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by Jon Porter on (#663BJ)
Hotz demonstrating his former company’s advanced driver assistance technology. | Photo by Michael Zelenko / The Verge George Hotz, the noted iPhone hacker who was reported to have once turned down a job at Tesla working on its driver-assistance technology, has embarked upon a 12-week “internship” at Twitter under Elon Musk’s leadership. Hotz said his priority at the social media company is to fix its search feature, as well as to remove the prompt that prevents you from browsing the service on the web without logging in.The internship came about after Hotz expressed support for Musk’s “extremely hardcore” ultimatum to Twitter’s employees, which demanded that they work “long hours at high intensity” or else depart the company. Hotz said that “this is the attitude that builds incredible things” and that he’d be willing to do an internship at the company.... Continue reading…
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The Verge - All Posts
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
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| Updated | 2024-11-27 19:46 |
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by Alex Heath on (#663BK)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has been public about his desire to improve how the social network’s direct messages work. In a meeting with employees today, he spelled out exactly what that looks like.Framed by presentation slides titled “Twitter 2.0” at Twitter’s San Fransisco headquarters on Monday, Musk told employees that the company would encrypt DMs and work to add encrypted video and voice calling between accounts, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge.“We want to enable users to be able to communicate without being concerned about their privacy, [or] without being concerned about a data breach at Twitter causing all of their DMs to hit the web, or think that maybe someone at Twitter could be spying on... Continue reading…
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by Umar Shakir on (#663BM)
Domino’s outfitted Chevy Bolts. | Image: Domino’s Domino’s is gearing up to put more than 800 all-electric pizza delivery vehicles into service in the coming months, starting with over 100 of them rolling out in November. The company went with the compact Chevy Bolt EV and is wrapping the vehicles with custom branding but no other bells and whistles — just combustion-free deliveries (via electrek).Domino will have a fleet of 855 new electric vehicles, to be exact, and while that’s not quite enough to reach all 6,135 of the pizza shops in the US, it's more than the Chevy Spark-based (gas version) ones it built with custom pizza warming oven doors in 2015. Those were called the Domino’s DXP, and only 155 of them were made. For the new Bolts, drivers will need to toss the HeatWave bags in... Continue reading…
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by Alex Heath on (#663BN)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Elon Musk told Twitter employees on Monday that the company won’t relaunch its paid verification subscription, Twitter Blue, until “we’re confident about significant impersonations not happening,” according to a recording of his remarks obtained by The Verge.Musk said last week that his $8 per month Blue subscription would be made available again on November 29th. But in the meeting with employees, he said the timing of the launch was unclear: “We might launch it next week. We might not. But we’re not going to launch until there’s high confidence in protecting against those significant impersonations.”After taking over Twitter, Musk’s first big change was to quickly introduce the ability for users to buy a blue checkmark through... Continue reading…
by Mitchell Clark on (#66314)
Image: Apple The detailed analytics data Apple records about what you do in the App Store can be tied directly to your Apple account, according to app development and research team Mysk. In a Twitter thread, Mysk shows that Apple sends what’s known as a “Directory Services Identifier” along with its App Store analytics info and argues that the identifier is also tied to your iCloud account, linking your name, email address, and more.The thread also notes that the data is still sent even if you turn off device analytics in settings, and that Apple sends your DSID in other apps as well. In the last tweet in the thread, Mysk says: “You just need to know three things: 1- The App Store sends detailed analytics about you to Apple. 2- There’s no way to... Continue reading…
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by Richard Lawler on (#661YJ)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a sudden turn of events, Disney has reversed the CEO swap that surprised us in early 2020, with Bob Iger returning to his post, replacing his own successor, Bob Chapek. Iger, who is also the company’s largest shareholder, is now set to serve a new two-year term as CEO. Part of Iger’s job in those two years will be to pick and groom his long-term successor.Of course, Chapek was an Iger choice too. Chapek had been called the “Tim Cook to Iger’s Steve Jobs,” but during his tenure, their handover got off to a rocky start, while blowups like the Scarlett Johansson Black Widow lawsuit and Disney’s initial lack of reaction to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida scuffed its all-important reputation.During an episode of the Decoder podcast... Continue reading…
