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The LG C2 has many of the same features as the C1 but is much lighter. | Image: LG Our first deal of the week is a good one. You can get a $400 discount on the 42-inch LG C2 OLED TV, which is currently discounted to $899.99 at Best Buy — its lowest price yet. While the features of the C2 are largely identical to those found in the older C1, including a 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision support, and compatibility with AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync, the C2 offers faster performance and a slightly brighter panel than its predecessor. Plus, this 42-inch-sized model may be great if you want to use it as a glorified PC monitor.The C2 isn’t quite as bright as pricier QD-OLED televisions in a similar price bracket, and some people may be annoyed by its glossy panel coating, but its collection of features still makes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon could lay off as many as 10,000 employees this week, according to a new report from The New York Times. The move would follow wide-reaching firings at Twitter and Meta; last week, the latter announced it would lay off 11,000 employees.Amazon’s cuts are likely to focus on the company’s devices business (which includes numerous Alexa-powered products), human resources, and its retail unit. In a reminder of just how massive Amazon has grown, the Times says 10,000 workers would represent 3 percent of the company’s corporate ranks and 1 percent of its overall workforce.There have been recent indications that Amazon might be rethinking where Alexa and first-party devices fit into its priorities. At the very least, CEO Andy Jassy... Continue reading…

If you haven’t watched Andor yet, you should. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney Plus If you haven’t watched Andor, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel series on Disney Plus — and you really should, it’s quite good — Disney will be airing the show’s first two episodes on a few of its other channels over the Thanksgiving holidays, including on linear TV.The Andor episodes will air on ABC, FX, Freeform, and Hulu at varying times and days. For the TV airings, you’ll need to put aside an hour and a half to watch the episodes. On Hulu, the two episodes will be available over two weeks. Here’s the schedule, according to a press release:

The Digital Transparency Report contains data captured by Microsoft between January 1st and June 30th this year and provides information regarding content moderation and player safety. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has released its first Digital Transparency Report for the Xbox gaming platform, revealing that the company took proactive action against throwaway accounts that violated its community guidelines 4.78 million times within a six-month period, usually in the form of temporary suspension.The report, which provides information regarding content moderation and player safety, covers the period between January 1st and June 30th this year. It includes a range of information, including the number of reports submitted by players and breakdowns of various “proactive enforcements” (i.e., temporary account suspensions) taken by the Xbox team. Microsoft says the report forms part of its commitment to online safety. Image:... Continue reading…

Sharing is caring. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge A few months ago, one of my devices randomly decided it didn’t want to connect wirelessly to my internet anymore. This was annoying, but while I waited for it to be repaired, there was an easy fix. I could turn my Windows desktop into a mobile hotspot and use that to get the device online.This trick can also be handy to have in your pocket if you’re having guests over and want to give them easy access to your internet without throwing your password around.Here’s how to share your Wi-Fi from your Windows PC. (This was tested using a Windows 11 system.) This menu has everything you need.

It’s free if you own the PC, PS4, or Xbox One version of the game. | Image: CD Projekt Red The next-gen patch for The Witcher 3 will arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC on Wednesday, December 14th. If you already own the base game on PC, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One (any version will do, not just the Complete Edition), you’ll get the patch, which includes upgraded visuals, all of the DLC packs, and further content drops inspired by the Netflix series, for free.

The Health Connect platform can be used to sync data between fitness apps, simplifying app connectivity and centralizing privacy controls. | Image: Google Android has released Health Connect into public beta, a new app that assimilates data from across eligible health and fitness apps through a single platform.In an example provided by Google, Peloton members can use it to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps such as MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers, and Lifesum in addition to sharing workout data with other fitness apps. It also adds a central place to easily manage individual permissions and privacy settings.There are 10 notable health, fitness, and wellness apps integrated with the services so far, including FitBit, Oura, and Flo alongside MyFitnessPal and Peloton. Health Connect was first announced in May, with access initially restricted to developers building the new... Continue reading…

