The Verge

Blue Origin will stream the launch on its site. | Screenshot: The Verge Space tourism company Blue Origin has set its sights on a New Shepard launch window that starts Monday at 9:30AM ET, its first attempt since the rocket booster failed during its September 2022 launch. The company says its New Shepard rocket will launch from its Launch Site One in West Texas. Blue Origin will livestream the launch on its website 20 minutes before the countdown.This will be the 24th launch of the reusable New Shepard rocket, and will carry 33 science payloads. Most of its launches have been uncrewed, but as Engadget noted, six of them have had human beings on board, including William Shatner. Last year, Blue Origin's uncrewed NS-23 launch failed, prompting a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation.The FAA... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A California regulator has settled its blockbuster lawsuit that alleged a culture of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard. Now under the ownership of Microsoft, the gaming company will pay about $54 million as part of the settlement, according to a press release from California's Civil Rights Department (CRD).The CRD (formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing or DFEH) filed this lawsuit in July 2021, alleging that Activision Blizzard had a frat boy" culture where women were subject to sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. Following the suit, employees walked out, executives including then-Blizzard president J. Allen Brack and Blizzard's former SVP of HR left the company, and, months later, The... Continue reading...

Signify, the company which owns Philips Hue, is restructuring its business to focus on four key areas. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Signify, the company that owns smart lighting brands Philips Hue and WiZ, is restructuring in the face of ongoing market volatility and uncertainty."In a press release on its website published earlier this month, Signify announced a new customer-centric organization and structural cost reductions." This appears to signal that the company is focusing more effort on products that consumers and businesses can buy and less on making products for other manufacturers and specialty lighting applications like projectors and lamp electronics.After the major transformation we achieved through the past decade, we are taking the next step by organizing our company around four vertically integrated businesses. Three of these will focus on... Continue reading...

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Apple has blocked a Bluetooth attack carried out with the Flipper Zero that sent a barrage of pop-ups to iPhones, causing them to lock up and crash. While Apple hasn't formally announced the change, it appears the company has rolled out a fix in iOS 17.2, according to tests from ZDNET and 9to5Mac.The attack, which allowed users to crash nearby iPhones running iOS 17.0, involved the Flipper Zero, a tiny, jack-of-all-trades hacking device. A third-party firmware called Flipper Xtreme included a feature that allowed the Flipper's built-in Bluetooth radio to blast an overwhelming number of Bluetooth alerts to devices.Until now, the only way to prevent the attacks was to completely disable Bluetooth on the iPhone, but it looks like Apple... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge Gift-giving doesn't have to eat up all of your time and money - and we've rounded up an assortment of inexpensive gifts to prove it. Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge We've pulled together a king's ransom of fun and unique gift ideas for all the dads in your life so you can spoil them no matter your budget. Continue reading...

The Coral Restoration Foundation digitally stitched images of a reef together to create this 3D photomosaic. | Image: CRF Time is running out to save the world's coral reefs, so conservationists are turning to every tool they can to protect vanishing reefs - including AI.In Florida, the race is on to restore reefs by planting" corals raised by humans. It's an upward battle as rising ocean temperatures stress already struggling reefs. Tracking the progress is essential but tedious work.In the past, coral conservationists would have had to physically swim out to reefs to take notes on individual corals they'd planted using a pencil and waxy, waterproof paper. It can't scale with the scale of your restoration effort. And eventually, you'll spend more time monitoring coral restoration than you will actually doing coral restoration," says Alexander... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge The world can be an expensive place. Fortunately, we've assembled 30-odd gifts that are designed to keep your holiday spending (mostly) in check. Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft's Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are now available to download for free on Meta's Quest VR headsets, as reported by Android Central. They appear to be the web versions of the apps, so while there's a lot that's very familiar about them, after giving the apps a whirl from inside a Quest 3, I can tell you that the virtual office experience still has a few quirks.The first hurdle is logging in. While you don't need a paid Microsoft 365 account, when I opened up Word, I had to log in by typing my long Microsoft account password. (The option to log in with a security key failed when I tried it; the other choices were to log in with a GitHub account or a company account.) Since I don't have a Bluetooth keyboard lying around, that meant... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Mere days after Twitch updated its content policy to permit certain kinds of sexual content, the platform has withdrawn the portion of the policy permitting artistic nudity."Effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes," the update read. Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won't be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium." Mature-rated games will not be affected by the rollback and subject to the new policy.

Nanoleaf's smart holiday string lights are compatible with Matter, so they can work with a wide range of smart home platforms. | Image: Nanoleaf If you've got a holiday party or gathering coming up, Nanoleaf's Essentials Matter Smart Holiday String Lights will help set the mood without putting a dent in your wallet. Typically $119.99, right now, the 65-foot string lights are only $44.99 at Best Buy, which is significantly cheaper than they were on Black Friday and a new all-time low.If you're looking for a piece of decor that'll get everybody in the Christmas spirit, these twinkly string lights are it. With 250 addressable LEDs capable of displaying more than 16 million colors and an IP44 rating, they'll make any tree, fireplace, or porch pop. The lights also come with festive preset scenes and will even dance along to the beat of holiday tunes. Plus, the Wi-Fi string lights... Continue reading...

