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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter announced that it has “officially launched” a new Violent Speech policy that outlines its “zero-tolerance approach towards Violent Speech.” Its content is similar to Twitter’s previous violent threats policy, though it manages to be both more specific and more vague.Both policies ban you from threatening or glorifying violence in most scenarios (each version has carve-outs for “hyperbolic” speech between friends). However, the new set of rules appears to expand on some concepts while cutting down on some others. For example, the old policy stated:

Image: Bluesky Bluesky, the decentralized project that originated within Twitter, has arrived on the Apple App Store as an invite-only social network, as first reported by TechCrunch. The listing also gives us one of our very first glimpses at the app, which closely resembles Twitter down to the timeline and profile pages.The project’s backed by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, and has been working on an app powered by its open-source social protocol for months now, called the Authenticated Transfer Protocol, or “AT Protocol” for short. Bluesky describes it as a “federated social network” where separate networks exist within a single hub.According to Bluesky, AT Protocol is built based on four main ideals: account portability;... Continue reading…

This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.I hope you all had a great week! Hot Pod Summit was a lot of fun — it was great to meet so many of you in person and chat about some of the biggest issues in the industry.We’ll have more on that below, but first, some acknowledgments. Big thanks to our partners at work x work and the whole On Air Fest team for bringing the event together as well as to the Wythe Hotel for hosting us. Also, I absolutely would not have made it through this without the help of my Verge colleagues Kara Verlaney, Esther Cohen, T.C. Sottek, Helen Havlak, and, of course, Jake Kastrenakes. Plus, we were so lucky that the Decoder team was down to put on their... Continue reading…

Views of the sunset and stormy skies on September 9th, 2021 in La Paz, Mexico. | Photo: Alfredo Martinez/Getty Images Buyer beware: there’s a dubious new kind of climate credit for sale.Traditional carbon offset credits, say, for planting trees or protecting forests, have a record of failing to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now, a startup is selling credits for its attempts to manipulate the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight, a controversial response to climate change called solar geoengineering.A group of prominent scientists published a letter yesterday that warns that this kind of climate intervention is nowhere near ready to be commercially deployed and probably never should be. A big name on the letter is James Hansen, a former NASA scientist who’s now at Columbia University and is famous for sounding the alarm on climate change... Continue reading…

Fibbage 4 has you try to tell a convincing lie to your friends... en Español. | Image: Jackbox Games Jackbox Games has released a free update that localizes the games in its Party Pack 9 bundle. That means that party games like Fibbage 4, Roomerang, and Quixort are now available in French, Italian, German, Latin American Spanish, and Castilian Spanish.The translations cover pretty much every aspect of the games, from the intro videos and songs playing in the credits to the actual content of the games themselves. In a post on Monday, the company writes that it chose which translations to focus on based on “existing demand.”It’s not the company’s first run at localizing the content of its party games. In 2020 and 2021, it released versions of Quiplash 2 and Drawful 2 with extra languages, and the 2022 Jackbox Party Starter includes... Continue reading…

A Ford F-150 Lightning caught fire in a holding lot near the automaker’s Michigan factory. | Photo: DR/SP/Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The Ford F-150 Lightning fire that broke out at a Michigan factory in early February wasn’t caused by a battery defect, according to a report from Bloomberg. In a statement to the outlet, Ford’s South Korean battery supplier SK On calls the incident a “rare” occurrence and says it’s working on a fix.Ford abruptly halted production of its flagship electric pickup on February 4th after one of the trucks caught fire in a holding lot affiliated with its Dearborn, Michigan, factory and spread to two other vehicles. Both Ford and SK have been investigating the issue for weeks and still haven’t resumed F-150 Lightning production. SK has once again started to build batteries in its Georgia factory, however.“We believe this was a rare... Continue reading…

Image: Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge Lidar maker Luminar held an investor day event in Orlando, Florida, during which it unveiled a new version of its Iris sensor that will be included in production vehicles from Mercedes-Benz. The company also announced a series of ambitious expansion plans, including a new factory in Mexico, a semiconductor subsidiary, and the acquisition of a data hardware startup’s lidar division.Lidar, a key ingredient in autonomous driving, is a laser sensor that uses near-infrared light to detect the shapes of objects. This helps autonomous vehicles “see” other objects on the road, like cars, pedestrians, and cyclists, all without the help of GPS or a network connection.Luminar revealed its Iris Plus lidar, which it said will further “the mission... Continue reading…

It is 28 degrees Fahrenheit on top of this mountain, before you factor in the wind that’s blowing snow sideways into my face. I’m sitting on a rock with my soda can-sized backpacking stove the size of a soda can trying to make lunch and regretting my decision to go hiking in the middle of February. I press a small button on a pen-size rod that I’m holding over the burner, bringing a spark to life for just an instant. The familiar whoosh of gas igniting means I can start heating up ramen — lucky me.But wait, how did pressing that button cause a spark? My lighter doesn’t have a flint and steel or any batteries. It’s not even solar powered (not that I remember what sunlight looks like; it’s winter in Washington). So how can it start a... Continue reading…

Population: One, Meta’s VR battle royale shooter it acquired in 2021, is becoming a free-to-play game, developers BigBox VR announced on Tuesday. The title currently starts at $30 on the Quest Store, but you’ll be able to play it for free starting March 9th.Population: One first launched in October 2020, and it’s proven to be a popular title, with a more than four-star average score from an excess of 11,000 ratings on the Quest Store. (It’s also available on Steam, where it has more than 2,000 reviews.) But in going free-to-play, Meta seems to be making a push for the game to attract a much wider audience than it already has. It worked for PUBG: Battlegrounds, after all.And if Population: One really blows up after moving to... Continue reading…

Screenshot by Jay Peters / Jay Peters More than six and a half years after No Man’s Sky was first released, I took my first trip into the game last week, wearing the brand-new PlayStation VR2 headset. It’s probably not the only way I’d choose to play the game, but about three hours in, it’s a mind-bending and overwhelming experience.No Man’s Sky got optional full virtual reality support back in 2019, letting players navigate its huge procedurally generated universe in PC VR and the original PlayStation VR. But the VR mode got an overhaul last week with the new Fractal update and the launch of the PSVR 2, where it’s one of Sony’s big-name launch titles alongside games like Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village. No Man’s Sky adds support for things like the new Sense... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Dish has told employees that it’s “investigating a cybersecurity incident” and that it’s “aware that certain data was extracted” from its IT systems as a result of this incident, according to an internal email sent by CEO Erik Carlson and obtained by The Verge. This comes on the fifth day of an internal outage that’s taken down some of the company’s internal networks, customer support systems, and websites such as boostinfinite.com and dish.com.The email doesn’t contain any details about whether the data was Dish internal information or customer data, though it does say that “it’s possible the investigation will reveal that the extracted data includes personal information.” The extent of the leak may not be fully known yet, as the... Continue reading…

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US Marshals Service has fallen victim to a ransomware attack, according to reports from NBC News, The New York Times, and Reuters. On February 17th, hackers gained access to and stole sensitive information related to the agency’s employees and the subjects that it’s investigating.In a statement to NBC News, Drew Wade, the Marshals Service public affairs chief, called the ransomware attack a “major incident,” while adding that the affected system “contains law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal process, administrative information, and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of USMS investigations, third parties, and certain USMS employees.”According to NBC News, the attack didn’t... Continue reading…

When tested on a MacBook Pro 13 (M2, 2022) the new Chrome optimizations provided 17 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video playback on YouTube. | Image: The Verge Google has announced several changes to its Chrome web browser that can boost the battery life on MacBooks, extending how much usage users can get out of a single charge. By optimizing systems like memory compression and JavaScript timers, MacBook users can now browse the web via Chrome and watch YouTube videos for longer, with tests conducted on a MacBook Pro 13 (M2, 2022) achieving 17 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video playback on YouTube.Google didn’t provide figures for the device’s battery life prior to this update, so we can’t make a direct before and after comparison, but The Verge managed to drain the battery of the same MacBook in 16 hours and 30 minutes running a variety of everyday tasks. Google’s performance tests... Continue reading…

Image: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Waymo announced recently that its fully driverless vehicles in California and Arizona have traveled 1 million miles as of January 2023. To recognize this milestone, the Alphabet-owned company pulled back the curtain on some interesting statistics, including the number of crashes and vehicle collisions that involved its robot cars.Waymo operates a fleet of driverless cars in Phoenix, San Francisco, and the Bay Area. Some of those trips include paying customers. The company also recently started testing its driverless vehicles in Los Angeles.Over that 1 million miles, Waymo’s vehicles were involved in only two crashes that met the criteria for inclusion in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s database for car crashes,... Continue reading…

Lee Jung-jae in Hunt. | Image: Magnolia Home Entertainment Lee Jung-jae has had plenty of success in front of the camera, first spending years as a star in Korea and then capturing the attention of the rest of the world with his leading role in Squid Game. Soon, he will even be in a Star Wars project. Now, he’s trying his hand at directing as well. The spy thriller Hunt marks Lee’s directorial debut — and he also stars in the film and co-wrote the screenplay.Hunt made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year; I caught it at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the bombastic action and plentiful twists made it one of my favorite films of the festival. Set in 1980s Korea, the movie uses real-world events — like political protests and even an assassination attempt — as a backdrop... Continue reading…

The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s release date is April 5th. | Image: Illumination / Universal Pictures While The Super Mario Bros. Movie is still slated to debut at the beginning of April, it’s hitting theaters a bit sooner than we initially thought.Today, Universal announced, by way of The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s Twitter page, that the feature’s release date in the US (and 60 other markets including China, France, the UK, Italy, Germany, and Mexico) has been moved to Wednesday, April 5th, from Friday, April 7th.

The Realme GT3. | Image: Realme The Realme GT3, the latest smartphone to make me ask myself whether phones can ever charge too quickly, is being officially announced today at MWC Barcelona. It supports 240W SuperVOOC charging, which Realme says is capable of completely filling its 4,600mAh battery in just nine and a half minutes.The Realme GT3 will be available in select markets starting at $649 for a version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It’ll be available to buy internationally in May and June this year, Realme vice president of global marketing Chase Xu confirmed in a Q&A session after the event.Well, I say “announced,” but in truth, the phone has been available in China for a couple of weeks now as the Realme GT Neo 5. Realme is a smartphone manufacturer... Continue reading…

Image: Redmi Redmi’s fast-charging technology just got even more ridiculous. In this post on Weibo, the Xiaomi-owned phone maker shows off its new 300W fast-charging technology that can power up a phone in just five minutes flat, as spotted earlier by Android Authority.If you don’t believe it, you can see it here for yourself. Redmi hooks up a modified version of its Note 12 Discovery Edition, which comes equipped with a 4,100mAh battery instead of a 4,300mAh one, to its superfast charger.The dual GaN device manages to charge half of the phone’s battery in just a little over two minutes, and by the time the five minutes are up, it reaches 100 percent. That’s barely enough time to finish eating your breakfast cereal or even unload your... Continue reading…

The attacker stole credentials from a senior DevOps engineer to gain access to shared cloud storage containing the encryption keys for customer vault backups. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala LastPass says that a threat actor was able to steal corporate and customer data by hacking an employee’s personal computer and installing keylogger malware, which let them gain access to the company’s cloud storage. The update provides more information about how the series of hacks happened last year that resulted in the popular password manager’s source code and customer vault data being stolen by an unauthorized third party.Last August, LastPass notified its users of a “security incident” in which an unauthorized third party used a compromised developer account to access the password manager’s source code and “some proprietary LastPass technical information.” The company later disclosed a second security breach in November, announcing... Continue reading…

The Google Pixel 6A remains our favorite phone under $500. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Want an excellent phone but don’t want to fork out close to $1,000 on the latest and greatest flagships? Depending on your needs, the Google Pixel 6A could be a good alternative. Right now, the unlocked phone is on sale at Amazon in the white colorway with 128GB of storage for $299 ($150 off), matching its lowest price to date.The 6A, our favorite Android phone for under $500, shares a few features typically reserved for flagship devices, including a 6.1-inch 1080p screen, a good camera array, and stellar performance that’s on par with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. Plus, you can rest easy knowing the phone’s due to receive five years of security updates, making it a good investment you can use for many years to come. You won’t get wireless... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix ‘One game that is close to how the whole game cycle works is the most recent God of War.’ Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is releasing a big update to Windows 11 today that adds the company’s new AI-powered Bing search to the taskbar. The new Windows 11 update will offer quick access to the new Bing chat feature alongside a bunch of new features. Windows 11 is also getting improvements to widgets, a better touch mode, a screen recording feature, tabs inside Notepad, and more.The new Bing integration is a surprise addition that Microsoft hasn’t been testing with its Windows Insiders. A new Bing icon will appear within the search box in the taskbar, with Microsoft highlighting the new chat answers experience in the search flyout. While chat answers won’t be available directly within the search flyout, Windows 11 users will be able to quickly start... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge The EU has updated its antitrust case against Apple and the control it wields over music streaming services on iOS with potentially good news for complainant Spotify.The European Commission, the EU body investigating the charges, says Apple breached antitrust laws by stopping rival music firms like Spotify from advertising where and how users could subscribe to their apps. This update to the case does not constitute a final ruling, and it’s now up to Apple to marshal a defense and prove the charges wrong.Spotify first made a complaint against Apple in 2019, with the European Commission opening an investigation in 2020. The Commission issued an initial “statement of objections” against Apple in 2021, laying out the possible breaches of... Continue reading…

The announcement image for Shadow of the Erdtree is enough to fuel weeks of speculation. | Image: FromSoftware One of 2022’s biggest games, Elden Ring, is getting what looks to be its first major expansion: DLC content titled Shadow of the Erdtree.Developer FromSoftware announced in a tweet this morning that the DLC was officially under development, though the company did not share when we might expect a release.A short blog post confirmed the DLC will be coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam. It also said a “follow-up report is still a little ahead” (translation from Japanese via Google) so we can hopefully expect more details sooner rather than later.Elden Ring DLC is hotly-anticipated content for a number of reasons. Elden Ring has been a massive success, selling more than 20 million units worldwide, and FromSoftware... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has announced that Gmail’s client-side encryption mode is now generally available for businesses and educational organizations, after it launched in beta last year. The feature makes it so even Google itself can’t see the contents of the emails it’s hosting, with data being “encrypted before it reaches Google servers.” The company says this can be helpful for companies that have to meet strict compliance or privacy standards.In a blog post on Tuesday, Google writes that client-side encryption for Gmail gives customers “sole control over their encryption keys — and thus complete control over all access to their data.” Users can encrypt emails they’re sending within their organization, as well as emails they’re sending to other... Continue reading…

Image: Aventon Aventon announced a new electric cargo bike, the Abound, which the California-based company describes as “an efficient alternative to driving a car around town.” With a 750-watt motor, a variety of accessories, and a total weight rating of 440 lbs, the Abound is designed to be a versatile, safe, and affordable mobility option for anyone looking to do less driving in their life.Aventon is mostly known for its fat-tired, adventure-themed road bikes, so a cargo bike was never a guaranteed addition to the company’s lineup. That said, Aventon brought a lot of the same attention to detail to the Abound as it did with previous models, which should help give the bike a bit of a leg-up compared to other low-cost models.Aventon says the suggest... Continue reading…

Image: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has announced a new platform designed to help remove sexually explicit images of minors from the internet. Meta revealed in a blog post that it had provided initial funding to create the NCMEC’s free-to-use “Take It Down” tool, which allows users to anonymously report and remove “nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos” of underage individuals found on participating platforms and block the offending content from being shared again.Facebook and Instagram have signed on to integrate the platform, as have OnlyFans, Pornhub, and Yubo. Take It Down is designed for minors to self-report images and videos of themselves; however, adults who appeared in such... Continue reading…

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge We’ve talked before about the problems in the early days of PayPal, which was then called X. Elon Musk, in his infinite wisdom, decided customer acquisition was the most important thing, and as a result, PayPal had to deal with rampant fraud. Don’t just take my word for it — here’s Peter Thiel, describing those days:

The great PlayStation 5 shortage is over — well, at least according to Sony. Thanks to the increased availability of Sony’s next-gen console, there are now multiple options for bringing home a PS5, none of which are an uphill battle. While availability is occasionally limited to bundles that come packaged with a game, specifically God of War Ragnarök, it’s nowhere near as difficult to find a standalone console as it once was. We’re keeping an eye out for where you can buy either the PS5 (with a disc drive) or the PS5 Digital Edition as well as any bundles.Obviously, there’s no guarantee that inventory will remain available for long, but we’ll do our best to keep this article updated with the latest in-stock alerts and tell you where to... Continue reading…

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review Netflix is doling out some extra entertainment before and after Chris Rock’s live comedy special on Saturday, March 4th. The company announced star-studded pre- and post-shows featuring guests like Leslie Jones, Amy Schumer, Cedric the Entertainer, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Hart, Matthew McConaughey, Paul McCartney, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, Ice-T, and more.The standup special, titled Selective Outrage, marks the first livestreamed event for the streamer. While Netflix previously hosted the live in-person comedy event Netflix is a Joke: The Festival in spring 2022, this will be the first it streams live to subscribers.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is adding the ability to search for comments within a specific post right from the search bar. The new feature seems pretty handy, as it should make it much easier to find certain comments on a post without having to scroll forever or use CTRL / CMD + F.Here’s a GIF from Reddit showing how it works: GIF: Reddit Handy! I can think of a lot of times this could be quite useful. It could be a great way to find a discussion of a specific character from a TV show or movie, for example, or perhaps to pull up a fitness routine buried in another post. And those are just ways I’d use it; I’m sure the vast number of Reddit users out there will be more creative.Reddit says the feature is available now on desktop,... Continue reading…

Gusts from Hurricane Ian hit Punta Gorda, Florida, on September 28th, 2022. | Photo: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images In the next 30 years, 13.4 million more properties in the contiguous US will likely face destructive winds from tropical cyclones, according to a new report. It’s not a risk these properties typically faced in the past, but that’s changing as hurricanes get stronger and weirder with climate change.The shift could cost property owners billions of dollars in damages. This year, the US could see $18.5 billion in losses from hurricane winds, the report finds. In 30 years, average annual losses rise to roughly $20 billion.“This next generation of hurricane strength will bring unavoidable financial impacts and devastation that have not yet been priced into the market,” Matthew Eby, CEO of First Street Foundation, the nonprofit research... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Apple is reportedly once again working on a next-generation iPhone SE, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, despite his previous reports that it had canceled work on the phone. In a Twitter thread, Kuo says the company has “restarted” the project and that the iPhone SE 4 will feature an OLED display — a first for the company’s budget line — as well as a 5G modem designed by Apple instead of longtime supplier Qualcomm.He predicts that the phone will more or less be “a minor modification of the 6.1-inch iPhone 14” and that it’ll go into production at the beginning of 2024, presumably coinciding with a release later that year. It’s unclear if the phone will have some of the iPhone 14’s premium features like Emergency SOS via satellite, Face... Continue reading…

Lorenzo Insigne during his brief appearance this weekend. | Photo: Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images On the field, things didn’t get off to the best start for the opening weekend of Major League Soccer, which kicked off a new 10-year-long streaming deal with Apple. The weekend’s marquee match between crosstown rivals Los Angeles FC and the Los Angeles Galaxy was postponed due to “inclement weather,” and later on, Italian superstar Lorenzo Insigne (the league’s most expensive player) was forced off early with an injury. The opening matches were thusly a little less star-studded — but the product off the field was surprisingly solid, even if it points to a very expensive future for sports fans.This isn’t the first time someone has streamed professional sports, of course, but the MLS deal represents the biggest effort to date. While some... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is putting a hold on new installations of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software in the US and Canada until a firmware update can be issued to address a safety recall, according to a new company support page. The automaker issued the recall this month at the request of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which determined that the advanced driver-assistance feature could pose a “crash risk.”Tesla vehicle owners who may have just purchased the $15,000 FSD add-on — or previously bought it but have yet to opt in to it — won’t be able to get access to it until after the automaker issues an over-the-air (OTA) software update. Tesla has not provided a timeline for the rollout of the update but says no immediate... Continue reading…

The iPad Air has the most color variety among the current lineup. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s sweet spot of an iPad is back down to its lowest price. The 2022 iPad Air is on sale for $499.99 at Best Buy and Amazon in its base 64GB Wi-Fi configuration, about $100 off its regular $599 price. That same $100 discount can be had on the 256GB version, costing $649.99 at Amazon or Best Buy instead of its usual $749.The excellent midrange Air comes in five different colors, each of which is on sale at this great price. In addition to being one of the most colorful iPads, the fifth-generation iPad Air offers great value for performance. It packs an M1 processor that’s more than capable for the most labor-intensive iPad uses, all-day battery life, and a handy USB-C port as well as second-gen Apple Pencil compatibility.At this... Continue reading…