trim before destination fees or adding options like a bigger battery or two extra motors for AWD. When announced earlier this year, the EV9 caught everyone’s attention since there are few (and costly) seven-seater fully-electric vehicles on the market, and the automaker’s entry looked like it was primed to disrupt. The EV9 will come standard with 19-inch wheels, dual 12./news/kim-kardashian-is-almost-ready-to-give-up-her-beloved-blackberry-bold.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kim-kardashian-is-almost-ready-to-give-up-her-beloved-blackberry-bold.htmlThere are many to reasons to love Kim Kardashian West, and one of the best is her devotion to physical keyboards. Kardashian might be the highest-profile BlackBerry user on the planet — it's between her and President Obama, and she uses them voluntarily — and it's not like she's rocking a Passport or a Priv: she's a ride-or-die BlackBerry Bold fan. (You can find all the proof you need right here./news/kindle-2011-review-the-verge.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kindle-2011-review-the-verge.htmlWhile the Kindle Fire tablet stole the show at Amazon's recent press event (and the Kindle Touch took whatever scraps of attention were left), something else amazing happened: the company announced and shipped a $79 e-reader, the cheapest Kindle to date and the first to break the $100 barrier. Depending on what you drive and where you live, that's not much more than a tank of gas for a legitimate Kindle with access to library lending, Whispersync via Wi-Fi, and — of course — the full Kindle Store./news/kodak-s-new-4k-vr-camera-makes-more-sense-than-its-old-360-camera.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/kodak-s-new-4k-vr-camera-makes-more-sense-than-its-old-360-camera.htmlJK Imaging launched Kodak-branded SP360 action cams at CES this past year, and although it marketed them as the solution for creating great VR content, you needed two cameras to create a fully spherical image. That wasn’t practical. The company is now remedying that oversight with the introduction of a new Kodak 4K VR camera, the 4KVR360, that can capture everything by itself. It has a 20-megapixel sensor with lenses on the front and back to record everything happening around it, whereas the original cameras had only one lens./news/lego-will-discontinue-mindstorms-educational-robots-after-this-year.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lego-will-discontinue-mindstorms-educational-robots-after-this-year.htmlAs reported by Lego fan sites like Brick Fanatics and Brickset, Lego is discontinuing its Mindstorms kits, which are meant to let people make robots out of Lego bricks, pins, beams, motors, gears, and other pieces, and then program using Lego’s control hubs (via Gizmodo). The devices have been sold as a way to let children and adults easily build and program robots since 1998. While the company isn’t completely done with the idea of educational robotics kits, it will stop selling its Mindstorms Robot Inventor kit by the end of this year./news/lenovo-unveils-its-first-8-inch-windows-8-1-tablet-available-later-this-month-for-299.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lenovo-unveils-its-first-8-inch-windows-8-1-tablet-available-later-this-month-for-299.htmlWhile we've seen some attempts at 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablets, Lenovo's effort includes an optional stylus and a detachable cover that makes it look a lot like Apple's iPad mini at first glance. There's also a 5-megapixel camera at the rear and a 2-megapixel one at the front, and both can take advantage of the camera improvements in the Windows 8.1 update. Lenovo is even bundling in Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013./news/lenovo-yoga-2-pro-review.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lenovo-yoga-2-pro-review.htmlDesignFor the most part, the Yoga 2 Pro feels like any other laptop. The Yoga 13 was actually one of the more restrained, inside-the-box visions for what a Windows 8 device might look like, how it might marry touch with mouse and keyboard. This year’s model is just a hair over 3 pounds, and 0.61 inches thick — imperceptibly both thinner and heavier than the same-size MacBook Air — with a soft, matte gray shell and a textured black palm rest./news/lg-announces-2022-oled-tv-pricing-new-42-inch-size-costs-1-399.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/lg-announces-2022-oled-tv-pricing-new-42-inch-size-costs-1-399.htmlJust as Samsung did last week, LG is today sharing its official pricing for the company’s 2022 lineup of TVs. First up is the OLED family, which is comprised of several different series lines, including the G2 Gallery Edition, C2, B2, and A2 series. The G2 is the flagship and includes the brightest OLED TV panel that LG has produced yet, though the C2’s display is also getting a brightness boost over last year’s model./news/long-awaited-survival-game-below-is-out-next-week.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/long-awaited-survival-game-below-is-out-next-week.htmlCapy, the game developer behind beloved indie gems Super Time Force and Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP, is finally ready to release its next big title. Called Below, the moody roguelike survival game has been in the works for five long years, and now it’s coming out next week on December 14th. The title remains an Xbox console exclusive, but you can also play it on PC. There’s no word yet on pricing./news/mcdonald-s-says-it-will-use-google-ai-to-make-sure-your-fries-are-fresh.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/mcdonald-s-says-it-will-use-google-ai-to-make-sure-your-fries-are-fresh.htmlMcDonald’s is partnering with Google to deploy generative AI beginning in 2024, when “thousands” of stores will get hardware and software upgrades. Along with updates to other systems including ordering kiosks and the company’s mobile app, McDonald’s will be able to use generative AI on massive amounts of data to optimize operations. At least one outcome will be — according to the company — “hotter, fresher food” for customers. Large orders of fries delivered hot, thanks to large language models?/news/motorola-droid-4-review-the-verge.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/motorola-droid-4-review-the-verge.htmlVerizon LTE Verizon LTE performance has been a little spotty in the San Francisco Bay Area, so my results were all over the place, but speeds were pretty great nonetheless: I got anywhere from 6Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds all the way to 25Mbps down and 19Mbps up when the network felt like giving it to me. In reality, the extra speed came in handy all the time, with web pages often completely loaded by the time the browser finished rendering, the ability to zoom in on Google Maps satellite images without a delay, and push email that literally arrived over ten seconds before it hit my 3G devices, every single time./news/nasa-s-new-mission-will-study-microscopic-plankton-and-aerosols-from-space.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nasa-s-new-mission-will-study-microscopic-plankton-and-aerosols-from-space.htmlWho knew you could see plankton from space? NASA, of course. The space agency successfully launched a new mission today called PACE — short for the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem satellite — that will study its namesake. It’ll examine microscopic plants and particles — things so small they’re invisible to the naked eye — from hundreds of miles above Earth. The goal is to better understand how such teeny tiny things can actually impact the whole planet./news/netflix-might-ruin-password-sharing-for-everyone.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/netflix-might-ruin-password-sharing-for-everyone.htmlNetflix is betting that a password-sharing crackdown will reverse its dwindling revenue and wavering subscriber count. The company has historically never enforced its policy of one account per household. Now, by making members pay to share their subscriptions with people who live in other homes, Netflix will cash in on all those users they’ve been missing out on for all these years, right? Well, it might not be that simple./news/new-spy-tool-lets-cops-bug-your-phone-remotely.