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This LG air purifier doubles as a table and a wireless charger and can switch between eight preset “mood lighting” options. | Image: LG LG’s latest attempt to make air purifiers more “innovative” and less of an eyesore has come to fruition with its range of Aero Furniture, a collection of tables with an air purifier, mood lighting, and wireless charging for your gadgets shoved inside.The PuriCare Objet Collection Aero Furniture design features a rounded tower base that houses the air 360-degree purifier and a flat surface atop that contains a wireless charging pad for compatible gadgets such as phones or earbuds. Actual wattage was not provided for the wireless charging, but LG states that fast charging is available for Samsung Galaxy (9-10W) and Apple iPhone (7.5W) phones.“360-degree air purification and user-friendly features”This range is not directly advertised as... Continue reading…

Image: Bungie Bungie first teased its next major Destiny 2: Lightfall expansion more than two years ago, and since then, players have gained control of the Darkness, fought Savathûn and her undead army, and witnessed... The Witness. Now it’s time to shake things up again with the launch of Destiny 2: Lightfall on February 28th, with its new cyberpunk world, new Strand subclasses, and much more.It’s also the final battle of the epic light vs. dark saga of Destiny.At the center of Destiny 2: Lightfall is an unusual new location for Bungie’s franchise that’s heavily cyberpunk. A new hidden Neomuna city on Neptune serves as a dystopian futuristic setting for the continuation of Destiny 2’s storyline, which will see the return of Calus as the main... Continue reading…

Sony’s flagship console is now commonly sold in a bundle with Horizon Forbidden West and is much easier to get. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sony’s PlayStation 5 has not been nearly as hard to get as it once was. With a mix of increased supply and easing demand, it’s almost easy to get one — even if you don’t yet see rows of them in stock at USA stores. However, Walmart is running another one of its restock events for paying Walmart Plus subscribers. The major retailer will have the standard disc-equipped PlayStation 5 Horizon Forbidden West bundle for $549 today at 3PM ET / 12PM PT.Since Sony itself has been running frequent restocks of the Horizon bundle several times a week, and with some of them having availability windows stretching into the next day, it feels a little backward to pay Walmart extra money just to get the console. Granted, if you already subscribe to... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge The brands are at it again Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Patrick Hillmann, chief communications officer at the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, claims scammers made a deepfake of him to trick contacts into taking meetings.Writing in a blog post titled “Scammers Created an AI Hologram of Me to Scam Unsuspecting Projects,” Hillmann claims that a “sophisticated hacking team” used video footage of interviews and TV appearances to create the fake. Says Hillmann: “Other than the 15 pounds that I gained during COVID being noticeably absent, this deep fake was refined enough to fool several highly intelligent crypto community members.”The only direct evidence Hillmann offers for the claim is a screenshot of a conversation with an anonymous individual who claims to have had a Zoom call with... Continue reading…

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge How long does it take a fledgling hardware startup to deliver a major Android update to its first smartphone? In the case of Nothing, we’re looking at several months and a turn of the calendar into 2023. As noted by Android Authority, the company has confirmed that its impressive Phone 1 will receive Android 13 “in the first half of 2023.” That could disappoint at least some buyers who’d hoped the near-stock Android device would get the latest version sometime this year.“Before releasing, we want to fine tune the software upgrade with Nothing’s hardware,” the company’s statement reads. Android 13 was released for Google’s Pixel lineup last week, with Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, Sony, Xiaomi, Asus, and other companies planning to roll... Continue reading…

The Basilisk V3 Pro looks a lot like the wired model. | Image: Razer Razer has just announced a new model of its Basilisk gaming mouse. Dubbed the Basilisk V3 Pro, the shape and layout of the V3 Pro are virtually identical to the standard V3, with its claw-shaped design and 11 programmable inputs, and includes some of the hardware improvements that we saw with the standard Basilisk V3 — namely Razer’s new optical switches, RGB underglow, and a scroll wheel that can dynamically shift between tactile and free-spin modes based on how fast you spin it. The V3 Pro also brings a couple of new upgrades by including wireless connectivity and a more powerful 30K DPI sensor. The release of the V3 Pro also brings with it Razer’s new wireless charging dock, which adds options for wireless charging and a 4K Hz polling... Continue reading…