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by Alice Newcome-Beill on (#662ZJ)
Amazon’s Black Friday discounts extend to more than just Amazon devices. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Black Friday is right around the corner, but Amazon is wasting no time by rolling out some excellent deals in the run-up to the main event on Friday. If you’re looking to knock out some of your holiday shopping early, we’ve rounded up a small collection of all the best discounts you can currently get on wireless headphones, 4K TVs, tablets, and more.If you’re looking for discounts at other retailers, we’ve also put together roundups of the best deals you can find ahead of Black Friday at Target, Best Buy, and Walmart. To stay up to speed with everything happening over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, make sure to bookmark our Black Friday hub and check back for regular updates.The best Amazon Black Friday deals on Echo... Continue reading…
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by Alex Heath on (#662ZK)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images After purging nearly two-thirds of Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce in three weeks, Elon Musk is hiring again.During an all-hands meeting with Twitter employees today, Musk said that the company is done with layoffs and actively recruiting for roles in engineering and sales and that employees are encouraged to make referrals, according to two people who attended and a partial recording obtained by The Verge. His comments were made the same day that an unspecified wave of cuts hit Twitter’s sales department, which has lost almost all of its senior leadership since Musk took over.Musk didn’t specify the kinds of engineering or sales roles Twitter was hiring for, and the company doesn’t currently have any open roles listed on its website.... Continue reading…
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by Sheena Vasani on (#65FGR)
You can save $300 right now on LG’s C2 OLED when you buy the 55-inch configuration. | Image: LG Want to get a head start on your holiday shopping before the Black Friday madness officially begins on Friday? Despite the fact the annual shopping holiday is still a few days away, many major retailers are already offering a number of early Black Friday sales, making the days leading up to the shopping event an ideal time to avoid the rush.While it’s possible prices will dip even lower once the big day arrives, the discounts we’re currently seeing are nothing to scoff at. Target, Best Buy, and Walmart are offering some seriously steep discounts on a number of popular tech and gadgets, ranging from Apple devices to TVs, tablets, smart displays, and more.To make your life a little easier, we’ve curated a list of some of the best... Continue reading…
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by Richard Lawler on (#66243)
Nick Barclay / The Verge Bob Iger’s back at Disney, and Ye, Trump, and others are back on Twitter. Continue reading…
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by Justine Calma on (#662ZM)
Activists demand “Loss and Damage” reparations at the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 12th, 2022. | Photo by Dominika Zarzycka / NurPhoto via Getty Images Trying to save the planet looks less like a Marvel movie and more like tense climate negotiations that just wrapped up in Egypt over the weekend.Tens of thousands of delegates and activists from around the world gathered for the United Nations climate summit called COP27. It’s become more urgent than ever to figure out how to live in a much more hazardous world. And the only way to stop things from getting worse is for every country to live up to pollution-cutting commitments they made in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement. But they’ll have to overcome their own drama and in-fighting to get there.They’ll have to overcome their own drama and in-fighting to get thereThere were a few major victories and some disappointing losses at the... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#662NR)
Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Elon Musk announced a new wave of layoffs affecting Twitter’s sales teams on Monday, according to a report from Bloomberg. Sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that Musk is cutting more workers to balance out each team, but it’s still not clear how many people lost their jobs.Musk began weighing additional layoffs last week and fired Robin Wheeler, the company’s head of ad sales, and Maggie McLean Suniewick, Twitter’s vice president of partnerships, after they didn’t agree to terminate more workers. Sarah Rosen, Twitter’s head of US content partnerships, also left the company last Friday. Platformer was the first to report this most recent round of layoffs.This comes after hundreds of workers resigned from Twitter last... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#662H9)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Facebook will enable more private settings by default for anyone under the age of 16 who signs up for the platform, the company announced on Monday. As for teens who already have accounts, Facebook will display a prompt encouraging them to use these settings, as well as a toggle that turns them on in a single tap.What Facebook’s billing as “more private” settings restricts details on an account so that only a teen’s friends can view the posts they’re tagged in, their friends list, and the pages, people, and lists they follow. They also require users to review the posts they’re tagged in and allow only friends to comment on their public posts. Image: Facebook Facebook will display a toggle that lets young users... Continue reading…
