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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Voice control, larger text, and other assistive features Continue reading…

Screenshots can be useful for a variety of reasons. For example, you can send copies of error messages to support services, show a friend what your game screen looks like, or save a tweet that you suspect is going to be deleted in a few minutes. Today’s laptops all include ways to take screenshots, and that includes Chromebooks.Chromebooks can be a little confusing for someone coming from another platform, especially because their keyboards are somewhat different than those of Macs or Windows PCs. Some keys present on other laptops are missing while new ones have been added. Luckily, there are two ways to take screenshots on Chromebooks: either by using key combinations or by using the Quick Settings pop-up. And you can even take a... Continue reading…

The NYZX Wizard Wireless Joy-pad, with Hall effect sensors. | Image: NYZX How many joy-cons have you gone through? I think I have like three with some degree of drift, and I am not that hard on my Switch. That’s why I’m pumped that NYXI has jumped on the bandwagon along with Gulikit and 8BitDo, announcing a retro-styled Switch controller called the NYXI Wizard Wireless Joy-Pad that features drift-free Hall effect sensors.If you are like me, few things fill you with a berserker-level rage like a broken controller that you shelled out 70 bucks for a few months ago. It can feel like a cop-out to say that “they don’t make them like they used to,” but when it comes to controllers, this is absolutely the case. The quality of goods is getting worse, and this absolutely should not be an issue. I... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram users will soon have a revamped navigation bar on their home feed.Beginning next month, Instagram will remove the shopping tab from the main bar at the bottom of the screen, and the button to create a new post will move down. The Reels tab, which is currently front and center on the navigation bar, will take the place of the Shop tab. Image: Instagram The new nav bar will roll out in February globally. Instagram began testing a main feed without a shopping button back in September, saying it wanted to “simplify [the] Instagram experience” for users. But the test was part of a larger pivot on Instagram’s part, according to a report by The Information, as the company pulls back on its shopping... Continue reading…

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reached out to Tesla with questions about a tweet by Elon Musk suggesting he would remove an important safeguard from the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. The news was first reported by the Associated Press.An NHTSA spokesperson confirmed that the agency has reached out to Tesla to gather information about the Musk tweet, in which the controversial billionaire suggested he would eliminate a driver monitoring function that warns users to keep their hands on the steering wheel while using FSD.The information gathering by NHTSA is part of a broader investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot, which has been linked to over a dozen crashes involving stationary emergency vehicles.T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is taking another shot at bringing new features to phones that haven’t gotten OS updates in years. It’s releasing something called the “Extension Software Developer Kit,” which should let developers use features like Android 13’s new photo picker in apps running on some versions of Android 11 and 12. In a blog post announcing the change, the company says the feature lets it “extend the support of certain platform functionality to existing Android versions.”While more access to the photo picker previously exclusive to Android 13 is definitely nice, Google seems to have much bigger plans for the Extension SDK. “This update also sets the stage for expanding Privacy Sandbox testing on Android,” says Scott Westover, a Google... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Casterline / Getty Images The Houston Texans, the NFL team reppin’ the city that’s arguably the oil and gas capital of the world, says it wants to go green. So of course the team is working with an oil and gas giant to try to tackle climate change.A subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation called 1PointFive announced a new agreement and sponsorship with the Houston Texans on Friday. 1PointFive is Occidental’s huge new initiative to pull planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in an effort to limit climate change. It can then sell credits for each ton of CO2 it captures to other companies trying to offset their own climate pollution. Essentially, Occidental can now make money from both its oil and gas business — and from emissions generated by... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As Twitter slashes staff and pares back moderation under Elon Musk, it may soon run into a problem it can’t ignore: its potential liability for copyright infringement. TorrentFreak reported last week that the company faces a lawsuit by celebrity photo agency Backgrid. Backgrid says that Twitter systematically failed to take down unauthorized copies of its pictures, arguing it shouldn’t be protected by American safe harbor laws for copyright. The allegations leave plenty of questions unanswered, but claims like them could pose a problem for Musk’s increasingly bare-bones operation.Backgrid’s claims predate Musk’s ownership of Twitter, dating to at least September 2021. The complaint, filed in a California court in late December, alleges... Continue reading…