Autonomous vehicles have difficulty navigating bad weather. Heavy rain, snow, and fog can do a lot to scramble an AV’s perception systems, which largely rely on cameras, radar, and lidar to “see” the world around it. Wet roads can create reflections that confuse cameras. Fog can screw up sensor data. And ice can form on the lidar, inhibiting the sensor’s ability to send out laser points to gauge distance from other objects on the road.Waymo, the Alphabet company that aims to deploy fleets of robotaxis all over the country, has been quietly investing in weather research since its early days as a “moonshot” project out of Google’s X division. And while its autonomous vehicles still struggled to navigate certain inclement conditions, the... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Splatoon 3 is getting a big update, splashing down on December 1st. Dubbed Chill Season 2022, the update’s adding new weapons, stages, game modes, and a lot more cool clothes and gear to zhuzh up your octolings.The Salmon Run game mode is also getting a fish-lift with the new Big Run game mode. Details on what Big Run is are scarce at the moment, but — according to this hilarious, borderline incomprehensible sentence from the Chill Season 2022 press release — “the first Big Run will take place when the Salmonids invade the Wahoo World stage later this year.”For the more competitive-minded octoling, X Battles are also arriving with the chill update. X Battles happen once players reach a certain eel-ite level in Anarchy Battles. Then,... Continue reading…

The Schlage Encode Plus is one of the few smart locks with support for both Apple Home Key and Thread. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge The Schlage Encode Plus, the popular Home Key-enabled smart lock, will not get upgraded to support Matter. Schlage told The Verge that this is due to several factors, including changes in the spec since the product was manufactured. It also confirmed that none of its current smart locks will support Matter. Instead, Schlage plans to introduce a new Matter-enabled smart lock in the future but did not provide a timeline for a release.When the Encode Plus launched at CES 2022, Schlage said the $330 Thread-enabled smart lock should have the hardware on board to support Matter. “But we still don’t know where those tech specs will land,” Donald Beene, senior product manager for Allegion (parent company of Schlage), told The Verge in January.... Continue reading…

Jeff Bezos at The Rings of Power premiere earlier this year. | Photo by Dave J Hogan/Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said he plans to donate the majority of his net wealth to charity within his lifetime in a new interview with CNN. Bezos did not give any specifics about how he would distribute the money or exactly what percentage of his wealth he would give away but said he wanted to fight climate change and support people who can unify humanity, CNN reports. The Amazon founder is reportedly the fourth-richest person on Earth, with a net wealth of $124 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.CNN reports that this is the first time that Bezos has announced plans to give away the majority of his fortune. In a clip of the interview published by CNN, interviewer Chloe Melas asks if Bezos plans “to give away the... Continue reading…

