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Protest erupted in Zhengzhou on Tuesday when Foxconn workers were told that promised bonus payments would be delayed. | Image: @StephenMcDonell Foxconn has offered workers a 10,000 yuan ($1,400) settlement in an attempt to end protests at the facility, encouraging newly recruited staff to quit and subsequently leave its iPhone assembly factory in Zhengzhou, central China. CNN reports that the payout, equivalent to one or two months of wages, comes after violent protests erupted Tuesday over withheld pay and working conditions suffered during a strict covid lockdown.The Apple manufacturing partner reportedly made the offer Wednesday via a text message sent from its human resources department, requesting that workers “please return to your dormitories,” alongside a vow to honor pay agreements. The company offered 8,000 yuan (around $1,120) to workers who agreed to quit their... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” Beta, which has been gradually rolling out over the past couple of years, is now available to anyone who’s paid for the feature in North America, CEO Elon Musk has announced. “Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen,” Musk tweeted, “assuming you have bought this option.”The rollout of the beta software kicked off in 2020 with a small number of customers and has since gradually expanded to be available to around 160,000 drivers as of October this year. Getting access to the beta has typically required that drivers hit a minimum safety threshold with Tesla’s built-in Safety Score feature as well as logging 100 miles using the company’s... Continue reading…

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge You’re not just looking for a workhorse. You want a laptop that’s got game. Maybe that means frame rates, maybe even a high-refresh-rate screen for enhanced responsiveness in less demanding games. But above all, you want bang for the buck. That’s why you’re buying right now, during Black Friday week, when some of the best deals (and a bunch of predatory fake ones) show up.These are the deals that caught my eye — the ones I might consider myself or recommend to a friend, depending on their needs and budget. Let’s start with the least expensive and go from there!The best Black Friday gaming laptop deals

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’ve been running into abrupt “can’t play title” errors when trying to stream HBO Max content on your Apple TV 4K, you're not alone. I ran into the issue last week, and found that others are also dealing with it.The issue seems to specifically occur on Apple TV 4K devices (all generations) running tvOS 16.1, and is happening on the latest HBO Max app version 52.50.1 (released Nov 16, 2022). For some, the issue is intermittent, and can be dodged through simple troubleshooting steps like force quitting the app, logging out of the app, reinstalling it, or restarting the Apple TV.HBO’s SVP of Communications Chris Willard tells The Verge they’re “aware and working on a fix.” The company’s specialized support team followed up with my... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a potential legal challenge to Microsoft’s plan to buy Activision for $68.7 billion, and it could file the lawsuit by next month, according to Politico. The outlet’s sources say both CEOs — Satya Nadella and Bobby Kotick — have already been deposed, and yet the FTC remains skeptical.The report notes that there are still a few steps to go before the regulator is ready to act, including a vote from its commissioners. If it does end up happening, it’d mean the deal would face antitrust challenges in the US, UK and the EU. This is despite Microsoft’s repeated attempts to assure regulators that its purchase of Activision — the company in charge of Candy Crush, Call of Duty, and all of Blizzard —... Continue reading…

And just like that, Messages are now way more fun. Google has started letting some users of its Messages app react to text messages with any emoji, instead of limiting them to the standard set of seven that have been available in the app for a while now (via 9to5Google). The feature’s similar to what other messaging platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, and paid versions of Telegram have — pressing and holding on a message gives you the standard emoji reactions, but you can then access the picker to react with whatever you want.The expanded emoji reactions appear to be a limited test at this point — 9to5Google says it’s heard two reports of it being rolled out, and while one person on The Verge’s staff has access to it, two other people who checked do not. Google didn’t immediately respond to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If you’ve been dreaming of the day you can make Alexa sound like your very own British butler, well then, you’re in luck: Amazon is now making Alexa’s English vocals region-free.“We’ve added more voice options for English-speaking customers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia by giving them the ability to select from Alexa’s American, Australian, British, Canadian, or Indian voice options,” PR representative for Amazon Kaley Heuschkel tells The Verge in an email.Previously, if you attempted to switch up Alexa’s voice, Amazon would force you to make a region change as well, which would disrupt products and services that are only available in the country you live in. In comparison, Apple already lets US customers switch Siri’s accent to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Two Estonians have been arrested and are facing extradition to the US after being accused of defrauding thousands of people out of around $575 million with a crypto Ponzi scheme, according to the US Department of Justice. Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, along with four unnamed co-conspirators, were allegedly behind a scam crypto mining company called HashFlare and a fake crypto bank project called Polybius.The scheme began in 2013 when Potapenko, Turõgin, and the others started a company called HashCoins, according to an indictment, which you can read in full below. HashCoins said it built cryptocurrency mining equipment, though the DOJ says it actually only “sometimes” resold equipment and components that it bought off the shelf. By... Continue reading…