John Deere has stood at the center of the right to repair debate for years. | Image: Getty Images John Deere has finally committed to giving farmers the tools they need to fix their own equipment. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with the agricultural lobbying group, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), on Sunday, an agreement that’s also supposed to ensure that farmers can take their machines to third-party repair shops, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.For years, John Deere has been at the center of the right-to-repair debate, and not in a good way. The company put software locks on equipment that only authorized dealers can disable, preventing farmers or an independent repair shop from diagnosing and fixing a machine. It can also remotely shut down machines at any time (like it demonstrated when R... Continue reading…

Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge BMW issued a recall notice for over 14,000 electric vehicles for a software malfunction that could lead to a loss of power and an increased risk of a crash.The automaker said that the recall covers certain iX SUVs and i4 and i7 sedans produced between October 14th, 2021, and October 28th, 2022. The software issue relates to the high voltage battery electronic control unit. According to BMW:

The new Stem Projector. | Image: Kano Kano Computing’s Stem Player is one of the coolest gadgets I’ve ever used. It’s a strangely soft puck-shaped device that lets you manipulate parts of songs in real time just by swiping up and down. But because the Stem Player was linked heavily with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West who has taken an extremely antisemitic turn, I wasn’t much of a fan lately.Now, Kano is back with its next Stem device, and not only is it Ye-free, but it’s a different type of gadget entirely: a video projector called the Stem Projector. The company is also teasing some wild future concepts for Stem products, like Stem food — yes, food — but we’ll get to that later.Like the Stem Player, the projector is another small circular puck made of a... Continue reading…

The new Camera Module 3. | Image: Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi is launching a new camera module for use with its diminutive DIY computers — the Camera Module 3. Its upgraded Sony IMX708 sensor is higher resolution, but perhaps more important is that the new module supports high dynamic range photography and autofocus. Alongside it, Raspberry Pi is also releasing a new camera board for use with M12-mount lenses.Combined, the new features mean the Camera Module 3 should be able to take more detailed photographs (especially in low light), and can focus on objects as little as 5cm away. The autofocus uses a Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) system, with Contrast Detection Autofocus used as a backup. In contrast, previous versions of the camera module had fixed-focus lenses, which Raspberry... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has already started hiring to fill out its not-yet-announced stores in India, as first reported by The Financial Times. The company’s recent job listings show new openings for 12 retail roles at “various locations” throughout the country, including store leaders, senior managers, Genius Bar workers, and more.The job listings, which include both full-time and part-time positions, directly refer to the Apple Store, although there’s no indication of how many roles are available. According to The Financial Times, at least five employees located in Mumbai and New Dehli shared on LinkedIn that they have already been hired for the upcoming stores, while Apple’s head of recruiting in India, Renu Sevanthi, “celebrated” the news of their... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple’s getting ready to launch its long-rumored mixed reality headset this spring, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The company’s reportedly planning to reveal the device ahead of the Worldwide Developers Conference in June and will start shipping it this fall.The headset, which could cost as much as $3,000, is expected to provide both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences using Apple’s new xrOS operating system. Gurman says Apple has already shown off the Reality Pro-branded device to “a small number of high-profile” developers so they can start creating third-party apps for it.

Rounding up the best and boldest tech news to come out of Las Vegas in 2023. Continue reading…

Alfred’s new DB2S smart deadbolt will charge via Wi-Charge’s infrared power transmission, though the transmitter will be sold separately. | Image: Alfred The first wirelessly powered smart deadbolt is launching later this year — but you’ll have to wait for the wireless power. The Alfred DB2S is the first DIY-installable smart lock that can charge via infrared power transmission, and Alfred says it’ll be available for $299 at The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other retailers in early Q2.There’s a slight catch, though: that $299 doesn’t get you wireless charging, at least not yet. For that, you’ll need a Wi-Charge charging kit, which won’t be available through consumer channels until the second half of 2023 at the earliest. Pricing for the kit has not been set.When it is available, the charging kit will consist of a replacement backplate for the lock with a built-in Wi-Charge receiver, as... Continue reading…

I ran into a bit of a surprise when I tried to log into TweetDeck. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I ran into a bit of a surprise when I tried to log into TweetDeck today: it didn’t work.When I started typing the word “tweetdeck” into my URL bar, my browser suggested the rest of the URL, tweetdeck.com, like I’m used to. But after I hit the Enter key, my browser unexpectedly took a few seconds to attempt to load TweetDeck and then showed me this error message on a largely blank page:

Stadia’s shutdown is nearly here. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google Stadia, the company’s not-long-for-this-world cloud gaming service, will be shutting down for good on January 18th. (Specifically, January 18th at 11:59PM PT, Google spokesperson Patrick Seybold confirmed to The Verge.) While the shutdown means that you’re about to lose access to all of your titles and saves on Stadia, many publishers have shared ways to bring your purchases and progress to other platforms so you can keep playing your games.We’ve rounded up some of those options below; if you want to carry over what you can, you might want to start those processes soon. (If I forgot any, email me and I can add them.)

The company showed off its tech at CES 2020. | Image: The Verge One of the companies working on smart contact lenses is calling the project off. On Friday, Mojo Vision announced that it’s going to “pivot its business and focus its resources” on the MicroLED display tech it built during its work on the Mojo Lens (via Axios). Unfortunately, part of the pivot includes laying off around 75 percent of its workers as it restructures, according to a news post from the company’s CEO, Drew Perkins. The company had around 150 employees, according to data from PitchBook and LinkedIn.The post says the reason for the change is that Mojo hasn’t been able to keep raising money to work on its smart contact lens. “The slumping global economy, extremely tight capital markets, and the yet-to-be proven market potential... Continue reading…

From the front row to a no-show. | Image: The Verge When it wasn’t being overshadowed by covid resurgences, CES, for the past few years, has partially functioned as a big 5G pep rally. But as cars, smart home standards, and so many screens took center stage at this year’s show, 5G took a back seat.Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg gave a very similar keynote speech in 2019 and 2021, showing off all of the things 5G would supposedly enable: remote surgery, self-driving cars, augmented reality, and so on. T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert was slated to deliver the 2022 keynote before omicron put a stop to that. But in 2023, 5G was hardly a footnote on the speaker roster.Why? It’s not as if all of the things we were promised with 5G have come to pass. I don’t remember getting into a fully autonomous... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It seems like Samsung will be announcing its new Galaxy S23 lineup of phones on February 1st, according to screenshots of the company’s Colombian website posted by leaker Ice Universe on Twitter. The announcement is no longer live on the site (though Android Central points out that the Wayback Machine managed to archive it), but it was up long enough to give us an idea about when the next Unpacked event will be, and to show that Samsung is promising “epic moments.”The site didn’t specifically say that the S23 lineup would be announced at the event — it mentions registering to “meet the new Galaxy” — but that almost certain given that Samsung usually announces its flagship traditional phones around this time of year. The page also showed... Continue reading…

The LinkBuds S are some of the comfiest buds you can buy. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Happy first Saturday of 2023! What, that’s not a thing that people celebrate? Well, it is today because we’ve got some exceptional deals for you to check out. Teeing us off are the Sony LinkBuds S, which are on sale at Best Buy for $129.99 ($70 off) in their desert sand color. This colorway is a Best Buy exclusive, and the current sale drops the active noise-canceling (ANC) earbuds to their lowest price to date.The LinkBuds S are one of Sony’s more premium pairs of wireless earbuds. In addition to their ANC, they’re also special because of how lightweight and comfortable they are. Another bonus is that they support Sony’s LDAC codec for near-lossless audio. Their sound quality may not exactly match that of Sony’s pricier WF-1000XM4... Continue reading…

I can’t be the only one who appreciates how similar the logo is. | Image: Motorola I’m generally a Windows user, but one of the things that’s always sorely tempted me about the Apple ecosystem is the interconnectedness. Not only are macOS and iOS comfortably similar in form and function (and getting moreso every year), but there are so many easy ways to transfer content between a Mac and an iPhone. That’s why I enjoyed testing out Lenovo’s ThinkPhone by Motorola, which is supposed to be — and I never thought I’d be writing this phrase — the smartphone version of a ThinkPad.The ThinkPhone has a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, a 6.6-inch OLED screen, a 5,000mAh battery, a bunch of fancy enterprise security features (a phrase ThinkPad enthusiasts will certainly be familiar with) and two rear cameras including a... Continue reading…

