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Updated 2024-11-28 01:00
Apple’s copyright claims ripped down a fan’s archival WWDC YouTube channel
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After Apple issued several copyright claims, YouTube took down an archival channel containing hundreds of decades-old videos from past Apple Worldwide Developer Conferences (WWDC). Brendan Shanks, the owner of the Apple WWDC Videos channel, says his account’s been permanently disabled after receiving well over three copyright strikes — the maximum number of violations you can incur before YouTube removes your account.In screenshots of emails shared by Shanks, Apple issued a number of takedown requests against his videos, some of which dated back to the early 2000s. Shanks says he still has all the original video files and descriptions, and is currently trying to get the content over to the Internet Archive. Apple didn’t immediately... Continue reading…
Apple reportedly wants to swap the ‘Hey Siri’ trigger phrase for just ‘Siri’
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s looking to change Siri’s trigger phrase from “Hey Siri,” to just “Siri,” according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. This means you would just need to say “Siri” followed by a command to activate the smart assistant.As noted by Gurman, Apple’s been working on this feature for the past several months and is expected to roll it out next year or in 2024. But Apple will have to put in a “significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work,” to get the feature to function properly, as the smart assistant will need to understand the single wake word in multiple accents and dialects. The current, two-word trigger phrase, “Hey Siri,” increases the chance of Siri picking up on it.Switching to a single wake word... Continue reading…
HP Victus 15 review: an $800 laptop that can game
It’s a budget laptop with budget frame rates. Continue reading…
Riot teamed Lil Nas X up with a holographic mech for 2022’s Worlds opening ceremony
Image: Riot Games This year’s edition of the League of Legends World Championship featured Lil Nas X, Jackson Wang, and some impressive technology. Continue reading…
Jack Dorsey takes responsibility for Elon Musk’s mass layoffs at Twitter
Laura Normand / The Verge Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO, responded to the mass layoffs under Elon Musk’s ownership by saying he owns “the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation” and that he grew the company “too quickly.” On Friday, Musk laid off about half of Twitter’s workforce, affecting employees across all departments.“Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment,” Dorsey writes. “I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.”
Elon Musk’s $7.99 Twitter Blue with verification is ‘coming soon’ on iOS
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Twitter’s app on iOS has been updated to support Elon Musk’s $7.99 per month Twitter Blue. The app’s latest update on the Apple App Store says you have to pay for Blue to get verified on the platform “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.”The new Twitter Blue subscription isn’t available just yet, though. Esther Crawford, a product manager at Twitter confirmed it’s not live right now but says some users “may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time.”
Apple’s reportedly building an advertising network around its Major League Soccer deal
Image: Apple Apple’s building an advertising network as part of its deal to start streaming Major League Soccer (MLS) games next year, according to a report from Bloomberg. Sources familiar with the situation told the outlet that Apple’s in talks with advertisers and MLS sponsors to display ads during soccer games and “related shows.”Apple struck a 10-year deal with the MLS in June and will start streaming soccer games through its Apple TV app in February 2023. While the company plans on introducing a separate, Sunday Ticket-like subscription dedicated to streaming every MLS game, it says it’ll make a “broad selection” of MLS and Leagues Cup matches available to Apple TV Plus subscribers, with a “limited number” available for free.There still... Continue reading…
Sony’s all-around excellent WF-1000XM4 earbuds are on sale for $100 off
The best deal on the best earbuds is a hard combo to beat. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge There’s no telling what another day might bring — especially if you too are glued to our coverage of a certain social media hellscape — but you can rest assured that The Verge’s deals team is always on the lookout for ways to help you save, both in the form of early Black Friday deals or whatever we can scrounge up for you on a random Saturday.And we’ve got some bangers for you this week because Sony’s WF-1000XM4 earbuds are on sale for an all-time low of around $178 at Amazon and Target until tomorrow. That’s around $100 off their regular price of $278, and much better than the typical $30 discount we see.The WF-1000XM4 frequently come up when we’re talking earbuds, namely because they’re just that good. The excellent all-rounders... Continue reading…
Matter is here, but it’s still a long road to the simplesmart home
A Matter QR code on an Eve Energy smart plug. To pair a device to a Matter app, you’ll just need to scan this code. At the official launch event for Matter this week, I saw a lot of exciting things: a Google Nest Hub controlling an Eve Energy smart plug; a Wiz light bulb working with Apple Home; a Yale smart lock talking to a SmartThings hub over Thread. None of these things were possible before Matter. And all of these things worked well in their demos using voice, app, and other smart home control interfaces — even in the interference hell of a mini-trade show floor.But I also saw that Matter has a long way to go before it fully delivers on its promise of an interoperable and simple smart home. A phrase I heard a lot throughout the two-day event was, “Matter is a journey,” followed by, “This is just the beginning.”In the short term, don’t expect... Continue reading…