Morfydd Clark as Galadriel. | Amazon Studios Almost as if in response to House of the Dragon’s fixation with the brutalization of its female characters, the latest trailer for Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a reminder that a woman’s place can also be on the battlefield.Though The Rings of Power’s an ensemble show spotlighting many of the historic figures who rose up to fight Sauron as he first began coming into power during Middle Earth’s Second Age, it’s also an exploration of how Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) became a legend. In the new trailer, it’s the death of Galadriel’s brother — likely her elder brother Finrod (Will Fletcher) — that pushes her to pick up a sword and set out on an adventure that brings her face to face with people like Dwarven Prince... Continue reading…

Hisense’s U8H LED TV is nearly half off today at Best Buy. | Image: Hisense If you’re in the market for an excellent 4K TV — whether to game or enjoy fantasy epics like HBO’s House of the Dragon and the upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show — Best Buy is currently selling Hisense’s new U8H Series TV in the 55-inch configuration for just $699.99 ($450 off). This is the best price we’ve seen on one of the more premium offerings in Hisense’s 2022 “ULED” TV lineup, which sits just underneath the brighter U9H Series.In terms of features, the Mini LED TV sports a speedy 120Hz refresh rate and built-in support for both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can issue voice commands whether you’re embedded in Amazon or Google’s ecosystem. It also includes support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus, along with... Continue reading…

Turtle Beach announced PlayStation versions of its flagship Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max ($199.95) and the slightly less feature-filled Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max ($129.95) wireless gaming headsets. They’re available to preorder now, and they’ll release on October 2nd, 2022. These are almost identical to the Xbox-specific version released earlier in 2022 down to some of the same colorway options, consisting of all black with some silver accents or blue with bronze accents. But there’s one big change in the newer PlayStation-specific versions that I think might actually disappoint some gamers who aren’t in the know: the wireless audio transmitter isn’t compatible with Xbox.Looking back at the Stealth 700 and 600 Gen 2 Max editions for Xbox, the... Continue reading…

CloudKitchens is owned by Uber founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick. | Stephen Lam / The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images For some budding restauranteurs, CloudKitchens might sound like a great opportunity to get off the ground. The service, owned by Uber founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, promises restaurateurs delivery-only kitchens in rented warehouse spaces with low startup fees. But a report from Insider reveals that many CloudKitchens operators are struggling to keep their business alive due to a lack of both safety and technical support.One restauranteur told Insider she was met with a clogged sink and filthy oven hood during her first day on the job. That wasn’t all — she also had to deal with a clogged toilet, faulty sink, and a pile of garbage in her parking lot, contradicting the on-site maintenance, cleaning, and trash services CloudKitchens... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Volkswagen signed a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian government to “explore opportunities” to bring some of its electric vehicle battery manufacturing to the country.The move is seen as an effort to ensure that the automaker’s plug-in vehicles qualify for the US’s revamped EV tax credits, which place stricter requirements on where battery and vehicle manufacturing can be done.VW says it plans to build a “dedicated Gigafactory” somewhere in North America, and today’s agreement most likely increases Canada’s chances of being selected as the location.VW says it plans to build a “dedicated Gigafactory” somewhere in North AmericaThe automaker is tasking its battery supply management company, Power Co, with spearheading the... Continue reading…

Laura Normand / The Verge This morning CNN and The Washington Post reported new whistleblower claims by Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, that the company’s statistics on bot activity are misleading, its security approach sucks, and that execs aren’t incentivized to look further.The timing of the report is key, given Elon Musk’s arguments about why he should be allowed to break his agreement to buy Twitter for $44 billion, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has responded to the charges in an email sent to employees, posted to Twitter by CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan.

Your rings shouldn’t be arbitrary. They should reflect your lifestyle and fitness goals. | Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple makes a big deal out of closing your rings, but sometimes we all need a little help doing that. Whether you’re injured and need a rest day or want to challenge yourself, you can edit your fitness goals directly from your Apple Watch or iPhone.The three rings Apple uses are the red Move ring, the green Exercise ring, and the blue Stand ring. When you set up your Apple Watch, your Move goal is automatically set based on your demographic data, such as height, weight, age, and gender. The default Exercise and Stand goals are 30 minutes and 12 hours, respectively. These rings used to be limited to Apple Watch owners, but starting with iOS 16, Apple’s making the Fitness app available to all iPhone users.These are fine goals, but they... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The days of Twitch partner exclusivity are over. Twitch told partnered streamers in an email this morning that the platform was lifting its long-standing exclusivity agreement that denied partners the ability to stream on other services. Partners will now be able to stream on YouTube, Facebook Live, and other platforms — though in some cases, Twitch still limits what they’re able to do.“Starting today, you are now allowed to create live content on other platforms,” Twitch wrote to streamers.In the email, Twitch recognized that streamers use multiple platforms to connect with their communities and said this move would grant them greater flexibility to grow those audiences off-platform. Content creators can now go live on other platforms... Continue reading…