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-spy-tool-lets-cops-bug-your-phone-remotely.htmlToday, researchers from Kaspersky and Citizen Lab published research on a new type of malware designed to give police complete access to a suspect's phone. The tool, dubbed Remote Control System (or RCS), can be implanted physically through a USB or SD card, or remotely through an infected link or network traffic injection. Once the phone is infected, police can use it to monitor a user's location, record ambient audio through the microphone, or even hijack the phone's camera to take spontaneous photographs./news/new-york-city-cops-have-used-stingray-cellphone-trackers-over-1-000-times-since-2008.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-york-city-cops-have-used-stingray-cellphone-trackers-over-1-000-times-since-2008.htmlThe NYPD has no written policy for the use of cell-site simulators, but according to the FOIL response, they were typically accompanied by a low-level court order rather than a warrant, a practice that is common in police departments throughout the country but has drawn criticism from a number of civil liberties groups. In September, the Justice Department publicly broke with this practice, requiring that all federal law enforcement agencies acquire a search warrant before deploying a cell-site simulator./news/new-york-city-sues-kia-and-hyundai-over-car-thefts-that-went-viral-on-tiktok.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/new-york-city-sues-kia-and-hyundai-over-car-thefts-that-went-viral-on-tiktok.htmlNew York City became the latest city to file suit against Hyundai and Kia over a rash of vehicle thefts that went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms in recent years, according to The Wall Street Journal. In its lawsuit, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York claims the automakers were guilty of negligence by failing to include anti-theft devices in their cars that would have made them much harder to steal./news/nintendo-announces-new-2ds-xl-for-149-99.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-announces-new-2ds-xl-for-149-99.htmlOut of nowhere, Nintendo has announced another 3DS hardware revision: the New 2DS XL. As the name suggests, this takes features from the New 3DS, like the C-stick, Amiibo-compatible NFC reader, and extra processing power, while removing the display’s 3D functionality.  But the design is nothing like the wedge-shaped original 2DS — it’s a traditional DS-style clamshell. And, while the screens are the same size found in the 3DS XL, the 2DS XL appears to be smaller and sleeker./news/nintendo-is-dropping-the-price-of-replacement-single-joy-con-controller-halves-to-40.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-is-dropping-the-price-of-replacement-single-joy-con-controller-halves-to-40.htmlNintendo is dropping the price of buying a single Joy-Con controller down to $39.99. That’s $10 less than the $49.99 the company originally charged for single controller replacements. The newly priced Joy-Con will be available starting on November 9th. Interestingly, Nintendo appears to only be discounting two very specific models of its controllers: a right Joy-Con in red and a left Joy-Con in blue — exactly matching the two controllers that are included in Nintendo’s default blue / red Switch SKU./news/nintendo-making-minigames-for-smartphones-nikkei.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-making-minigames-for-smartphones-nikkei.htmlNintendo might be going mobile, but not in the way many people are calling for. Japan's Nikkei business daily reports that the company is planning to leverage smartphones as a platform for marketing videos and, more interestingly, free mini-games designed to drive new users to Nintendo hardware. The mini-games are reportedly designed to make players understand the appeal of Nintendo's software in a short period of time and convince them to purchase the full experience elsewhere./news/nintendo-s-biggest-switch-update-yet-makes-it-easier-to-find-your-friends.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nintendo-s-biggest-switch-update-yet-makes-it-easier-to-find-your-friends.htmlNintendo is releasing its Switch 3.0 software update today, with new features and improvements. While it sounds like a major revision of the software for the handheld console, it’s actually a minor update to address some issues and customization. Nintendo Switch owners will be happy to hear that 3DS and Wii U friends will now be displayed as friend suggestions on the user page. Nintendo has so many various friends systems, so at least this new update will make it easier to find friends to add to the new Switch friends list./news/no-bothans-died-in-the-making-of-rogue-one.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/no-bothans-died-in-the-making-of-rogue-one.htmlRogue One: A Star Wars Story comes out next week, and unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that the movie involves the theft of the plans for the Death Star. There's also a chance that you've wondered if this movie will finally explain what a Bothan is, and why many of them died to bring you this information. There are no Bothans in ‘Rogue One’ But we here at The Verge would like to correct this misconception./news/now-everyone-is-recording-their-nightmare-comcast-calls.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/now-everyone-is-recording-their-nightmare-comcast-calls.htmlOne Comcast customer and YouTube user is the latest to go public with his tale of injustice at the hands of the cable company's customer service agents. Yesterday, Tim Davis (a pseudonym) posted a 14-minute video detailing how the company promised him he wouldn't be charged for something, charged him anyway, and then refused to undo the charges until Davis revealed that he had recorded the initial call. "What have we learned today?/news/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-doesn-t-mess-around-at-denny-s.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-doesn-t-mess-around-at-denny-s.htmlNvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn’t mess around at Denny’s. 60 Minutes ran a segment last night on Nvidia’s ascent. It’s a solid look at how the company has become a dominant force in the AI industry. But also, just check out this photo. Nvidia’s top boss and 60 Minutes’ Bill Whitaker know how to get after it with their Denny’s order, which I have no choice but to respect. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfaXxzhY5ra2psZGmFeHvNr6CdoZFisKa7jKOcp6uVo3qpwcCnnmacn5rAr8CMppysq12Wv7DBzZ1kmqxdmbKvutis/news/offline-how-do-you-look-at-porn.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/offline-how-do-you-look-at-porn.htmlIt was late June, about two months after I left the internet. I was in Mexico City, and there was no HBO in my hotel room, so at around midnight I ventured out into the narrow, dark streets, bouncing from convenience store to convenience store in search of a magazine. I tried to buy it casually, disguise it among some snacks, but my face was still flush as I handed over the pesos./news/openai-partners-with-los-alamos-national-laboratory.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-partners-with-los-alamos-national-laboratory.htmlOpenAI partners with Los Alamos National Laboratory OpenAI announced that it is teaming up with Los Alamos National Laboratory to explore how advanced AI models, such as GPT-4o, can safely aid in bioscientific research. I’m a bit disappointed because this was the plot of the science fiction horror book I always wanted to write. The goal is to test how GPT-4o can help scientists perform tasks in a lab using vision and voice modalities./news/openai-s-dota-2-ai-steamrolls-world-champion-e-sports-team-with-back-to-back-victories.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/openai-s-dota-2-ai-steamrolls-world-champion-e-sports-team-with-back-to-back-victories.htmlOpenAI, the AI research organization, can claim a world first: its artificial intelligence system trained to play the complex strategy game Dota 2 has bested a world champion e-sports team. The competition was held in San Francisco today and dubbed the OpenAI Five Finals, ending the organization’s public demonstrations of its Dota-playing technology on a high note. The competition on the human side included five top Dota 2 pros from team OG, which won the world’s most coveted e-sports prize last year when it took the No./news/oracle-warns-that-macos-sonoma-14-4-on-apple-silicon-breaks-java.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/oracle-warns-that-macos-sonoma-14-4-on-apple-silicon-breaks-java.htmlOracle warns that macOS Sonoma 14.4 on Apple Silicon breaks Java. Product management director Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro wrote on Friday that “all Java versions from Java 8 to the early access builds of JDK 22” are affected by a bug that causes the Java process to terminate unexpectedly. Oracle’s issue tracker that lists the bug as open and unresolved says Macs on 64-bit Intel hardware are unaffected. The company recommends users wait to update./news/pebble-update-adds-emoji-compass-and-better-notifications-for-ios.