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Products from the Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact line. | Image: Khara / Casetify The Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise has given rise to quite a few interesting real-world smartphones and even more mech-themed accessories over the years. But rather than simply trying to replicate pieces of tech from the classic anime, the new line of Evangelion-inspired cases and chargers from Casetify aims to transform your ordinary iPhone into a device capable of surviving an Impact event.Casetify, the company behind those phone case ads you've undoubtedly seen on Instagram, is collaborating with Studio Khara for a new line of Evangelion-inspired iPhone and AirPods accessories that are all designed to help protect your devices from falls. Like Casetify's classic Impact line, each of the new cases featured in the Project-CSTF:... Continue reading...

Even without Wi-Fi 6E, you're still getting your money's worth. | Image: TP-Link TP-Link has launched a new competitively priced Wi-Fi 6 router that might make you think twice before upgrading to Wi-Fi 6E or even Wi-Fi 7. The Deco X55 Pro is a whole-home Wi-Fi 6 mesh router system that's available in a three-pack now on Amazon and the TP-Link webstore at an initial discounted launch price of $239.99 (if you use the 20DECOX55PRO promo code). Once this promotional offer ends on July 31st, the Deco X55 Pro will switch to its standard $299.99 price.Each node of the three-pack mesh router comes with two 2.5 gigabit ethernet ports, and TP-Link advertises the Deco X55 Pro's Wi-Fi 6 capabilities can deliver up to 3Gbps of wireless speed and that it features an AI-driven" mesh system that's designed to automatically switch... Continue reading...

The Linn Sondek LP12-50 turtable. | Image: Linn LoveFrom, the design firm formed by Apple's former design head Jony Ive, has collaborated with British audio brand Linn on a 50th anniversary edition of its Sondek LP12 turntable. Just 250 models of the Linn Sondek LP12-50 will be produced and delivered between August 2023 and March 2024, with the limited edition turntable available to reserve now for an eye-watering $60,000 (50,000).According to a blog post from Linn CEO Gilad Tiefenbrun, the collaboration dates back to early 2022 when Tiefenbrun was offered a meeting with Ive out of the blue over LinkedIn. Eventually, the two companies decided to collaborate on the upcoming turntable, which Fast Company calls Ive's first hardware project post-Apple." Image: Linn... Continue reading...

Google's plan to move Pixel phones away from Samsung's modified chips has been delayed. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge According to a report by The Information, Google originally planned to replace the modified Samsung Exynos chipsets it uses in Pixel phones with a Redondo" chip designed in-house sometime in 2024. However, the report claims that Google has now pushed that planned release window back to 2025 and will instead introduce a new custom processor codenamed Laguna."A former Google chip executive told The Information that challenges with retaining employees and coordinating development between US and Indian teams are at least partly to blame for the delay. The team behind the project was frustrated by Google's decision to cancel the development of several Tensor chips over the last two years, according to the outlet's source. We have contacted... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge European Union regulators have opened an official investigation into Amazon's proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, the company behind the popular Roomba lineup of robot vacuum cleaners.In a press release, the European Commission said it's concerned that the transaction would allow Amazon to restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners (RVCs') and to strengthen its position as online marketplace provider." The European Commission is also looking at how getting access to iRobot users' data may give Amazon an advantage in the market for online marketplace services to third-party sellers (and related advertising services) and / or other data-related markets."We continue to work through the process with the... Continue reading...

Threads compose window and photo picker on iOS. | Image: Meta Instagram's new Threads app seems like it could be a hit. Mark Zuckerberg said that the app has more than 30 million sign-ups as of Thursday morning, and people who are checking it out are posting... er, threading... a lot, too. According to internal data I've seen, there have already been more than 95 million posts and 190 million likes shared.All that has happened in less than 24 hours. The app launched Wednesday evening on iOS and Android (significantly earlier than the original Thursday launch time), and a lot of people are checking it out; it's currently the top free app on the App Store.There's still a lot missing from Threads. You can't delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram account, for example, and the... Continue reading...