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by Cameron Faulkner on (#662HA)
It’s tough to tell the newer second-generation AirPods Pro from the previous model by looks alone. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In case you missed out on Woot’s recent $50 off deal on the second-generation AirPods Pro (it happened very early Saturday morning, inconveniently), Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart have your back. Each of those retailers is selling them for $199.99, matching that all-time low price. The cost for this newer model keeps falling week by week, and it’s possible that Black Friday’s arrival will sink the cost by a little more, but I wouldn’t expect it to dip much further.Compared to the first-gen AirPods Pro, this model has better sound quality and more effective active noise cancellation. Beyond those improvements, it’s possible to adjust the volume by touching the earbuds. The charging case included with this newer AirPods Pro model got a few... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#662EJ)
Image: Nintendo The next wave of downloadable tracks for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is almost here. Nintendo announced that Wave 3 of its “Booster Course Pass DLC” will be available on December 7th, bringing eight new tracks to the racer.The tracks are split into two cups, and each one is an updated version previously found in a past Mario Kart game. The Rock Cup includes Tour London Loop (Mario Kart Tour on mobile), Boo Lake (GBA), Rock Rock Mountain (3DS), and Maple Treeway (Wii). Meanwhile, the Moon Cup includes Tour Berlin Byways (Mario Kart Tour), Peach Gardens (DS), Merry Mountain (Mario Kart Tour), and the 3DS iteration of the iconic Rainbow Road.The update is part of a huge expansion for the game, which includes a total of 48 tracks that will be... Continue reading…
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by Roberto Baldwin on (#662EM)
Hyundai Home aims to be a one-stop shop for sustainable energy products. | Image: Hyundai A sustainable future requires a multipronged approach. It’s more than just replacing a gas car with one that runs on electrons or sitting back and hoping that your local utility moves as quickly as possible to renewables.For those with the means, solar panels paired with a home battery can add an additional layer of eco-consciousness and power stability to their lives. Yet navigating the myriad solar panel and home battery options is a daunting process fraught with confusion as more and more players enter the market and reviews of each system are nonexistent.Enter Hyundai Home, a marketplace launched last week during the Los Angeles Auto Show with the goal of alleviating the perplexity of picking solar panels, a home battery storage... Continue reading…
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by Alice Newcome-Beill on (#662EN)
The second-gen Sonos Beam and other Sonos speakers are on sale at Best Buy. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Best Buy is rolling out its Black Friday sales on Sonos soundbars in addition to its existing Black Friday sales. From now through November 28th, you can find a number of excellent Sonos speakers, all discounted to their lowest price ever. There are plenty of options when it comes to soundbars and speakers, but Sonos makes some of the best on the market, making this sale worth checking out if you’re looking for ways to upgrade your home audio.To stay in the loop regarding Black Friday sales at Best Buy and elsewhere, make sure to check out our Black Friday hub and retailer-specific roundups for a breakdown of all the best deals you can find at Walmart and Target on all of your favorite tech.Normally, the Sonos Arc soundbar is... Continue reading…
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#662A2)
Leap seconds depend entirely on how quickly the Earth spins, which can be a nightmare for managing technology hardware infrastructures. (Pictured: the World Time Clock in Berlin.) | Photo by INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images A global panel of scientists and government representatives have voted to scrap leap seconds by 2035. The ad hoc time adjustment is occasionally inserted to account for the gradual slowdown of the Earth’s rotation and has caused headaches for numerous tech companies over the years.The leap second was introduced in 1972 as a way to adjust Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) roughly every 21 months. As these seconds are irregular and hard to predict due to the varying speed of the Earth’s rotation, they can disrupt systems that require precise timekeeping. Meta published a blog post earlier this year calling for leap seconds to be scrapped, highlighting that Reddit went down for around 40 minutes back in 2012 when a new leap second... Continue reading…
