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Unlike prior models, the 2022 model features a matte display that dramatically reduces glare. | Image: Samsung Let’s face it: good art is rarely cheap. Thankfully, however, Samsung’s 32-inch Frame TV is currently on sale at BuyDig right now for $380 with promo code FNJ23, providing you with a more cost-effective way to outfit your living room with well-known masterpieces.This 2022 QLED panel isn’t a vast update over the prior model — it still touts a 120Hz refresh rate, HDMI 2.1 support, and compatibility with voice assistants like Amazon Alexa — but the 4K set now comes with a new anti-glare matte finish, which helps it look like a piece of actual artwork when turned off (as opposed to the hulking black box that it is). Sure, some of said art is paywalled behind a $5 monthly subscription, but if good picture quality and aesthetics are what... Continue reading…

Is Apple really good for your health? | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Here are some cursed words: “Apple Plans AI-Powered Health Coaching Service, Mood Tracker and iPad Health App.”I can see why you might say, Liz, this sounds benign and obvious. What’s the big deal? And I think about a meeting I had in 2014 with a freelance writer who was wearing three fitness trackers, inadvertently imitating Madonna’s 1980s stacked bracelets look. He asked me how I slept. I was — and am — a pretty good sleeper. I snooze heavily for seven to eight hours and wake up feeling good, sometimes even before my alarm goes off because I am (sorry) a morning person.The freelancer I’d been speaking to, perhaps obviously, had been having trouble sleeping, and as someone who was fairly devoted to optimizing his life through fitness... Continue reading…

Though you’re going to miss out on owning this excellent box art in physical form. | Image: Nintendo Are you hyped for the impending launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom but still a little miffed about it being the first $70 Nintendo Switch game? If you’re a Nintendo Switch Online subscriber, there’s something you can do about that. By buying Nintendo’s digital game vouchers, you can effectively preorder your digital copy of the new Zelda for just $49.99.Spend $100 to save up to $30 on two gamesThe Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers cost $99.98 for two, each of which is redeemable for a qualifying full-price game on the eShop. The game list includes preorders like the upcoming Zelda, Pikmin 4, and recent hits that haven’t seen many discounts yet — such as Splatoon 3. If you pay $99.98 for the two vouchers and use one to... Continue reading…

Photo by Joseph Prezioso / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Disney is suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, alleging his administration waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” against the company’s “protected speech.” In the lawsuit, Disney claims DeSantis “threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”“Disney regrets that it has come to this,” the lawsuit states. “But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution, the Company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.”T... Continue reading…

Toad and Princess Peach. | Universal For anyone who’s been holding out hope for a subbed US release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie with performances from the film’s Japanese voice-acting cast intact, your time has finally come, but it won’t last very long.It’s not really clear when, exactly, Illumination and Universal’s Super Mario Bros. Movie will step off the other movies’ necks and let someone else have a turn at being number one at the box office. But beginning this Friday, Japanese-language screenings of the film will begin showing “for a limited time only” in select theaters in Honolulu, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver.

Here are some steps that can make layoffs slightly less stressful. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge There’s no sugarcoating it: getting laid off stinks. And while there’s no such thing as a “good” layoff, a bad one can absolutely be made worse if your now ex-company cuts off your access to contacts, emails, and work without warning.You probably know someone who had this happen to them. (Or perhaps you’re worried it could happen to you.) It seems heartless, but the bottom line is that companies abruptly cut off access to protect their interests. You might just want a colleague’s email to keep in touch or might want to save examples of your work to prove your worth to possible employers. To the company, however, the most important thing is to make sure disgruntled ex-employees don’t abscond with sensitive information like internal... Continue reading…