Image: Nothing The launch of the Nothing Phone 2 on July 11th is less than a week away, but a new leak spoils some of the device's potential specs. In a thread on Twitter spotted by 9to5Google, leaker Kamila Wojciechowska shares that the Nothing Phone 2 could feature some improvements to its camera system.According to Wojciechowska, the upcoming device could feature a 50MP Sony IMX890 main camera sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS) and in-sensor zoom. That's the same primary sensor used by the OnePlus 11, which my colleague Allison Johnson listed as one of the positive aspects of the device in her review. It's not clear how much this will actually affect the camera quality, though, as the Phone 1 already comes with a 50MP main sensor.

The Witcher season 3. | Photo by Susie Allnutt / Netflix As The Witcher has grown beyond its first season and expanded with not only multiple seasons but prequels, too, the team behind its visual design has had to expand its ambitions as well. In particular, it's had to think a lot about the history of the world and how it influenced the way things like fashion and architecture evolved on the Continent. That could be as simple as the material utilized to make swords in one time period or as large as a ruin in the main timeline that was once a beautiful structure in the past.For Andrew Laws, a production and concept designer on the series, all of those details are vital for making The Witcher universe feel like a real, lived-in place. A lot of the time, you don't get to see all of [the... Continue reading...

Image: Honor A little over a month after its debut in China, former Huawei subbrand Honor is launching its Honor 90 internationally. Although this is a midrange smartphone at its core, powered by a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1-based processor and priced starting from 549 (449.99, around $573), it's notable for having a 200-megapixel main camera, the same resolution as what you'll find in the flagship Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.Of course, more megapixels don't necessarily mean better camera performance. But in the right scenarios, it offers the possibility of more detailed photographs. The Honor 90's camera software can also bin as many as 16 pixels together to create pixels that are effectively 2.24m in size in order to collect more light and produce... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Twitter was once a convenient way to get your memes, world news, and pop culture hot takes all in one place. However, being an active Twitter user also required sifting through a daily deluge of toxic characters, including QAnon, white supremacists, bots, and deepfakes. The Elon Musk circus that has been steadily crushing the formerly popular social network may have you strongly considering the advantages of bailing. And there are a bunch of new social networks vying for the role of Twitter substitute, such as Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. (More on that later.)Hear me out on this: you don't actually have to use Twitter. You can just delete your account.Don't worry: it doesn't have to be permanent. If you find yourself feeling empty... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge If you created an account when Instagram's Threads app launched last night, one of the first things you might've noticed was the sheer number of celebrities, brands, and influencers populating your feed. From Gordon Ramsay to Michael Strahan and Jennifer Lopez, Meta pre-filled its new Twitter competitor with a boatload of well-known users to make the app feel less empty at launch.While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri got spots on the app ahead of time, so did big names such as Mark Cuban, Shakira, and Seth Curry. Meta also got influencers like MKBHD, Lauren Godwin, Alan Chikin Chow, and Michael Le on board early, along with brands like Netflix, as well as Warner Bros. Discovery's Shark Week, Animal Planet, and... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Humans: a popular online comic strip is being adapted into a new format for your amusement.And by that I mean that Apple TV Plus is turning Nathan W. Pyle's Strange Planet comic into an animated series, with Dan Harmon on board as co-creator and executive producer. It's described as an adult" animated series, and the first episode will premiere on August 9th.The comics follow a pair of aliens struggling to understand human life and customs and describing things in, well, alien ways. It rose to popularity through social media before becoming a hit graphic novel. Here's an example:

Image: VW Volkswagen announced it will test autonomous vehicles in the US starting with driverless versions of its ID Buzz electric microbus. The new fleet will be tested on public roads in Austin, Texas, starting later this month.The announcement comes months after VW, along with Ford, pulled funding for Argo AI, the self-driving startup that had planned on launching robotaxi services in the US and Europe. The loss of funding caused Argo to shut down and cast a pall over the AV industry, which had been struggling to build a business model around driverless cars for more than a decade.VW had originally planned on using Argo's tech to power a fleet of self-driving ID Buzz microbuses. But now, it's developing the hardware and software in-house,... Continue reading...