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pebble-update-adds-emoji-compass-and-better-notifications-for-ios.htmlLast, but certainly not least, firmware 2.5 brings better notifications support for iOS users. Now, when you dismiss a notification on Pebble, it will also disappear from your iPhone or iPad's notification center. It's a huge addition that instantly makes Pebble a much better product. The company says a similar addition is coming to Android soon. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtnamxfbnxzfI5vbW9pYGqCcLzEm5mlnV2qvaWt055knqWfn7Zur86mp5qro2KvpsDTnqlmpp%2Bptqe1wpqroqeeqHqnu9FmoKir/news/persona-5-scramble-is-a-true-sequel-to-persona-5.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/persona-5-scramble-is-a-true-sequel-to-persona-5.htmlHow was your first weekend with Persona 5 Royal? Right now, I, for one, am pretty happy about having a new version of a game that is not only one of my favorite ever but also happens to be more than 100 hours long. If nothing else, it’s nice to be able to ride the Tokyo subway again, even if I’m technically not leaving my couch. For all its tweaks and timeliness, though, Persona 5 Royal is essentially just Persona 5 all over again./news/pi-rate-radio-how-to-make-your-own-fm-station-for-less-than-35.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pi-rate-radio-how-to-make-your-own-fm-station-for-less-than-35.htmlFM radio stations are basically just two things: a transmitter to create the signal, and an antenna to broadcast it, which means that building your own pirate radio station is actually really, really easy.  Those FM transmitters you used to use to get music from your iPod on to your car stereo? Full-fledged radio transmitters, just ones with severely limited outputs to avoid violating any FCC laws. If you’re handy with a soldering iron, those simple car transmitters can actually be hacked to get a much better range by adding a bigger antenna and removing internal resistors./news/pillo-is-a-very-ambitious-pill-dispenser.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/pillo-is-a-very-ambitious-pill-dispenser.htmlThis is definitely the most interesting pill dispenser you've ever read about. Pillo is a new "home health robot" built by Pillo Health that supposedly combines machine learning, face recognition, video conferencing, and automation to create a personal health assistant that can dispense your vitamins and medication. According to the company, Pillo will recognize each users face and voice, dispense the proper pills at the appropriate time (pills are stored in a tamper-proof casing, according to the company), and automatically reorder your medicine before it runs out./news/plenty-of-time-to-practice-your-hadouken.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/plenty-of-time-to-practice-your-hadouken.htmlPlenty of time to practice your Hadouken. Sony’s Street Fighter movie is set to release on March 20th, 2026, according to Deadline. The publication also reports that Danny and Michael Philippou, the directors of Talk To Me, are no longer directing the Street Fighter film. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfa3xzgo5ra2pwZm6DdnvPpZynrKlivKd506KknmWkpHqxvsCcq6KblWLGsMHRZp%2BanJ%2BquKa6/news/plugwalkjoe-arrested-in-connection-with-2020-hack-of-famous-twitter-accounts.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/plugwalkjoe-arrested-in-connection-with-2020-hack-of-famous-twitter-accounts.htmlJoseph O’Connor, a 22-year-old UK citizen who goes by the handle “PlugWalkJoe,” was arrested in Spain on Wednesday for his connection to the 2020 Twitter hack that compromised the accounts of former President Barack Obama and Elon Musk, and ran off with over $100,000 in Bitcoin. In a press release announcing the arrest, the US Justice Department writes that O’Connor is also being charged with “computer intrusions related to takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts./news/ps5-in-photos-our-first-look-at-sony-s-next-gen-console.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/ps5-in-photos-our-first-look-at-sony-s-next-gen-console.htmlThe PlayStation 5 is big. This was never a secret, but I was still surprised by just how huge the console looks in person. A few weeks ahead of the next-gen console’s launch on November 12th, we’ve finally been able to check out the hardware for ourselves. And while I can’t talk much about the PS5 experience just yet — stay tuned for more on that— I can tell you what the actual console and its new controller look and feel like./news/real-holographic-displays-are-becoming-a-thing.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/real-holographic-displays-are-becoming-a-thing.htmlI saw my first hologram display this past summer from a company called Looking Glass. Now another company is working on a similar product called the Holovect, which just launched on Kickstarter. Both products aim to bring holograms to developers and then eventually consumers. Well, technically, Holovect says it doesn't peddle a hologram display. It's in the business of "volumetric vector images." Okay Holovect. We get it. The products differ in their presentation./news/reddit-sides-with-ukraine-bans-all-links-to-russia-s-state-sponsored-rt-and-sputnik.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/reddit-sides-with-ukraine-bans-all-links-to-russia-s-state-sponsored-rt-and-sputnik.htmlReddit is now categorically banning its users, globally, from posting links to Russian state-sponsored media outlets, including RT and Sputnik — and it may not have even stopped there. A Reddit admin has seemingly confirmed that Reddit is blocking links to all websites that end in .ru. As far as RT and Sputnik are concerned, it’s possibly the most concrete deplatforming of those channels yet — because while Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube, and many others have paused their ads or removed content or restricted discoverability or stopped actively promoting content, and both Facebook and YouTube have blocked content in the EU specifically, none of those is the same thing as a blanket site-wide global ban on all links./news/refreshing-the-verge-writing-a-new-mission-statement.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/refreshing-the-verge-writing-a-new-mission-statement.htmlThe Verge turns five on November 1st, and we’re in the process of refreshing our entire brand for the next five years. In Refreshing The Verge, we’ll be looking at how that refresh process works, and what it’s like to adapt a brand like The Verge to a world where media platforms have become dominant. When we launched The Verge in 2011, our founding team was a very small group of people who’d worked together for a long time, joining a company called SB Nation that had around 80 employees who’d also worked together for a long time./news/roblox-is-coming-to-meta-s-quest-vr-headsets.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roblox-is-coming-to-meta-s-quest-vr-headsets.htmlRoblox will be coming to Meta’s Quest VR headsets starting with an open beta that will be available in the “coming weeks,” according to a blog post from Meta. You’ll be able to try out this Quest version of Roblox on the Quest 2 and Quest Pro, and Meta says Roblox will work on the forthcoming Quest 3 as well. “Roblox is automatically publishing some experiences that use default player scripts to support VR devices,” Meta writes./news/roku-voice-remote-pro-review-a-nice-upgrade.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/roku-voice-remote-pro-review-a-nice-upgrade.htmlRoku’s new Voice Remote Pro is the company’s first remote control to come with always-listening mics built in. These let you easily launch a streaming app or find the remote itself, should it get lost in the couch cushions, using just your voice. The new $29.99 remote, a standalone purchase that works with Roku streamers and Roku TVs, also has a headphone jack for private listening and includes buttons for controlling your TV’s power and volume./news/sam-bankman-fried-was-a-terrible-boyfriend.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sam-bankman-fried-was-a-terrible-boyfriend.htmlI’ve got some shitty ex-boyfriends, but none of them made me the CEO of their sin-eater hedge fund while refusing to give me equity and bragging about how there was a 5 percent chance they’d become the president of the United States, you know? Absolutely counting my blessings after Caroline Ellison’s first day on the stand. I wonder how many of the nine women on the jury are doing the same./news/samsung-ditches-all-plastic-design-with-metal-galaxy-alpha.