The Verge

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Did you, like me, buy a Ring Alarm system for your home because it offered the most affordable professional 24/7 monitoring around, at just $10 a month or $100 a year? Then I expect you - like me - just got an email stating you'll now pay twice as much starting the next time you renew.Here's the top of the email I received a few hours ago, telling me I'll pay $20 a month or $200 a year starting in March, which matches the price of the Ring Protect Pro plan that Amazon started selling three years ago. I was previously on Ring Protect Plus: Image: Sean Hollister / The Verge Price hike. Price hikes are always annoying, but Ring is still a relatively affordable alarm service, I suppose. The truly infuriating part:... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Charter's Spectrum TV Select cable plan will include a free ad-supported Peacock Premium subscription next year, reports Reuters. The addition comes as Charter announced today that it has reached a new multi-year deal" with NBCUniversal, which owns Peacock, to keep its TV channels in Charter's cable lineup.Charter recently lined up a similar agreement with Disney that lets it bundle Disney's ad-supported Disney Plus Basic with Spectrum TV Select. (Upgrading to Spectrum TV Select Plus adds ESPN Plus, too.)It's all part of Charter's new hybrid approach to bundles that allows it to bundle other companies' streaming subscriptions with its cable plans and even sell them to its internet customers, too. That lets the company boost the... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Welcome to the streaming era of the wrestling wars. WWE's flagship weekly show, Raw, is ditching cable and headed for Netflix in January. And today, Warner Bros. Discovery and All Elite Wrestling announced a multiyear rights extension that will bring AEW content to Max starting in... you guessed it... January 2025. The news was first reported by Variety.Tony Khan's wrestling promotion will gain a significant presence on the popular streaming service. Episodes of AEW's weekly shows, Dynamite and Collision, will simulcast on Max on Wednesday and Saturday nights in addition to airing on TBS and TNT, respectively. Past episodes will also be available to watch on demand. AEW's TV programming has aired on WBD networks from the very start, so... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last week on charges including fraud, bribery, and soliciting donations from foreign nationals, told federal investigators he forgot his phone password before handing it over, according to charging documents. That was almost a year ago, and investigators still can't get into the phone, prosecutors said Wednesday.During a federal court hearing, prosecutor Hagan Scotten said the FBI's inability to get into Adams' phone is a significant wild card," according to a report from the New York Post. The FBI issued a search warrant for Adams' devices in November 2023. Adams initially handed over two phones but didn't have his personal device on him. The indictment does not mention what type of... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Another beloved Apple TV Plus show is getting a second season. The streamer announced today that the detective series Sugar, which stars Colin Farrell in the titular role, has been renewed for season 2. It's not clear yet when the show will return.Sugar debuted earlier this year. And while it started out as a clever story about a private investigator, a big twist midway through the first season - you can read about it here, but (obviously) spoilers abound - pushed it into sci-fi territory, a space Apple has been very successful in. There aren't many details about the upcoming season, but in a press release, Apple says that season two will see Sugar back in Los Angeles, taking on another missing persons case as he continues to look for... Continue reading...

Getty Images Xbox cofounder J Allard joined Amazon last month as a vice president on the company's devices and services team. In an email to The Verge, Allard confirmed his new role but says it's too early to have anything to say" about what he'll be working on at Amazon beyond new ideas."Allard will report to former Windows and Surface chief Panos Panay at Amazon, according to GeekWire. Panay left Microsoft last year after being at the software giant for almost 20 years. Allard spent more than 20 years at Microsoft, cofounding the Xbox division, launching Microsoft's Xbox Live network, and developing the Xbox 360 console. Allard also oversaw the development of the Zune, Microsoft's iPod competitor.Allard departed Microsoft in 2010, following his... Continue reading...