Photo by Ty O’Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Bird overstated the revenue it received from its shared electric scooters for at least two years, the company admitted in documents filed (PDF) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.The phantom revenue was discovered after an audit of financial statements from 2020 and 2021 in which Bird found it was counting as revenue customers’ preloaded “wallet” balances following the completion of certain scooter trips. This revenue “should not have been recorded,” the company said.As a result, Bird said that two years’ worth of financial statements “should no longer be relied upon” and that the company would be late in filing its third quarter earnings report, which was expected later today. A spokesperson for the company did... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter eliminated a large number of contract employees on Saturday, affecting anywhere from 4,400 to 5,500 workers, according to Platformer’s Casey Newton. As noted by Platformer and confirmed by other reports from Axios and CNBC, most contract employees didn’t receive any notice that they’ve been terminated and only found out after losing access to the company’s email and internal communications systems.The job cuts follow layoffs that culled about half of Twitter’s workforce and slashed 15 percent of its trust and safety team. Platformer first reported about the mass firings on Saturday night, which span both US-based and global employees working in content moderation, real estate, marketing, engineering, and other departments.T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) told Elon Musk, “Fix your companies. Or Congress will,” after Musk snarkily replied to the senator’s concerns about fake verified accounts on Twitter, and suggested Markey’s real account “sounds like a parody.”On Friday, Markey sent out a tweet containing a link to a letter he wrote to Musk, criticizing the new $7.99 per month Blue with verification subscription. The letter cites a report from the Washington Post that details how a reporter was able to easily create a fake verified account impersonating Markey and calls on Musk to address the issue. “Twitter must explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” Markey writes.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Crypto.com just admitted to making another very large and concerning clerical error: it mistakenly sent 320,000 in Ethereum (~$416 million USD) to another cryptocurrency exchange, called Gate.io, about three weeks ago (via Web3 Is Going Just Great). In a post on Twitter, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says the company was supposed to send the crypto to one of its cold, or offline, wallets, but accidentally sent it to a “whitelisted” address belonging to its corporate account at Gate.io.This all unfolded after Marszalek publicly posted the company’s cold wallet addresses to provide transparency about what the exchange does with its funds. After digging into Crypto.com’s transactions, one user, Conor Grogan, points out that the exchange... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge FTX moved users’ funds to offline wallets early Saturday morning after a wave of “unauthorized transactions” drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange. Ryne Miller, the general counsel at FTX US, didn’t confirm a hack, but said on Twitter that the company made the move to “mitigate damage” caused by the potential theft, as transferring funds offline, or to “cold storage,” helps prevents outsiders from gaining access to them.The millions in funds evaporated from the platform shortly after FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, affecting the domestic FTX US trading platform, the global version of FTX, and Alameda Research. It’s still unclear how much is missing from the exchange, but a... Continue reading…

Image: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Republicans predicted a “red wave” that would crush any hopes of a Democratic majority this election cycle. But as the dust settles and vote counts wrap up, that prediction has shattered.While Republicans saw success in states like Florida and New York, Democrats fared better in battleground states, where polls often significantly underestimated their support. On the eve of the election, FiveThirtyEight’s poll average had Dr. Mehmet Oz ahead by just half a point, only to see him lose by 4 percent in the final tally. In Michigan, the same average put incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer only five points ahead of her Republican challenger; but on election day, she won by more than 10 points.Many Democratic strategists and White House... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Grogu, meet Totoro. This evening famed animation house Studio Ghibli — best-known for films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro — confirmed its new Star Wars project, which is called Discover Zen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies and is described as a “a hand-drawn animation.” There aren’t many other details on it, but that’s not such a big deal because you’ll be able to see it for yourself very soon: it starts streaming on Disney Plus on November 12th.Studio Ghibli has been teasing the collaboration for a few days. First with a short video featuring the studio’s logo alongside Lucasfilm’s, and later with a photo depicting both The Mandalorian star Grogu and legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney CEO Bob Chapek is predicting “some staff reductions” once the company reviews its spending, according to a leaked memo published by CNBC. The company will also reportedly freeze most hiring, only bringing on new employees for “the most critical, business-driving positions.”If Disney does end up carrying out a round of layoffs, it’ll be far from the only one among the companies pushing streaming services. Dozens of workers have lost their jobs at Warner Bros. Television and HBO Max this year. Netflix has also laid off hundreds of employees this year while reporting slower subscriber growth but noted during the last earnings call that its business remains profitable, unlike its premium streaming competitors, which include Disney.... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Crypto’s no-good, very bad 2022 got even worse as FTX (along with its international platform, the independent FTX.us exchange, and Alameda Research), previously the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by volume, couldn’t come up with the money to satisfy customers’ withdrawal requests and then suffered an aborted acquisition attempt by a competitor.Now, the company is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States while announcing that founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned from his post. Seamus Hughes pointed out that the bankruptcy filing itself is now available (pdf), and it lists a total of 134 corporate entities included in today’s announcement, as well as the proposed appointment of crypto investor Stephen Neal... Continue reading…