The most interesting EV concepts at the 2022 SEMA conference
Image: Nissan The Specialty Equipment Market Association, or SEMA, held its annual conference in Las Vegas this week. Billed as one of the biggest car shows in the world, the event typically brings together more than 135,000 attendees in the automotive aftermarket industry to see the newest trends in vehicle repairs and modifications.And this year, EVs were a particular focus. The event featured a dedicated space for EVs, labeled “SEMA Electrified,” and according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it was 740 percent larger compared to 2019, when it was first debuted. Several major automakers showed up with a bunch of unique EV concepts in tow. Here are some of the ones that stood out the most.Ford Image: Ford I... Continue reading…
Overwatch 2’s newest hero is the scary but sexy Ramattra
Image: Blizzard In the perfect prelude to the Overwatch League 2022 grand finals, Blizzard has revealed Overwatch 2’s newest character. Ramattra is the game’s 36th hero, and his abilities and story seem like they’ll make for the most interesting addition to the roster yet.Ramattra is the leader of Null Sector, a group of sentient robots called omnics committed to the liberation of their people by any means necessary. In Overwatch’s overarching story (yes, there is one) Null Sector is one of the biggest baddies, responsible for touching off the war between robots and humans that became the instigating event for the creation of the Overwatch task force.Ramattra is a tank like you’ve never seen before. Rather than being the kind of tank that shields... Continue reading…
Apple has finally approved a MagSafe car mount charger, and it only costs $99.95
Imagine: mounting your phone with magnets, and charging it at 15W at the same time. | Image: Apple A mere two years after Apple introduced MagSafe for iPhones, we're finally getting the accessory that probably should've launched with it: a magnetic car mount that's also capable of actually charging your phone. As 9to5Mac spotted, Belkin has announced its Boost Charge Pro Wireless Car Charger With MagSafe, which is available for pre-order on the Apple store.I know what some of you may be thinking: “wait, Amazon is flooded with MagSafe car chargers, and they’re nowhere even close to $100. What makes this one special?” The answer is that this one is actually MagSafe, where the rest are MagSafe compatible. That means that they use a ring of magnets to hold your phone, and standard Qi charging that can’t pump as much power into your... Continue reading…
Twitter cut 15 percent of its trust and safety staff but says it won’t impact moderation
I guess we’ll see. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter just laid off about half of its workforce, but the company’s “core moderation capabilities” are still in place, the company’s head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth said in a tweet thread Friday evening.The layoffs affected “approximately” 15 percent of Twitter’s Trust and Safety group, “with our frontline moderation staff experiencing the least impact,” according to Roth. The company restricted access to some internal tools last week for “security reasons” — Roth didn’t say exactly when, but that would put the timing around when Elon Musk took over the company — but “most” content moderators who did frontline reviews weren’t impacted, and access to those tools will be “fully restored in the coming days.”Daily volume of... Continue reading…
Starlink is getting daytime data caps
Be careful not to use too much data with Dishy McFlatface. | Image: Starlink Starlink is about to feel a little more like other ISPs, with a new data policy that mimics Anytime Minutes from the bad old days of highly restricted cellphone service. The satellite internet division of SpaceX will start throttling home internet for customers who use more than 1TB of Priority Access data per month during peak hours beginning in December. The change is being rolled out as part of a new “Fair Use policy” in the US and Canada.Residential customers will now start each monthly billing cycle with an allocation of “Priority Access” data that tracks what you’re using from 7AM in the morning until 11PM at night. If you surpass that 1TB cap, which Starlink says less than 10 percent of users currently do, you’ll be moved to... Continue reading…
The execs behind the MoviePass debacle are now facing criminal charges
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Mitch Lowe and Ted Farnsworth already settled with the FTC over fraudulent activity affecting MoviePass customers, and are being sued by the SEC, but now the former heads of MoviePass and its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), are facing criminal allegations of securities fraud and wire fraud.The Department of Justice announced the charges today, saying false statements made by both men defrauded investors in HMNY when the execs pretended like the company’s money-losing $9.95 “unlimited” moviegoing plan had any hope of profitability.Chris Bond, a spokesperson for Farnsworth, said in a statement emailed to The Verge that “The indictment repeats the same allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission in... Continue reading…
We finally have an idea of what kind of stuff David Zaslav wants Warner Bros. Discovery to make.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The swiftness with which Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav began canceling shows and entire movies as part of his plan to boost the company’s revenue was cause for much alarm earlier this year. As series like Infinity Train and Summer Camp Island began disappearing from HBO Max, that alarm only intensified and led many to wonder just what Zaslav hoped to gain by essentially killing off pieces of its catalog just months ahead of its fusion with Discovery Plus. But in a recent WBD earnings call, Zaslav said that he’s confident those cuts were all the right decision because none of those series were performing in a way that benefited the company.In response to a question about Warner Bros. Discovery’s free cash flow as the company... Continue reading…
Westworld is over
Image: HBO Westworld has been canceled. The Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan show about robots and apocalypses captivated and then confused audiences and finally seemed to have forgotten what it was about entirely by the time its fourth and final season aired earlier this year. So while it’s a bummer the show is gone, it’s also not much of a surprise.HBO emailed a statement on the cancellation, saying:
Watch iFixit’s teardown of the ‘largely unfixable’ Meta Quest Pro
At this point, you might have a pretty good idea of what the inside of a smartphone is like, but how about a highly advanced VR headset? The experts at iFixit have posted their video teardown of Meta’s new Quest Pro, and while they conclude that it’s a “fascinating, if largely unfixable device,” it’s an extremely interesting look at the insides of the high-end VR headset.One of the first things iFixit digs into is the battery, which lives in the back part of the headset. It’s a twin-cell 20.58Wh battery that’s curved, which is something I don’t think I’ve seen before. It’s a different approach than what Meta took with the Quest 2’s Elite battery strap, which had two connected flat batteries (as shown in this picture from a Redditor). ... Continue reading…
Fanfiction was the guilty pleasure that helped me unlock the internet
The hours I have spent on this site... My taboo teenage pastime introduced me to the wide world of internet subcultures. Continue reading…
Elon Musk’s Twitter layoffs leave whole teams gutted
Vjeran Pavic / The Verge About half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees are now gone, with teams focused on trust and safety issues hit the hardest. Continue reading…
TikTok is back after a brief outage
Not the best day for TikTok. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge For a little while this afternoon, many people get a message that there’s “no internet connection” while trying to browse their For You page inside the TikTok app. After an outage that lasted from 1:25PM ET until around 1:45PM ET, everything appears to be functional again.We haven’t seen an update from TikTok about the outage yet, but while it was happening it was widespread, with tracker Downdetector identifying more than 75,000 reports of the issue. Global internet connectivity monitor NetBlocks also weighed in on the outage, noting that TikTok was unplugged internationally, with no sign of country-level filtering of the oft-criticized app. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Even if you have internet, you... Continue reading…
How to use Continuity Camera on macOS
Samar Haddad / The Verge Continuity Camera is one of the most exciting features of macOS Ventura. It allows you — if you’re taking a call from your MacBook — to substitute an iPhone’s camera for the webcam. The feature can be a bit of a hassle to set up, but once you’ve got all the appropriate settings, it’s very easy to use.In order to use Continuity Camera, make sure your hardware and software are compatible. You can be on any Mac computer that’s running iOS Ventura. iPhone requirements get a bit more complicated — Continuity Camera technically works with an iPhone XR or later, but only the 11 and later can use certain fancier features like Center Stage and Desk View, while you need a 12 or later if you want to use Studio Light. Then, whatever phone you... Continue reading…
Asteroid surveys are on the hunt for ‘city killers’
An artist’s impression of an asteroid lurking inside the orbits of Earth and Venus. | Image: DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/ This week, astronomers announced the discovery of three previously unknown near-Earth asteroids that had been hiding in the glare of the Sun — and one of them is a giant. At nearly a mile (1.5 kilometers) across, it is big enough to cause planet-wide destruction if it hit the Earth, though it won’t come anywhere close enough to be a threat for a hundred years or so.The search for potentially hazardous asteroids like this one has ramped up in recent years, with multiple ongoing efforts to identify and catalog large space rocks passing close by. From twilight observations from the ground to space-based telescopes peering into hard-to-see regions of the sky, these programs are focused on identifying potentially dangerous asteroids as... Continue reading…
Elon Musk tries to distract from Twitter layoffs by claiming advertisers are fleeing the platform
Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images We’re one week into Elon Musk’s stewardship of Twitter, and according to Musk, it has already spurred a “massive drop in revenue.” Or not, and that’s just what Musk is saying to distract everyone from the absolutely heartless layoffs of thousands of people that have already spurred one federal lawsuit. But you know, here’s the tweet:
Fully’s standing desks and other work-from-home accessories are 20 percent off today
Fully’s Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk is discounted by 20 percent right now. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Fully is joining the growing list of retailers kicking off their Black Friday-adjacent sales. It’s having a site-wide sale this month, taking 20 percent off everything ranging from standing desks to office chairs. Fully makes some of our favorite standing desks and accessories, and any opportunity to save on these home office essentials is worth checking out. Whether you prefer a 30 x 24-inch desk topper made of bamboo or a custom desktop that doubles as a whiteboard, Fully’s work-from-home staples are worth the price. This 20 percent discount also applies to all builds, along with any accessories you’d like to order, which range from powered grommets to help keep your cables under control to a bottle opener hidden underneath your... Continue reading…
Sega is keeping mini consoles alive
The Astro City Mini V. | Image: Limited Run Games The company has two new tiny devices, the Astro Mini City V and the Sega Genesis Mini 2, that prove there’s still a place for miniaturized classics. Continue reading…
Twitter is being sued by former employees for Elon Musk’s mass firing
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is being sued in a class-action lawsuit filed by former employees laid off as part of a mass firing instigated by the company’s new owner, Elon Musk.The lawsuit alleges that the workers were not given enough notice of their firing in accordance with both the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) and California WARN Act. These acts require that companies give employees at least 60 days of advance notice before a mass firing takes place.“Look Ma I’m suing Twitter”The lawsuit was filed in an attempt to “make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the complaint on... Continue reading…
Why COP27 matters for the climate, but maybe not as much as the hype suggests
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 on November 1, 2021, in Glasgow, United Kingdom. | Photo by Yves Herman - WPA Pool / Getty Images More than 30,000 people representing governments, businesses, and environmental and human rights groups around the world are expected to gather next week to talk shop on climate change. The occasion is the United Nations’ annual climate summit, called the 27th Conference of the Parties, or COP27, which is scheduled to take place from November 6th through 18th.Every year, the conference is billed as an opportunity for the world to come together to tackle the climate crisis. World leaders sometimes make new commitments to curb their country’s greenhouse gas emissions or pen agreements with other heads of state to transition to clean energy and funnel money into building a more resilient world. More often, advocates walk away disappointed... Continue reading…
Samsung Odyssey Ark review: curved and cursed
For its $3,500 price, Samsung left a lot of ambition on the table with the Ark. Its curved, bright, and fast panel doesn’t make up for it not being as rich to look at as a cheaper OLED or as useful with multitasking as a couple of cheap monitors stuck together. Continue reading…
Now’s the time to buy last year’s iPad
Is this the 2022 iPad Pro, or is it last year’s model? You can’t tell, and you won’t tell when using it, either. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s iPad releases this year have been, well, lackluster to say the least. That isn’t to say the new 10th-gen iPad and the M2-equipped iPad Pro are bad products — far from it. But they either aren’t significantly better than their predecessors or have an awkward value proposition that puts them in between more compelling options in Apple’s lineup.If you’ve been planning to buy an iPad this year, this is good news because you can confidently purchase last year’s (or even older) models without really giving up much. And based on the pricing we’ve seen on older iPads recently, that can either save you a ton of money or get you a more capable model for the same price you might pay for the latest base version.Buying an older model also... Continue reading…
How Marvel Snap was designed to fit into your life
Second Dinner The developers at Marvel Snap have done their job a little too well. In an interview with The Verge, the developers spoke about how, when designing Marvel Snap, they wanted to create a game that could “fit into your life.” Well, it seems like I and millions of others have not only managed to fit the game into our lives but have shaped our lives around it. That’s why I play a few quick rounds first thing in the morning, reward my productivity at work with a midday Snap break, and why I must end the day on a dub before I can sleep.Marvel Snap is the debut game of Second Dinner, an indie studio founded by ex-Blizzard developers, and from the start, they knew they wanted to create a mobile card game. “Marvel Snap is about continuing our... Continue reading…
Cherry’s new keyboard switch is inspired by the rare 1980s ‘Nixie’
Cherry’s new MX Black Clear-Top switches. | Image: Cherry Cherry’s latest mechanical keyboard switch is the MX Black Clear-Top. It’s a design that’s based on a rare linear switch that was produced briefly during the 1980s for Nixdorf keyboards, leading to them being nicknamed “Nixies” by enthusiasts. The retro switches, which are effectively a variant of the linear Cherry MX Black that use a heavier spring and clear, rather than black, plastic case, have since become a highly sought after collector’s item, prized for their supposed smoothness and rich sound.How highly sought after? Well this review of the Nixie switch from ThereminGoat notes that they’ve been known to sell for $7 a switch. Considering the average keyboard has around 100 keys, that means a full set of Nixie switches could set... Continue reading…
Substack launches Chat service to better connect writers with readers
The Substack Chat feature was designed to give content creators and writers a way to better connect with their subscribers and online community. | Image: Substack Substack has launched Substack Chat, a new discussions feature designed to provide content creators with the means to build up their own online communities outside of social media.Substack Chat allows writers, podcasters, and other creators to host conversations with their audiences, setting a topic for discussion without needing to hack together integrations with services such as Discord, Telegram, or Slack. Chat can be made available for all subscribers or restricted to those that pay for your content.Substack Chat could be an alternative community for those leaving Twitter“Chat is a community space reimagined specifically for writers and creators — it’s like having your own private social network where you make the rules,” Substack... Continue reading…
Elon Musk’s Twitter layoffs are starting
Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Twitter has notified employees that it will be “reducing our global workforce” on Friday, November 4th, according to an unsigned internal memo seen by The Verge.The confirmation comes a week after Elon Musk became Twitter’s new owner and quickly started changing how the company operates and its product roadmap. Since then, speculation about the timing and scope of the expected layoffs has run rampant inside Twitter.Employees will receive an email by 9AM PST on November 4th confirming whether they have been laid off or not, according to the internal memo, which also states that employee badge access to Twitter’s offices will be shut off “temporarily.”“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether... Continue reading…
PayPal and Venmo will soon support Apple’s Tap to Pay contactless payments tech
You’ll be able to accept contactless payments on your iPhone through the PayPal or Venmo iOS apps. | Image: Apple PayPal is going to make it easier for merchants in the US to take payments right on their iPhones. The company is adding support for Apple’s Tap to Pay technology into the PayPal and Venmo iOS apps, meaning merchants will be able to accept contactless credit or debit cards and mobile wallets without an external card reader (via MacRumors).Apple first announced Tap to Pay in February. Integration with PayPal and Venmo’s apps might mark a notable step up for adoption of Apple’s touchless technology and could be helpful for merchants who don’t want to rely on external readers to accept contactless payments. It will also help PayPal compete with payments rival Square, which launched support for Tap to Pay in September.Support will be... Continue reading…
The date of the big HBO Max and Discovery Plus merger moved up
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In an earnings call today, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that the merging of HBO Max and Discovery Plus was going so well that the target date for the launch of the new service would be moving from summer 2023 to spring 2023.From their user interface to their backend to their content, the two services are extraordinarily different, with HBO Max likely leading Discovery Plus in subscriptions as it had approximately 76.8 million users in April before the acquisition, and the combined services now have 94.9 million subscribers. But Zaslav’s plan has always been to merge the two services, which his team views as targeting very different markets. Early this year, a slide claiming HBO Max skewed male and Discovery Plus... Continue reading…
Sling TV now costs $40 a month, the fourth price hike in five years
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re paying Dish to stream live TV channels over the internet, prepare for a higher bill yet again: the company’s Sling TV streaming service is raising prices by $5 a month for the fourth time in five years. Sling Orange and Sling Blue pay TV packages will now cost $40 a month each — up from $35 previously — and you’ll pay $55 for the package with both Orange and Blue.Existing subscribers should see the price increases on the first bill they get after December 3rd; new customers will have to pay the higher rate starting today.In an official blog post, Sling TV president Gary Schanman blamed the rising cost of programming for the latest price hike, without offering further explanation. We’d probably put money on Disney having... Continue reading…
Samsung is building an ‘8K’ ultrawide monitor to succeed its massive Odyssey Neo G9
Screenshot by Mitchell Clark / The Verge Were Samsung’s jaw-dropping 49-inch Odyssey G9 and Neo G9 not enough monitor for you? Did the 55-inch swiveling cockpit that is the Odyssey Ark leave you cold? The electronics and semiconductor giant is preparing to announce an unprecedented 8K resolution version of its massive curved screen, AMD just revealed at its RDNA 3 GPU event.It’ll feature DisplayPort 2.1, but that’s the only other thing we know as of now. AMD says we’ll get more details at CES 2023 in January.While the 32:9 aspect ratio of these monitors suggests the screen won’t be a true 8K resolution — for comparison, the “5K” Odyssey G9 has a height of just 1440 pixels to go with its incredible 5,120 pixels of width — it would likely be a substantial improvement in... Continue reading…
AMD’s next-gen RX 7900 XTX and XT GPUs start at $899, launch December 13th
Image: AMD AMD has announced its next generation of graphics cards, the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT, which are the first cards powered by its new architecture, RDNA 3. That means they use a chiplet design, similar to the company’s Ryzen processors.Both cards will launch on December 13th, with both AMD’s reference cards and board partner models set to ship on that date. The 7900 XTX will cost $999, and the XT is $100 cheaper at $899. That represents a significant price jump compared to the previous gen —the top-spec 6950 XT retailed for $849, while the base 6900 XT was $679. Nvidia’s RTX 4080, however, starts at $1,199, while the 4090 is an eye-watering $1,599.There’s been a lot of buzz around AMD’s next generation of cards, with people waiting to... Continue reading…
Vonage to pay $100 million to settle ‘junk fee’ allegations
Getty Images On Thursday, the internet-based telecom provider Vonage agreed to pay $100 million to the Federal Trade Commission to settle charges that it created an artificially burdensome process to cancel the service that included hidden termination fees.In its complaint, the FTC alleged that Vonage, an Ericsson subsidiary, made it easy for consumers to sign up for its services but far more difficult to cancel. Consumers could sign up for service in a variety of ways, including online and over the phone, but Vonage forced customers to speak with a live “retention agent” in order to cancel service.Additionally, the FTC claimed Vonage purposefully hid the cancellation number on its website, limited the hours these cancellation calls were... Continue reading…
The next attempt to launch the Artemis I mission will be at night
The SLS rocket for the Artemis 1 mission on September 27, 2022. | Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images NASA has confirmed its next launch attempt for the Artemis I mission will be at night, with a midnight launch scheduled for the early hours of Monday, November 14th. Following a difficult few months attempting to get the Space Launch System rocket off the ground for the first time, including several wet dress rehearsals, two previous launch attempts, a tanking test, and an interruption from a hurricane, the rocket will begin rolling back out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after midnight on Friday, November 4th.A night launch means lower visibility, and NASA representatives said they would have preferred a daylight launch. However, the team was confident that a night launch could be done safely and meet all the... Continue reading…
Blood oxygen monitors face scrutiny from FDA panel
Photo by Jon Akira Yamamoto/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Devices that monitor blood oxygen levels in the hospital and at home need to be more carefully regulated, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel indicated at a meeting Tuesday.The devices are everywhere in healthcare settings, and people regularly purchase them for at-home use. But research over the past few decades has steadily shown that they don’t work as well for people with darker skin tones — a disparity that became even more critical during the covid pandemic. The FDA issued an alert saying that the devices have “limitations” in 2021.“We need to take appropriate steps to remove the growing uncertainty around these devices and ensure the health and safety of the public,” anesthesiologist Jesse Ehrenfeld said to the panel... Continue reading…
VR is still too expensive
The PSVR2 starts at $549.99 and launches next year. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge PlayStation VR2 costs more than the most expensive PS5. I get why, but it’s still too much money.We’re on the precipice of a new era for virtual reality. Meta just launched its high-end Quest Pro, Sony will be releasing PSVR2 in February, and Apple is heavily rumored to jump into the game with its own VR / AR headset very soon. I’m finally ready to buy a VR headset, and this is the generation that it feels like I should be joining. But now that we’re finally seeing actual prices for them, I’m getting some major sticker shock. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Do I want PSVR2? Yes, but it costs so much. PSVR2’s $549.99 price is already high, but tack that on with the starting PS5 price of $399.99 and it means... Continue reading…
With Netflix’s ads tier, you never know what you’re going to get
It’s Netflix — but with ads. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Clicking into something on Netflix’s new ads tier is a roll of the dice: you never know how many ads you might have to sit through.Netflix Basic with Ads is finally here, offering a cheaper Netflix subscription at $6.99 per month with the tradeoff that you might have to watch some ads with your movies and TV shows. I spent some time messing around with a new account on the tier on Thursday, and while the experience of using Netflix was mostly the same, what struck me was the unpredictability of how many ads I’d have to watch. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge You probably won’t be making this face after you have to watch a third ad. Netflix says you can expect to see an “average of 4 to 5 minutes of ads per... Continue reading…
How to set your Google calendar to private
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Recently, journalist, author of Platformer, and former Verge reporter Casey Newton tweeted something that had many readers both laughing and panicking: that entrepreneur David Sacks’ calendar at Twitter was not set to private and, as a result, was being carefully scrutinized by curious Twitter employees.
The mystery of Biden’s deadlocked FCC
Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge, Photo by Pete Marovich / Getty Images How often do the parent companies of Fox News and MSNBC team up? Continue reading…
Amazon curbs corporate retail hiring for the rest of 2022
Image: The Verge Update November 3rd, 1:25PM ET: In a note emailed to employees and posted publicly on November 3rd, Amazon svp of people experience and technology Beth Galetti announced a “pause on new incremental hires in our corporate workforce.”According to a report by Karen Weise of The New York Times, Amazon is freezing corporate hiring for its retail business for the remainder of 2022 in an effort to hedge its bets against a rough economic forecast.The hiring freeze includes all corporate and technology positions for Amazon’s retail and operations, which account for the bulk of Amazon sales. However, Amazon’s more profitable cloud computing division won’t be affected. Student hiring and field positions are also exempt from the pause, and B... Continue reading…
Philips Hue Bridge is getting updated to Matter early next year
Image: Philips Hue The Philips Hue Bridge is now Matter certified, with a software update coming to all users by Q1 2023. The free update will make most existing and new Hue lights and accessories Matter compatible. Developers, or anyone willing to live on the edge, can access the beta firmware as of today.News of the Hue Bridge certification first leaked via the Connectivity Standards Alliance’s Matter certification database early Thursday morning, just as the Matter launch event kicked off in Amsterdam.Signify says that the Hue Bridge update will preserve previous settings and personalizations in the Philips Hue App, as well as Google and Amazon integrations. But Apple HomeKit users will need to reset to connect again via Matter.Two Philips Hue... Continue reading…
The NYPD has joined Amazon’s Ring Neighbors surveillance network
Amazon Ring spotlight camera. | Image: Ring The New York Police Department has joined Ring Neighbors, the neighborhood surveillance network built around Amazon’s Ring security cameras. The partnership, announced yesterday, means the NYPD will view people’s posts on Neighbors and be able to post directly to it, including requests for public help on “active police matters.”Neighbors is a Nextdoor-like extension of Ring’s security camera business, allowing residents of a neighborhood to discuss crime and safety as well as post footage from their cameras. While many law enforcement departments have joined Neighbors in recent years, this marks its adoption by America’s largest police force. (Police could separately request Ring footage for criminal investigations without the app.)... Continue reading…
OpenAI opens up AI text-to-image generation to businesses with launch of DALL-E API
An example of DALL-E’s “outpainting” function, which generates imagery outside an initial starting frame. | Image: OpenAI OpenAI is making its image generation software DALL-E much more widely available to businesses with the launch of an API in public beta. The API will make it easier for companies to add DALL-E’s text-to-image functionality to their products, giving developers simplified tools to integrate and customize the software to their liking.An early use case for the API is Microsoft’s Designer app, which uses the software to generate imagery for Office users, from PowerPoint slides to illustrations for homework. Microsoft is one of OpenAI’s major investors and unveiled the app last month.Luke Miller, a product manager at OpenAI working on the API, told The Verge that the company was excited to see the new applications developers would find for... Continue reading…
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