Both the 40mm and 44mm versions of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge With Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event just around the corner, the chances we'll see a new Samsung smartwatch very soon are high. If you can't wait until then, though, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 has hit a new all-time low at multiple retailers. Right now, you can buy the Bluetooth-enabled 40mm wearable at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Samsung in select configurations starting at $199 ($80 off). You can also buy its 44mm variant, which offers a larger screen and battery, starting at around $229 ($81 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.The lightweight Android watch offers all the standard health, fitness, and sleep tracking features you'd expect, along with some unique extras, including body composition analysis. It can also measure... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge This is Platformer, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer. Sign up here.In early December, when word first leaked out that Meta was considering new ways to challenge Twitter, I messaged Adam Mosseri.We were then two months into Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter, and it was clear that the social network I depended on the most was beginning to break. For my own sake, it felt important that something like Twitter continue to exist - a place to share news, jokes, and other short snippets of writing, in a chatty public place that gave me a sense of the daily conversation.And so I told Mosseri that I hoped Meta would go through with it.On one hand, the history of Facebook and... Continue reading...

No, that is not the Moon. That is the Sphere. | Image: Sphere Entertainment The Sphere, aka the 366-foot-tall orb situated in the heart of Las Vegas, demonstrated what 1.2 million lit-up LEDs look like. During its first display on Tuesday night, animations showing fireworks, the American flag, the Moon, and even a giant blinking eyeball emanated from the 580,000-square-foot panel.Las Vegas is known for some pretty wild landmarks, but this one is more than just a humongous display-on-a-ball. On the inside, it's a spherical theater that houses 18,000 seats, along with a 16K wraparound LED screen. The whole thing cost Sphere Entertainment over $2 billion to build.According to the company, the LED pucks on this massive screen are spaced eight inches apart and contain 48 individual LED diodes, each of which can... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung only just announced that its next Unpacked event will take place on July 26th at 7AM ET, but the deals are already trickling in on the company's next slate of Galaxy devices (including the heavily rumored Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5). Starting today, you can place a preorder reservation one of two ways, each of which entitles you to $50 in Samsung credit when you preorder one of Samsung's forthcoming, yet-to-be-announced devices at a future date.Like Samsung's previous reservation promos, you won't have to hand over your credit card details, either. All you need to do is fill out your name and email address on Samsung's website or the Shop Samsung app before July 26th. You'll then be eligible to redeem the Samsung... Continue reading...

Image: Meta Threads, the Twitter competitor created by Meta, has finally arrived after months of rumors, leaks, and a billionaire cage fight challenge between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Now you can access the new platform from its desktop site at Threads.net or by downloading the app for iOS and Android. (If you're not seeing it on iOS or get an error, try force quitting the App Store and going back in.)In an interview about the Threads launch with The Verge's Alex Heath, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said, Obviously, Twitter pioneered the space... but just given everything that was going on, we thought there was an opportunity to build something that was open and something that was good for the community that was already using Instagram.On... Continue reading...

Image: Meta The volatility' of Twitter under Elon Musk has opened a window to compete. It's a risky' bet worth trying, says Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. Continue reading...

If you're planning on tuning in live from North America, you'll want to brew a pot of coffee first. | Image: Samsung We have a confirmed date for Hot Foldable Summer's biggest party. Samsung has announced it's hosting its next Unpacked on July 26th at 7AM ET - bright and early for the east coast, but it'll be an evening affair in Seoul, where Samsung previously announced that it's hosting the event. The image and text released with the announcement make it quite obvious that we'll see a flip-style foldable at the event, which would naturally be the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and the Z Fold 5 is anticipated as well. We will likely see the Galaxy Watch 6, too, as well as some Galaxy Tablets. That's quite a packed Unpacked.The flip-style foldable in Samsung's promotional image looks right in line with the rumors and leaks we've seen thus far with a lower-profile... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is being sued by its former employees again - this time for allegedly refusing to pay the expected cost of legal arbitration. As previously reported by Bloomberg, the suit was filed on July 3rd in the Northern District of California. It seeks to force Twitter to cover most of the costs in a slew of arbitration claims, which, of course, Twitter doesn't want to do.This latest lawsuit is part of a host of litigation between Twitter and many of the thousands of employees it abruptly fired when Elon Musk took over last year. Laid-off employees previously sued Musk for giving insufficient notice before firing them and later altered their claim to add that they were not paid what they were owed in their severance agreement.But the... Continue reading...

