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by Andrew Webster on (#6CCW4)
Image: Square Enix It's no secret that Game of Thrones has been a major influence on Final Fantasy XVI - the developers have said as much. When we first started creating the game, we had our core team of about 30 members very early on buy the Blu-ray boxset of Game of Thrones and required everyone to watch it, because we wanted this type of feel," producer Naoki Yoshida told Eurogamer earlier this year.And man, does it show.The first few hours of the roleplaying game feel designed to show you just how edgy Final Fantasy can be. The previous entry was a wholesome road trip about friendship, told through things like photography and cooking. This game goes in a completely different direction. Characters have sex on-screen (though it never gets all that... Continue reading...
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The Verge
Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
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Updated | 2025-07-05 02:17 |
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by Tom Warren on (#6CCW6)
Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images We're only minutes into the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, and we've already had a bombshell revelation. Sony's PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, believed that Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard wasn't about locking games as Xbox exclusives, according to a newly unsealed email. Microsoft counsel revealed the exchange between Ryan and a former Sony CEO discussing the announcement of the deal last year.It is not an exclusivity play at all," said Ryan. They're thinking bigger than that and they have the cash to make moves like this. I've spent a fair amount of time with [Phil] Spencer Bobby [Kotick] and I'm pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for years to come."The surprise revelation runs counter... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CCW7)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Twitch is introducing a new feature, Hype Chat, that lets users pay to pin messages at the top of a streamer's chat feed.If you've seen YouTube's Super Chats, which the company first announced in 2017, then Hype Chats should look pretty familiar. Streamers will be able to set how much Hype Chats cost (with a minimum of up to $100 and a maximum of up to $500), and based on how much you pay, you'll have a better-looking chat. Higher value Hype Chats will stay at the top of chat longer, have longer allowed character counts, and have more standout designs," Twitch said in a blog post. Right now, the feature is only available on the web, Twitch spokesperson Adiya Taylor tells The Verge. GIF: Twitch Here's what Hype... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6CCS7)
Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy XVI, out today, is stuffed with neat little homages and references to the Final Fantasy games that came before it. One of the game's menus features sprites of Clive, Jill, Torgal, or whoever else is in your party if you're nostalgic for the old pixel art from the game's early days on the NES. When you speak to Harpocrates and have acquired enough lore, the old victory fanfare plays. But there's one homage that's more likely to inspire fear than warm fuzzy feelings.Red Comet is back, and he wants his revenge.Come with me back in time to 2020 when critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV released patch 5.35 for the Shadowbringers expansion. The patch added typical post-expansion launch endgame activities, including a... Continue reading...
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by Monica Chin on (#6CCS8)
Image: Google Google has announced a new integration with Adobe that will allow schools to easily distribute the Adobe Express platform on student Chromebooks.Adobe Express is a free, cloud-based design application that provides basic content creation tools for graphics, videos, and the like. Google hopes that students and teachers will use the software to incorporate more digital art into their assignments.I've got three children, and one of my favorite activities every year is the science fair in the gymnasium," says John Maletis, Google's VP of ChromeOS product, engineering, and UX. I envision an Adobe Express-powered science fair where you've got more immersive ways of explaining the experiment or the project."Generally, licensing a... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6CCS9)
Image: Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance via Getty Images Semi trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles would be required to come standard with automatic emergency braking (AEB) under a new rule proposed today by the Biden administration. The announcement follows a similar rule for all new passenger vehicles proposed last month and is part of a larger effort to slow the increase in fatal traffic crashes in recent years.The new rule would require heavy vehicles that weigh in excess of 10,000 pounds to come equipped with AEB, a technology that uses forward-facing cameras and other sensors to automatically apply the brakes when a crash is imminent. The system would be required to bring a vehicle to a complete stop at speeds as low as 6mph and as high as 50mph, the National Highway Traffic Safety... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CCSA)
Image: Google Google has found a fun new way to dunk on Apple with an ad campaign for Pixel phones that straddles the line between cute and cringe. The search giant has released five videos - under the campaign name Best Phones Forever" - which depict sitcom-like interactions between anthropomorphized versions of the Pixel 7 Pro and some sort of iPhone Pro. And it kinda seems like the phones want to bone each other?Google has pitched this as what happens when two phones stop being rivals and start being friends," though the campaign largely focuses on the iPhone's apparent shortcomings compared to Pixel phones - such as astrophotography, security, and Apple's lack of foldable devices. The iPhone is basically portrayed as an outdated, inexperienced... Continue reading...