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by Nicole Wetsman on (#662A3)
I have rarely, if ever, thought about my blood sugar. I think about sugar on occasion — the dentist demands it, and I get a headache when I eat an entire bag of Haribo dinosaur gummies.But a new spate of startups wants me, and everyone, to start thinking about our blood sugar all the time. Over the past few years, companies like Levels, January, and Nutrisense started selling programs that promise to help people start managing their blood sugar levels. They sell devices called continuous glucose monitors: small sensors that embed a tiny needle in someone’s body to track the way their blood sugar (their glucose) levels rise and fall.Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are usually used by people with Type 1 diabetes, a chronic condition... Continue reading…
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6626Q)
LG Display’s Thin Actuator Sound Solution is just 30 percent of the weight and 10 percent of the thickness of a conventional car speaker. | Image: LG Display LG Display has developed a new “invisible” speaker technology for vehicles that uses a passport-sized vibrating panel to generate sound. It was developed with an unnamed “global audio company” and is expected to be ready for car interiors next year for installation in places like the dashboard and headliner.The south-Korean tech giant’s Thin Actuator Sound Solution is being promoted as a replacement for traditional speaker systems within cars and other vehicles. Unlike current in-car speaker systems that use heavy components like voice coils, cones, and magnets, the Thin Actuator Sound Solution uses LG Display’s film-type exciter technology to generate sound by vibrating off display panels and various materials within the vehicle, which... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#661RB)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla’s recalling over 321,000 vehicles over a software glitch causing the taillights on some cars to illuminate improperly (via Reuters). According to a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recall covers certain 2023 Model 3 vehicles and 2020 to 2023 Model Y vehicles.Tesla says the rear lights on one or both sides of the vehicle may “intermittently illuminate” due to an issue “that may cause false fault detections during the vehicle wake up process.” The NHTSA says this could “increase the risk of a collision” in dark conditions, but Tesla hasn’t received any reports of injuries or accidents related to this problem. Like most Tesla recalls (except this one affecting the Model 3’s seat belt buckles), the... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#661ND)
Jason David Frank originally starred as the Green Ranger. | Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images for Saban Brands Jason David Frank, an actor and mixed martial artist best known for his role as Tommy Oliver in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, has died at age 49, as first reported by TMZ (via Gizmodo). Fellow Power Rangers stars Walter Jones, Blake Foster, and Amy Jo Johnson have since confirmed his death on Instagram.Born on September 4th, 1973, Frank originally starred as the Green Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which ran from 1993 to 1996, before swapping to the White Ranger during its second season. His character popped up in other Power Ranger seasons as well, including Wild Force, Turbo, Zeo, Dino Thunder, Megaforce, and HyperForce. In 2017, Frank made a cameo in the Power Rangers reboot before making a final appearance in... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#661M1)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Federal law enforcement arrested and charged two Russian individuals with criminal copyright infringement over their alleged involvement with the pirated ebook Z-Library. Z-Library, which has been around since 2009, billed itself as the “world’s largest ebook library” before the US government shut down the site earlier this month.According to the Department of Justice, the pair in question, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova, were arrested in Argentina at the request of the US government on November 3rd. In addition to criminal copyright infringement, the two are also facing charges of money laundering and wire fraud. The US government shut down and seized the domains associated with Z-Library at the time of their arrest, but, as... Continue reading…
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by Victoria Song on (#661DZ)
Focus To-Do helped rebuild my shattered attention span | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Focusing never used to be a problem for me. I was the annoying kid who could study for eight to 10 hours at a time without complaint. That continued well into adulthood until I experienced my own series of unfortunate events. In the last four years, my parents and our 17-year-old dog all died in rapid succession from incurable neurodegenerative diseases. It didn’t help that it happened alongside a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic. And because I’m a genius, I decided to make digital media my bread and butter, an industry held together by fraying duct tape and brain worms.Needless to say, I started off 2022 as a hot mess. All that time spent doomscrolling and grieving left my focus in shambles. Things spiraled to the point where I’d... Continue reading…