Black Friday has plenty of worthy deals that don’t cost a grip. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge With all the deals, discounts, and promotions running around, it can be awfully tempting to spend a mint over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But for those trying to stay thrifty and keep their spending in check, we’ve gathered some of the Best Black Friday deals you can currently find for less than $50. There are plenty of worthwhile deals on wireless earbuds, smart home devices, and Bluetooth speakers that fall below the $50 mark, many of which we’d normally recommend picking up at full price.If you’re planning to do some spending on bigger ticket items, we’ve also rounded up all the noteworthy discounts that are currently live at retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, as well as the best early Black Friday deals overall.... Continue reading…

Governor Kathy Hochul greets the crowd at Election Night Watch Party at Capitale in New York City on November 9th, 2022. | Photo by Lev Radin / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Efforts to crack down on crypto’s pollution notched a big win yesterday when New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law that presses pause on a particularly dirty form of crypto mining. The law imposes a two-year moratorium on any new permits for certain fossil fuel power plants seeking to mine crypto.In one high-profile case, a struggling gas plant in New York’s Finger Lakes region overcame economic headwinds by mining Bitcoin. Environmental advocates hoped the moratorium would prevent any other gas or coal plants, which might have otherwise shuttered, from turning into crypto mines.The moratorium is limited to crypto mining that uses the enormously energy-hungry process for validating transactions that Bitcoin employs,... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge There aren’t a ton of differences between the third-generation Apple TV 4K and last year’s model. The new one’s faster (but good luck telling the difference), supports HDR10 Plus, and has a smaller, lighter design. But unless you’ve got a recent Samsung TV, those aren’t good enough reasons to skip this great deal at Amazon that’s coming ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022.The company has slashed $100 off the price of both the 32GB and 64GB 2021 Apple TV 4K units. That brings them down to just $79.99 and $99.99, respectively. At that point, you’re barely paying more than the cost of the redesigned Siri Remote, which sells for $59.99. And even if you opt for 32GB — I’ve never managed to exceed any Apple TV’s storage — you’re... Continue reading…

The Elephant Card supports your iPhone for use as a full-featured Mac webcam. It costs less than $10 and folds up flat to easily fit into a pocket or wallet. Continue reading…

Aqara Cube T1 Pro | Image: Aqara The smart home still needs buttons. Or — in the case of the new $22.99 Aqara Cube T1 Pro — gestures. Voice control and sensors, while useful, aren’t always the best way to turn the lights on, open the shades, or kick off routines or scenes. Sometimes you just want a tactile remote control to do the job for you. The Cube T1 Pro is an updated version of Aqara’s wireless Cube controller that fills this niche with a host of new gestures for controlling smart home devices, while adding support for Apple Home and Amazon Alexa.The Cube T1 Pro lets you push, flip, twist, shake, or tap the cube to activate your gadget or scenes. It shows up as six wireless buttons in HomeKit and six motion sensors in Alexa. From here, you can tie each side to a... Continue reading…

Videos shared on social media appear to show workers being kicked by hazmat-suited officials during Foxconn protests in Zhengzhou, central China. | Image: @StephenMcDonell Protests have broken out at Foxconn’s vast iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, central China, as footage circulating on social media shows workers clashing with baton-wielding riot police and hazmat-suited officials. The protests started after workers, who have been under strict covid lockdown for weeks, learned bonus payments would be delayed, reports The Wall Street Journal.Apple announced earlier this month that it expected lower shipments of premium iPhone 14 models due to disruptions created by the covid lockdowns at the same Foxconn facility. Zhengzhou, known locally as “iPhone city,” is home to an estimated 200,000 workers who are responsible for the vast majority of all iPhone production.

Did you ever buy Deus Ex Go, the excellent mobile puzzler from Square Enix Montreal that still ranks among the top 150 puzzle games on the App Store despite charging actual money to download? Then you’ll probably be frustrated to hear: Embracer Group, the massive conglomerate that’s gobbling up rights to franchises like Deus Ex and Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings and more, has decided you can’t play it anymore.Three weeks after shutting down the studio that produced it (which had incidentally just finished going through an expensive rebrand), Embracer has decided not only to remove their games from mobile app stores, it’s apparently taking the extra step of making them inaccessible even if you’ve already downloaded them — or in... Continue reading…

Amazon’s Echo Show 15 is $169.99 at various retailers, which is an $80 discount. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Don’t worry if you missed out on the steep Amazon device discounts we saw during July’s Amazon Prime Day and October’s Prime Early Access Sale: Black Friday is here, and the deals, in some cases, are even better. With the holiday season just around the corner, the timing’s perfect, too, as even popular presents like the Kindle Paperwhite are on sale at new all-time low prices. Even better, we’re seeing some of the first significant discounts on Amazon’s recently launched tech, like the fifth-gen Echo Dot, which just came out last month and is already half off.For your convenience, we’ve curated all the best deals you can currently get on Amazon devices in this post. If you want to save even more, though, be sure to check out our other... Continue reading…