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-ditches-all-plastic-design-with-metal-galaxy-alpha.htmlAfter much speculation, Samsung has today announced the Galaxy Alpha, a smartphone with a metal frame. The Alpha is an ultra-thin (6.7mm) Android phone with a 4.7-inch 720p display, 12-megapixel camera, a fairly small 1,860mAh battery, and (depending on your region) a quad- or octa-core processor. It'll be available in September, but Samsung has yet to announce pricing. Perhaps more interesting than the phone itself is the news that the Alpha's design will trickle down and up to Samsung's other phones./news/samsung-says-it-might-skip-the-galaxy-note-this-year.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/samsung-says-it-might-skip-the-galaxy-note-this-year.htmlSamsung has warned that it might not be able to ship a Galaxy Note phone in 2021 after all, citing difficulties in launching two flagship phones in one year, in comments at its annual shareholders meeting reported on by Bloomberg. “[The] Note series is positioned as a high-end model in our business portfolio,” said mobile chief DJ Koh. “It could be a burden to unveil two flagship models in a year so it might be difficult to release [a] Note model in 2H./news/schlage-encode-plus-smart-lock-review-unlocking-your-door-is-now-as-easy-as-using-apple-pay.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/schlage-encode-plus-smart-lock-review-unlocking-your-door-is-now-as-easy-as-using-apple-pay.htmlSmart locks have allowed us to ditch the keys and unlock our front doors via our phones for years. But while smart locks can be quite convenient, especially if they have pin pads or fingerprint scanners, using your phone to unlock the door can be as cumbersome as fumbling for the right key in the dark. You have to pull out your phone, unlock it, find the right app, tap the unlock button, and wait for the lock to respond./news/sennheiser-soundprotex-earplugs-review-concert-safety-without-sacrifice.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sennheiser-soundprotex-earplugs-review-concert-safety-without-sacrifice.htmlIt’s a miracle that my hearing is still in a good state. At 38, I’m firmly of the Discman and iPod generation. I spent countless hours tuning out the world with those devices throughout my teens and 20s. And then, there are all the concerts. Early on, they included some wretched (and obnoxiously loud) punk shows. These days, I’m shooting photos at most of the concerts I attend — right in front of the stage near professional speakers meant to fill arenas./news/shane-carruth-s-upstream-color-is-a-trippy-sci-fi-take-on-the-forces-that-bind-us-together.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/shane-carruth-s-upstream-color-is-a-trippy-sci-fi-take-on-the-forces-that-bind-us-together.htmlNine years ago, Shane Carruth won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for Primer, a complex science fiction tale about the ramifications of time travel. Famously filmed on a $7,000 budget, Primer went on to gain a cult following for its incredibly strong and incredibly twisty plot (spoiler: this is as close as you can get to understanding it all). Upstream Color is only Carruth’s second film, shot on a decidedly larger budget and coming to theaters in April (it debuted this week at Sundance)./news/sling-tv-coming-to-all-existing-echo-show-devices.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sling-tv-coming-to-all-existing-echo-show-devices.htmlDuring its big hardware and announcement event today, Amazon revealed some exciting news for those of us who prefer linear viewing: Sling TV is coming to all existing Echo Show devices. Amazon said during the event that the Echo Show will soon have support for live and linear viewing through the Sling TV app. Support will also extend to the new wall-mounted Echo Show 15, which could change the way users interact with their devices./news/sony-asked-the-public-to-redesign-its-logo-in-1981-it-didn-t-work-out.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sony-asked-the-public-to-redesign-its-logo-in-1981-it-didn-t-work-out.htmlOnce upon a time, Sony decided that its now-iconic logo was due for a redesign. The year was 1981, and Sony was on the cusp of a revolution — the first Walkman had been released just 18 months earlier. What better time to redesign a logo dating from the ‘50s? But the company didn't enlist a design team to come up with a new logo. No, Sony decided to make the redesign a public spectacle./news/spacex-reportedly-paid-250-000-to-cover-up-elon-musk-s-sexual-misconduct.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spacex-reportedly-paid-250-000-to-cover-up-elon-musk-s-sexual-misconduct.htmlSpaceX reportedly paid a flight attendant $250,000 to ensure she didn’t speak out or sue the company after Elon Musk allegedly exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, according to a report from Business Insider. In response, Musk took to Twitter to call the accusations “utterly untrue.” Content warning: The following story contains descriptions of sexual misconduct. If you need immediate support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline by going to online./news/spec-sheet-canon-eos-70d-takes-on-the-dslr-competition.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/spec-sheet-canon-eos-70d-takes-on-the-dslr-competition.htmlA lot of products come out each week — we don't highlight all of them, but all of them make it into The Verge Database. In Spec Sheet, a weekly series, we survey the latest product entries to keep track of the state of the art. Earlier this week Canon announced the EOS 70D, its answer to Nikon's recently released D7100. The 70D makes big bets on usability features — such as built-in Wi-Fi and touchscreen controls — to help set it apart./news/sufjan-stevens-100-christmas-songs-ranked-from-worst-to-best.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/sufjan-stevens-100-christmas-songs-ranked-from-worst-to-best.htmlThe holiday season isn’t just the most wonderful time of the year; it’s also the most ritualistic. Every December, we perform the same activities, trying to capture the bliss of years past. You might spend hours decorating a gingerbread house or grooming a tree. I set the Sufjan Stevens Christmas playlist on infinite loop. You've probably heard of Stevens' reams of Christmas material, but maybe you've never given it a proper listen./news/swiftkey-3-keyboard-for-android-exits-beta.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/swiftkey-3-keyboard-for-android-exits-beta.htmlSwiftKey is taking the "beta" label off of the SwiftKey 3 keyboard for Android, making it available now in Google Play. The main feature is what we've already seen in the beta, an "intelligent" auto-predict that's able to automatically insert spaces even if you don't hit the spacebar. In addition, SwiftKey has tweaked the keyboard after some user feedback, bringing back the comma key and tweaking some algorithms. In addition, the company is moving beyond the consumer space to start offering keyboards to enterprise customers, specifically in healthcare./news/t-mobile-isn-t-necessarily-bigger-than-at-t-despite-today-s-claim.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-isn-t-necessarily-bigger-than-at-t-despite-today-s-claim.htmlT-Mobile claims that it now has more customers than AT&T — at least, depending on how you count them. In its second quarter earnings report, T-Mobile announced that it now has 98.3 million total customers, saying that it has overtaken AT&T “in total branded customers across both postpaid and prepaid.” The surge in subscribers is due to T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint, as this is the first time that T-Mobile is counting Sprint subscribers following their blockbuster merger./news/t-mobile-s-2tb-google-one-plan-includes-unlimited-google-photos-backups.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/t-mobile-s-2tb-google-one-plan-includes-unlimited-google-photos-backups.htmlT-Mobile is introducing a new Google One membership option for its customers that revives Google’s unlimited photo storage backup service... for a price, of course. For $15 per month, it includes 2TB of cloud storage, all of the benefits of Google One membership, and unlimited original resolution photo and video backups to Google Photos. When Google brought its gravy train of free photo storage to a halt in 2021, a weary world sighed and looked for new storage options./news/take-this-test-to-find-out-how-talented-you-are-at-recognizing-faces.