Image: Elgato Got a great idea for a Stream Deck plug-in but don't want to give it away for free? Wish you could buy premium software for the Stream Deck's handy array of LCD screen-equipped keys?Either way, it's officially happening: Elgato general manager Julian Fest says a paid Stream Deck app store is coming later this year.We will go live later this year with a platform where people can distribute paid products, whether it's plug-ins, profiles, icon packs - anything Stream Deck related," Fest tells The Verge.Yes, the Corsair-owned Elgato already has a software store," but you can't buy or sell anything there - today, it's simply a repository of plug-ins and icon packs you can download for free. Those who've wanted to start businesses... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram's Twitter competitor, Threads, may launch a few hours earlier than we expected now that the countdown on threads.net has suddenly skipped forward and indicates it will end today at 7PM ET / 4PM PT.We were expecting Meta's new text-based social media platform to launch tomorrow at 10AM ET, but maybe something has changed and moved up the launch schedule. The app likely won't be available in the European Union today, however, as Meta reportedly delayed the launch there over the region's privacy regulations.A listing in Apple's App Store for iPhone and iPad devices (it also appeared on Google Play if you use Android, although the website suggests that version will launch later) indicated the launch would occur on July 6th, and... Continue reading...

LG's last-gen C2, one of the best OLED TVs you can buy, is still available starting at just $896.99. | Image: LG Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner, but if you can't wait until then, July 4th often brings deals on a host of tech. Even now, a day after the holiday, you can still pick up a wide range of deals at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and a number of other retailers. What's more, the lingering discounts still span a range of popular tech categories, from 4K TVs and speakers to laptops and robot vacuums.Not every deal that is still available is worth shelling out for, though. Fortunately, to make sifting through the remaining sea of lawn chairs and watermelon-laden tablecloths a little easier, we've rounded up some of the better deals you can still get. Take a look, and to save even more money, be sure to check out our guide to the best... Continue reading...

Even with the small price increase, Xbox Game Pass remains a solid value, especially if you find a deal. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass is arguably one of the best deals" in gaming right now, but starting tomorrow, July 6th, the subscription service will be slightly pricier. Announced last month alongside a price increase on Xbox consoles outside the US, Game Pass is getting a $1 to $2 price hike. That means today is the last day to lock in a subscription at the current $9.99-per-month base price or $14.99-per-month Ultimate tier.Starting tomorrow, the base price of Xbox Game Pass will be $10.99 a month instead of $9.99. That entry-level tier allows you to download and play the monthly rotating roster of over 100 games on Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One consoles. The pricier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, which encompasses PC Game Pass (which... Continue reading...

Microsoft's official wireless Xbox headset has hit a new all-time low price. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge It's not every day you see an excellent gaming headset sell for just under $50, which is why today's deal on Microsoft's official Xbox headset is one to jump on. Right now, Microsoft's Xbox Wireless Headset is half off at Walmart, where you can buy it at a new all-time low of just $49.99. What's more, shipping is also free.The gaming headset offers a lot of value for your money, featuring both excellent sound quality and compatibility with a range of devices. That includes the Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S consoles, while Bluetooth support means you can pair it with laptops, tablets, phones, and other devices. The well-designed headset also comes equipped with intuitive dial controls along with an impressive level of customizability... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Tesla has racked up a series of EV charging wins in recent weeks, with Ford, GM, Volvo, Polestar, and Rivian all announcing plans to adopt the company's charging connectors for their vehicles. But there are still a number of notable holdouts - although that could shift dramatically in the days to come.Volkswagen, one of the world's largest automakers, with brands like Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche, and Lamborghini under its umbrella, said in a statement that it is in talks with Tesla about installing ports in its EVs compatible with Tesla's plugs. The statement followed the news that Electrify America, the company's EV charging station operator, would soon begin adding Tesla charging plugs, also called the North American Charging... Continue reading...

The WH-1000XM5 may not fold up like their prior version, but they're the best around for performance. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you're feeling the post-Fourth of July holiday hangover today, we've got some deals to help distract you. While Amazon's upcoming Prime Day may bring bigger savings for Prime subscribers in less than one week, here are several great deals today that are open to everyone.Starting us off, Woot is selling the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones in black for a new low price of $299 ($100 off). That's the lowest price yet on Sony's excellent noise-canceling over-ear headphones, which remain our top choice of noise-canceling headphones. However, the one small catch here is that the deal only comes with a 90-day warranty from Woot instead of a one-year warranty from Sony. If that's okay with you, then you're getting an excellent value on these... Continue reading...

Whatever content is publically available on the web, Google has given itself permission to use it to train AI. | Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge On Monday, Gizmodo spotted that the search giant updated its privacy policy to disclose that its various AI services, such as Bard and Cloud AI, may be trained on public data that the company has scraped from the web.Our privacy policy has long been transparent that Google uses publicly available information from the open web to train language models for services like Google Translate," said Google spokesperson Christa Muldoon to The Verge. This latest update simply clarifies that newer services like Bard are also included. We incorporate privacy principles and safeguards into the development of our AI technologies, in line with our AI Principles." Image: Google These are the most recent changes to Google's... Continue reading...

Image: OnePlus OnePlus has today announced the OnePlus Nord 3, the latest entry in its midrange Nord lineup and successor to last year's capable OnePlus Nord 2T. One notable improvement compared to last year's phone is the length of support that OnePlus is promising: namely, three major Android updates and four years of security updates. That's a year's increase for both over the Nord 2T, though it falls short of the up to five years of support the company promises for its top-of-the-line OnePlus 11.The OnePlus Nord 3 is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor and can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It has a 120Hz refresh rate screen this time around, rather than the 90Hz panel found on its predecessor, and the... Continue reading...

You won't get the standard Android experience with the Murena version, but that, too, could eventually make its way to the US. | Image: Murena / Fairphone The Fairphone 4 - a user-repairable smartphone built using ethically sourced materials - is finally coming to the US, almost two years after it first debuted back in September 2021. Well, sort of anyway. Fairphone is partnering with Murena, a company best known for de-Googling Android phones, to launch the US pilot of the Murena Fairphone 4 - a variant of the handset that runs on a privacy-oriented Android-based operating system: /e/OS.There are two configurations available: one with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $599 and another with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $679. The storage of both models can be expanded via microSD, and the phone features a modular design that can be easily disassembled using a standard Phillips #00... Continue reading...

The Threads web interface. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Instagram's new Threads app, a Twitter competitor, isn't supposed to launch until July 6th, but the web interface went live for a few hours today for everyone to explore. It provided an early look at what to expect from the full Threads app that will launch on iOS tomorrow - and presumably Android, too.Meta briefly made Threads available on the web before pulling profiles offline a few hours later. The Verge was able to access Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's first thread (is that what we call them?!) using the web app, and many other brands and creators including Netflix, Gary Vee, and Instagram. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Mark Zuckerberg's first post on Threads. The web interface is fairly basic right... Continue reading...

Nintendo Accounts may be key to the transition to a Switch successor. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At Nintendo's 83rd annual shareholders meeting last week, president and CEO Shuntaro Furukawa said the company is hoping for a smooth transition from the Switch to its unannounced next game console, pointing to Nintendo Accounts as being key to the generational hand-off.Nintendo has pointed to its accounts as being integral to future business in the past, as in the Nintendo Account segment of a special report it released at the end of 2021.In response to an investor asking if the company has any specific measures in place to make the leap to a Switch successor, Furukawa pointed to the difficulty of switching customers from one console to the next, saying in the past, the company had to rebuild a relationship with its customers each... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A US federal judge ruled that a slew of Biden administration officials are prohibited from contacting social media companies about moderating posts protected by the First Amendment.Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in a 155-page memorandum ruling that he believes the plaintiffs are likely to prove that federal government officials are targeting and suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens."Doughty:

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge An important deadline just passed for the biggest tech platform companies in the world to notify the European Union (EU) that they are gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Seven companies have officially acknowledged they meet the criteria: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), Microsoft, and Samsung. Companies on the list have a market capitalization of over 75 billion ($82 billion) and own a social platform or app that has at least 45 million monthly users or 10,000 active business users.The statement published by EU commissioner Thierry Breton says it will now check their submissions and designate the gatekeepers for specific platform services by 6 September," and... Continue reading...