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by James Vincent on (#6611B)
Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images Donald Trump is allowed to rejoin Twitter, Elon Musk has announced. Musk justified that decision based on the results of his own personal Twitter poll. The @realDonaldTrump account and its tweets are fully visible again, just days after Trump confirmed he will run for president again in 2024.Shortly after taking control of the social network, Musk said he wouldn’t be reinstating any banned accounts until the company had set up and convened a content moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints.”Instead, on Friday evening, as people drifted off for the pre-Thanksgiving weekend, he decided to poll his own followers on Twitter. “Reinstate former President Trump,” he tweeted, alongside a poll with buttons to pick “Yes” or “No.”“... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#5PRX7)
Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for Fortune The former billionaire has been convicted and sentenced after it was revealed that her blood-testing company hadn’t achieved the breakthroughs it claimed. Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6610D)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter hasn’t escaped government scrutiny just yet. According to a report from Bloomberg, the US government is looking into whether Musk’s foreign investment partners have access to users’ private data on the platform.Sources close to the situation told Bloomberg that the government’s asking for more details about Musk’s private agreements with the international investors who hold stakes in the company, which include Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud and the Qatar Investment Authority. Musk’s business dealings in both Ukraine and China have also drawn concern.Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is also the head of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#660VN)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Wickr Me, the free encrypted messaging app owned by Amazon Web Services, is shutting down on December 31st, 2023. In a post on its website, Wickr says the app will stop accepting new user registrations on December 31st, 2022 before going away completely next year.AWS acquired Wickr last year and started packaging the paid version of the secure messaging app within its offerings for businesses. This version of the app, Wickr AWS, isn’t going away, and neither is Wickr Enterprise. The shutdown only affects the consumer-facing Wickr Me, which is often used by journalists, whistleblowers, and anyone looking to keep their messages away from prying eyes.However, recent reports suggest the app has become an outlet for criminals, with NBC... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#660RB)
Waymo received approval to offer rides without anyone behind the wheel in San Francisco. | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Waymo can now provide driverless rides to passengers in San Francisco. On Friday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said it granted the Alphabet-owned Waymo a permit to participate in its driverless pilot program, which lets autonomous vehicle (AV) companies transport passengers in test AVs without anyone at the wheel.Waymo still isn’t allowed to charge for these rides, though. The state of California requires companies to obtain a series of incremental permits from both the CPUC and the Department of Motor Vehicles before they’re able to charge for driverless rides. Waymo just needs to secure the driverless deployment permit from the CPUC to fully launch its robotaxi service, as it already received clearance from the... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6600P)
Ticketmaster had major issues with this week’s Taylor Swift concert presale. | Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic The Department of Justice is investigating Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation Entertainment over antitrust concerns, The New York Times reported Friday. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010 but have come under scrutiny for largely dominating the live event ticket sales market. Ticketmaster has received renewed attention after it dropped the ball with Taylor Swift ticket sales this week.The DOJ has reached out to venues and “players in the ticket market” in recent months to ask about the company’s practices, according to the NYT, meaning the probe predates this week’s debacle. DOJ spokesperson Arlen Morales declined to comment.Live Nation issued a response to antitrust concerns in a post on its website and argues that its... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#660J7)
Image: Second Dinner Marvel Snap has been here for officially one full month, and in that time, it has, for better and for worse, taken over my life. I cannot get enough of playing this game, and in a short 30 days, I’ve managed to claw my way up the collection rank into the mid-700s. In that time, I’ve learned a thing or two about this little game and thought I might share some best practices. Image: Second Dinner Card poolsIs there a card you’ve encountered that’s the final missing piece for that deck you’ve been building? Have you climbed rank after rank, frustrated that your silver bullet hasn’t shown up yet? Did you know that there is an invisible tier system integrated in the collection ranks that determines which cards you get?... Continue reading…