Image: Sony Naughty Dog announced Thursday that it's canceled the multiplayer game it was building in The Last of Us universe.The studio says it has been in pre-production on The Last of Us Online even while working on The Last of Us Part II. We were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed," according to a blog post about the news.However, to release and support The Last of Us Online we'd have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games," Naughty Dog says. So, we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog's... Continue reading...

Curio The musician Grimes has developed an interactive AI plush toy for children which can converse with and learn" the personalities of their owners. Grimes and toy company Curio created the line of toys in partnership with OpenAI, as first reported by The Washington Post. Grimes, who voices all three toys, is also an investor and advisor for the product.The three plush figurines are named Gabbo, Grem, and Grok - not to be confused with the AI chatbot named Grok owned by Elon Musk, a former partner of Grimes. Curio told the Post that the AI plush toy Grok and chatbot Grok are unrelated. The toy Grok is a shortening of the word Grocket," which Grimes said she coined due to the fact that her children with Musk grew up in the vicinity of... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge We've assembled a collection of quick-hit gifts that can be issued within seconds, freeing you of shipping concerns and in-store shopping. Continue reading...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. | Image: Rockstar Games Netflix just released its biggest games yet. The Grand Theft Auto trilogy - which includes GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas - is now available on both iOS and Android, and the games are all free to play if you're already a Netflix subscriber. But while the streaming service has offered mobile games for a while now (and added some excellent titles to its library), actually finding games you want to play can be a bit fiddly. In the mobile Netflix app, every game is confined to a single row, which means lots of scrolling around icons that don't seem to be in any particular order.It's definitely easy to miss things. So here's a handy trick for finding all the games Netflix offers - and it works on both Google Play and the App Store.It's... Continue reading...

The 15-inch M2-powered MacBook Air delivers more screen real estate than its smaller counterpart, along with two more speakers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The new M3-powered MacBook Pros are powerhouses: but if you just need a good all-around laptop for everyday computing needs, they might be overkill. It's a better idea to save the money and opt for one of Apple's entry-level models instead, especially as both are currently on sale. Right now, the 15-inch, M2-powered MacBook Air has returned to its best price of $1,049 ($250 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, while the 13-inch M2-equipped MacBook Air is $899 ($200 off) at Best Buy. Both are base models with 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM.The 15-inch MacBook Air boasts a larger and sharper 15.3-inch screen as well as a far better speaker array than the smaller model. Otherwise, though, both laptops are similar, with the same fantastic battery life, a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Image: Getty Images Elon Musk is planning to open up a university in Austin, Texas, according to a report from Bloomberg. A tax filing for Musk's charity, The Foundation, reveals that the billionaire wants to contribute $100 million to build STEM-focused primary and secondary schools before opening a university dedicated to education at the highest levels."The Foundation filed the tax exemption application with the Internal Revenue Service in October 2022, and Bloomberg says it was approved in March of this year. As noted in the filing, the university will offer instruction by experienced faculty" in subjects like math, science, engineering, and physics, in addition to hands-on learning experience including simulations, case studies, fabrication/design... Continue reading...

Image: GM Cadillac is releasing the name and a few images of its next electric vehicle, the midsize Vistiq SUV, which the automaker expects to slot in between the Lyriq and Escalade IQ in terms of size and price.The three-row SUV is expected to hit dealerships sometime in 2025 as a model year 2026 vehicle. It will also join the entry-level Optiq in Cadillac's growing lineup of zero-emission vehicles.The three-row SUV is expected to hit dealerships sometime next year as a model year 2025 vehicleVISTIQ adds another compelling EV to the Cadillac lineup, reinforcing our commitment to an electric future," said John Roth, vice president of Global Cadillac. Our brand now has an EV entry in most luxury segments, offering customers a range of... Continue reading...

Google's Nest Renew service for its thermostats will soon be under new management. | Image: Google Google's Nest Renew service is leaving Google and merging with the OhmConnect energy management platform to form a new company called Renew Home. Venture capitalist firm Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), which backs OhmConnect and is putting $100 million into the new company, announced the move, saying it will create the country's largest energy transition resource."Renew Home ... will help accelerate the growth of the virtual power plant (VPP) industry," SIP CEO Jonathan WinerNest Renew and OhmConnect both help smart home users leverage connected devices to take advantage of cheaper or cleaner power when it's available. Launched in 2021, Nest Renew is a service for Google Nest Thermostat users that lets them shift the energy... Continue reading...

Proton Proton has released a desktop version of its Proton Mail app that will give users full access to both Proton Mail and Proton Calendar and (eventually) the ability to view your emails offline. The desktop app is available in beta is optimized for both Windows and macOS, and encrypts sent emails end-to-end just like with the browser version, according to the Swiss company, while offline access to emails will be available soon."Technically, it's been possible to access your Proton emails offline through a desktop email app, but you had to use the Proton Mail Bridge to configure your accounts to work with other IMAP / SMTP email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, and others. Proton's desktop app, on the other hand, will let you... Continue reading...