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/take-this-test-to-find-out-how-talented-you-are-at-recognizing-faces.htmlOnce, I followed a first date into a busy subway station. I lost track of him for a second, then found him again and followed him halfway down the platform before I heard someone calling my name. As it turns out, that minute of confusion was enough for me to identify the wrong guy as my date and almost get on a train with him. (There was no second date.)/news/tesla-delivered-fewer-vehicles-to-customers-for-the-second-quarter-in-a-row.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-delivered-fewer-vehicles-to-customers-for-the-second-quarter-in-a-row.htmlOn the heels of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s massive payday, the company released its latest quarterly production and delivery report, showing drops from last year in both production and deliveries. Tesla reported producing 410,831vehicles over the three-month period that ended in June, a 14 percent drop compared to the second quarter of 2023. Tesla reported delivering 443,956 vehicles to customers during Q2 of 2024, a 4.76 percent drop from the 466,140 vehicles it delivered in Q2 2023./news/tesla-is-adding-a-stop-light-warning-to-autopilot.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-is-adding-a-stop-light-warning-to-autopilot.htmlTesla says that it has begun to roll out a new feature for Autopilot called Autosteer Stop Light Warning, which is included in the latest vehicle software update. The feature is as it sounds: divers using the Autosteer feature will get a warning if they’re about to run a stop light. The company says that the new safety feature is designed to help improve safe driving around stop lights, and is rolling out in a new software update, 2019./news/tesla-s-new-boombox-feature-will-let-car-owners-fart-at-unsuspecting-neighbors.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tesla-s-new-boombox-feature-will-let-car-owners-fart-at-unsuspecting-neighbors.htmlTesla’s new holiday update will finally give people the ability to use a new Boombox mode, which can broadcast custom audio on the outside of the car (hence the name). As is common with new Tesla features, Boombox combines real utility with lowbrow humor: owners can use fart and goat sounds in lieu of normal, boring honking sounds car horns usually make. The mode rolled out with a number of other updates as part of Tesla’s firmware 2020./news/the-best-cyber-monday-robot-vacuum-deals.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-cyber-monday-robot-vacuum-deals.htmlThe robots are coming... for your floors. If all you want for Christmas are clean carpets, check out some of the bargains you can grab during Cyber Monday on the best robot vacuums and mops you can buy. Even though Cyber Monday doesn’t technically happen until tomorrow, you can get all of these deals now. From simple suckers like the Roborock’s Q5 Pro that will best pet hair, to the all-singing, all-mopping DreameBot L20 Ultra, the prices are falling as hard as these robots can suck up dirt./news/the-best-deals-you-can-get-from-walmart-s-rival-prime-day-sale.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-deals-you-can-get-from-walmart-s-rival-prime-day-sale.htmlAmazon Prime Day may kick off on July 16th, but if you can’t wait or you’re not a Prime member, Walmart’s competing sales event is worth a look. Now until July 11th, the retailer is discounting a whole bunch of gadgets and goodies, from the latest AirPods Pro to the Nintendo Switch OLED. What’s more, Walmart is offering half-price yearlong Walmart Plus memberships ($49) throughout the sale, which grants you access to free delivery, a complimentary subscription to Paramount Plus, and early access to deals during future sales events./news/the-best-etsy-alternatives-for-selling-your-crafts.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-etsy-alternatives-for-selling-your-crafts.htmlSince its launch in 2005, Etsy has become well-known as the place to go for handcrafted, one-of-a-kind items from a wide variety of creators. Unfortunately, over the last few years, that rosy reputation has changed a bit. A couple of years ago, buyers began noticing an influx of mass-market goods that were noticeably not handmade. I talked to more than one person who felt that Etsy had become less about selling handmade crafts and more about drop shipping — enterprises that advertise and sell a product and then pass the order on to a third party, which ships it./news/the-best-projector-to-buy-for-your-home-or-apartment-in-2020.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-best-projector-to-buy-for-your-home-or-apartment-in-2020.htmlThere are many reasons you might want a projector over a TV: you may want a bigger image than a TV can offer, or you don’t like the look of a TV in your living room, or you want to have casual movie nights with your friends or family. Since movie theaters aren’t an option for most people right now, a lot of friends have been asking me what projector to get for their living room./news/the-boring-phone-is-a-nostalgic-branding-exercise-by-hmd-and-heineken.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-boring-phone-is-a-nostalgic-branding-exercise-by-hmd-and-heineken.htmlHMD really wants us to have more fun. Earlier this year, it announced a collaboration with Mattel on an upcoming Barbie flip phone. Now, it’s teaming up with Heineken and creative firm Bodega on another effort designed to tap into nostalgia: the Boring Phone. There are more details on Heineken’s site — which you’ll need to be at least 21 to view — but basically it’s a translucent flip phone with no apps, just good retro vibes to help you connect with your friends over a cold one./news/the-excel-world-championship-esport-is-coming-back-to-espn-this-week.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-excel-world-championship-esport-is-coming-back-to-espn-this-week.htmlIt’s the Sheeter Bowl! The VLookup Cup! Merge Madness! Whatever you want to call it, the Excel World Championship is coming back to ESPN this week. On Friday morning at 7AM ET, as part of ESPN’s annual “The Ocho” event, a few of the world’s foremost Excel experts will battle to solve puzzles on the biggest stage in sports. The Ocho is an ESPN event designed to show off otherwise un-televised sports — Excel is on the docket alongside “2023 Slippery Stairs,” the “Pillow Fight Championship,” and competitions in everything from belt-sanding to sign spinning — but it’s still a big deal./news/the-exorcist-believer-looks-like-a-hellish-double-feature-in-first-trailer.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-exorcist-believer-looks-like-a-hellish-double-feature-in-first-trailer.htmlThough Warner Bros.’ 1973 adaptation of The Exorcist is an iconic piece of horror cinema, none of the studio’s subsequent sequels ever really managed to make all that much of a splash. Only time will tell whether that also ends up being the case with Universal and Blumhouse’s new trilogy of Exorcist features from director David Gordon Green, but the first trailer for The Exorcist: Believer definitely makes it seem like the revival’s cooking with gas./news/the-game-of-game-of-thrones-season-5-episode-1-the-wars-to-come.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-game-of-game-of-thrones-season-5-episode-1-the-wars-to-come.html"The freedom to make my own mistakes is all I ever wanted." These words, uttered by a certain late king beyond the wall, could just as easily have been spoken by any of the brave souls at The Verge playing the Game of Game of Thrones this season. Our high fantasy league embraces imperfection. Mistakes will be what makes this season worth fighting for: misplaced trust in characters, misremembered plot points from the books, inadvisable smack talk./news/the-google-nest-cam-has-a-new-garage-door-detection-feature.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-google-nest-cam-has-a-new-garage-door-detection-feature.htmlGoogle’s adding a new garage door detection feature to its Nest security cameras that will alert you if your garage door has been left open. The company is also bringing the first-gen Google Nest Outdoor Cam to the Google Home app and finally allowing Nest Cam users to create custom clips in the Google Home app. These new features are part of the Google Home app’s public preview and are rolling out this week./news/the-ipod-click-wheel-was-the-pinnacle-of-purposed-hardware-design.