The Verge

The Nook Glowlight 4e struggles to stand out, but at least it's got buttons to turn the page. | Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge The company is looking to give its stores an indie bookstore vibe, but its e-readers have more of an Amazon Kindle in the early 2010s vibe. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge D., a carpenter and Etsy seller of several years, recently sold a piece of custom, made-to-order furniture for around $150. The sale itself was business as usual for their shop - but it came with a sense of exasperation. Their earnings would be tied up for weeks while bills, rent, and expenses pile up.Since late June, Etsy has had D.'s account under restrictive settings, putting a hold on the bulk of money that's coming in as customers place orders. In D.'s case, 75 percent of earnings from a $150 order, as an example, are being held by Etsy - in what's known as a payment reserve" - for anywhere between two weeks and 45 days. After Etsy fees, taxes, and other expenses are pulled from the remaining 25 percent D. has access to, they're... Continue reading...

You can buy four AirTags for $84.99, or about $21 each. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Now we've reached the end of July, back-to-school season is officially upon us. If you're starting to shop for supplies to help kick off the new school year on the right note, we curated a guide to a range of helpful gadgets. We also found a number of good deals this week that'll help you prepare.Right now, for example, you can buy some of the best item trackers from Tile and Apple at some pretty notable prices. First off, the latest Tile Mate in black with a pack of lost and found labels for $19.99 ($10 off) from Amazon, which is an all-time low. The platform-agnostic Tile Mate will help you or your children keep track of backpacks, lunch boxes, tote bags, keys, and other belongings up to 250 feet away. That might be 150 feet less than... Continue reading...

Image: Nintendo Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the Super Smash Bros. series, is famous for his extremely hands-on role in developing the games. But even though he's said in the past that he's done too much of the work myself" on the series, in a new video, he said that he can't really imagine a Smash Bros. title without me."Sakurai made the statement as part of a video on his YouTube channel about the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii. That was the first Smash Bros. title where Sakurai as a freelance director instead of as a staffer for HAL Laboratory.During the video, Sakurai pondered how Nintendo might structure a team for a potential next entry in the Smash Bros. series and his fears that there isn't one person who... Continue reading...

That's not a cassette tape! | Image: Remax As a 90s kid who dreamed of being an 80s adult, this immediately commanded my attention: you can now charge your phone with a cassette tape.Shenzhen accessories manufacturer Remax has apparently been on it for over a year, debuting 10,000mAh" batteries that look like classic cassettes. Depending on the color - yellow, red, or the new green 2023 model - you can charge them up with USB-C, micro-USB, or even an Apple Lightning cable, then output up to 22.5W over USB-A or USB-C to fast-charge a phone. The $20-$40 batteries aren't quite as nifty as I originally imagined. While they do awesomely come with their own transparent cassette tape cases, they're definitely larger than a classic cassette, and there's no spinning... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV is finally coming to Xbox.During the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest keynote, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer appeared to announce the news alongside game director Naoki Yoshida. We want to bring the Xbox community and your warriors of light together, in a way that is safe, secure, engaging, and, above all, fun." Spencer said.

The Verge Twitter, which Elon Musk is currently rebranding to X, is officially rolling out its ads revenue sharing program for creators. The company had given some creators payouts earlier this month, but now, users globally who meet the eligibility criteria can apply for the program from the monetization tab in settings.To be eligible for the program, you need to be subscribed to X Blue (which appears to be the new name for Twitter Blue) or be a Verified Organization, have at least 15M impressions on your cumulative posts within the last 3 months," and have at least 500 followers, according to a support document about the program.We want the process to be as simple as possible, so all eligible X Blue and Verified Organizations subscribers are... Continue reading...

Verizon would very much like you to switch to its new Unlimited Welcome plan. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The carriers are at it again: Verizon and AT&T are both notifying customers on older unlimited plans to expect a new fee on their bill soon. Customers on Verizon's 5G Start and AT&T's Unlimited Elite plans are affected, and the fees go into effect in August. It's a classic move from the wireless carrier shenanigans" playbook designed to push customers to newer, more profitable plans.Verizon customers on Reddit and Twitter report that the company has just sent notice of a new monthly Plan Rate Adjustment" charge of $3 per line. Older plans are affected, including 5G Start, which Verizon introduced as Start Unlimited four years ago and costs $70 per month for a single line. Verizon would very much like customers on that legacy plan to s... Continue reading...

Photo by Hannes P Albert / picture alliance via Getty Images Look, I understand where you're coming from. You paid good money to be here at the Eras Tour or whatever. You waited in line for two hours. You were up all night selecting your outfit. You sat in ridiculous traffic. You fought a relentless battle against Ticketmaster, and dagnabbit, you won. You're here, you persevered, and you want the world to know it.You're here, you persevered, and you want the world to know itAlso, you're spending your Saturday night singing Love Story" at the top of your lungs in a crowd of thousands of very attractive and well-dressed people, and those loser couch potatoes who follow you on Instagram presumably are not. You promised your mom that you'd get out of the house more, and you'd like her to know... Continue reading...

They may not have the cool old-school looks of their predecessor, but the Momentum 4 Wireless make up for it with amazing battery life and a comfy fit. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sennheiser's Momentum 4 Wireless headphones in white are selling for an excellent low price of $259.95 ($120 off) at Amazon. If you were partial to the last-gen version's touch of vintage styling, that's sadly no longer present on the current model, but these noise-canceling cans traded that for some extra-long battery life of up to 60 hours and much-improved comfort (so you can actually use it for those marathon sessions with less chance of fatigue).If white isn't your thing, the black version is also on sale at Amazon for a still-pretty-good price of $284.95 ($95 off). Either way, the Momentum 4 are a great set of wireless headphones, especially if you don't want to rely on frequent charging.Read our review of the Sennheiser... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Ford's electric future is being paid for by giant, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.That fact came into stark relief this week during the company's second quarter earnings report, in which the Blue Oval reported losing $1.1 billion before interest and taxes on its EV business, more than twice as much it lost over the same period last year.Compare that to Ford's profits in the sale of gas and hybrid trucks and SUVs: $2.3 billion before interest and taxes. Commercial vehicle sales also posted a healthy profit of $2.4 billion for the quarter.Ford lost $1.1 billion on its EV business this quarterIt's been over a year since Ford split its business into two separate entities - one focused on electric vehicles called Ford Model e, and the... Continue reading...

Turbines generate electricity outside Medicine Bow, Wyoming, on August 14th, 2022. | Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images A new rule aims to speed up the time it takes for renewable energy projects to connect to the grid - and clean energy advocates are celebrating.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decided yesterday to overhaul the process for approving new energy projects, which had become a serious holdup for renewable energy growth in the US.This is a watershed moment for our nation's transmission grid," FERC Chair Willie Phillips said in a press release yesterday.This is a watershed moment for our nation's transmission grid."As it is now, it takes an average of five years for a new energy project to connect to the grid. There's a huge backlog of more than 2,000 gigawatts of clean energy generation and storage that's just waiting in... Continue reading...

Image: Getty The 75th annual Emmy Awards likely won't take place on September 18th as planned. According to a report from Variety, vendors, producers, and others involved with the ceremony have been notified that the date has been pushed back amid the Hollywood strikes.While the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced its nominees for the 2023 awards on July 12th, this took place just one day before the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) called a strike. Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since May, with both unions looking for higher streaming residuals and protections surrounding the use of AI.The Television Academy still hasn't confirmed that the Emmys have been delayed, but even if it were to take place, it would... Continue reading...

Wow, a readable website on your phone. Who knew that was possible? | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge We've all been there: someone in our social feeds or group chat just sent a link to an interesting article, but when we click that link and it opens in our phone's browser, it's almost impossible to read because there are so many ads, pop-ups, chat with us" nags, and other crap getting in the way. Most times, I just give up and close the browser, forfeiting knowing about whatever the topic was.But since I installed Google's Reading Mode app on Android, I can quickly bypass all of that crap with a simple two-finger swipe gesture and actually read the thing I clicked the link for.Reading Mode was released late last year and is intended to be an accessibility feature - it makes reading content on your phone easier if you are vision... Continue reading...

Image: Netflix / Ripstone Games / Night School Oxenfree II: Lost Signals and The Queen's Gambit Chess could not be more different, and yet both are key to understanding Netflix's gaming philosophy. Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is running a PS5 sale in the UK, India, Ireland, and Germany where the price of a standard console is dropping by around 16 percent. In the UK the PS5 can now be found for 399.99, below its regular 479.99 price and even far below the 449.99 price at launch, before a PS5 price hike outside the US last year.The UK 75 off promotion is available immediately and runs until August 10th. In Germany Sony is also taking 75 off the PS5, with Amazon Germany selling a PS5 for even less at 459.99, down from the regular 549.99 pricing until August 7th. You can also find 75 off the PS5 in Ireland and Austria and 7,500 off in India.The price drop promotions come just as Sony has announced it has sold 40 million PS5s since the console's... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Update July 28th, 2:51AM ET: After saying that Twitter / X would soon only have a dark mode'" because it's better in every way," Musk now says that A lot of people have asked to keep light mode, so we will, but the default will be dark and dim will be deleted." The following article appears as it was originally published.Just when you think Elon Musk can't get any more divisive, he's weighed in on the light mode versus dark mode debate - and Twitter, currently undergoing a rebranding to X, is apparently going all in on the latter. Early this morning, Musk posted that this platform will soon only have dark mode'. It is better in every way."That immediately brought about the usual responses that you might expect, with several... Continue reading...

AMD and Asus have announced the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D, a beefy 17-inch gaming laptop with an RGB lightstrip on the bottom. Which, sure, whatever. The exciting news is what's inside this device. This Strix is powered by AMD's 7945HX3D mobile laptop, which could, if the stars align, provide gaming performance that we haven't seen in AMD's current laptop landscape and fulfill last year's extreme gaming laptop" promise.The chip has 16 cores and 32 threads with boost clock up to 5.4GHz, with 55W+" TDP - those things alone put it at the top of AMD's laptop processor stack. But it's also the first mobile processor to feature AMD's 3D V-Cache (144MB of it, to be specific), which allows AMD to place additional layers of cache directly onto the... Continue reading...

Image: Intel Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger was very bullish on AI during the company's Q2 2023 earnings call - telling investors that Intel plans to build AI into every product that we build."Later this year, Intel will ship Meteor Lake, its first consumer chip with a built-in neural processor for machine learning tasks. (AMD recently did the same, following Apple and Qualcomm.)But while Intel previously suggested to us that only its premium new Ultra chips might have those AI coprocessors, it sounds like Gelsinger expects AI will eventually be in everything Intel sells.Gelsinger often likes to talk up the four superpowers" or five superpowers" of technology companies, which originally included both AI and cloud, but today, he's suggesting that AI a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At a recent House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on self-driving cars, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) kicked off her five minutes of questions for the panelists with a quick appraisal of the toaster-shaped autonomous shuttle that has puttered around her district in Gainesville, Florida, for the past three years.It moves not very fast," Cammack said with a grimace. So there's a lot of frustrations with it, I'll say that."That's something that the Gainesville Autonomous Shuttle has in common with Congress: neither seems to be much in a hurry.So there's a lot of frustrations with it, I'll say that"The hearing on Wednesday, entitled Self-Driving Legislative Framework: Enhancing Safety, Improving Lives and Mobility, and Beating... Continue reading...

Photo by Hector Vivas / Getty Images Lionel Messi has taken MLS by storm, and that's good news for Apple. The league partnered with Apple for a streaming service called MLS Season Pass, which kicked off this season and will continue for the next decade. And though Messi only played his first match for his new club, Inter Miami, on July 21st, it seems that viewership has already improved.While Apple did not release specific numbers, in a statement, Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr explained that the week of July 19th-26th had the 3 most-watched matches ever on MLS Season Pass, with viewers in almost 100 countries and regions around the world. And the fans for those matches were roughly split between the MLS Season Pass English and Spanish language broadcasts."Considering... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Images So, it looks like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn't going to be held in contempt of Congress after all - at least for now.The House Judiciary Committee was supposed to vote to hold Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress on Thursday, but chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) canceled the vote shortly before it was scheduled to take place, as first reported by Bloomberg. The vote was originally a play to get Meta to hand over additional documents as part of a committee investigation into alleged collusion with the White House to censor conservative speech.But according to a tweet from Jordan on Thursday, Meta must have provided enough new material to calm his concerns.Based on Facebook's newfound commitment to fully cooperate with the Committee's... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge LinkedIn appears to be developing a new AI tool that can help ease the effectively robotic task of looking for and applying to jobs. According to a new leak, the Microsoft-owned company seems to have a new LinkedIn Coach" assistant in testing that could support you through the application processes, teach you new skills, and help you network on your LinkedIn network.The news comes from app researcher Nima Owji, who uncovers features from various developers that haven't been deployed yet. In an email, LinkedIn spokesperson Amanda Purvis tells The Verge the company is always exploring" new ways to improve user experience on the platform. Purvis adds that the company will have more to share soon."

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft revealed the final games you'll be able to claim with an Xbox Live Gold subscription before Gold is replaced with the Xbox Game Pass Core, and, well, they're games you may not have heard of before. Throughout the month of August, Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be able to snag Blue Fire, a 3D platformer, and Inertial Drift, an arcade racer, according to an Xbox Wire blog post.If you claim the games, you'll be able to play them and others you've grabbed from the Games with Gold program as long as you have an Xbox Game Pass Core or Ultimate subscription. Image: Microsoft Xbox Live Gold will be discontinued on September 1st, and current subscribers will be moved to Xbox Game Pass Core on September 14th. Xbox... Continue reading...

There are other options available if you don't want to use voices from Snoop Dogg or Gwyneth Paltrow. | Image: Artifact Artifact - the new-ish news app from Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger - is adding an AI-powered text-to-speech feature that will read you news articles.The company is offering the new feature as part of a partnership with Speechify. Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow are among the voices that can read you the news, and if you want an idea of what that might sound like, you can hear their AI voices on Speechify's website. There are more than 30 English voices available, according to Robby Stein, Artifact's head of product.To turn on the text-to-speech player, you can tap on a play" icon you'll see on the bottom bar while reading an article, and the player will let you choose things like reading speed (up to 4.5x!) and... Continue reading...

People gather at Barton Springs Pool on June 21st, 2023, in Austin, Texas as extreme temperatures across the state prompted excessive heat warnings | Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images Seeing how much hotter certain neighborhoods can get compared to others nearby blows my mind, and I report on this kind of thing for a living.I live in New York City, which tops a new list of places in the US where temperature spikes because of urban sprawl. It's a problem called the urban heat island effect. Basically, areas with more paved surfaces and less greenery trap heat. That raises temperatures in cities compared to more rural locations. It also makes certain neighborhoods within a city hotter than others.A new analysis ranks 44 major cities that altogether are home to a quarter of the country's population. More than half of the population in these cities live in census tracks that can feel at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Roblox is now available in open beta on Meta's Quest VR headsets. Roblox and Meta had announced earlier in July that the social metaverse platform would be arriving on the headsets soon, and now, you can try it for yourself.To check out Roblox experiences on your Quest, you can grab the app from the Quest Store. (Technically, it's available through Meta's App Lab.) Once it's on your headset, you can sign in to your Roblox account and explore from there. Note that you can't make a Roblox account on Quest just yet, according to a Roblox developer forum post.Because the app is still in beta - Roblox and Meta are launching this in beta to give developers a chance to test and optimize their experiences for VR - there are some issues that R... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge According to a new report by Reuters, Tesla performed intentional inflation" about the range estimates of its electric vehicles under the guidance of CEO Elon Musk.An anonymous source said the automaker had started to use algorithms about a decade ago that would inflate projections at a full charge. Then, once Teslas reach a 50 percent state of charge, the numbers get a bit more realistic so drivers have a better chance of avoiding getting stranded, along with a 15-mile buffer that allows the vehicle to drive on battery after it reaches zero. According to the source, Elon wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged."The Reuters report also claims that Tesla created a dedicated Diversion Team" last summer focused solely on... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge The ChatGPT for Android app is now available in the Google Play Store, launching a few months after the free iOS app brought the chatbot to iPhones and iPads. According to a company tweet, it's available first in the US, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, with other countries set to follow later, mimicking the staged rollout we saw for the iOS version.On July 27th, OpenAI announced additional availability, saying the Android ChatGPT app is now available in Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, the UK, and South Korea.As we noted previously, the launch of an Android app is coming after Sensor Tower and Similarweb data showed drops in web traffic and app installations for June.