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by Cameron Faulkner on (#660J8)
It isn’t just the white color scheme of the DualSense that’s $20 off. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony switched on some very good holiday deals on digital video games for PS5 and PS4, as well as PS5 accessories, like the DualSense controller. I won’t list out all of the game deals available at the PlayStation Store, but here’s the best way to frame the significance of the game discounts: you can get three PS5-exclusive games, like, say, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, and Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut, for less than $100 ($30 each). That’s a far cry from the original $70 cost for just one of these titles. Newer games, like Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7, are a bargain at $39.89 each for the PS5 versions. And then there’s the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which costs just $19.89.Onto the hardware, G... Continue reading…
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by Sheena Vasani on (#660D1)
You can score a $51 discount on Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro, but only for a limited time. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge It looks like the real Black Friday deals have officially landed because Woot’s current deal on the new AirPods Pro is the best we’ve seen on the excellent true wireless earbuds to date. Right now, the retailer is selling Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro for just$197.99 instead of $249, which is the steepest discount the buds have received since launching in September. You’ll have to act fast, though. Woot’s current offer is set to expire at 1AM ET on Sunday, November 20th, but we expect these buds to sell out long before then.For the unfamiliar, the latest pair of AirPods Pro boast noticeably better noise cancellation and improved sound quality over their last-gen predecessor. They also allow you to adjust their volume by simply... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6607W)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robin Wheeler, Twitter’s head of ad sales, seems to have left the company yet again, just over a week after Elon Musk reportedly had to convince her not to resign.On Friday evening, Platformer’s Casey Newton reported that Wheeler had been fired from the company, though the details of why are currently unclear. Shortly after, Wheeler herself tweeted: “To the team and my clients….you were always my first and only priority,” followed by the salute emoji that has become a sign that you’re leaving the company. She did not immediately reply to The Verge’s request for confirmation that she had been fired. Twitter doesn’t have a communications department to take such requests.
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by Mitchell Clark on (#66071)
The company says it’s heard around 50 reports of issues. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Weeks after Nvidia announced that it was investigating reports that the power cables for its RTX 4090 graphics card were melting and burning, the company says it may know why: they just weren’t plugged in all the way.In a post to its customer support forum on Friday, Nvidia says that it’s still investigating the reports, but that its findings “suggest” an insecure connector has been a common issue. It also says that it’s gotten around 50 reports of the issue.Nvidia’s flagship card uses what’s known as a 12VHPWR power connector, a new standard that isn’t natively supported by most of the power supplies that people already have in their PCs. Because of that, it ships an adapter — or “power dongle,” as Friday’s post calls it — in the... Continue reading…
by Richard Lawler on (#65Z64)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images It’s November 18th, 2022 and at least Mei’s back in Overwatch 2 Continue reading…
by Jay Peters on (#66072)
It’s returned! | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft’s SwiftKey keyboard has unexpectedly returned to the App Store. The company officially discontinued support for the keyboard and removed it from the App Store in October, but now it’s available for iOS users once again.“Based on customer feedback, SwiftKey iOS has been relisted on the Apple App Store,” Microsoft’s Caitlin Roulston said in statement to The Verge. “Please visit Support.SwiftKey.com for more information.”Despite the return, SwiftKey’s latest update is still from August 11th, 2021. It’s unclear if or when it will be updated — users had complained about issues ahead of the discontinuation — but it seems like there will be some changes to look forward to. Vishnu Nath, Microsoft’s VP and GM of OneNote and the Office... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6605S)