Image: PFU America After weeks of incredibly obvious teasers, PFU America has revealed the HHKB Studio Snow, a white version of one of the best and strangest keyboards I've used. A new color might seem like a minor thing, and it is. But it does answer one of the common complaints about the HHKB Studio, which until now was only available in black with black legends. The Snow edition is available today for $329 at PFU's website and mechanicalkeyboards.com.The HHKB Studio, which I reviewed last year, takes the layout from the cult classic Happy Hacking Keyboard, adds a ThinkPad-style trackpoint and mouse buttons, swaps the Topre electrocapacitive dome switches that are in the Professional series for standard Cherry MX-compatible mechanical ones, and adds... Continue reading...

The Paperwhite Kids could be a great holiday gift to keep your kids reading over school breaks. | Image: Amazon If you're looking for an alternative to traditional tablets for your kid, perhaps you should consider an ebook reader. The Kindle Paperwhite Kids - which is essentially identical to the standard Paperwhite but with a couple of added freebies - would be a great place to start. It's now on sale at Amazon for $114.99 ($55 off) with a playfully designed magnetic protective case in either dark and light green or yellow and purple. That's only $5 more than the all-time low that was established this time last year. You can also get it with a forest green and orange warrior cats" case for $124.99 ($55 off).The Kindle Paperwhite is one of the most economical ways to acquire and store books from both a monetary and space-saving standpoint. Its... Continue reading...

I guess I don't need to worry about the Wi-Fi reaching outside anymore. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Enel X Way North America, which owns EV charger brand JuiceBox, is closing down its electric vehicle business in the US and Canada and will shut off connectivity services for commercial and home hardware. In a statement posted on the JuiceBox website, the company said it will close down on October 11th, but it's turning off all customer support lines effective immediately."If you own a JuiceBox charger at home, you'll soon lose all connectivity with the app, but it will still charge your EV without the features. Enel is removing the Enel X Way app (which currently has a 2.7-star rating) from the App Store. The app lets you check charging status and history, set charging schedules, see energy use, and lock the charger down for only... Continue reading...

Workers, community members, and business owners clean up debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Marshall, North Carolina, on September 30th, 2024. | Photo: Getty Images Tropical storms take many more lives than officially recorded, according to a sobering study published today in the journal Nature. It comes as people across the Southeastern US scramble to find loved ones in the wreckage of Hurricane Helene.The average tropical storm or hurricane leads to the early deaths of between 7,170 and 11,430 people, the researchers estimate. That's astronomically higher than the average of 24 direct deaths per storm documented in government records spanning more than half a century.We were quite stunned. So, if folks are surprised by these results, you know, we were right there, too," says Rachel Young, a coauthor of the study who is an environmental economist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft wants to hear from game developers who might be skipping Xbox or those already building games using the company's developer tools. The software maker is expanding its Xbox Research team to include the community of game developers, seeking feedback directly from developers about tools, support, and the overall pain points of the Xbox platform.A new program, much like Microsoft's Xbox Insider one, is now open to all members of game studios, not just technical employees. Typically, it takes a lot of people to make and ship a game, including marketing, user research, artists, audio, PMs, community managers, and more," says Deborah Hendersen, PhD, principal user researcher for Xbox. We want to hear from everyone who works on... Continue reading...

AFMF 2 is now widely available after rolling out to beta testers earlier this year. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AMD has officially launched the latest version of its Fluid Motion Frames tech that can boost gaming frame rates on RDNA 2- and RDNA 3-based graphics hardware. Following its technical preview in July, Fluid Motion Frames 2 (AFMF 2) is now widely available after being released on Tuesday alongside its supporting Adrenalin 24.9.1 GPU driver.AFMF is a frame generation technology similar to Nvidia's DLSS Frame Generation but operates on the driver level instead of game-specific integration. The second-gen AFMF update can be enabled in OpenGL, Vulkan, DirectX 11, or DirectX 12 games - meaning FPS can now be improved in titles that don't support FSR and DLSS - and currently works on AMD Radeon RX 6000, RX 7000, 700M, and 800M GPUs. ... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, asked rival hosting service WP Engine to hand over 8 percent of its revenue each month before igniting a very public battle over what you can and can't do with an open-source project.On Wednesday, Automattic published the proposed deal that it sent to WP Engine on September 20th. The proposal lays out a seven-year agreement that gives WP Engine the right to use the WordPress trademark in exchange for a hefty payment. The 8 percent cut could either be paid as a royalty fee to Automattic or as salaries for WP Engine employees who would contribute to the WordPress.org open-source project.If WP Engine chose to pay a royalty fee, Automattic said it would publicly attribute part of its... Continue reading...