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-ipod-click-wheel-was-the-pinnacle-of-purposed-hardware-design.htmlIt’s almost impossible to talk about hardware controls without mentioning the iPod click wheel. I’ve been dancing around doing this one for a while since plenty has already been said about how Apple solved the problem of navigating and scrolling through lists of data on a small screen without a touch interface. It’s a UI paradigm that still lives on in a way; the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown is probably the most direct descendant of the click wheel on Apple’s current products, offering a similar purpose of navigating around long text lists on a small screen./news/the-latest-online-craze-is-submitting-to-the-mortifying-ordeal-of-being-known.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-latest-online-craze-is-submitting-to-the-mortifying-ordeal-of-being-known.htmlOne of my favorite memes is spun off a line from an essay: “if we want the rewards of being loved, we must submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” The format is simpler than it sounds: on one side, being loved; on the other, being known. Sometimes the mortifying ordeal is a pane of glass or a cartoon boulder, but it’s always standing between you and being loved. The wordiness becomes part of the joke./news/the-live-action-halo-tv-show-looks-extremely-expensive-in-its-newest-trailer.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-live-action-halo-tv-show-looks-extremely-expensive-in-its-newest-trailer.htmlAfter a short teaser last month, Paramount Plus has debuted the first full trailer for the upcoming live-action Halo TV series at the 2021 Game Awards, ahead of the show’s streaming debut in 2022. Halo will star Pablo Schreiber (American Gods) as the armored super-solider, while Jen Taylor will reprise her role from the games as Master Chief’s AI companion, Cortana. The trailer still doesn’t give too much of an idea of what to expect from the show, which Paramount says “will take place in the universe” as the Halo games and see humanity face off against the alien forces of the Covenant./news/the-meta-quest-pro-is-a-cutting-edge-headset-looking-for-an-audience.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-meta-quest-pro-is-a-cutting-edge-headset-looking-for-an-audience.htmlThe first thing I notice with the Meta Quest Pro is the fit. Even after eight years, Meta’s (formerly Facebook’s) virtual reality headsets are typically bulky, front-heavy affairs. But the Quest Pro rests around my head easily, with its battery shifted to a back mount and its electronics pared down to a lighter layer over my face. Though it’s bigger than your typical pair of glasses or even your typical ski mask, it’s a major step forward for the biggest VR headset maker around./news/the-polestar-2-is-a-google-powered-all-electric-tesla-competitor.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-polestar-2-is-a-google-powered-all-electric-tesla-competitor.htmlThe first all-electric car from Volvo Cars is here. Polestar, the performance sub-brand that was spun out of Volvo in 2017, announced its second car on Wednesday, the aptly named Polestar 2. Billed as a competitor to Tesla’s Model 3, the electric sedan will combine might with smarts, as it will be the first car to feature Google’s new native version of Android for the car. The Polestar 2 should be able to travel up to 275 miles (about 443 kilometers) on a single charge thanks to a 78kWh battery that makes up the entire floor of the car, according to the automaker./news/the-pos%C3%A9-is-lg-s-latest-oled-lifestyle-tv.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-pos%C3%A9-is-lg-s-latest-oled-lifestyle-tv.htmlLG is catching up with Samsung in “lifestyle” TV land, adding a new model to its LG OLED Objet Collection that launched last year. The new Posé is a slimline take on Samsung’s Serif; it comes in 42-inch, 48-inch, and 55-inch screen sizes and launches in the third quarter of 2022, starting in Europe. The Posé joins the 65-inch Easel that was announced at CES (then called the Objet), which is designed to look like an art easel and has a sliding fabric cover to conceal the screen./news/the-real-photo-was-the-friends-we-made-along-the-way.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-real-photo-was-the-friends-we-made-along-the-way.htmlThe real photo was the friends we made along the way. I joined my pals Chris Niccolls, Jordan Drake, and Jaron Schneider on this week’s PetaPixel Podcast to talk about some of our favorite subjects: computational photography, Sony camera menu systems, and whether or not photos are real. Check it out for a delightful chat with some of the very best photography nerds I know. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEr5yrn5VjsLC5jmtna2xfZ3x4e5FtZ29tYml9cMDHnmSrnZGherG0zq2mZq%2BRqHq1tMRmnauhlaOxtHnWnmSmmZSaeqK4zqeeZqyYmnq4rdg%3D/news/the-seven-best-android-smartwatches-in-2024.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-seven-best-android-smartwatches-in-2024.htmlAfter a long stretch of slim pickings, the last couple of years have been huge for Android smartwatches. Now there are more good options than ever. But this is still a transitional era. While we’re encouraged by the stronger third-party app options, the market is still fragmented. Wear OS 4 is here for Samsung’s Galaxy Watches and both versions of the Pixel Watch — and now, the OnePlus Watch 2. Wear OS 5 is on the horizon./news/the-steam-deck-s-next-big-update-might-make-docked-tv-play-more-convenient.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-steam-deck-s-next-big-update-might-make-docked-tv-play-more-convenient.htmlThe Steam Deck’s next big update might make docked TV play more convenient. The Steam Deck Dock is getting HDMI-CEC to wake your TV from sleep and switch its inputs, and and the Deck OLED will soon be able to decide which Bluetooth devices can wake it from sleep... plus Bluetooth A2DP and BAP audio support, microSD fixes, a new graphics driver, overclocking controls in the Deck LCD’s BIOS, and more in preview!/news/the-tiktok-shop-rolls-out-in-the-us.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/the-tiktok-shop-rolls-out-in-the-us.htmlStarting today, TikTok users in the US can buy stuff directly in the TikTok app as the company rolls out TikTok Shop, its online marketplace that’s already live in the UK. With this change, brands and creators alike can sell directly to you in their videos — and it may even be fulfilled by TikTok itself. The change isn’t immediately obvious when you open the app, but now, when you search for something, a new Shop tab can show you related items./news/there-s-no-lightning-on-iphone-15-get-ready-for-usb-c.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/there-s-no-lightning-on-iphone-15-get-ready-for-usb-c.htmlAre you an iPhone user looking to upgrade to... the iPhone? Well, you’ll have more to consider this time around since the new iPhone 15 comes with a USB-C port, ending an 11-year run for the company’s proprietary Lightning charging plug. USB Type-C (or just USB-C) is the universal charging and data-transferring connector, and it’s now on pretty much every modern gadget, including Apple’s iPads and MacBooks. It might just be the last cable we’ll ever need./news/these-monkeys-choose-who-to-avoid-based-on-the-smell-of-their-poop.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/these-monkeys-choose-who-to-avoid-based-on-the-smell-of-their-poop.htmlThe smell of someone else's poop is definitely something we try to steer clear of — for obvious reasons. But it turns out, poop smells can provide valuable intel for certain animals. Mandrills, a type of monkey found only in rain forests in Africa, sniff dung to figure out if another mandrill has parasites; if the smell test is positive, the monkeys avoid contact with the infected members of their group, according to a new study./news/this-google-april-fools-video-isn-t-my-fault.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-google-april-fools-video-isn-t-my-fault.htmlGoogle’s annual offering of April Fools’ Day jokes has begun, and the latest is the somewhat clever idea of “Google Gnome,” a Google Home customized for the outdoors that is a little more existentially dour than your average smart assistant. I say “somewhat clever” because “Google Gnome” is primarily just a bad pun. In fact, it’s a bad pun I made just over two weeks ago on Twitter as part of my ongoing series “Let’s see how many people I can convince to unfollow me./news/this-is-how-much-hotter-urban-sprawl-makes-us-cities-feel.