We could live in a world with more app stores. | Photo by Stefan Etienne / The Verge Activision Blizzard and Riot Games at one point told Google they might launch their own mobile app stores, according to new documents filed in Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against the search giant. The details came to light as part of allegations about major deals signed with the two companies. Google allegedly agreed to pay Activision about $360 million over three years and Riot about $30 million for a one-year deal.In one document, Google exec Karen Aviram Beatty is reporting back from a conversation with Activision Blizzard’s now-CFO Armin Zerza one month before the two companies signed the huge deal. “If this deal falls through, [Zerza] claims that they will launch their own mobile distribution platform (partnering with another “major... Continue reading…
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by Umar Shakir on (#6604E)
Hyundai Ioniq 6 on stage at the LA Auto Show’s press and trade event AutoMobility. | Image: Hyundai Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 electric sedan made its official stateside debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show this week, revealing some new details on the US version. The Magic Mouse-shaped “streamliner” car that was first unveiled this summer will have a max estimated driving range of 340 miles (not EPA-rated yet) on the rear-wheel-drive model.The range is a bit less than the initial 379-mile target announced and even further from the European WLTP estimates of 382 miles. Still, 340 miles is an excellent achievement, succeeding the Ioniq 5’s 300-mile range while running on a similar 77.4kWh battery along with a shared E-GMP (Electric Global Modular Platform) architecture that underpins it.With E-GMP, the Ioniq 6 is one of few vehicles in the US... Continue reading…
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by Sheena Vasani on (#5XEKC)
Samsung’s vibrant Galaxy Chromebook 2 is on sale in various configurations right now. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re looking for an affordable laptop alternative, Chromebooks are a great option to consider. Yet there are several kinds on the market these days, and it can be overwhelming to pick the right for you and your needs. Some are better suited for basic work tasks, for example, while some of the higher-end models can even rival some of the best laptops you can buy. Moreover, just because one Chromebook has more features than the other doesn’t mean it’s the right one for you or the best value for your money.That’s why we’ve curated this comprehensive list of the best Chromebook deals. Each varies in price and comes with its own strengths and weaknesses, but all of them come recommended for one reason or another. And if you’d like to do... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6604F)
Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Elizabeth Holmes has been sentenced to 135 months, or just over 11 years, in prison, according to journalist John Carreyrou. She will have to report to prison on April 27th, 2023, and will have an additional three years of supervised release once she’s out, according to Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Keenan.Judge Edward Davila, who has overseen the case, declared that the charges she had been found guilty of made her responsible for defrauding 10 victims out of $121 million, according to The New York Times’ Erin Griffith. Davila said that Holmes’ refusal to accept responsibility for the fraud counted against her in his sentencing decision, according to The Wall Street Journal.A jury found Holmes guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one... Continue reading…
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by Sean Hollister on (#6602S)
Photo via Getty Images Six years after we saw the FCC formally propose “nutrition labels” for your carrier’s potentially confusing array of plans, the agency says it’s finally happening. This week, it’s ordering US internet service providers to adopt the label format you’re looking at below — or it will, as soon as some last bureaucratic elements get worked out. Image: FCC 2022’s Broadband Facts nutrition label format. They’ve changed a bit since 2016 — now, each plan will apparently have its own label rather than ISPs trying to cram all of them into a single sheet, they don’t warn you about coverage, and apparently, ISPs will be able to point you to their network management policy legalese instead of having to ding themselves for... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#6602T)
Isabella Wei in Netflix’s 1899. | Image: Netflix We’re living in a good time for fans of puzzle box TV shows. Between the Yellowjackets plane crash, Severance’s creepy-ass office, and the big hole in Outer Range, there’s lots to occupy your fan theory group chats. Joining that ever-growing list is 1899 on Netflix — and it’s a doozy. The eight-episode-long series packs a frankly astonishing number of mysteries and twists into its runtime, making it an ideal binge. I’m still not entirely sure what, if anything, it all means, but I had a blast trying to fit the pieces together.1899 comes to us from Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, the same creative team behind another Netflix thriller, the German series Dark. 1899 is a multilingual affair. It takes place on a passenger ship during... Continue reading…
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by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#5T194)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Matter is a new standard that promises to fix smart home interoperability — but can it deliver? Continue reading…