Don’t let the colorway fool you. The Xbox-styled Nova 7X Wireless works with the same consoles and platforms as the other colorways. | Image: SteelSeries The barrier to entry for SteelSeries’ flagship wireless gaming headset, the Nova Pro Wireless, is quite high at $350. That price will likely be worth it to some people, but if you’re cool with getting just a fraction of that headset’s features in a $179.99 package, the Nova 7 Wireless has your name on it. It’s missing swappable batteries, active noise cancellation, and the handy wireless base station for making quick adjustments. But it keeps some of the Nova Pro Wireless’ most important features, like the simultaneous multisource audio coming in from Bluetooth and its 2.4GHz USB-C audio transmitter.Along with some even more affordable wired headsets that SteelSeries is announcing today, the Nova 7 riffs on the Pro’s refreshed design,... Continue reading…

The mid-tier SteelSeries Arena 7 includes screen-mimicking RGB lighting and a subwoofer (not pictured). | Image: SteelSeries SteelSeries is introducing a new line of gaming-focused desktop PC speakers that provide booming sound and options for RGB lighting and 5.1 surround. The new SteelSeries Arena speakers are split into three different products — Arena 3, Arena 7, and Arena 9 — offering options ranging from simple to more ornate setups. I got to try out the Arena 3 and Arena 7, which I envision most people opting for over the pricey top-tier model. Here’s what they’re all about.Starting at the bottom, the $129.99 Arena 3 is a no-frills two-channel arrangement with four-inch drivers for PCs, Macs, and other devices via its 3.5mm connection. The Arena 7 takes the base speakers and adds programmable RGB lighting, a floor-standing subwoofer, and PlayStation... Continue reading…

Blue jeans are an iconic staple of just about any wardrobe. But all that denim has a dirty secret: the dye that makes blue jeans so ubiquitous is actually made from fossil fuels and toxic chemicals. For thousands of years, when humans wanted to get a deep blue color, they used natural indigo from Indigofera plants. But in 1897, German chemists started selling a cheaper synthetic version for industrial use. Most pairs of jeans today are dyed with synthetic indigo.It’s hard to say just how many jeans are made each year, but most estimates are in the billions. To get that blue color, over 70,000 tons of indigo dye are made each year. When the dye (and garment dyes in general) isn’t handled properly, it can end up polluting waterways,... Continue reading…

YouTube TV’s interface as of February 2021. | Image: Google YouTube TV, Google’s take on cable TV, could soon let viewers watch up to four live streams simultaneously in a new feature called “Mosaic Mode” reports Protocol. That’s according to a non-public presentation Google gave to its smart TV hardware partners, in which the search giant also discussed optimizations coming for YouTube Shorts on the big screen, as well as new YouTube Music functionality.Mosaic Mode brings to mind a similar feature that was available with Sony’s now-defunct PlayStation Vue service. Although it was announced in a presentation for Google TV and Android TV hardware manufacturers, Protocol notes that the feature is likely to eventually arrive on non-Android smart TVs from Samsung and LG given that Google likes to... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft could be preparing to name its next big OS update the “Windows 11 2022 Update.” References to this naming have appeared in near-final versions of the next big Windows 11 release, currently named 22H2. Twitter user XenoPanther spotted the Windows 11 2022 Update naming in the Get Started app that appears when you set up a new PC.The naming could simply be a placeholder, or it could indicate Microsoft is finally simplifying its often confusing update names for Windows. We’ve seen a variety of names over the years, including the Creators Update naming for a big Windows 10 update, more mundane naming like the Windows 10 May 2021 Update, and more recently, the Windows 10 21H2 moniker.Microsoft had considered naming its updates... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta has confirmed that it’s internally prototyping a new Instagram feature that’s suspiciously similar to BeReal, the social media app that’s recently exploded in popularity. The so-called “IG Candid” feature discovered by leaker Alessandro Paluzzi mirrors BeReal by prompting the user to share an authentic photo at a random time each day.My colleague Casey Newton has taken to calling these imitators “murder clones,” because of how they appear designed to neutralize upstarts by imitating their killer features.Paluzzi posted a screenshot with Instagram’s description of how the feature could work. “Add other’s IG Candid to your story tray. And everyday at a different time, get a notification to capture and share a Photo in 2 Minutes,”... Continue reading…

He could face up to 10 years in prison. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Xiaolang Zhang has pled guilty to stealing trade secrets from Apple, where he worked on a self-driving car project from 2015 to 2018 (via CNBC). When he quit his job at Apple, he told his supervisor that he was going to work for Guangzhou Xiaopeng Motors Technology, a Chinese EV startup also known as Xpeng.During an investigation, which you can read more about here, Apple determined that he had transferred around 24GB of “highly problematic” data to his wife’s laptop via AirDrop, and had also taken circuit boards and a server from the company’s autonomous vehicle lab.The terms of Zhang’s plea agreement aren’t publicly available, but according to a court document uploaded by CNBC (pdf), Zhang pled guilty to the single theft of trade... Continue reading…

An investigation into the incident is ongoing. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is reportedly installing new air conditioning equipment and additional fans at its EWR9 warehouse in New Jersey, according to a report by NBC News. This comes after Reynaldo Mota Frias, a worker at the facility, died on July 13th, during the Prime Day rush, on a day when temperatures rose to 92 degrees. Amazon reportedly blames Frias’ death on “a personal medical condition” and denies reports that he told managers he was feeling unwell. An investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (or OSHA) is listed as ongoing.Another employee at EWR9 told NBC that the warehouse gets hot, even in areas that have fans. The company has faced criticism from workers before about how it handles workloads during the i... Continue reading…

House of the Dragon | Image: HBO Despite glitches for some people trying to watch via Fire TV Sticks, HBO announced that the first episode of its Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon recorded the network’s biggest premiere of all time, recording 9.986 million viewers across linear and HBO Max streaming on Sunday night in the US alone.The original Game of Thrones series closed out its run with 13.7 million live viewers on linear channels for the finale in 2019, clocking over 19 million views with the addition of streaming and video-on-demand numbers. According to HBO, ahead of the Dragon premiere, interest in the original series — with the entire series now available for streaming in 4K on HBO Max — spiked, drawing a weekly average in streaming for August that... Continue reading…

The PlayStation VR2 | Image: Sony Sony’s PlayStation VR2 headset is coming in “early 2023,” according to posts the company made on Twitter and Instagram. Sony has been trickling information out about the upcoming headset over the past several months, and now we have at least a timeframe for when we can expect to get our hands on the hardware.While the company released details of the headset’s design earlier this year, it still hasn’t announced a price. It is, however, promising a lot for the PlayStation VR2 — it’ll feature displays that add up to 4K resolution and can run at 90 or 120Hz, have a 110-degree field of view, and use foveated rendering, which renders certain parts of the image as sharper than others to make things easier for the computer (or, in this case,... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge We may need to wait longer for the 3nm MacBook than we’d previously hoped. New 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are on the horizon, according to a new prediction from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, but they’re unlikely to be the 3nm process. Refreshes of the excellent professional MacBooks “will enter mass production” in Q4 of 2022, Kuo tweeted this morning.Kuo’s intel indicates that they “may still adopt the 5nm advanced node,” which is the same process node that the recent M2 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models use. That would, if true, mean that Apple’s first 3nm MacBook chips, also rumored to be entering production later this year, will not debut in these machines.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Intel is building what it claims is the “largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet” in Ohio, and it’s going to need 7,000 workers to construct it, according to a report from the Associated Press. However, a labor shortage affecting the construction industry could make it hard to recruit the workers it needs for the $20 billion job, and competition for workers could slow the pace of homebuilding in the area which is needed to support the growing workforce that Intel’s plant is supposed to attract.Intel first announced the Ohio project in January of this year and is on track to begin construction in late 2022. Once finished, the 1,000-acre site will house two factories, or fabs, and employ at least 3,000 people. But it has... Continue reading…

It looks like something out of a video game, but this gadget is real: a portable, mechanical, computerized, laser-guided knife gun that actually throws spinning knives end over end through the air (via Gizmodo).This isn’t some slingshot or spiral Kunai shooter that flings those blades straight ahead, oh no — Quint Builds set out to build a gadget that can accurately throw knives just like a pro, nailing a target 10 times in a row at different distances. That meant painstakingly calculating how to spin a knife the right number of times to land tip-first, again and again and again — and employing a homemade lidar laser guidance system to measure that distance and adjust the knife’s trajectory accordingly.Otherwise, a knife might... Continue reading…

Amazon Alexa’s Routines, which play from devices like this Echo dot speaker, help my family get out of bed and stay on track in the mornings. | Image: Amazon This week, my kids headed back to school. For most parents, that means a weekend spent buying composition notebooks and Ticonderoga pencils and unearthing moldy lunchboxes from last year’s book bag (just me?). In my household, it also means reenabling all my back-to-school smart home routines.I’ve been using my smart home as an extra pair of parental eyes and ears for years now, and I think all parents need some home automation in their lives. The little things the smart home does well — lights that turn on when you walk into a room, a TV you can shut down with just your voice, a doorbell that shows you who’s there — are so much more useful when you are also juggling little people and their various demands.(A caveat to all this: I use... Continue reading…

eBay and TCGplayer logos. | Image: eBay eBay will acquire TCGplayer, an online marketplace for trading cards, the companies announced today. The deal, worth up to $295 million, marks eBay’s latest push into the growing trading card market, which experienced a huge boom during the pandemic.TCGplayer is a popular buying and selling platform for trading card games like Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Magic: The Gathering. The company also provides seller tools and services, including storage and order fulfillment. In announcing the purchase, eBay described trading card games as an “attractive category” with “substantial growth.”“This new chapter allows us to continue operating independently within eBay, while also benefiting from their decades of industry experience and resources to... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge You’re in luck if you’re still trying to nab a PlayStation 5 as Sony is once again selling the console just days after holding its last restock event. Right now, you can buy the standard, disc-based console with a digital copy of Horizon Forbidden West for $549.99. You’ll also get free shipping if you buy either a PS5 game or select controllers with your purchase.Today’s restock event is rare in that Sony typically requires you to enter an online queue prior to making a purchase. In those instances, we recommend that you log into your Sony and PlayStation Network accounts in advance and double-check to make sure your credit card details are still accurate, which should help once you make it through the queue.Don’t get discouraged if... Continue reading…

Photo by JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP via Getty Images France’s government increased the size of the subsidy it offers to people who trade in their gas-powered cars for electric bikes to as much as €4,000 (approx. $3,976) per person, according to The Times. The money is meant to incentivize people to ditch their polluting modes of transportation in favor of cleaner, more environmentally friendly alternatives.People who live in low-income households in low-emission urban zones that trade in their cars are eligible for the full €4,000 subsidy to put toward the purchase of an e-bike. (Traditional, non-motorized bikes also qualify for the incentive.) French citizens from higher income brackets can claim smaller subsidies.The French government has said it wants 9 percent of the country to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are sold on the promise of “ownership,” but a new review suggests many creators and buyers still have no idea what that means. A review from blockchain investment company Galaxy Digital finds that only one of the 25 most valuable NFT projects even tries to give buyers direct intellectual property rights to the underlying art, and many offer confusing or nebulous licenses despite recent efforts to clean up the space.The Galaxy report analyzes the terms of major NFT projects, including the Yuga Labs project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Gary Vaynerchuk’s VeeFriends, and World of Women as well as the “metaverse” social platforms Decentraland and Sandbox. It concludes that “the vast majority of NFTs convey zero... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re looking for an image that you can repurpose for one of your projects and aren’t able to take a photo yourself, there are a ton of free images you can use online without running into any copyright issues — you just have to know where to look.Here, we’ll go over different places where you can search for free images on the web. It’s worth noting that when searching for free images, you’ll often come across the Creative Commons (CC) license that lets you use an image for free. But depending on the type of CC license an image has, there may be some limitations that require you to credit the original artist or prevent you from making modifications to the image.That’s why it’s always important to read up on the license it possesses... Continue reading…

A variety of changes are coming to both the Chromecast with Google TV and third-party devices. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google has been working on making its TV experience faster, more responsive, and less of a hassle for users. According to a post on its support forums on Monday, the company has been working on improving boot time, general performance, and the number of options for managing storage on both third-party TVs as well as its Chromecast with Google TV streaming puck.The company says that it’s made it so the Google TV homescreen loads faster, reducing the amount of time before you can pick out which content to watch. Google says it achieved the performance improvements “through CPU optimizations and improvements to cache management” and that they’ve started to roll out on third-party devices and are “coming soon” for Chromecasts.It’s faster... Continue reading…

Photo by Alexander Kramer for The Verge Apple’s expanding its DIY repair program to include MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops equipped with the M1 chip. Once the program officially opens tomorrow, you’ll get to purchase genuine parts for the 2020 M1 MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the 14- and 16-inch 2021 M1 MacBook Pros from Apple’s Self Service Repair Store.This expands on the repair program Apple launched earlier this year, which initially included parts for the iPhone 12 and 13, such as the display, battery, and camera. While the program is currently only available in the US, Apple plans on bringing it to Europe next.Apple’s making a number of MacBook parts available to start, including the display, top case with battery, Touch ID, and trackpad. Just like Apple... Continue reading…

It might be small, but you can do quite a bit to customize the Z Flip’s cover screen. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Part of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip’s appeal is what you can do with the phone halfway open in Flex Mode, like make a hands-free video call or take a selfie. But there’s also plenty you can do with the phone closed, thanks to that little 1.9-inch OLED on the front panel, aka the cover screen.It may be small, but it’s a place where you can read notifications, check the weather, set a timer, and control your smart home — all without flipping the phone open. Plus, you can customize the display with an animated wallpaper or a photo of your own. Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The 1.9-inch cover screen lets you see info without flipping the phone open. Here’s how to take control of the Z Flip’s cover screen... Continue reading…

In Cockpit mode, the Odyssey Ark looks like a wave that’s about to crash on top of you. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Samsung announced that you can now preorder its massive 55-inch 4K curved gaming display, the Odyssey Ark, for $3,499.99. For those who see the need for such a large, pricey display, buying it before Monday, September 12th, can loop you into some relatively small but welcome savings. For instance, preordering will earn you a $200 gift card from Samsung. Best Buy and Newegg are offering a similar promotion, giving out $200 in gift card value for those who preorder to be used on a separate purchase.Samsung hasn’t officially shared a release date, though Newegg confirmed that shipments from its website will begin shipping on Monday, September 12th.If you were someone who placed a no-cost reservation for the Odyssey Ark last week when... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images YouTube is embracing its position as the (unintentional) most-used podcast platform by launching a dedicated podcast page. As the lines between podcasting and YouTube blur, any step the company takes toward consolidating listening could pose a challenge for competitors Spotify and Apple Podcasts.The page debuted in late July and is still in the rollout process, according to 9to5Google. It can be accessed only in the US at youtube.com/podcasts or through the Explore page (in-app or browser), where there is a new podcast tab. The new page features trending shows and channels that already have millions of subscribers, like The H3 Podcast or Logan Paul’s podcast, but otherwise does not exhibit a ton of curation.The page is not nearly as... Continue reading…

Image: The Game Awards Mark your calendars and get those predictions in because The Game Awards returns on December 8th. Geoff Keighley’s award show / marketing sizzle reel will be held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles for the show’s ninth year.

Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images Bitcoin evangelist and Republican Senate hopeful Blake Masters has invested millions into a wide variety of cryptocurrencies. But according to recent financial filings viewed by The Verge, Masters’ own digital investments have seemingly tanked in value over this past year’s cryptocurrency crash.Masters, protegé to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, disclosed a dozen different investments into different cryptocurrencies and platforms in a personal finance filing last week. As of August 15th, Masters owned between $600,000 and $1.2 million in Bitcoin alone, a dramatic decrease from the $1.1 to $5.2 million he touted in financial disclosures last year. Masters did not disclose any significant profits from his Bitcoin investment,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images As Twitter and Elon Musk prepare for their October 17th trial date in the Delaware Court of Chancery to argue over his attempt to break their $44 billion acquisition agreement, Musk’s legal team submitted a subpoena for evidence from a familiar face: former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO for the second time last November and handed control of the company he helped create to Parag Agrawal. He’s running Square and Block and, reportedly, egging on Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter in private messages.It’s tough to say what information Dorsey has that Musk couldn’t obtain by just texting him! But with billions of dollars on the line, Musk’s legal team is casting out all lines to support his (weak) argument the... Continue reading…