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-is-how-much-hotter-urban-sprawl-makes-us-cities-feel.htmlNearly 34 million people across 65 US cities — roughly one in 10 Americans — live in a place where the built environment makes temperatures feel at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it would without that urban sprawl. That’s according to a new study by the nonprofit Climate Central, which mapped the impact of a phenomenon called the urban heat island effect in major cities in the US. Dark, paved surfaces with little greenery tend to absorb heat./news/this-nintendo-switch-adapter-promises-bluetooth-audio-support.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-nintendo-switch-adapter-promises-bluetooth-audio-support.htmlThe Nintendo Switch is the perfect travel companion, but it’s desperately lacking in one key area: wireless headphone support. Nintendo added support for wireless headphones via USB dongles last November, but only if you a USB Type-A to USB-C adapter to plug your headphone’s dongle into the Switch console’s port. Right now, the Switch does not support Bluetooth accessories. But a Kickstarter campaign from a team named Human Things aims to remedy that with their new device Genki./news/this-website-uses-ai-to-turn-your-selfies-into-haunted-classical-portraits.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/this-website-uses-ai-to-turn-your-selfies-into-haunted-classical-portraits.htmlBored of using AI to age yourself into a desiccated husk? Why not use it to turn your selfies into harrowing but artistic portraits instead? Head over to aiportraits.com, home of a fun little widget built by researchers at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and upload a photo to try out an artistic transformation for yourself. The site uses an algorithm trained on 45,000 classical portraits to render your face in faux oil, watercolor, or ink./news/tiktok-bans-deepfakes-of-nonpublic-figures-and-fake-endorsements-in-rule-refresh.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-bans-deepfakes-of-nonpublic-figures-and-fake-endorsements-in-rule-refresh.htmlAs the prospect of a US TikTok ban continues to grow, the video app has refreshed its content moderation policies. The rules on what content can be posted and promoted are largely unchanged but include new restrictions on sharing AI deepfakes, which have become increasingly popular on the app in recent months. The bulk of these moderation policies (or “Community Guidelines,” in TikTok’s parlance) is unchanged and unsurprising. There’s no graphic violence allowed, no hate speech, and no overtly sexual content, with gradated rules for the latter based on the subject’s age./news/tiktok-is-back-after-a-brief-outage.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/tiktok-is-back-after-a-brief-outage.htmlFor a little while this afternoon, many people get a message that there’s “no internet connection” while trying to browse their For You page inside the TikTok app. After an outage that lasted from 1:25PM ET until around 1:45PM ET, everything appears to be functional again. We haven’t seen an update from TikTok about the outage yet, but while it was happening it was widespread, with tracker Downdetector identifying more than 75,000 reports of the issue./news/twitch-s-channel-pages-get-a-new-look.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitch-s-channel-pages-get-a-new-look.htmlTwitch is getting a new look — sort of. Starting today you’ll see the site’s channel pages slip into something more comfortable, to borrow a phrase; streamers will now have way more control over what their channel looks like when it’s offline, with a more customizable home page, channel trailers, and more. The changes were first announced at last year’s Twitchcon in San Diego, and they’re finally rolling out today. Probably the coolest part of the new look is the new integrated stream schedule, because it makes it super easy to see when a channel’s next planned stream is — but also because it brings watching Twitch more in line with the experience of watching TV./news/twitter-is-now-showing-everyone-how-many-views-your-tweets-get.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-is-now-showing-everyone-how-many-views-your-tweets-get.htmlTwitter announced that view counts for tweets are now visible on iOS and Android and that they’ll be coming soon to the web (I’ve already started to see them there). The feature lets you see how many times someone has looked at your tweet, or anyone else’s, though there are a few exceptions that we’ll cover in just a moment. When you’re in the app, you now see view counters alongside the number of comments, retweets, and likes./news/twitter-lets-you-add-topics-to-spaces-but-they-re-limited-to-start.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/twitter-lets-you-add-topics-to-spaces-but-they-re-limited-to-start.htmlTwitter is bringing Topics to Spaces so that hosts can tag their Spaces with up to three relevant Topics, according to the Spaces Twitter account. It’s a small addition to start: there are only 10 Topics to choose from, limited to English, for some people on the Android app. Twitter says it will expand to iOS and add more Topics and languages soon. The initial 10 Topics — Business & Finance, Music, Sports, Technology, Gaming, World News, Entertainment, Arts & Culture, Home & Family, and Careers — align with the ones that currently exist across Twitter, which people can choose to follow to get related content on their timelines./news/uber-wins-appeal-against-london-ban.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/uber-wins-appeal-against-london-ban.htmlUber has won its appeal afterlosing its license to operate in London, Bloomberg reports. A judge ruled that the service is “fit and proper” and should be allowed to operate in the capital. The company has been granted a license to operate for 18 months. Uber had been allowed to continue operating in London throughout the appeals process. In his decision, the judge admitted that Uber had made “historical failings.” Last year, London’s transport authority, Transport for London (TfL), cited a “pattern of failures” as its reason for not granting Uber a new license to operate./news/valve-ceo-gabe-newell-has-to-appear-in-person-to-defend-steam-store-fees.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/valve-ceo-gabe-newell-has-to-appear-in-person-to-defend-steam-store-fees.htmlValve CEO Gabe Newell has to appear in person to defend Steam store fees. In an update to a federal antitrust lawsuit originally brought on by Humble Bundle owner Wolfire Games in 2021, Newell’s request to conduct a remote deposition in fear of contracting covid has been denied. It’s especially notable as the Valve boss rarely makes appearances, even including our talk about Steam Machines or more recent comments about New Zealand and the Steam Deck./news/we-play-with-the-steam-machine-valve-s-game-console-of-the-future.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/we-play-with-the-steam-machine-valve-s-game-console-of-the-future.htmlWhat's next After a short demo, I got an opportunity to ask my burning questions about where all of this is going. First, circle January on your calendar. That's when the other shoe will drop; Valve's hardware and software partners will reveal the actual Steam Machines that will ship to consumers, and the games that will come to the Linux platform, at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show. There will be a number of different Steam Machine boxes on sale in 2014, and Valve expects them to arrive mid-year./news/what-has-warner-bros-got-in-its-nasty-little-pocketses-copyright-strikes-apparently.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-has-warner-bros-got-in-its-nasty-little-pocketses-copyright-strikes-apparently.htmlWhat has Warner Bros. got in its nasty little pocketses? Copyright strikes apparently. After announcing Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum — an Andy Serkis and Peter Jackson-backed movie set for 2026 — Warner Bros. has taken down an old fan-made movie that shares the same name. Now blocked “on copyright grounds” for allegedly containing Warner Bros. content, the 15-year-old YouTube video from Independent Online Cinema had previously accrued 13./news/what-to-bring-on-your-next-2-600-mile-walk.