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6CCPR)
Amazon Prime Day is coming around once again on July 11th and 12th, making this a good time to remind you of our overall Verge Deals coverage, our deals newsletter, and all the deals-y stuff we're going to be covering for you during the upcoming shopping event.We're always on the lookout for quality tech deals to save you money on the stuff that's actually worth spending your money on, and outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Prime Day marks one of the best chances of the year to get some major discounts. Many of the gadgets we review will likely drop to their best prices to date - or at least close. It's also an occasion with a whole lot of marketing noise and supposed epic deals" that, frankly, can often suck. That's why we... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CCPS)
Image: Robosen After creating the ultimate Optimus Prime toy, Hasbro and Robosen are back with yet another Transformers figure, and this time, it's a 14-inch programmable robot modeled after Bumblebee. With a price tag of $399, this miniature Autobot can walk, squat, kick, lean, dance, and even pick itself up from the ground. But there is one thing it can't do: transform.That's probably one of the reasons why this Bumblebee figure is several hundred dollars less than its self-transforming Optimus Prime counterpart, which costs a cool $700 plus an extra $750 for the auto-converting trailer if you really want to go all out. But if you're okay with the fact that this bot doesn't actually do any transforming - or are just a huge fan of the Transformers... Continue reading...
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by Becca Farsace on (#6CCM5)
Currently, the most sought-after application of AI video technology is text-to-video AI. | Alex Parkin Currently, the most sought-after application of AI video technology is text-to-video AI. The idea is anyone will be able to type a prompt into a text field, and within seconds - or, more likely, minutes - a video will be created using an AI model. Some of the biggest companies in tech are researching this. Meta announced Make-A-Video, Google has announced Imagen Video and Phenaki, and Nvidia says it's getting involved, too.All of those projects aren't available for public use, and the output of these systems is far from photorealistic: figures warp and morph, and there are obvious changes between frames. But the demos are public statements of research and development in the text-to-video field from large - and powerful - companies.As... Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6CCM6)
Image: Microsoft / Sony Microsoftis battling a key US regulator here, but the real war looks like it will beMicrosoftvs. Sony. Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6CCM7)
LG's latestOLED offers more processing power than the C2 and a bevy of gamer-friendly features, including a 120Hz refresh rate. | Image: LG Memorial Day weekend is known for being one of the best times of the year to buy a TV, so it was no surprise when LG's new C3 OLED dropped to a new record low last month. What is surprising, though, is that the TV is even cheaper than it was in May less than a month later.Right now, you can buy LG's 55-inch C3 OLED at an all-time low of around $1,497 ($403 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from LG. Both larger and smaller sizes are on sale as well, including the 48-inch configuration, which is available for a new low of $1,249.99 ($250 off) from Best Buy and LG.In a nutshell, LG's new C3 boasts the kind of impressive black levels, vivid colors, and rich contrast that have come to characterize OLED TVs in recent years. It also... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CCM8)
Image: Square Enix I am a person who often struggles with vast, world-spanning fantasy stories. I just can't keep track of all of the people and places and other proper nouns that make up the world. The result is that I spend a lot of time reading wikis to help me get through things like The Lord of the Rings or The Witcher - but that's not very helpful in the moment when I'm watching a pivotal scene unfold. But Final Fantasy XVI, which just launched on the PS5, has a helpful tool to make it a whole lot easier to follow its complex tale.The feature is called Active Time Lore - a nice play on the Active Time Battle combat system of past games - and it's sort of like the X-Ray tool offered by Amazon Prime Video, only for a video game. It works like this: at... Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6CCHS)
The Razr Plus is a much better phone than the preceding models. It's a little fiddly, but for the right kind of person, it presents a rewarding experience. Continue reading...
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by Gina Wynbrandt on (#6CCHT)
Panel 1: Goodnight Phone," a comic by Gina Wynbrandt. The title card is a nighttime cityscape under a full moon.Panel 2: A woman in a green puffer jacket walks into a room painted pink. She is looking at her phone. A notification labeled All About You" pops up. She is at average energy and cash and has achieved the Work Day Complete" badge. Also, her phone is telling her she's hungry.Panel 3: The woman is cooking a pot of pasta, following the instructions on her phone (it's telling her to stir). A notification awarding Cooking XP" pops up.Panel 4: The woman is taking a selfie while eating the pasta she's just cooked. Her phone awards her a 5K selfie milestone" badge.Panel 5: The woman is brushing her teeth and gets a... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6CCFP)
Duck Player is the kind of privacy-first feature DuckDuckGo hopes to build more of. | Image: DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo's browser is finally available for Windows users. About nine months after launching its browser for Mac, the privacy-focused search engine company is bringing a very similar product to Windows users. It's available now, and its pitch is the same as ever: DuckDuckGo is a browser and a search engine that doesn't collect your data and doesn't track you across the web.The DuckDuckGo browser looks and works like Chrome or Edge, with a row of tabs across the top and a large text box for searching and typing URLs. (DuckDuckGo's search engine is the default when you install the browser, but you can change that if, for some reason, you care deeply about browser privacy but not search privacy.) DuckDuckGo does offer a couple of its own... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CCFN)
Image: Netflix It goes without saying that when people show up to watch King Kong, or Godzilla, or King Kong vs. Godzilla, they're there to see big monsters wreak havoc. Sometimes there are interesting human stories, but they mostly serve to frame those giant monsters we love so much. And that's the first mistake that Skull Island, an animated spinoff on Netflix, makes: for most of the first season, the story is focused almost entirely on people. The second? Those people are almost uniformly annoying and chatty. The show turns things around by the end, but to get there, you'll have to withstand a nonstop barrage of quips and one-liners.As the name implies, Skull Island takes place on... Skull Island, home of King Kong. There are a few different groups... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6CCFQ)
Sky's Live camera sitting on top of one of its TVs. | Image: Sky Comcast-owned British broadcaster Sky has launched a new camera that's designed to add more social, fitness, and gaming features to its smart TVs. The Sky Live camera attaches magnetically to the top of Sky Glass smart TVs and connects via USB-C and HDMI. It lets you watch TV simultaneously with other households, supports making video calls over Zoom, can track home workouts, and also comes with Kinect-style motion-controlled games.Sky Live costs 290 (about $370) upfront, but it's also available to buy for 6 per month on a 48-month contract, or 12 per month on a 24-month contract. But The Guardian notes that Sky is also offering introductory deals that bring the cost of the camera down to 3 a month when bought alongside a TV. The... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CCDZ)
Adobe's own product design platform may be dropped entirely in favor of Figma. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Days appear to be numbered for Adobe XD. As spotted by developer Alex Ivanovs, the UX / UI product design platform is no longer available as a standalone app under Adobe's Creative Cloud launcher, effectively sunsetting the software for folks who hadn't already purchased it.Considering Adobe is in the process of acquiring Figma, a remarkably similar set of design tools, this news isn't entirely unexpected. But it doesn't mean that the Adobe XD app is dead. Not yet anyway.Anais Gragueb, Senior Manager for Creative Cloud & Innovation Public Relations confirmed to The Verge that Adobe will continue to support Adobe XD for existing customers. If you didn't purchase an XD subscription before it was pulled then the app will still be... Continue reading...
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by Alex Heath on (#6CC4F)
Zuckerberg says he recently completed the Murph Challenge" workout in just under 40 minutes, which is insane. | Mark Zuckerberg / Meta Here we go.After Elon Musk recently tweeted that he would be up for a cage fight" with Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO shot back by posting a screenshot of Musk's tweet with the caption send me location."I've confirmed that Zuckerberg's post on his Instagram account is, in fact, not a joke, which means the ball is now in Musk's court. The story speaks for itself," Meta spokesperson Iska Saric told me.After this story was published, Musk responded with two words: Vegas Octagon." He then tweeted: I have this great move that I call The Walrus,' where I just lie on top of my opponent and do nothing."
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by Umar Shakir on (#6CC3B)
The Meta Quest 2 is about to get performance enhancements (and not a new strap). | Image: The Verge Mark Zuckerberg announced the Meta Quest 3 VR headset at the beginning of this month, which should bring enhanced capabilities for those who want to upgrade their Quest 2. But that more performant Quest 3 won't be here until September, so in the meantime, Meta promised a future update will boost the Quest 2's (and Quest Pro's) performance and keep the hardware supported for much longer.Meta is now rolling out those changes in the v55 update. The Quest 2 will get a 19 percent GPU speed increase while Quest Pro owners will get an 11 percent jump. Both of the VR headsets are also getting up to 26 percent performance increases in CPU power as well, according to Meta.The performance upgrades should give users overall smoother game... Continue reading...
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by Justine Calma on (#6CC2C)
Lead claimant Rikki Held, 22, confers with members of Our Children's Trust legal team before the start of the nation's first youth climate change trial at Montana's First Judicial District Court on June 12th, 2023, in Helena, Montana. | Photo by William Campbell / Getty Images A landmark US climate trial over whether the state of Montana is violating young people's right to a healthy environment came to an early close on Tuesday. Its outcome could shift policy in a state with one of the biggest coal reserves in the nation and might even influence a slew of other suits outside of Montana.The case, Held v. Montana, was filed by a group of 16 youths ranging from five to 22 years old. They say they have been and will continue to be harmed by the dangerous impacts of fossil fuels and the climate crisis," according to the complaint filed in March 2020. Similar suits have been filed by young people across the US. But last week, the Montana case became the first in the nation to make it to trial.Its outcome could... Continue reading...
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by Amrita Khalid on (#6CC12)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge The company is entering the next phase' of its podcast strategy -but will it learn from its mistakes? Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CC13)
Warner Bros. Discovery dropped the HBO" from HBO Max" in May. | Image: Jeff Kravitz / Warner Bros. Discovery After more than a year of brutal cancellations and layoffs at HBO, it looks like Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav's devotion to quick revenue is as strong as ever. Warner Bros. Discovery may be licensing HBO Original Series to Netflix, Deadline reported yesterday. Deadline's sources claim it's a financial move HBO's old guard disagreed with but that it's necessary to shore up the bottom line. They also say it's possible the deal may not see the light of day.The show rumored to be the subject of the agreement is Issa Rae's Insecure, which lived on HBO for five seasons until it ended in December 2021. Other shows would follow that. The deal wouldn't be exclusive; WBD would still be able to show the series on its own platform, Max.... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CC14)
Image: Opera Opera has launched Opera One - a new version of the browser that comes packaged with an AI-powered chatbot called Aria. Just like the Bing chatbot on Microsoft Edge, Opera's AI assistant lives within the browser's sidebar, where you can have it answer questions using real-time information, generate text or code, brainstorm ideas, and more.The built-in chatbot is powered by Opera's Composer AI engine and connects to OpenAI's GPT model. To use the tool, you need to sign up for an Opera account if you don't have one already. Once that's done, you can click the Aria icon on the left side of the screen to start chatting. While Opera first started testing the revamped version of the browser in May, now it's available to everyone who downloads... Continue reading...
by Umar Shakir on (#6CBZ4)
The R2 will probably be like this R1S in some ways but smaller and less flashy. | Photo by Daniel Golson for The Verge Rivian has had a few interesting weeks that included its alignment with big legacy automakers to adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) on future vehicles and a little poaching of Tesla's head of raw materials. But under the radar is one more surprise: CarBuzz is reporting the growing EV company revealed some pricing details last week on its upcoming R2 platform vehicle.The smaller-size SUV, built on the lower-cost R2 platform, will cost from $40,000 to $60,000. That's according to Rivian CFO Claire McDonough, who spoke at last week's Deutsche Bank conference. McDonough said that it creates a nice stretch for the brand," mentioning that the current R1 platform vehicles start at around $73,000.McDonough also shared that... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CBZ5)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is cracking down on the latest form of community protest: switching to Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Some subreddits had switched to NSFW to protest Reddit's recent treatment of moderators and upcoming API pricing changes, but a Reddit admin - that is, an employee - said Wednesday that doing so is inappropriate" and against the rules.Changing a previously SFW community to a NSFW community in order to protest Reddit policies is inappropriate for the members of your community and not acceptable overall," the admin, ModCodeofConduct, wrote on Wednesday. ModCodeofConduct said that moderators may be violating Reddit policies by incorrectly marking your community," which can lead to warnings or removal.Switching a community to NSFW... Continue reading...
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by Chris Welch on (#6CBZ6)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Being able to watch multiple things on TV at the same time is obviously a huge convenience for sports fanatics. So it makes sense that YouTube TV focused exclusively on sports when launching its multiview feature. It's been several months since then, and today, the company says it's (slowly) expanding multiview to also feature news, business, and weather programming. That's the good news.The bad news is that for now, one frustrating catch remains: you're limited to the preselected multiview groupings that YouTube TV chooses itself and can't yet customize any of this yourself.
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by Barbara Krasnoff on (#6CBX9)
Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge Anyone old enough to have used a typewriter knows that a major advantage of word processors is that nothing is permanent - if you make a mistake, you can easily fix it. However, sometimes the fix is worse than the mistake: you may accidentally delete a word, a phrase, a paragraph, or an entire section and then realize minutes, hours, or even days later that you should have kept it. What do you do?Not a problem - just go back and check the previous versions of the document. While Google Docs automatically saves your documents every few minutes, it also keeps a record - a version history - of what has been done in the document since it was created.It's very simple to find your version history:
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by Chris Welch on (#6CBXA)
Foam earplugs are convenient and cost virtually nothing. But with ticket prices these days, it's worth spending a bit more on earplugs that preserve the fidelity of live music. Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CBTQ)
AST SpaceMobile is working on space-based cellular signals. | Image: AST SpaceMobile A Texas company called AST SpaceMobile managed to successfully transmit a 4G LTE signal from space that was picked up by everyday, off-the-shelf smartphones," the company announced this morning. The satellite AST used, called BlueWalker 3 (BW3), will try a 5G connection for its next major test. The company says its recent test was a world first."Testing was conducted in Hawaii on AT&T's spectrum using Nokia RAN technology, and the signal, which was beamed from AST's satellite in low Earth orbit, reached speeds of up to 10.3Mbps. That's fast enough for some video streaming, general internet use, and more ordinary cell phone usage.
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by Emma Roth on (#6A7TV)
Link in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. | Image: Nintendo Going deep on the biggest game of the year with analysis, interviews, and the wildest builds. Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CBTR)
Image: Apple While Apple imagines users wearing its Vision Pro headset to do a variety of things, like watch movies, capture videos, and multitask, it still hasn't mentioned one pretty major application: fitness. But now, a report from The Information suggests that Apple had been planning workout apps for the mixed reality headset, but they just weren't ready in time for its June reveal.Former Apple employees tell The Information that staff members explored partnering with Nike to create workouts for the Vision Pro and also looked into creating face cushions designed for sweaty, high-intensity workouts." Apple employees even reportedly weighed the idea of letting Vision Pro wearers interact with content while on a stationary bike.Although Apple... Continue reading...
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by Barbara Krasnoff on (#6CBR7)
Screenshot by Barbara Krasnoff / The Verge The other day, I was going through a bag full of old tech - I mean, really old tech - trying to convince myself to finally get rid of phones that I hadn't used for 10 years or so when I came across a battery. One of the batteries that I used to carry around in case my phone ran out of juice.You see, once upon a time, smartphones had replaceable batteries. Instead of having to carry around a portable charger or search desperately for a wall socket so you could charge up your failing phone (assuming you had a power cord with you), you could pull off the back of your phone, replace the out-of-power battery with a fully charged one, and proceed happily on your way. This Samsung Galaxy Note phone from 2012 had a back that... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CBR8)
I'm not ready to have my rudimentary product design skills humbled by a five-year-old. | Image: Figma Figma is expanding its partnership with Google for Education in a bid to introduce more school-age students to its product design and collaboration platforms. Announced during the Config event on Wednesday, June 21st, all K-12 students across the US can now access Figma for free on education Chromebooks. Figma is also expanding its educational partnership with Chromebooks outside of the US, starting with Google schools in Japan.Today's announcement effectively opens up the beta program that Figma released last year, which was initially limited to select US high schools. As with the beta, students will have access to both Figma (the company's flagship product design platform) and FigJam, Figma's collaborative whiteboarding app. Figma's... Continue reading...
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by Brandon Widder on (#6CBR9)
Behold! A device with an actual headphone jack. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon Prime Day officially kicks off on July 11th, and while we're expecting to see steep discounts on Amazon's line of inexpensive Fire tablets, it's safe to say that Amazon's latest slates still can't match an iPad when it comes to design and performance. Fortunately, the 2021 iPad is currently on sale at Amazon in the 64GB / Wi-Fi configuration for $249.99 ($79 off) at checkout - a price we haven't seen since March of last year.On the whole, Apple's ninth-gen slate remains the best budget iPad you can buy, even with the introduction of the 10th-gen model last year. The entry-level tablet packs in a sharp 10.2-inch screen, a 12MP front camera, and Apple's A13 Bionic chip, which is still surprisingly fast despite having been first... Continue reading...
by Nilay Patel on (#6CBRA)
Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge If you've spent more than two minutes somewhere on social media, you have come across Gary Vaynerchuk.And for years, I have wondered, is this just a character? Or is there a real Gary Vaynerchuk somewhere behind GaryVee," the social media entrepreneur and internet brand?Vaynerchuk got his start working at his family's liquor store, which he turned into an online wine shop. That's where he started in social media, hosting a long-running YouTube show called Wine Library TV."He parlayed that into the gigantic GaryVee brand, which, at its core, is about entrepreneurship. Gary himself co-founded the restaurant reservation platform Resy, which he sold to American Express in 2019, and Empathy Wines, which he sold in 2020.But the... Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6CBRB)
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft is increasing its Xbox Series X prices in most countries in August apart from the US, Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Colombia. The Xbox maker is also increasing the monthly prices of its Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions for the first time next month, which will see the base Game Pass subscription for console move up to $10.99 a month from $9.99.We've held on our prices for consoles for many years and have adjusted the prices to reflect the competitive conditions in each market," says Kari Perez, head of communications for Xbox, in a statement to The Verge.Xbox Series X console pricing will largely match the price hike Sony announced for the PS5 last year, with the Xbox Series X moving to 479.99 in the... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6CBRC)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder. | Image: Nintendo Prior to Nintendo's second big Direct presentation of the year, the company's holiday 2023 calendar was pretty sparse. But that's no longer the case. Nintendo announced a handful of major releases heading to the Switch over the coming months, including a pair of Super Mario titles and new WarioWare and Detective Pikachu games. We also got a better look at the upcoming expansions for Pokemon Violet and Scarlet, and Nintendo even teased new Luigi and Princess Peach games for next year.If you missed the showcase live, here are the five biggest announcements.A new side-scrolling Super Mario gameA busy year for the plumber continues when Super Mario Bros. Wonder hits the Switch on October 20th. The game looks like it retains the style and... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CBP7)
Wade and Ember taking in a movie together. | Image: Pixar Elemental co-writers Kat Likkel and John Hoberg set out to tell a story about romantic and familial love - not just one about watery racism and fiery bigotry. Continue reading...
by Ash Parrish on (#6CBKG)
Image: Nintendo Detective Pikachu is getting a sequel. In October, you'll be able to once again solve mysteries with Tim Goodman and his coffee-loving Pikachu with a voice that sounds suspiciously like Will Arnett.The first Detective Pikachu game launched on the DS in 2018. In it, Tim Goodman and a strangely verbose Pikachu in a funny hat worked together to solve various mysteries around Ryme City while investigating the disappearance of Tim's missing father. Despite it being a Pokemon game, Detective Pikachu had some oddly dark themes with a plot that's basically a Nintendo-ified version of a James Bond movie. (I'm not kidding - there's a conspiracy by a media exec to engineer pokemon-related disasters so he can report on them and increase the power... Continue reading...
by Emma Roth on (#6CBKH)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Netflix is overhauling the way it calculates its top 10 shows and movies - but it doesn't make the metric any more helpful. Instead of ranking popular titles by total viewing time, the company now says it will rank them based on views," something it defines as the number of hours viewed divided by the total runtime, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.As an example of its new system, Netflix says Extraction 2 starring Chris Hemsworth got 43 million views," or 88.38 million hours viewed divided by 2.07 hours of runtime, from June 12th to June 18th. In other words, Netflix still isn't disclosing how many people are actually watching the content on its platform from start to finish, which, you know, would be way more useful to... Continue reading...
by Jon Porter on (#6CBKJ)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google could be about to launch a new branding initiative for Chromebooks dubbed Chromebook X," according to a new report from 9to5Google. The publication has pulled together several code commits referencing the new name, which suggests that the branding could be used for laptops that meet certain spec requirements and allow them to offer exclusive features. One source tells 9to5Google that the first Chromebook X laptops could launch before the end of the year.Although the ChromeOS operating system is best known for running on affordable laptops used in places like schools, over the years, it's picked up some higher-end features like support for productivity apps like LumaFusion and the ability to run Linux programs. 9to5Google s... Continue reading...
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by Makena Kelly on (#6CBKK)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gives a thumbs up after Senate passes debt limit deal. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is launching a new all-hands-on-deck" effort Wednesday to regulate artificial intelligence, aiming to strike a balance between economic competitiveness and safety.Schumer laid out his vision in a speech at a Washington think tank on Wednesday, calling on his Senate colleagues to create new rules regulating the emerging AI industry. The plan, the SAFE (Security, Accountability, Foundations, Explain) Innovation Framework, doesn't provide specific policy requests or define the boundaries of AI." Instead, it asks lawmakers to work together to address a variety of AI's potential risks, from national security and job loss to misinformation, bias, and copyright.AI could be our most spectacular... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CBKM)
It would have been nice to get a proper release date for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's upcoming DLC during today's Nintendo Direct. But at the very least, the new trailer for The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk expansions does deliver on something players have been jonesing for since launch: more fashion.Along with new trainers Carmine and Kieran, The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk's latest trailer provides a bit more detail about Kitakami, the new locale Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players will travel to as they participate in the town's traditional Festival of Masks. In addition to a variety of new hairstyles and outfits that weren't available in the games previously, the DLC will also feature a storyline revolving around new pokemon... Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6CBKN)
Image: Patreon Patreon built a user base with creators who wanted to charge a fee for the content they create. Now, the company is pulling down the paywall, allowing fans to subscribe to their favorite creators for free.It's the first time Patreon has offered a free subscription option for creators who want to give fans a taste of their content before having them pay for access. Patreon's expansion into free content comes at a time when other platforms like TikTok and Instagram are increasingly adding paywalls and subscription features - with the idea being that, eventually, the free audience might level up and start to pay.There's a lot of interest from fans [with paid membership], but subscribing to the paid membership right out the gate is a... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CBKP)
Image: Nintendo Nintendo is releasing a new WarioWare game for Switch, and the gimmick for this one is moving. In WarioWare: Move It!, you'll move and shake your way through more than 200 microgames while holding onto Joy-Con controllers.Nintendo's trailer for the game showed off a whole bunch of silly microgames, which will force you to do things like shake paws with a dog, ski down a mountain, flail your arms in the air, and even slide down a slide you might be familiar with if you've played Super Mario 64. The game isn't just a solo endeavor: you'll also be able to play local co-op with a friend for what's sure to be some very silly shenanigans, or you can play special minigames in a party mode with up to three other people.WarioWare: Move It! is... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CBGW)
Image: Nintendo Mario's big year continues. Following the debut of a theme park and an animated movie, 2023 will also be getting the next Super Mario Bros. game. It's called Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and is a return to the 2D side-scrolling action of the original games and the New Super Mario Bros. series. It has some weird new abilities, including the ability to turn into an elephant. It launches on October 20th.The last mainline Super Mario game was Odyssey, which hit the Switch back in 2017. Since then we've had spinoffs like Super Mario Maker 2, the retro collection Super Mario 3D All-Stars, and the 3D World expansion Bowser's Fury.Of course, even without a new game, this would've been an incredibly successful year for Nintendo's plumber. The S... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CBGX)
Nintendo is remaking one of the most beloved RPGs of all time: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The new version of the game for Nintendo Switch, titled only Super Mario RPG, was revealed during the June Nintendo Direct presentation on Wednesday.Super Mario RPG looks like a faithful reimagining of the original, though with a modern art style. I saw a bunch of iconic characters and moments from the Super NES classic: Mallow and Geno are back, for example, as are baddies like Birdo and Booster (!). It appears the battle system will be largely similar as well. And the game's reveal trailer was filled with remixes of songs from the original game. To my ears, they were awesome adaptations of the tracks from Legend of the Seven... Continue reading...
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by Makena Kelly on (#6CBGY)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission is suing Amazon for enrolling customers in its Prime program without their consent and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions.In its complaint filed Wednesday, the FTC accuses Amazon of knowingly" deceiving millions of customers into subscribing to Amazon Prime through the use of dark patterns." Specifically, the FTC describes how Amazon's checkout process would allegedly present customers several options to subscribe to Prime, making it difficult to locate the option to simply finish a purchase. The commission also alleges that Amazon required customers to go through multiple unnecessary steps before successfully unsubscribing from the program.Amazon tricked and trapped people into... Continue reading...
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