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by Sean Hollister on (#6600N)
Here’s how much of the US allegedly has access to fiber internet. There’s a lot of white and gray. | Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge We’ve shown you — repeatedly, both with data and anecdotally — that the internet is broken in the United States. We pay more for less and deal with lots of bullshit. And one huge reason is that the wolves guard the henhouse. The FCC has relied on internet service providers themselves to truthfully say which houses they cover, data that the FCC didn’t audit.So if you think internet access is important, do every like-minded person a favor: type your address into the FCC’s long-awaited new broadband maps and see if internet service providers are lying about offering coverage to your home. If so, hit the little “Availability Challenge” button and submit your proof.Today, the FCC has finally put the first “pre-production draft” version of... Continue reading…
by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6600Q)
Our whole deals team is here to help you save. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday bearing down on us, it’s as good a time as ever to subscribe to our Verge Deals newsletter. Whether you’re a longtime reader of The Verge or a newcomer, you know that we love tech — but we’re also a bunch of penny-pinchers who especially love saving money on our fanciful gadgets whenever possible.We know what devices and gadgets are actually worthy of your hard-earned money, and we want to share opportunities for you to get that same tech while saving as much as possible. In addition to our daily coverage here on the site, our twice-a-week newsletter — which goes out on Wednesday and Friday — is an opportunity to let the curated deals come straight to you.What kind of deals can you expect every week... Continue reading…
by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#65ZY2)
Nuro, the autonomous delivery startup, is laying off 20 percent of its staff, or about 300 employees, the company said in an email to employees that was later published online. (TechCrunch was first with the news.)The company’s founders said it grew too rapidly in the past year thanks to an abundance of capital and a growing sense of competition. But Nuro has since run into economic headwinds that are challenging the entire tech industry, and it could no longer sustain the size of its workforce. The layoffs were the latest piece of bad news to hit the AV industry, which just saw one of its more prominent names, Argo AI, shut down in recent weeks.“Laying off team members is always the last resort, but unfortunately it was needed after... Continue reading…
by Russell Brandom on (#65ZY3)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images Elon Musk has begun reinstating Twitter accounts that were previously subject to lifetime bans, taking the first steps toward his promise of lighter moderation on the platform. Announced Friday, the first affected accounts belong to author Jordan Peterson, comedian Kathy Griffin, and conservative parody outlet The Babylon Bee.Notably, two of the three accounts were banned because of tweets misgendering trans people. Peterson was banned in July for tweets misgendering trans actor Elliot Page, which he said he would “rather die” than delete. The Babylon Bee was banned in March for similar tweets misgendering Rachel Levine, a trans woman currently serving as US assistant secretary of health.Notably, The Babylon Bee was one of the outlets... Continue reading…
by Georgina Torbet on (#65ZVP)
The last image taken by LightSail 2 before it re-entered the atmosphere. | Image: The Planetary Society After three years in space, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 mission burned up in the atmosphere on Thursday, November 17th. During its mission, the crowdfunded spacecraft made 18,000 orbits of the planet using its giant reflective sail and demonstrated that controlled solar sailing is possible.LightSail may now be over, but it has opened the door to the use of solar sailing in space exploration. “It doesn’t fit every situation, but now it gives another arrow in the quiver of options for types of propulsion you can use,” said Bruce Betts, Chief Scientist and LightSail program manager.LightSail 2 operated in Earth orbit, while future solar sailing missions would likely be in deep space. That makes the requirements somewhat... Continue reading…
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by Justine Calma on (#65ZVQ)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge There’s a new effort to tackle Ethereum’s legacy of pollution, even after the cryptocurrency drastically reduced its greenhouse gas emissions this year. Ethereum software company ConsenSys launched a new initiative alongside more than a dozen tech and Web3 companies yesterday during the United Nations climate summit taking place in Egypt. The aim of the initiative, called the Ethereum Climate Platform, is to “redress and counteract” the climate pollution Ethereum left behind from its inception in 2015 until this year.In September, Ethereum completed The Merge — a highly anticipated software update that slashed the blockchain network’s electricity use by 99.988 percent. But prior to that update, Ethereum used an enormously energy-hungry... Continue reading…
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