Photo by Jennifer Pattisson Tuohy The Verge Meta is pulling the plug on its Portal video calling smart displays and its two remaining unreleased smartwatch projects, my colleague Alex Heath can confirm, as the company cuts 11,000 jobs including many in tech divisions. Reuters reported earlier today that the company planned to kill off both Portal and smartwatches, citing Meta execs who spoke at a town hall meeting; we heard the same thing from other sources, so we can independently corroborate the news.Meta had already quietly decided to stop producing Portal devices for consumers in June, and had shelved the smartwatch that was furthest in development — codename “Milan,” which was reportedly set to arrive in spring 2023 for around $349 and feature two built-in cameras for video... Continue reading…

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 15: Rainn Wilson attends “Jerry & Marge Go Large” premiere during the 2022 Tribeca Festival. | Photo by Dominik Bindl/WireImage Actor Rainn Wilson (you might know him as Dwight from The Office) had a grand scheme to bring his hilarious brand of climate advocacy to Twitter this week. That plan, however, wasquickly thwarted — another victim of the name-changing drama that has flourished on the platform recently.Wilson took to Twitter on Wednesday to announce he was changing his name on social media to “Rainnfall Heat Wave Extreme Winter Wilson.” “As a cheap little stunt to help save planet Earth I’ve changed my name on Twitter, Instagram, and even on my fancy writing paper,” Wilson said in a video. He points to a memo pad with scrawled changes to his printed name, so that it reads “Acid Rainn Kills Trees Wilson.”Some 35 minutes later, Wilson tweeted, “P.S.... Continue reading…

You say you have my money? Prove it. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As FTX, formerly the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, files for bankruptcy and halts withdrawals, other exchanges are working hard to assure customers that they won’t be meeting the same fate. Binance, Crypto.com, and others have started releasing partial looks at their books, while Coinbase executives are on a media tour telling investors that it’s safe to store money with their company.The moves are meant to assure people that their money isn’t being used on other investments and is instead held one to one. In other words, the exchanges want you to know that if you deposit a Bitcoin with them, they’ll keep a Bitcoin in reserve. That’s in contrast with FTX, which reportedly loaned billions of dollars in customer... Continue reading…

Alex Spiro, leader of Elon Musk’s team of attorneys, leaves the US District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles on December 6th, 2019. | Image: APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro, who worked for months arguing Musk should be allowed to break his agreement to buy Twitter for $44 billion, is now reassuring Twitter employees that they will not be personally liable if the company violates a 20-year FTC consent decree, according to an email obtained by The Verge.As employees have had to reckon with massive layoffs and general instability at the company, there have been fears that Twitter staffers working on security and privacy could be in some legal danger for potential violations of the decree.“It is the company’s obligation. It is the company’s burden. It is the company’s liability.”A company lawyer even suggested in Twitter’s Slack that employees investigate whistleblower... Continue reading…

Image: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images Tesla is opening up its charging system, but not in the way that helps people who own electric vehicles that aren’t Teslas.The automaker is renaming its Tesla connector the “North American Charging Standard” (NACS) and is pitting it against the current CCS combo charging standard. CCS is the agreed-upon standard that every manufacturer selling in North America has adopted for DC fast charging.In a new blog, Tesla says that its connector is “half the size, and twice as powerful” as CCS and points out that it’s “the most common charging standard” by a degree of 2 to 1. Tesla currently sells more EVs than any other manufacturer in the US, but other automakers are starting to catch up. According to the Department of Energy, there are... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Omnicom, one of the world’s biggest ad firms, representing brands like McDonald’s, Apple, and PepsiCo, is recommending clients pause spending on Twitter, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge.Omnicom Media Group is recommending clients “pause activity on Twitter in the short term,” according to a note titled “Twitter - Continued Brand Safety Concerns.” The memo cites recent events in the last few days that have “potential serious implications” for brands running ads on the platform.“The risk to our clients’ brand safety has risen sharply to a level most would find unacceptable”The memo cites the deep layoffs of Twitter trust and safety teams, the resignations of high-profile executives, and the slew of “verified”... Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge When it’s finally time to get a new Wi-Fi router, there’s no need to panic. Whether you’ve switched internet service providers or you’ve decided to get something snappier, snazzier, and more reliable than whatever piece of plastic your ISP handed you, upgrading your router doesn’t have to be a headache.If you have a smart home like I do, you may be dreading the thought of having to manually update every light bulb, light switch, and security camera in your home to the new network. (As of today, I have 112 devices on my network.) While typing a new password into a laptop or iPad is pretty easy, when it comes to smart home devices, you have to open each app for every smart device and go through the sometimes painful process of updating... Continue reading…