Image: Enhance Some of the most memorable games in PlayStation history have been downright strange, whether about dancing wireframe rabbits, deadly cubes, or mannequins traversing impossible architecture. These “very designer-led games,” as Mark MacDonald from Tetris Effect studio Enhance describes them, were often iconic — but they’ve also largely fallen out of favor. That’s where Humanity comes in. It’s an introspective game about a dog guiding a sea of humanity through puzzle-like mazes, and it’s as odd as it is compelling, a callback to exactly those kinds of classic PlayStation experiences.Humanity is a collaboration between Enhance — led by the legendary Tetsuya Mizuguchi, of Rez and Lumines fame — and designer Yugo Nakamura. Ahead of its launch... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix We knew a sixth season of Netflix’s Black Mirror was on the way, but now, we know a lot more about it: a new teaser trailer shared Wednesday reveals that the season will be out in June and features big actors like Aaron Paul, Kate Mara, and Salma Hayek.In a blog post, Netflix is promising that the season will be the show’s “most unpredictable” yet. The company isn’t saying why that is just yet, but a quote from Charlie Brooker, the show’s creator, sheds a bit of light on what you can look forward to.“The stories are all still tonally Black Mirror through-and-through”“Partly as a challenge, and partly to keep things fresh for both me and the viewer, I began this season by deliberately upending some of my own core assumptions about what... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is now rolling out a new update to its Phone Link app that includes iOS support for the first time. The Phone Link app now allows iPhone owners to connect to a Windows 11 PC and send and receive messages via iMessage, make and receive calls, and see their notifications on a PC or laptop.Microsoft started previewing this update earlier this year, and it’s now rolling out in 39 languages across 85 countries. Microsoft says all Windows 11 will get access to the iPhone support in Phone Link by mid-May.Phone Link works by sending messages over Bluetooth to contacts. Apple’s iOS then intercepts these messages and forces them to be sent over iMessage, much like how Apple’s operating system detects when you’re sending a message to an... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Rural customers subscribed to Verizon’s 5G network could see a jump in their speeds later this year. The telecommunications giant revealed plans during its quarterly earnings call this week to extend its C-band 5G network — which uses a radio spectrum that enables faster speeds on a wide scale — to more rural and suburban areas by December 2023.We don’t know specifically which areas the expansion will cover. During the earnings call, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg mentioned that the company’s C-band 5G coverage has so far been deployed to 70 out of the 406 available markets, mostly in urban and suburban areas. “It’s 330 markets left, we will get the C-band,” said Vestberg. He didn’t clarify how many of these markets would be covered by the... Continue reading…

Apps like Weather Fit are coming up with new ways to think about the forecast. | Image: Weather Fit Forecast Advisor might be the best-kept secret in the weather business. It’s a website, run by a company called Intellovations, that compares the accuracy of a dozen of the largest weather forecasters. You put in your ZIP code (it only works in the US), and it spits back a ranking of the services based on how correctly they predicted the weather over the last month and the last year. You might be shocked at how different the various sources are and how bad some of them are at predicting the weather.Depending on which weather app you use, this is extremely actionable information. Many third-party weather apps allow you to switch between data sources, so you can pick the one that’s most accurate near you — AccuWeather, in my case — and... Continue reading…

Is it still Time to BeReal? | Image: BeReal The ongoing collapse of Twitter has lots of folks wondering when an all-consuming new social app will rise up to take its place. This week, I want to talk about how things are going at one such upstart — and what it tells us about how new social products win and lose in 2023.That upstart is BeReal. In July of last year, the photo-sharing app had a breakout moment when frequent discussions of the app on TikTok pushed it to the top of the app store charts. Like most insurgent social networks, BeReal arrived with a novel creative constraint: a once-a-day window to post, delivered at a different time each day via push notification, that attempts to create a less performative social experience by inviting you to post your life at its most... Continue reading…

The ThinkPhone features a big 6.6-inch screen and top-notch build quality. Nine years after Lenovo purchased the Motorola brand, the first co-branded phone is hitting store shelves. The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola is available in the US starting today for $699, offering a suite of productivity features designed to work with ThinkPad laptops. But don’t expect to waltz into your wireless carrier’s retail location and find it on a shelf — it’s available first to enterprise customers and then, on April 28th, becomes available unlocked via Motorola.com. That puts it out of consideration for a lot of people, and that’s too bad — in my experience, it’s shaping up to be a really nice phone.The ThinkPhone has a lot of the same stuff as a mainstream flagship phone, even though it’s priced just below the likes of the... Continue reading…

In an aerial view, Tesla cars sit parked in a lot at the Tesla factory on April 20th, 2022, in Fremont, California. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Tesla released its 2022 Impact Report this week, and it gives the clearest picture yet of the electric car company’s carbon footprint. Tesla disclosed numbers on its supply chain emissions for the first time, which makes its overall carbon footprint much bigger than it has reported in the past.Last year, the company only disclosed how much greenhouse gas pollution it generated from its direct operations and from customers charging their EVs. Altogether that was roughly equivalent to 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. But that missed the big picture since supply chain pollution — considered indirect emissions — often make up a major chunk of a company’s carbon footprint.This year, Tesla finally released data on its supply chain... Continue reading…

Illustration: Kyle Ellingson for The Verge Over the last few years, a spy’s gadgets have disappeared, and they’ve been replaced by the hacker. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been blocked by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). After months of analyzing 3 million Microsoft and Activision documents and more than 2,100 emails from the public, the CMA has concluded that the deal could “alter the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market, leading to reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come.”Microsoft says it will appeal the decision, but it’s a blow to Microsoft’s hopes of acquiring Activision Blizzard and will likely prevent the company closing its giant deal if an appeal is unsuccessful.“Microsoft has a strong position in cloud gaming services and the evidence available to the CMA showed that... Continue reading…

Image: Onyx Onyx today announced a new tablet with an E Ink display capable of showing colors: the 10.3-inch Boox Tab Ultra C. The E Ink tablet is the first in the Tab series to feature a Kaleido 3 E Ink screen, which is the latest version of E Ink’s color electronic paper display technology. It’s still limited to 4,096 colors but allows for a higher color resolution.Don’t expect colors that are as vibrant as an iPad’s, though. The new color screen offers a sharp 300ppi resolution when you’re in black-and-white mode but drops to 150ppi when you view content in color. As a result, colors look more subtle and pastel-like, yet should still look more vivid than last year’s Onyx Boox Nova Air C’s screen. That color E Ink came equipped with a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is adding a new feature to some of its Workspace apps that will help users quickly locate commonly used tools without needing to sift through various menus and toolbars. The “enhanced tool finder” is starting to roll out across Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides today, appearing as a search bar — identified by a magnifying glass icon and a “Menus” label — at the top-left of the app’s usual toolbar.The search bar features a pill-shaped design that’s in keeping with the recent Material Design 3 overhaul. It’ll automatically offer up commonly used suggestions that vary depending on which Google Workspace app you’re using, such as “Page setup” in Docs, “Insert rows/columns” in Sheets, and “Edit theme” in Slides. Alternatively, users can... Continue reading…

Last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 4. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Ice Universe, an anonymous Twitter account with a habit of accurately leaking details about unannounced smartphones, has tweeted what they claim will be the physical dimensions of Samsung’s upcoming foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 5.Perhaps the most interesting figure is its thickness while folded, which will reportedly sit at 13.4mm. That’s notable, because the thickness of the current Z Fold 4 ranges from 14.2mm to 15.8mm, because of the hinge gap and the angle of the screens while folded. That could make the Fold 5 both thinner and flatter than its predecessor, potentially as a result of the improved “droplet”-style hinge Samsung is rumored to be using.

You can compare this summary to the actual article if you’d like. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Artifact, the recently launched news app from Instagram’s co-founders, announced a new AI feature on Tuesday that can summarize articles for you. But the best part about the feature is that it can summarize in different tones that are varying amounts of silly and surprisingly useful.If you’re on the latest version of the app, you can summarize an article you’re reading by tapping the “Aa” icon at the top of the screen and then on “Summarize.” After a moment, the summary will appear at the top of your screen in a black box. You can also ask Artifact to summarize in different tones, including “Explain Like I’m Five,” “Emoji,” “Poem,” and “Gen Z,” by tapping the three dots menu in that black box. Image: Artifact A... Continue reading…

The Hakuto-R lunar lander. | Image: Getty Images What would have been the first private Moon landing has ended in failure after Japanese startup ispace lost contact with its lunar lander, as reported earlier by The Washington Post. As the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander inched closer to the Moon’s surface, engineers found that they were no longer able to communicate with the spacecraft.“Currently, we have not confirmed communications from the lander,” ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said during a livestream of the mission. “So we have to assume that we could not complete the landing.”

Illustration: The Verge Google’s search revenues inched upward in the first quarter of 2023 after years of rapid growth, suggesting the tech giant might be facing some difficulties with its golden goose. In an earnings release today, Google reported its “search & other” revenues were up 1.87 percent year over year (jumping from about $39.6B to $40.4B), which is much smaller growth than the 24.28 percent jump the company saw in Q1 2022 and the 30.11 percent bump in Q1 2021.Right now, search is seeing significant competition from all sides. Microsoft is trying to steal users away from Google with its AI-powered Bing chatbot, which became more widely available last month. And many people are turning to other tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to search for and learn... Continue reading…

Squid Game was a monster hit for Netflix, so it’s not surprising the platform is looking to repeat that success. | Image: Netflix After a meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol yesterday, Netflix announced it’s planning to invest $2.5 billion into “the creation of Korean series, films, and unscripted shows over the next four years” — which is a fancy way of saying Netflix is about to make a crapload of K-dramas.The amount is double what Netflix has invested in K-dramas since 2016 — and it’s no surprise given the monumental success of Squid Game as well as The Glory and Physical: 100. In a statement, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the company had “great confidence that the Korean creative industry will continue to tell great stories,” noting that Korean entertainment was “now at the heart of the global cultural zeitgeist.”As a second-generation... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2023 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $52.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $18.3 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 7 percent, and net income has increased by 9 percent. While Windows, Xbox, and devices revenue have all been hit hard this quarter, Microsoft’s cloud, office, and server businesses have made up for weaknesses elsewhere.Microsoft had a tough quarter for Windows and devices revenue last quarter, and Q3 isn’t much different. Windows OEM revenue, the price that PC manufacturers pay Microsoft to put Windows on laptops and PCs, fell by 28 percent in Q3. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft’s devices revenue has dropped... Continue reading…

Image: Broke Studios Despite the final officially licensed cartridge for the NES being released back in 1995 (the PAL-exclusive The Lion King, for those curious), indie developers have continued to breathe some modern innovation into the retro gaming platform through homebrew titles. One particularly recent and notable example — Broke Studio’s Super Tilt Bro., previewed by Gizmodo — introduces Wi-Fi-enabled online multiplayer to the NES almost 30 years after the console was discontinued.Super Tilt Bro. is an open-source eight-bit fighting game with platform mechanics. It’s essentially just a demake of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series, albeit without any of its recognizable characters — probably best not to poke the Nintendo copyright lawsuit dragon after... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Apple is working on a paid AI-powered health coach that could help you improve your exercise, sleep, and eating habits, according to Bloomberg. Codenamed “Quartz,” the service will apparently “use AI and data from an Apple Watch to make suggestions and create coaching programs tailored to specific users,” Bloomberg reports. However, Quartz won’t be announced this year and is instead set to come out next year.The new Quartz service (and app) are just one of a few new health initiatives outlined in Bloomberg’s report. The iPad, for example, will finally be getting a dedicated version of the Health app as part of iPadOS 17. Apple is also apparently working on an emotion tracker (which Bloomberg says is different from Apple’s rumored... Continue reading…

Daniel Ek from Spotify It’s the last week of the cruelest month and sure to be an eventful one for the audio world. Spotify posted its first quarter earnings this morning, reporting that the service in April finally reached over half a billion (or 515 million) monthly users. But first quarter revenue fell short of expectations — even though the platform’s podcast ad revenue saw a significant (20 percent) boost from this time last year. Still, the era of big spending by Spotify on podcasts is likely done, CEO Daniel Ek explained during the call. I’ll dive into more detail below.We can expect even more financial news from the podcast industry on Thursday, with both SiriusXM and Cumulus Media scheduled to hold earnings calls.Hot Pod can also exclusively... Continue reading…

Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage AI Drake has struck again, and the latest track shows just how easy it is for someone to use a familiar celebrity voice to make a song go viral. The track, called “Not a Game,” first emerged on SoundCloud and YouTube late last week and arrived only days after a song from someone named Ghostwriter went viral for featuring Drake’s AI-generated voice. “Not a Game” got mentions in both TMZ and the Daily Mail, shining even more of a spotlight on the track.But it turns out, “Not a Game” isn’t exactly a brand-new song. The Verge found that the track is composed of multiple preexisting elements, with the primary new addition being the Drake voice.The fakers took the vocals from this a cappella rap posted to Looperman, a site that hosts audio... Continue reading…

Image: Speedrookie (Reddit) Some owners of AMD’s latest 7000X3D series CPUs have reported that their processors have burnt out randomly. Reports across Reddit and on YouTube suggest that a number of 7950X3D and 7800X3D owners have experienced burn damage to both the CPU and the AM5 socket, killing the processors and motherboards.It’s a nightmare situation for any PC owner, particularly since, in many cases, these are new CPUs and motherboards that have only been on the market for a matter of weeks.“Came home to my system idling full fan and QCode of 00,” said Reddit user Speedrookie. “Reset BIOS, play[ed] with memory, then took it apart to find the 7800X3D bulged out and took the socket with it.” Speedrookie posted a photo of the affected CPU with a visible... Continue reading…

Screenshot: UDC via YouTube Daniel Shin, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, was indicted in South Korea in connection with the collapsed Terra and Luna cryptocurrencies. According to reports from Bloomberg and the local Yonhap News Agency, Shin was charged on Tuesday with offenses including fraud, breach of duty, and embezzlement.Prosecutors at Seoul Southern District Court also indicted nine other people with ties to Terra, some of whom had roles in marketing, systems development, and management, as reported by Bloomberg. The outlet also reports that prosecutors have frozen a total of 246.8 billion won (about $184.7 million) in assets from the individuals they charged.Shin created Terraform Labs with co-founder Do Kwon in 2018. The company released its Luna... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Images Two major automakers announced separate plans to build electric vehicle battery plants in the US, a sign that the fast-paced expansion of EV manufacturing in the country has yet to slow down.General Motors announced it will pair up with Samsung SDI to jointly invest $3 billion in an electric vehicle battery plant in the US. Separately, Hyundai said it would form a joint venture with another South Korean battery maker, SK On, for a $5 billion investment in a battery factory in Georgia.A sign that the fast-paced expansion of EV manufacturing in the country has yet to slow downExpected to start in 2026, the GM-Samsung factory will have more than 30GWh of capacity, bringing GM’s total US battery cell capacity to about 160GWh when it is... Continue reading…

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 is on sale in all configurations starting at $219.99. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We’re in the heart of spring, which means sunny skies, super blooms, and... good smartwatch sales? Perhaps it’s because more people are working out outdoors, but in the past month, we’ve seen a number of wearable deals that are as good as the ones we saw around the new year.Today, for instance, you can buy Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watch 5 at an all-time low in various sizes. The LTE-equipped 40mm wearable is available for $249.99 ($80 off) at both Amazon and Best Buy, or, if you prefer the Bluetooth-enabled configuration, it’s on sale at Amazon and Best Buy starting at around $219 ($61 off).Along with a more durable sapphire crystal glass cover, the Galaxy Watch 5 offers a few extra capabilities over the Galaxy Watch 4, including the... Continue reading…

A resident walks through a temporary misting station on Abbott Street during a heatwave in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Monday, June 28th, 2021. | Image: Trevor Hagan / Bloomberg via Getty Images Every region of the world needs to prepare for unprecedented heatwaves, warns research published today in the journal Nature Communications. The study also pinpoints which places are most at-risk of record-breaking heat in the future and urges people to start preparing now for weather events they might not have thought possible in the past.The researchers identified which locations are probably past due to seeing their temperature records shattered. They also considered factors that make certain communities more vulnerable than others, like booming population growth and limited access to air conditioning or healthcare.Crucially, they find that communities facing the most risk have never dealt with such extreme heat in the past. That... Continue reading…