The X stands for extreme, indeed. | Image: Vivo Vivo announced a trio of new flagship phones today, and sitting at the top is the X90 Pro Plus, complete with the brand-new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset announced just last week. The 8 Gen 2 is expected to appear in plenty of Android flagships over the next year, including Samsung’s S23 series, but the X90 Pro Plus has the honor of being the very first to market. It also includes some serious camera hardware, putting it up there with the most ambitious smartphone cameras to date. Unfortunately for us, it’s only launching in the Chinese market for now.Vivo doesn’t outright name the X90 Pro Plus’ chipset as the 8 Gen 2, likely because of its partnership with MediaTek, but looking at the specs, you can connect the dots. The other two models... Continue reading…

Walmart is selling the first-gen AirPods Pro for just $159, which is a $90 discount. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Just like Best Buy and Target, Walmart has already dropped many of its Black Friday deals ahead of the main event. The retailer began rolling out discounts online as part of its Deals for Days event earlier this month, and has continued adding to the pile on a weekly basis.Although it’s possible we’ll see prices drop even further when Black Friday officially lands later this week, we’re already seeing some steep discounts on a range of popular products, including the first-gen AirPods Pro. For your convenience, we’ve curated some of the best tech deals at Walmart for you to check out here. If you’re looking for even more deals, be sure to check out our roundup of the best early Black Friday deals available at all retailers. We’ve also... Continue reading…

Image: Second Dinner The developers behind Marvel Snap keep giving the people what they want. In a blog post, the developers announced that in the next patch, they’re adding a slew of new cards and a way for players to get the cards they’ve been pining for.Right now, the way you earn cards in Marvel Snap is by making your way up the collection rank ladder. Every so often, you’ll be rewarded with a new card from a specific pool at random. Random is all fun and good as it forces players to get creative in how they construct their decks so everyone isn’t running the same high-powered cards. But it still kinda sucks when you could craft the perfect deck to drive your enemies from you wailing and screaming if only you had that one card. (Wong, I need Wong!)C... Continue reading…

Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon, the only operational nuclear plant left in California. | Photo by George Rose / Getty Images The Department of Energy extended a $1.1 billion lifeline to California’s embattled Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Diablo Canyon has become a major flashpoint over what kinds of energy are considered “clean” and what risks policymakers are willing to take to reach their climate goals.The $1.1 billion in funding, announced yesterday, comes from a $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit program made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Congress passed last year. Diablo Canyon is the first power plant to be awarded credits from the program, which aims to extend the lives of reactors in danger of closing down.Diablo Canyon is the first power plant to be awardedThe two nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon were slated to be decommissioned... Continue reading…

NASA’s Orion capsule snaps a selfie, with the far side of the Moon in the background. | Image: NASA NASA’s Orion spacecraft has made it past the Moon as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, firing its engines to pass within 81 miles of the lunar surface, and is operating with high accuracy.The spacecraft performed an outbound powered flyby burn yesterday, Monday, November 21st, completing its closest flyby. The engines “all worked perfectly,” said Judd Frieling, a flight director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in a press conference. With three trajectory correction burns performed, the spacecraft has now fired all three of its thruster types: its large orbital maneuvering system engine, small reaction control system thrusters, and medium-sized auxiliary engines.Now Orion is traveling onward to its next target, a distant... Continue reading…

LG This is it, Black Friday week. We’re just days away from the start of the biggest shopping holiday of 2022, but in a way, it already started at Best Buy. It came out swinging in early October with several good deals. It’ll add more price cuts once actual Black Friday comes around on the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Barring some items selling out, many of the deals you’ll find below should last through Black Friday.A few important things to note from Best Buy’s frequently asked questions page: it isn’t offering rain checks on Black Friday deals that sell out, though its great price-matching policy won’t be in effect from now through Cyber Monday, which is November 28th. For items purchased between now and the end of the year, you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge While Apple’s still the “front-runner” when it comes to securing the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket, negotiations are taking unexpectedly long. That’s according to a report from The Athletic (via 9to5Mac), which indicates things have slowed down because Apple may be looking to score the rights to more than just the football games.The rights to NFL Sunday Ticket — which DirecTV has held for nearly three decades — expire after this football season. Amazon, YouTube, and Disney are also said to have placed bids to secure the rights to the out-of-market games package, which the NFL reportedly wants $3.5 billion for.But The Athletic reports that Apple expected it would gain the rights to aspects not specifically mentioned in its contract... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Cryptocurrency traders love Lamborghinis. Hang out in the parking lot of any Bitcoin conference or lurk around on Instagram, and you’ll see plenty of evidence of this. So with crypto prices plummeting and high-profile exchanges like FTX collapsing, it stands to reason that the used car lots would be overflowing with six-figure Italian supercars, right?It’s a nice theory, and while there is some evidence that the exotic car market is seeing a slight uptick in appraisals and used models for sale, it may be too early to conclusively connect it to the collapse in crypto.Yeah, I know. Buzzkill. But that said, there is certainly some interesting data out there, so let’s dive into it.

Image: Nintendo Listen up, birdies and bogeys. Today, Nintendo announced that golf is finally coming to Nintendo Switch Sports. The free update launches on November 28th and will include 21 holes from the Wii Sports games. The update also includes a survival golf game mode, which sounds so much more fun than actual golf.The Nintendo Switch Sports golf update is right on time as quirky golf games seem to be all the rage, with Cursed to Golf, Golf Story, and What the Golf exploding in popularity.Golf was not included in the base Nintendo Switch Sports game and was sorely missed by Wii Sports golf fans (including a couple of my colleagues at The Verge). Since its spring launch, Nintendo Switch Sports got a free update that improved soccer’s motion... Continue reading…

An early render of the Xenon controller in the original Xbox 360 white. It will also come in black, pink, and red. | Image: Hyperkin Hyperkin is introducing an officially licensed remake of Microsoft’s original Xbox 360 controller, which looks poised to bring the 2005 nostalgia trip to modern Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. The Xenon controller, named after the Xbox 360’s first internal development codename, brings back the 17-year-old design and modernizes things with Menu, View, and Share buttons, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack and detachable USB-C cable. In addition to the original white, it will come in black, pink, and red.Pricing and availability have not been announced yet, but if Hyperkin’s $70 Duke controller remake is any indication, this may be quite a faithful and somewhat pricey recreation. Perhaps even too faithful in some small aspects, as these... Continue reading…

Avatar: The Way of Water is out December 16th. | Screenshot: Avatar: The Way of Water There’s a new trailer out for Avatar: The Way of Water, the upcoming film from James Cameron that is also the sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time. It’s as visually spectacular as you’d expect while also diving a bit deeper into the family-first story at the heart of the film. Here it is — it’s fun!However you feel about Avatar as a story (if you even remember the story at all), there’s no denying the technical achievements Cameron and his crew pulled off to make these movies happen. And in an excellent new GQ profile, Cameron explains the AI, algorithms, entirely new cameras, and all sorts of other tech behind this one:

The latest Kindle Paperwhite starts at $94.99 instead of $139.99 at Amazon. | Image: Amazon Want to gift the bibliophile in your life something a little more creative than, well, a book? Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite makes for a great gift, one that may not stay in stock for long when Black Friday officially lands on Friday. Thankfully, the ad-supported version with 8GB of storage is available right now for $94.99 instead of $139.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, while the ad-free version is on sale at Amazon for just $10 more.Although we can’t be sure that Amazon’s terrific e-reader won’t drop further in price in the run-up to Black Friday or on the actual shopping holiday, the current sale price represents an all-time low on the 2021 Paperwhite. It's a terrific e-reader (even at full price), with months-long battery... Continue reading…

Wyze launches a new BR30 smart light bulb. | Image: Wyze Wyze’s new Wi-Fi BR30 color bulb fills a gap in the budget smart home company’s lighting lineup — recessed can lighting. BR30s generally fit into holes in your ceiling and, with their directional light, are great for larger rooms such as kitchens and living areas. The new bulbs cost $23.99 plus $5.99 shipping for a two-pack or as low as $12.50 per bulb in a four-pack (plus shipping), making the Wyze Bulb Color BR30 a well-priced, if not spectacular bargain.Comparatively, Philips Hue’s color BR30s go for $100 for two, but you can find good, budget Wi-Fi BR30 bulbs in two-packs from the likes of Wiz ($28) and Sengled ($35). Both of those have lower lumen outputs, though, making Wyze the brighter budget bulb.The Wyze bulbs work with... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games The third chapter of Fortnite is ending with a live event — and it kicks off very soon. Today, developer Epic Games provided some details on the event, which is called “Fracture” and starts at 4PM ET on December 3rd. As with past live events, you only have one chance to check it out. You’ll be able to log in 30 minutes before it kicks off, and Epic also says you should still be able to hop on while the event is in progress, which will apparently be until 4:40PM ET, and you can be solo or in a group with up to four friends.Of course, we don’t have many details about what the actual live experience will be like. The fun of these is experiencing them live in the moment. Epic does say that “Fracture” will be “an otherworldly and unexpected... Continue reading…