The 33-year-old Mikhail Vasiliev is currently in Canadian custody awaiting extradition to the United States. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Russian-Canadian national Mikhail Vasiliev was arrested in Canada on Wednesday over his alleged participation in the LockBit ransomware campaign, which has claimed at least 1,000 victims in the United States.Thirty-three-year-old Vasiliev is charged with “conspiracy to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit ransom demands” and, if convicted, faces a maximum of five years in prison. Vasiliev is currently in Canadian custody awaiting extradition to the United States.Evidence for the charges was collected during two separate police raids on the suspect’s homeThe criminal complaint describes two separate police raids of his Ontario home — first in August 2022 and then again the following October. During the first search,... Continue reading…

Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images Kevin Conroy, the voice actor who was the Batman for a generation, passed away at the age of 66, The Verge has confirmed. In an email seen by The Verge, DC public relations wrote, “It is with profound sadness that I send this to you today. Kevin Conroy, the quintessential voice of Batman, a dear friend to so many of us, has passed away.”Conroy enjoyed a prolific acting career across stage and screen, but he is best known for voicing Batman, one of the most popular and captivating superheroes ever, starting with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. He would go on to voice the Caped Crusader in many other animated series and video games, including Justice League, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman Beyond, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm,... Continue reading…

Image: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images Waymo keeps (driverless) trucking along.The Alphabet division made a couple of announcements this week meant to highlight the progress — albeit incremental — of its robotaxis. The first was that, starting this week, anyone who downloads the company’s app can now hail one of Waymo’s driverless vehicles in downtown Phoenix. (The service was previously only available to the company’s “Trusted Tester” program of people from a wait list who sign nondisclosure agreements to get early access to Waymo’s vehicles in new service areas.)The second was that the California Department of Motor Vehicles approved an amendment to Waymo’s permit to include driverless vehicles, which means the company has the green light to deploy fully autonomous... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Helicopters and gliders arrive in Microsoft Flight Simulator’s 40th Anniversary Update. Developers at Asobo and Microsoft have spent a lot of time getting the details right. Continue reading…

The ROG Zephyrus G14 offers some impressive specs at an impressive price point. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Even with just two weeks left until Black Friday, our post today proves that there’s always room for more deals. We’ve rolled out a pretty healthy spread of sales today, but there’s way more to show than what we’ve featured here. To make sure you don’t miss out, make sure to check out our early Black Friday deals pages, subscribe to our newsletter, and follow @VergeDeals on Twitter (it’s really us, we swear).Our first deal today is revisiting the lowest price ever for the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop at Best Buy. This configuration of the G14 is typically priced at $1,649.99 but is currently on sale for $1,299.99, matching its best price yet. Featuring an excellent 16:10 display with a 2560 x 1600 resolution with a 120Hz refresh... Continue reading…

The original Control. | Image: Remedy Entertainment A sequel to the 2019 supernatural thriller Control is in development. Developer Remedy Entertainment confirmed the news today, saying that Control 2 would be a joint project with publisher 505 Games (which published the original Control). The sequel is currently in the “concept stage,” but Remedy says it will launch on the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X / S.We don’t know much about the game, but the studio did share this single piece of concept art: Image: Remedy Entertainment Concept art from Control 2. Along with this message from game director Mikael Kasurinen: