The Verge

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals. | Image: Netflix When the original Oxenfree debuted in 2016, it was hard not to make Stranger Things comparisons: from the synth-heavy soundtrack to its story of kids grappling with the supernatural, the vibes were very similar. So it made a lot of sense when, in 2021, Netflix acquired Oxenfree developer Night School Studio as part of its burgeoning games effort. Now we have Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, which is an ideal sequel: it's another creepy adventure game that stands on its own but also builds on the original in smart ways. It might also be the best video game released under the Netflix label so far.As a game, not much has changed in Lost Signals. It's a 2D adventure where you wander around a beautiful small town, doing lots of talking and... Continue reading...

A worthwhileZeldadeal has dropped. | Image: Nintendo The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been dominating the gaming zeitgeist since its release in May, but it's finally time for a wave of patient deal hunters to descend on Hyrule. Amazon and Walmart are now discounting the Nintendo title that normally runs $69.99, selling it for $51.99. Full disclosure: both deals are through a third-party seller, but that doesn't give me too much cause for concern given they carry mostly positive ratings and are fulfilled by the retailers.There has been a way to get the digital version of the game for cheaper this whole time, but if you prefer a physical cartridge for your Nintendo Switch games, this deal is the way to go. Though, if prior Zelda discounts are anything to go by (as few as... Continue reading...

Image: Tesla Tesla has agreed to settle on a class action lawsuit over sudden price increases the company pushed on Solar Roof buyers in 2021, CNBC reports. Tesla said it will pay just over $6 million in the settlement, which involves thousands of customers who had committed to purchasing the novel roof-replacing solar shingles product.According to the court filing, the settlement class included 8,636 customers, 6,307 of whom had canceled their orders. About 1,600 of the remaining customers completed their full contract at the original prices, and the rest are either scheduled for install or are pending. One of the lead plaintiffs had their Tesla contract increase from about $72,000 to $146,000, while others were offered a free Powerwall home... Continue reading...

The group taking credit for the attack is threatening to keep the site down for weeks. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The popular fanfiction platform Archive of Our Own (AO3) has been restored after a wave of distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks forced the website offline for over a day. AO3 first acknowledged the outage on the company's official Twitter account on July 10th at 8.24AM ET, later confirming that the issue was caused by a DDoS attack" - a malicious cybercrime in which threat actors overwhelm a server with traffic - causing the servers to fall over."In an update on Tuesday afternoon, AO3 tweeted, We're back!" but noted that it may need to do some work to optimize our shiny new Cloudflare setup." When we tried going on the site ourselves, it took a little while to load, but we were able to access it.A group claiming to be... Continue reading...

Ahead of the live-action Ahsoka series upcoming at the end of August, Disney's dropped a new trailer detailing how Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka Tano will cross paths with a number of familiar faces from Star Wars Rebels, including one very important villain.Much like Ahsoka herself, Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) is no Jedi in Ahsoka's new trailer that spotlights how he sends his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) after the series' eponymous Togruta at a time when Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) is plotting to return to power. With Thrawn back on the playing field and Baylan meaning to ally himself with the villainous tactician, heroes like Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) are... Continue reading...

This Intel NUC 9 Extreme was one of the larger of the mini-computer line and had more gaming horsepower. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Intel's NUC computers are super compact, upgradable, and even powerful - but now, they're being discontinued. ServeTheHome first reported that Intel is giving up on the personal computer business and will no longer be making its cute small form factor PCs.In an email to The Verge, Intel's EMEA comms manager of client computing and graphics, Mark Walton, confirmed the news and issued the following statement:

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge Every ounce of coverage for Amazon's big, made-up shopping holiday currently taking place on July 11th and 12th. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Claude, the AI chatbot that Anthropic bills as easier to talk to, is finally available for more people to try. The company has announced that everyone in the US and UK can test out the new version of its conversational bot, Claude 2, from its website.Its public availability allows Claude to join the ranks of ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard, all of which are available to users across numerous countries. That means we all have one more AI chatbot to play around with, but Anthropic says to think of Claude as a friendly, enthusiastic colleague or personal assistant who can be instructed in natural language to help you with many tasks."Claude, which Anthropic also describes as helpful, harmless, and honest," can do things like create summaries,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge Every ounce of coverage for Amazon's big, made-up shopping holiday currently taking place on July 11th and 12th. Continue reading...

Twitter users trying to find links to Meta's microblogging rival Threads are finding that the Elon Musk-owned social media network appears to be limiting results. That's despite Twitter currently being filled with links to Threads content, which you'd expect to be able to find via search. We spotted the behavior via a Threads post from Andy Baio, but the behavior is also being widely reported by Twitter users.The issue was first noticed when using the url:" search operator, which is normally used to search for links to a specific URL. For example, searching url:theverge.com" on Twitter brings up every single tweet that links to any page on The Verge, regardless of whether the URL has been shortened. But searching for url:threads.net"... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge iPhone assembler Foxconn is dropping out of a $19.5 billion deal with a major Indian company to build a semiconductor factory in the country, according to Reuters. The canceled Foxconn deal was part of a joint venture with the large oil and metal corporation Vedanta.Foxconn provided a vague explanation as to why it ended its plans to build a semiconductor facility in the country. Foxconn has determined it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta," reads a company statement to Reuters. Foxconn says the deal was ended mutually. Vedanta has lined up other partners" to set up the foundry, the company said in a statement.The Foxconn-Vedanta fallout is a blow to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic growth efforts... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge Google invented a lot of core AI technology, and now the company's turning to Demis to get back in front of the AI race for AI breakthroughs. Continue reading...

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine on the set of Deadpool 3. | Marvel Studios After years of Fox's live-action X-Men movie franchise (RIP) being violently allergic to the idea of letting Marvel's mutants be seen wearing anything but boring black getups vaguely inspired by Frank Quitely's New X-Men designs, Deadpool 3 seems ready to switch things up.Following last week's surprising announcement that Jennifer Garner has signed on to Deadpool 3 to reprise her role as Greek assassin Elektra Natchios, Ryan Reynolds - who's currently filming on set - took to his Instagram account today to post a photo of himself and co-star Hugh Jackman in-costume as Deadpool and a very animated-looking Wolverine. Reynolds and Jackman have been teasing how Deadpool 3 - in addition to folding their characters into the MCU - will... Continue reading...

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge Last week, Meta debuted its Twitter competitor, Threads. The app gained more than 100 million users in the US, UK, and hundreds of other countries in less than a week - but you won't be able to download it in the European Union anytime soon. The app has been held up by what Meta spokesperson Christine Pai described to The Verge as upcoming regulatory uncertainty," widely assumed to refer to the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA).Tech companies and regulatory skeptics have long claimed that laws like the DMA hold back innovation by requiring onerous user protections, but the looming competition law doesn't stop Meta from introducing new products - and Meta hasn't indicated it will forgo a European launch. If anything, the DMA adds friction... Continue reading...

No screenshots yet, so you'll have to put up with this logo for now. | Image: EA Another big Marvel property is being turned into a video game. This time, EA is developing what it calls an original, third-person, single-player Black Panther game." We don't have many other details just yet - not even a screenshot - but development is being handled by a new EA studio called Cliffhanger Games in partnership with Marvel Games. Cliffhanger is led by Kevin Stephens, who was previously studio head at Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith Productions.We're dedicated to delivering fans a definitive and authentic Black Panther experience, giving them more agency and control over their narrative than they have ever experienced in a story-driven video game," Stephens said in a statement. Wakanda is a rich superhero sandbox,... Continue reading...

The Echo Pop (left) and Echo Dot (right) are just two of the many early Prime Day deals you can currently get. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon Prime Day may not start until Tuesday, July 11th, but early deals are already trickling out. We're expecting to see some worthwhile discounts on wireless earbuds, noise-canceling headphones, tablets, TVs, smart home tech, games, and other gadgets on the actual days of, with the early deals functioning as a kind of small temperature check.As the ghosts of Prime Days past can tell us, the ahead-of-schedule deals are almost always on Amazon-owned devices and brands. There are sure to be more deals coming online in the days ahead - especially since Amazon has promised discounts from brands like Sony and Bose - but early bird shoppers already have some decent discounts to take advantage of.Usually, these early deals will hold... Continue reading...