Image: Nintendo The latest top-down Zelda game turns your knowledge about dungeons into the ultimate superpower. Continue reading...

The adult version of the Unos by Sz shoes can expand a full size to accommodate growing feet. | Image: Target Target is introducing a new line of sneakers with a clever design that allows them to grow alongside the wearer, extending how long they can be worn before they're too small. The UNOS by Sz shoes (which is short for U Need One Size") are available in kids sizes for $34.99 and adult sizes for $49.99, in 16 different color options.The UNOS by Sz feature a sole that's split into two sections by a Z-shaped channel, but each side remains connected by flexible fabrics. The design allows the shoes to expand in width and length while still being providing a secure fit - up to a half size in the kids version and up to a full size in the adult one. Image: Target The kids version of the UNOS by Sz also feature elastic laces... Continue reading...

DC Studios Though we've yet to see just what kinds of features DC Studios has been cooking up under James Gunn and Peter Safran's co-leadership, the company has already announced yet another big movie built around (a pair of) Gotham's heroes.Last night, Gunn - who recently wrapped filming on his upcoming Superman reboot starring David Corenswet - took to his X account to announce that DC Studios is partnering with the newly founded New Orleans-based studio Swaybox to produce Dynamic Duo.

Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images After two straight quarters of declines, Tesla's vehicle sales are finally on the upswing.Tesla reported producing 469,796 vehicles over the three-month period that ended in September, a 9.1 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2023. The company also reported delivering 462,890 vehicles to customers during Q3 of 2024, a 6.3 percent jump from Q2 2023.It was also a measured improvement over the previous quarter's numbers. Production was up 14.4 percent as compared to the second quarter of 2024, while delivery increased 5.8 percent. Tesla is making and selling more vehicles than it was earlier this year.The Cybertruck may be helping, but Tesla doesn't break out the numbers for its polarizing electric truck. The bulk of its... Continue reading...

Ring is bringing the much-requested feature to its smart security platform starting on November 5th. | Image: Ring Smart home security company Ring announced today that it's bringing 24/7 continuous video recording (CVR) to its smart security cameras. This will allow a camera to record continuously rather than just when it detects motion, which is how Ring's cameras and video doorbells currently operate.The new 24/7 recording capability is part of a revamp of the Amazon-owned company's subscription plan, Ring Protect, which is being renamed Ring Home. It will require the highest tier, Ring Home Premium - previously Ring Protect Pro.Ring Home Premium will cost $19.99 monthly and now includes cloud storage for CVR on up to 10 cameras, along with event-activated recording and other features. Ring is also launching three additional capabilities that... Continue reading...

Users can also schedule one-time or recurring payment requests to each other. | Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge Venmo is making it easier to send repeat payments to friends and family or schedule specific payments and payment requests ahead of time. The new P2P feature allows Venmo users to schedule these as one-offs or on a monthly, weekly, or biweekly basis. It will be widely available in the app in the coming weeks," according to Venmo.There are plenty of practical use cases for this, such as setting up scheduled payments between roommates for their share of rent, utilities, or other fixed household costs or sending out recurring reminders to those who forget to pay on time. The feature is also supported on Venmo Teen accounts, meaning family members could use it to send allowance money on a set schedule or proactively set up a payment on... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge By November 2022, Snap employees were discussing 10,000 user reports of sextortion each month, while acknowledging that these reports likely represent a small fraction of this abuse' given the shame and other barriers to reporting," says a newly unsealed version of the lawsuit filed by New Mexico's attorney general against Snap. This less-redacted version of the filing we first saw a month ago adds fresh details about what Snap employees allegedly knew about the scope of the sextortion issue it's accused of facilitating on its platform.In one alleged instance, employees referenced a case with 75 reports against it mentioning nudes, minors, and extortion, yet the account was still active." And in 2022, Snap's internal research... Continue reading...