Sim Wong Hoo, the Singaporean entrepreneur, who founded and ran Creative Technologies. | Image: Creative Creative Technologies founder, CEO and chairman Sim Wong Hoo has died, his company has confirmed. He “passed away peacefully on 4 January 2023,” according to a press release. He was 67 years old.It might seem hard for younger readers to believe, but there was a time that computer sound wasn’t guaranteed. If you wanted to plug in headphones or speakers that could do more than bloops or bleeps, you probably needed a sound card — and none were as successful as Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster. It sold over 400 million units as of its 30th anniversary in 2019.In the pre-Windows 95 / DirectX era, few words in PC gaming were as important as the phrase “Sound Blaster compatible,” allowing players to hear the dogs bark in Wolfenstein 3D, or mess... Continue reading…

It’s running the ad in partnership with the CWA. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has been going out of its way to encourage regulators to approve its proposed $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard, and in its latest move, the company is running an ad in The Washington Post spelling out the tech giant’s acceptance of unions. The ad is co-signed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents workers in industries like communications and media.“As we enter a new year, we remain committed to creating the best workplaces we can for people who make a living in the tech sector,” the beginning of the ad reads. “When both labor and management bring their voices to the bargaining table, employees, shareholders and customers alike benefit.”Microsoft also acknowledged the new ZeniMax Media... Continue reading…

Photo: Games Done Quick Mike Uyama, who launched the first GDQ in his mother’s basement in 2009, is stepping away due to health reasons. Continue reading…

People walk along an overpass above the Cross Bronx Expressway, a notorious stretch of highway in New York City that is often choked with traffic and contributes to pollution and poor air quality on November 16th, 2021, in New York City. | Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images For the first time in over a decade, the Environmental Protection Agency could toughen its standard for how much soot is allowed in the air we breathe. Today, it proposed lowering the regulatory threshold for fine particulate matter, commonly called soot. Still, some major health and environmental groups say the EPA’s plan is too lenient on the pervasive pollutant that disproportionately burdens communities of color.“Today’s proposal from EPA to update the national annual limits on particulate matter pollution misses the mark and is inadequate to protect public health from this deadly pollutant,” Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, said in a statement.“Today’s proposal from EPA to update the national... Continue reading…

Image: Razer Including massive 18-inch screens, two screens, and E Ink displays. Continue reading…

Poem’s end. | Image: Minecraft There is no question who wrote the poem at the end of Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. Julian Gough is the one who gave the game’s unseen gods their voice, beautifully telling the player how the universe loves them — and how the player is the universe, dreaming of itself.We know it is Julian because he put his name in the poem, and because game studio Mojang put his name in the credits, and because Mojang founder Markus “Notch” Persson personally and very publicly recruited him for the task. What we did not suspect — not till we read Gough’s new Twitter thread and an epic 10,000-word blog post that is well worth a full read — is that Microsoft may not actually own the rights to the game’s ending.

SE fans may have to go a long time between upgrades. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge We may not be getting a new iPhone SE in 2024, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who bases his predictions on sources in the supply chain. On Friday, Kuo wrote in a blog post that Apple had canceled production and shipment plans for the phone after his prediction last month that a fourth-gen iPhone SE could be canceled or delayed.Kuo thinks the reason the phone is getting axed could be that Apple’s lower-end phones were selling worse than the company hoped (in September, Bloomberg reported that there was more demand for iPhone 14 Pros than regular iPhone 14s) and due to concerns that another price increase for the lineup could make it less attractive to price-conscious buyers.

Satechi’s new charger powering up a phone, laptop, and iPad. | Image: Satechi At CES 2023, Satechi announced what it calls its most powerful charger yet: a new GaN charging hub capable of delivering 200 watts of power. Basically, it can charge a lot of stuff at once and do it at high speeds, too.The GaN charger comes with six USB-C PD ports, so you can charge up to six devices at the same time. Weighing a little over a pound and measuring about 4.1 x 4.1 x 1.4 inches, it’s also small enough that you could fit into your backpack and pull it out while on the go.Unlike its predecessor — a 165-watt charger launched last year at CES — this new model also comes with two USB-C PD 3.1-compatible ports, which are capable of delivering more power than their predecessor. That’s in addition to four USB-C PD 3.0 ports, as... Continue reading…