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Microsoft’s “holiday” packaging for the Xbox Series S. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is dropping the price of its Xbox Series S console to $249.99 for the holidays. The new promotional price starts today and includes special holiday-themed packaging. It’s part of a series of Black Friday deals from Microsoft that includes up to $300 off the new Surface Laptop 5, $200 off select Surface Pro 9 models, and up to 67 percent off Xbox digital games.While we saw the Xbox Series S drop as low as $249 in a limited offer that lasted just hours at Woot earlier this year, Microsoft’s official promotion means Best Buy, the Microsoft Store, and other retailers will all be offering the console at this promotional price. Target is even bundling a $50 gift card with its own Xbox Series S deal.Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer... Continue reading…

Motional Motional, the autonomous vehicle joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, is bringing its robotaxis to Los Angeles, where they will be available to hail through the Lyft app.The service is comprised of Motional’s fleet of Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric vehicles, which will be fully autonomous at the time of launch and not require a human safety driver behind the wheel.The company would not say when exactly the service will go live, though. “We plan to reveal timing when we are closer to launch,” a Motional spokesperson said. Previously, Motional said it wouldn’t deploy fully autonomous vehicles until 2023, so it’s probably safe to assume that LA residents won’t be able to hail one of the company’s vehicles until at least January.LA will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is tweaking Android to offer a new prompt in the face of software crashes that reminds you to update your damn apps.“Update the app to fix crashes,” the prompt says, according to Esper’s senior technical editor Mishaal Rahman. “The app stopped working, but the latest update for the app may fix the issue. Install the update and then open the app again.”Obviously the prompt is only going to help if an app isn’t already fully updated. If you’re already running its latest version and it’s still crashing, then frustratingly it’s likely that a fix isn’t available (yet). Still, given the amount of times I’ve personally been able to resolve crashing issues with a simple update, I’m hoping that the new prompt will be more helpful than... Continue reading…

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has unveiled its latest tech demo showing off what it thinks could be the future of augmented reality gaming. The trailer, which apparently depicts “actual headset gameplay” shows a handful of players wearing AR glasses as they interact with shared virtual objects, including game elements as well as more practical virtual signage, while out and about. A couple of the players appear to be interacting with the game using handheld motion controllers, but there’s no sign of anyone needing to directly use a smartphone to play.The trailer was released to coincide with several announcements made at this year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit. These include a new processor from the mobile chip giant, a new reference... Continue reading…

A trainer riding Koraidon, one of the new additions to Pokémon Violet and Scarlet. | Image: Nintendo The latest Pokémon release is a big, expansive adventure that also pushes the Nintendo Switch to its limits. Continue reading…

Qualcomm has announced a new subbrand of CPUs for its Snapdragon family of products, called Oryon. The new CPU will be released in 2023 and available to manufacturers to use in devices such as Windows PCs, smartphones, and other applications. The company announced the new CPU at its Snapdragon Summit on Wednesday, but provided few details about what it entails.The company has made Snapdragon-branded chips for Windows and Chrome OS computers for a few years now but has had slow traction getting them into many Windows devices. The few ultraportable computers that have used Qualcomm’s Arm chips have been niche, premium devices that appeal to a specific subset of PC buyers, but not the broader market. Image: Qualcomm ... Continue reading…

This is a photo of Aoki performing in Las Vegas, not at the Amazon event. | Photo by David Becker/Getty Images Amazon may have just confirmed that it would be laying off employees, but it seems to still have room for a Steve Aoki concert. On Wednesday evening, the superstar DJ performed a live concert for what appeared to be a group of Amazon warehouse employees, and the whole thing was streamed on the AmazonVestLife Twitch channel.We learned this was happening at all thanks to the New York Times’ Karen Weise, who tweeted about the performance shortly before it wrapped up. But it seems the concert wasn’t exactly a secret, as the “amazonvestlife” Instagram (which, like the Twitch channel, describes itself as the “official account for Amazon associates”) posted a story featuring Aoki to promote the show earlier on Wednesday. The DJ gave a shoutout... Continue reading…