Image: Christian Selig Juno, the third-party YouTube app created for the Apple Vision Pro, has been removed from the App Store. In a post on Tuesday, developer Christian Selig said the app was taken down months after Google warned that it violates YouTube's guidelines.Like Netflix, Google doesn't make a YouTube app for the Vision Pro. That means you can only watch YouTube in Safari, which breaks out videos into Apple's native video player. Google said a YouTube app for the Vision Pro is on the roadmap" in February, but we haven't heard any updates since.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Nvidia's beta app for its GPUs is nearing its journey to a full release, and the company says it intends to migrate all remaining GeForce Experience users" to the new app before the end of the year. Today, Nvidia added a few more features to get the app ready, including the ability to toggle G-Sync on and off, multi-monitor support for RTX HDR, and driver rollback. The app can also now notify you if there's DRM content playing that could stop your ShadowPlay recording.Nvidia says upcoming updates to the app will also bring in the remaining features of Nvidia Control Panel, such as surround options, custom resolutions, and multi-monitor setup. Soon, both the GeForce Experience app and the Nvidia Control Panel will be replaced by the... Continue reading...

Fasetto's Audio Cu sends audio signals to surround sound speakers over a home's existing power lines. | Image: Fasetto Fasetto has announced that its Audio Cu system, which connects TVs and other audio devices to speakers and subwoofers using the existing power line wiring in a home, has received Dolby Atmos Product Certification from Dolby Laboratories.Similar to powerline networking solutions that can leverage existing electrical wiring to share internet around a home, Fasetto's Audio Cu is an alternative to having to snake audio cables through a wall or attempt to camouflage wires connecting speakers to an audio source under rugs and furniture. It's also an alternative to wireless solutions like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, which have their own challenges and compromises, including added latency, audio compression, and signal reliability. I... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You may soon be able to keep listening to your TV shows on YouTube TV even if you can't watch them. Google appears to be finally bringing background playback to its YouTube TV streaming service. The company confirmed to The Verge that it's experimenting" with enabling YouTube TV playback after a phone is locked.As reported by 9to5Google, the feature was spotted a couple of weeks ago by Reddit users who found they could continue listening to YouTube TV audio even after sending the video app to the background on their mobile devices.Background playback lets you keep listening to your content when your phone's screen is off or locked. So, you can still listen to the audio even if you can't watch the action. This could be helpful in... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge You now have 15 minutes to edit your posts on Threads, an increase from the previous five-minute limit. If you have fediverse sharing toggled on, that means you'll have to wait 15 minutes until your post shows up on Mastodon and other platforms.The window is a little short when compared to other platforms. X, for example, lets you edit your posts for up to one hour, but you have to pay for a subscription. Mastodon also lets you edit your posts for free at any time after they've been published.Additionally, Threads will now let you see who follows you and likes your posts from other fediverse servers such as Mastodon. That should make it a lot easier to keep track of new followers and engagement, no matter the platform people are using... Continue reading...

The ClimateCool smart bed features adjustable mattress firmness, sleep tracking, a flexible base, and active cooling technology. | Image: Sleep Number Sleep Number's newest smart bed is designed to keep you cool at night. The ClimateCool smart bed, starting at $5,499, is the latest product from the company famous for its adjustable mattress firmness. In a press release, the company says the new mattress can keep your body at the optimal temperature with its scientifically backed" cooling programs that could be of particular interest to people dealing with symptoms of menopause.This is Sleep Number's second smart bed that offers individual temperature control on either side of the bed. The Climate360, which launched in 2020, similarly actively draws heat away from your body to help you stay cool, but unlike the ClimateCool, it can also warm you up if you're too chilly at night.But... Continue reading...