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-to-bring-on-your-next-2-600-mile-walk.htmlIt’s that time of year again. Winter, in the places it actually exists, is slowly starting to turn into spring, and it feels like the time to start making summer plans. For lots of people, that means heading outside to do some hiking. Personally, I’m planning on doing a bit of that myself: over the next few months I, and thousands of other people, will be attempting to walk from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail, which spans around 2,650 miles through California, Oregon, and Washington./news/what-s-the-difference-between-a-hack-and-an-exploit.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/what-s-the-difference-between-a-hack-and-an-exploit.htmlLast week, Russell Brandom published "Anatomy of a Hack," an eye-opening step-by-step account of an overnight digital heist. The story is petrifying for people like me who are already paranoid about cyber security. On this week's episode of What's Tech? Brandom explains hacking. Hacks, exploits, and system security are regularly in the news, most notably with the hacking of Sony Pictures. Brandom illuminates a culture that's more complex than how it's often portrayed and explains the nitty-gritty in layman terms./news/who-will-buy-a-10-000-apple-watch-edition.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/who-will-buy-a-10-000-apple-watch-edition.htmlAnd that’s the problem with the current batch of smartwatches. Technology companies are entering an industry where time can add value, not decrease it. Pass down a Rolex from 20 years ago to your children, and it still has value. Give them a IBM ThinkPad from 1995, and they will think you’re punishing them. Watch valuations aren’t just about materials, either: it’s about how the watch was constructed, its mechanics, how many were up for sale, how prestigious the brand is, how good the watch looks, and how it will age./news/whoop-4-0-review-only-for-the-elite-athlete.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/whoop-4-0-review-only-for-the-elite-athlete.htmlWhenever a friend or colleague asks me whether they should get a Whoop tracker, I heave a big sigh. Not because it’s a bad product — I sigh because it’s one of those gadgets. You know, the expensive ones with slick Instagram ads and a devoted, niche fan base — and a feature set that doesn’t make sense for the average person.  Like the Oura Ring, Whoop is a buzzy fitness tracker worn by the rich and famous./news/why-do-we-like-hot-peppers.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-do-we-like-hot-peppers.htmlSummer is over and the weather is getting chilly, so it’s time to turn to spicy foods to warm up—“taco trucks on every corner”, anyone? For some, the spice is the best part while for others (the weaklings) spice makes tacos unbearable. It’s true that for those who didn’t grow up eating it, us spice-lovers are a mystery. Peppers have been linked to the revolutionary spirit A quick refresher: in most cases, what makes things spicy is capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers, hot sauce, pepper sauce, and so on./news/why-does-vancouver-have-a-crack-pipe-vending-machine.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-does-vancouver-have-a-crack-pipe-vending-machine.htmlThe polka-dotted crack pipe vending machine garnered headlines around the world. But it barely gets a second glance from people wandering through a center for drug users in one of Canada's most notorious neighborhoods. In Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside, the machine is just another way the bustling center, run by the nonprofit Portland Hotel Society (PHS), purports to help people struggling with addictions. Free crack pipes have been a staple at the center for years, but leaders decided to try something new when they couldn't keep up with demand for the pipe's glass stems, which can shatter from the heat of overuse, cut users' mouths, and spread disease if shared./news/why-journalists-can-t-quit-twitter.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-journalists-can-t-quit-twitter.htmlOn Tuesday, Donald Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a series of hush-money payments related to the 2016 US presidential campaign. His arraignment was carried live on cable news and National Public radio, but I learned of the day’s events where I still see almost everything first: Twitter, which, despite its perilous decline under Elon Musk, remains home base for the US press corps even as the site itself increasingly orients itself to make fools of them./news/why-the-worst-recipes-imaginable-are-blowing-up-on-tiktok.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/why-the-worst-recipes-imaginable-are-blowing-up-on-tiktok.htmlEli Betchik has always had a stomach of steel, but it wasn’t until they went to art school that they realized it could make them famous. “I was perfectly willing to eat random things for the entertainment of my friends. I would take a ketchup packet from the diner and suck it up or eat an entire block of Parmesan cheese,” remembers Betchik, now 23, who makes and sells jewelry from their basement in Ohio./news/x-will-now-tell-you-if-someone-deletes-a-post-you-annotated-with-a-community-note.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/x-will-now-tell-you-if-someone-deletes-a-post-you-annotated-with-a-community-note.htmlIf you add a Community Post to a post on X (formerly Twitter), X will tell you if the person who wrote the post deletes it, the company said on Friday. “Contributors consistently say their goal is to keep others well-informed,” X wrote on the Community Notes account. “This can happen when a helpful note appears on a post, and also when an erroneous post gets deleted. Starting today, writers will be notified when a post on which they wrote a note gets deleted./news/xx-is-a-rambunctious-horror-anthology-made-by-four-promising-female-directors.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/xx-is-a-rambunctious-horror-anthology-made-by-four-promising-female-directors.htmlWhen director Jovanka Vuckovic introduced XX at its Sundance premiere, she made the origins of the project clear. A horror anthology that brings together installments from four female directors, Vuckovic said it was created “directly in response to the lack of opportunity for women filmmakers, particularly in the horror genre.” Horror, of course, is a genre that’s often touted as an easy first step for upcoming filmmakers, but sexism runs deep within the film industry, and for the producers of XX, one of the best ways to combat that was to simply create more opportunities for women in the first place./news/you-can-now-buy-a-refurbished-steam-deck-for-just-279.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-buy-a-refurbished-steam-deck-for-just-279.htmlThe Steam Deck LCD might be inferior to the newer OLED model, but it's still a great handheld gaming PC, and you can now get a certified refurbished LCD model (with a one-year warranty) direct from Valve for a better price than ever before. The refurbished Steam Deck now starts at $279 for the base model with 64GB of eMMC storage, $70 less than Valve currently charges for it brand-new. If you need more storage, the 256GB NVMe model and the 512GB model with antiglare screen are both on sale, too, for $319 and $359, respectively./news/you-can-now-listen-to-apple-podcasts-directly-on-the-web.htmlThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000/news/you-can-now-listen-to-apple-podcasts-directly-on-the-web.htmlApple this week updated the web interface for Podcasts to make it cleaner, more streamlined, and easier to navigate. Users can also now play episodes directly from the website, which is a huge, appreciated change from forcing people to load iTunes to listen. Episodes now get their own landing page, too, which provides show notes and another opportunity to listen. The web interface still offers users the ability to move over to iTunes, which they’ll want to do to read reviews or access trending charts, but generally, the update makes the rumors of Apple phasing out iTunes seem likely./news/oppo-s-rollable-concept-phone-is-pure-potential-lacking-polish.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000/news/oppo-s-rollable-concept-phone-is-pure-potential-lacking-polish.htmlTwo hundred thousand. That’s the magic number of times Oppo wants its rollable X 2021 concept phone to be able to expand and contract before it’ll consider it durable enough to turn into a commercial device. That’s 200,000 times the device will need to be able to transform from a 6.7-inch phone into a 7.4-inch mini tablet, and 200,000 times it’ll need to successfully contract back.  But as it stands, Oppo says the Oppo X 2021 is durable enough to manage just half that, at 100,000 cycles.