Image: Toyota Toyota’s Prius has long been the ugly duckling of the eco-car market, but the automaker is finally delivering a version that’s easier on the eyes. The redesigned fifth-generation 2023 Prius was just revealed in Japan, with a sportier coupe-like look to hide that it’s still a four-door compact with hybrid and plug-in hybrid options.It’s certainly prettier, no doubt — the 1997 Prius was the first mass-produced hybrid electric vehicle, but it wasn’t very visually appealing, nor were any of the successive iterations. Toyota says this new one follows the “monoform silhouette” design introduced in the second-generation Prius (2003-2009), and the development team started from scratch to create a “Hybrid Reborn” concept that heavily informs... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The lending arm of the cryptocurrency brokerage Genesis is suspending redemptions and new loan originations as it deals with a wave of withdrawals following the fall of FTX. In a statement on Twitter, Genesis says the “abnormal withdrawal requests” have exceeded its “current liquidity.”FTX, which was once the third biggest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, filed for bankruptcy last week, causing panic to ripple through the crypto community as investors pull their funds from other exchanges in fear that they might suffer the same fate. This influx of withdrawals hit Genesis as well, which revealed last week that it has $175 million locked up in FTX.

You won’t be seeing the FTX logo on TSM’s jerseys. | Image: TSM The esports giant TSM FTX is suspending its blockbuster sponsorship deal with the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange and is dropping FTX from its name.“After monitoring the evolving situation and discussing internally, we’re suspending our partnership with FTX effective immediately,” TSM wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “This means that FTX branding will no longer appear on any of our org, team and player social media profiles, and will also be removed from our player jerseys.”

Starting January 16th, Airbnb guests will need to verify their identities in order to book stays in its top 35 countries and regions. | Image: Airbnb Airbnb is cracking down on parties booked through its service and will require that all guests in top countries verify their identity for a booking to be successfully completed. The new policies are meant to improve hosting experiences and drive more bookings to the platform.Starting today, Airbnb will require that all users verify their identity if they’re booking in any of the platform’s top 35 countries and regions, representing 90 percent of all reservations. Tara Bunch, Airbnb’s head of global operations, said in an interview with Fast Company that around 80 percent of the platform’s guests and hosts were already verified prior to this expansion. The process requires guests to verify their identity using personal information such... Continue reading…

Image: Evernote Evernote is getting a new owner. In an announcement on Wednesday, the note-taking app announced that it’s getting acquired by the Italian mobile developer Bending Spoons in a transaction that’s set to take place early next year.As part of the acquisition, Evernote will join Bending Spoons’ existing lineup of apps, which includes the video editing app Splice and the AI image enhancement app Remini. Evernote CEO Ian Small says the deal will let the company take advantage of Bending Spoons’ “proven app expertise and wide range of proprietary technologies” so it can work on building new features.“We are grateful to our customers and employees, and are excited to team-up with Bending Spoons,” Small said in a statement. “This strategic... Continue reading…

A black flying fox (Pteropus alecto) takes flight in an urban flying fox roost in Queensland, Australia. | Image: Pat Jones Stressed, hungry bat populations are linked to growing cases of an emerging zoonotic disease in Australia, new research finds. The bats have learned to adapt to more persistent food shortages by roosting closer to humans. That raises the risk of the potentially fatal Hendra virus jumping from bats to horses to people, according to a study published today in the journal Nature.“We want to be able to keep the reservoir hosts [aka bats] happy”Nevertheless, the research tells a story about why it’s important to protect bats that have gained a somewhat unfair bad rap for exposing humans to new kinds of viruses. At the end of the day, we actually influence each other’s ability to live in a healthy environment. It’s part of a concept called “O... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge If you’re subscribed to Google Fi’s Unlimited Plus plan, you can now enjoy an extra perk in addition to unlimited data: one year free of YouTube Premium.Starting today, new and existing members enrolled in Google Fi’s premium plan won’t have to pay the $119.99 annual fee for one year of the increasingly popular service, Patrick Seybold, Google’s global PR lead for Stadia, AR and Project Starline, told The Verge in an email.Even better? You won’t have to share the service with others if you opt for the family plan either, as each person will get their own YouTube Premium subscription.“Wireless consumers are increasingly opting for unlimited plans to fuel growing appetites for media, games, and other high-bandwidth applications... Continue reading…

Promotional art for League of Legends. | Image: Riot Games Ubisoft and Riot Games are teaming up on a new research project that’s intended to reduce toxic in-game chats.The new project, called “Zero Harm in Comms,” will be broken up into two main phases. For the first phase, Ubisoft and Riot will try to create a framework that lets them share, collect, and tag data in a privacy-protecting way. It’s a critical first step to ensure that the companies aren’t keeping data that contains personally identifiable information, and if Ubisoft and Riot find they can’t do it, “the project stops,” Yves Jacquier, executive director at Ubisoft La Forge, said in an interview with The Verge.Once that privacy-protecting framework is established, Ubisoft and Riot plan to build tools that use AI trained by the... Continue reading…

The Pokémon: Art Through the Ages exhibition at The Trafford Centre in Manchester. | Photo: Jay Castello No matter where the series goes, much of its appeal lies in the past, and that tension was on display at a recent exhibition in Manchester. Continue reading…

Just a week after 9/11, while the country was still reeling, a series of letters began arriving at news organizations and Senate offices. The envelopes were innocuous, indistinguishable from other mail, but inside was a white powder, a rare bacteria that can be fatal if inhaled — anthrax. Five people died, and 17 were sickened in one of the most deadly biological attacks in US history. Yet anthrax had the potential to inflict far more harm: if the spores had been released from a rooftop in downtown Washington, DC, it might have infected hundreds of thousands of people. One letter included the message, “DEATH TO AMERICA,” perhaps indicating more to come. But how could we plan for a silent, odorless killer?Responding to the universe of... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Samsung is expanding access on its older smart TVs to Xbox Cloud Gaming, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, and other game streaming services. Starting today and rolling out through the end of the year, apps for Xbox Cloud Gaming, Amazon Luna, GeForce Now, and Utomik will be available on select 2021 Samsung smart TVs.Samsung originally launched a gaming TV hub for its 2022 smart TVs and monitors earlier this year that included access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, Stadia, and GeForce Now. “When Samsung Gaming Hub rolled out earlier this year on 2022 TV models, the number one question we received was ‘when is cloud gaming coming to my 2021 TV?’ Today we’re happy to share with our eager fans that they’ll be able to play the games they love before the end of... Continue reading…

The software update is available for all 2022 Blade 14 laptops, whether it’s black, silver, or pink. | Image: Razer Razer’s 2022 Blade 14 gaming laptop now comes in silver, making it look even more MacBook-like. But in bigger news, the company is releasing a software update for all 2022 Blade 14 models that upgrades its two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports to the more feature-rich USB 4 spec along with Thunderbolt 4 support.The USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 spec tops out at 20Gbps, but Razer spokesperson Gilberto Williams-Gamboa confirmed to The Verge that this update to USB 4 has doubled the bandwidth of the Blade 14’s two USB-C ports to a maximum of 40Gbps. Razer claims that the upgrade to USB 4 will provide “expanded peripheral compatibility,” including support for Thunderbolt 4 docks and external graphics card (eGPU) enclosures as well as for other use cases, like... Continue reading…

It’s the same controller but with USB-C ports. | Image: Backbone The Backbone One mobile gaming controller is now shipping for Android. There isn’t much that’s different from the iOS version that launched in 2020; it’s $99.99, the Lightning ports have been swapped for USB-C ports, and it has a polished, feature-packed companion app that makes gaming on your phone feel like you’re using a console. Inserting your phone will allow you to play native Android games as well as cloud-based titles from Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now.Backbone says that the One should work with most Android phones, assuming that yours has a USB-C port and is running Android 8.0 or higher. The company mentions the Google Pixel 7 and Samsung Galaxy S22 lineups as being compatible, though its product page lists phones... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding a bunch of casual games to Microsoft Teams today, months after The Verge exclusively revealed the company’s plans. Favorites like Solitaire, Minesweeper, Wordament, and IceBreakers are all now part of Teams, allowing co-workers to play against each other during Teams meetings.All four games are interactive and support multiple players and have been developed by Microsoft Casual Games — part of Xbox Game Studios. The games are available in a new Games for Work app in Microsoft Teams and range from supporting two players all the way up to 250. Image: Microsoft Microsoft Minesweeper is 30 years old. Solitaire has a head-to-head competition mode for perhaps challenging your boss during those... Continue reading…

Notion’s AI turns your prompt into blog posts, poems, to-do lists, and brainstorms. | Image: Notion / David Pierce Someday soon, Notion will be able to write your notes for you. The company is starting to test a new feature today called Notion AI, which Notion CEO Ivan Zhao tells me could ultimately change the way people use the app — and do their jobs. With Notion AI, all you have to do is tell the app what you want (a blog post, a recruiting email template, a list of great business books to read), and the app actually creates the content right in front of your eyes.The first thing Notion AI is for, Zhao says, is writing. Lots of work requires writing, some of it repetitive (like creating new job descriptions) and some of it creative (like writing blog posts or brainstorming new ideas). Zhao thinks Notion AI can help in both cases. “For many users... Continue reading…

The Tapo C420S2 smart security camera has AI detection, 2K video resolution, and the option of local storage. | Image: TP-Link Tapo, TP-Link’s other smart home brand, has a new security camera. The Tapo Smart Wire-Free Security Camera System (Tapo C420S2) is an impressively inexpensive setup that includes two indoor/outdoor cameras and a hub for $200. The wireless cameras feature video resolution up to 2K, six months of battery life, full-color night vision, AI detection, and have a spotlight and siren built in.TP-Link’s original smart home brand, Kasa (which is its fewer-frills, more budget range), has even less expensive outdoor cameras, but those work solely over Wi-Fi. The difference here is that the Tapo C420S2 cameras use a proprietary, low-power wireless protocol to communicate with the hub, which helps improve connectivity and lengthen battery life.... Continue reading…

DuckDuckGo’s new App Tracking Protection tool aims to prevent apps from tracking Android users and then selling the collected data. | Image: DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking Protection is now available for public beta testing on all Android devices after launching in a limited beta almost one year ago.App Tracking Protection for Android is a free feature from the privacy-focused company that blocks third-party trackers within apps, even when said apps aren’t actively being used. When enabled in DuckDuckGo’s browser, it detects when apps are about to send data to a list of third-party tracking companies on DuckDuckGo’s publicly available blocklist and then blocks most of those data requests. It all happens on the device without routing your data through DuckDuckGo’s servers. Image: DuckDuckGo With the App Tracking Protection “Activity Report,” you can see... Continue reading…

Arizona is getting a few new fabs within the next two years. | Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple is reportedly planning to start buying chips made in the US and Europe, according to a report from Bloomberg that cites comments made by Tim Cook at an internal meeting. Apple has “already made a decision to be buying out of a plant in Arizona” that’s due to begin production in 2024, meaning that the company could start using those chips in around two years, according to the reported comments from Cook. He also said that Apple hopes to “source from Europe as those plans become more apparent.”Apple’s custom-designed chips, such as the M2 chip that powers its newest MacBooks and the iPhone’s A-series processors, are mainly produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC. As the company’s name implies, most of its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s adjusting its sexual harassment policies in response to findings from ArentFox Schiff, the law firm it hired to evaluate the company’s practices over concerns about sexual misconduct and discrimination in the workplace. The 50-page report lays out a series of recommendations that Microsoft will implement by June 30th, 2023, with some coming into force earlier than that.In a post on the Microsoft blog, the company’s response commits to publishing an annual report on the company’s sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, which will include the number of reported incidents and the actions taken as a result. It also aims to revise its anti-harassment and discrimination policy, as well as revamp the way it conducts... Continue reading…

Mark your calendars? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Elon Musk says the new Twitter Blue, which lets you pay $7.99 per month for a blue verification check mark next to your name, will relaunch on November 29th. In a tweet, he said he would be “punting” the relaunch to the new date “to make sure that it is rock solid.”It’s safe to say that the original Blue launch didn’t go super smoothly. Twitter first started rolling out the new Blue subscription on iOS earlier this month. However, the platform pulled Blue signups a few days later after a wave of fake verified accounts popped up on the platform.