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images Tesla and CEO Elon Musk scored another win Tuesday when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing them of defrauding shareholders over the safety and effectiveness of the company's driver-assist technology.US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said that plaintiffs failed to prove that Musk acted with deliberate recklessness" when he claimed that Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technology could drive safer than humans.Many of Musk's claims about self-driving capabilities amount to corporate puffery," or exaggerations about future products, the judge determined. Other claims could be categorized as forward-looking statements," in that they addressed future expectations for the technology. The case was dismissed... Continue reading...

Amazon's ultra-affordable streaming sticks are great for enjoying Spooktober playlists. | Image: Amazon We've officially turned the calendar to October, meaning spooky season is in full effect. That also means we're a week away from Prime Big Deal Days, which starts on October 8th. There were already plenty of early Prime Day deals to consider, but now we're seeing steep discounts on Amazon's stick-style streaming devices. Right now, for instance, the latest Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K is going for just $24.99 ($25 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, while the speedier Fire TV Stick 4K Max is down to $34.99 ($25 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.If you can spare another $10 in your budget, we'd recommend stepping up to the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. It's a fair bit snappier than the base model thanks to an upgraded processor and support for... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is more explicitly telling content creators, businesses, and other users how they should be posting to the platform via a new feature called best practices."The best practices hub is available for professional accounts on Instagram and is accessible through the professional dashboard. The feature is marketed as an educational tool to help creators make engaging content, and the hub includes tips for making, sharing, and monetizing their videos and photos.Some of the tips are fairly generic social media strategies, like track long-term follower growth" and consistently post more." Others are more specific and could signal Instagram's corporate priorities: a tip on my account, for example, tells me that Reels that are longer... Continue reading...

Image: Bose Bose has announced a new addition to its long-running SoundLink line of wireless speakers. Most of Bose's speakers have a colorful and durable design that shrugs off sand and water during an afternoon at the beach, but the new $219 SoundLink Home uses materials like anodized aluminum and a fabric speaker cover for a more premium appearance designed to complement the home.Battery life is rated up to nine hours after a four-hour charge through the speaker's USB-C port, which doubles as an audio input for connecting to sources like laptops with a cable. The SoundLink Home includes support for Bluetooth 5.3 with a wireless range of about 30 feet, and it can be paired with other SoundLink Home speakers for stereo sound. It lacks Wi-Fi,... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts of the US have shut down as thousands of dock workers strike over wages and technology that could replace jobs, according to CNBC. The strike, which began just past midnight on October 1st, could raise prices and make goods harder to get, depending on how long it lasts.The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), a union that represents around 85,000 dock workers, called the strike after its contract with the US Maritime Alliance (USMX) - the organization backing port employers - expired early on Tuesday morning. The strike encompasses ports stretching from Maine to Texas.Negotiations for a new contract are still ongoing, with the USMX proposing a 50 percent wage increase. Along... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic is offering better terms for developers who build games with Unreal Engine and list them on the Epic Games Store.As part of the new Launch Everywhere with Epic" program, Epic is reducing the royalty rate for games built with Unreal Engine from 5 percent to 3.5 percent - however, those games will have to be available on the Epic Games Store on launch day. The program kicks in on January 1st, 2025 for eligible games published on the Epic Games Store beginning that year.With this move, Epic seems to be trying yet another way to encourage developers to list games on its store, including its newly launched stores on Android and iOS. Epic says that the royalty reduction will be in place for every platform and store where a developer... Continue reading...

A control panel in the control room simulator of the Holtec Palisades Training Center in Covert, Michigan, US, on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. | Photo: Getty Images For the first time, a shuttered nuclear power plant in the US could reopen thanks to federal support. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $1.52 billion loan to help restore a nuclear generating station in Covert Township, Michigan.Although it's still a controversial option among environmental advocates, nuclear energy could be on the verge of a renaissance as an alternative to fossil fuels. Nuclear power plants are already the biggest source of carbon pollution-free energy in the US, and can fill in for renewables when solar and wind power wane.It's a powerful clean energy comeback story."It's a powerful clean energy comeback story," White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said in a press release yesterday.The DOE... Continue reading...