Image: Lincoln Lincoln is celebrating its 100-year anniversary with the release of the L100, a concept car that harkens back to the automaker’s legacy while also looking ahead to a future where pesky controls like steering wheels may no longer be needed.The L100 has all the hallmarks of a 21st-century concept car: sleek, futuristic design; gull-wing doors; a sparse interior that’s meant to underscore a generically autonomous capability; and a whole lot of glass. Naturally, the vehicle is not intended for production or sale but is intended to signal at a possible design direction for Lincoln’s future lineup.Lincoln said the L100 is intended to pay homage to the automaker’s first luxury vehicle“Concept vehicles allow us to reimagine and illustrate... Continue reading…

The state-of-the-art PS5 DualSense wireless controller still requires a cable to use. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 both use wireless controllers that rely on a singular method for connecting and resyncing with the consoles: a cable. While Microsoft and Nintendo have used wireless pairing on their respective systems for several generations, Sony sticks by the old ways it established back with the PlayStation 3. The PS4 DualShock 4 and PS5 DualSense controllers are capable of wirelessly pairing to other devices via Bluetooth, but when it comes to your PlayStation, you have to bust out their respective Micro USB and USB-C cables.Here’s what to do if you’re having connection woes or your controller won’t turn on.Plug it inPretty much all of your PlayStation controller connectivity headaches can be solved by... Continue reading…

The Pixel Watch doesn’t have to be great. It has to be competent. | Image: Google Later this fall, Google is expected to launch the Pixel Watch. Given Wear OS’s history, there’s understandably a lot of anticipation. Will the watch be good? Will it fail to deliver the promise of Wear OS 3? Honestly, those questions might be more appropriate for future iterations of the watch. For now, all Google has to do is create a smartwatch that does the basics well.Case in point, XDA Developers recently reported that Google seems to be hard at work addressing an egregious oversight in Wear OS: backups. In an APK teardown of Google Play services v 22.23.12 beta, XDA says that there’s code that refers to “companion backups” via Google One. Right now, if you upgrade to a new phone, you can’t back up your non-Samsung Wear OS... Continue reading…

Coming to a TV or phone near you. | Image: Marvel Marvel’s latest theatrical release, Thor: Love and Thunder, will be making its way to the Disney Plus streaming service on September 8th (via Deadline). While my colleague Charles Pulliam-Moore described the movie as “messy” in his excellent review, which you can read here, it still did reasonably well at the box office. Soon, though, it’ll be available on streaming for anyone who’d rather watch it at home.Thor isn’t the only content that Disney’s adding to the service on September 8th, which it’s declared as “Disney Plus Day.” There are several shorts, behind-the-scenes features, and TV episodes premiering as well. Perhaps the most notable other addition is a live-action Pinocchio adaptation featuring Tom Hanks and Joseph Gordon-Levitt... Continue reading…

Clip Studio Paint is moving to a monthly subscription when version 2.0 launches in 2023. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Celsys announced version 2.0 of Clip Studio Paint, its popular digital illustration and animation software, alongside plans to move over to a monthly subscription for updates to the service when it launches. It’s left some longtime fans who praised it for its one-time purchase model feeling very betrayed.An announcement on the Clip Studio website states that “from 2023 onwards, the current Version 1 (the one-time purchase, perpetual version for Windows/macOS, ‘Version 1.x’ hereafter), offered as a download and physical version will no longer receive feature updates free of charge.”This has subsequently outraged members of the artist community, who previously heralded the service as a fantastic one-time purchase alternative to software... Continue reading…

Gmail’s new look provides easy access to Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet on one panel but can make the design appear cluttered. | Image: Google Not a fan of Gmail’s new look for the web? I feel you. Even though the changes rolled out were small, that side panel featuring apps like Mail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet has cluttered things up, making checking emails first thing in the morning feel more overwhelming.Sure, you can make things a little easier on the eye by hiding the Gmail category and label panel with some quick tweaks. But if you’re also not a fan of other changes, like the new light blue Compose button background that I found distracting, it’s actually pretty easy to revert to the previous interface. (Well, at the moment, at least. We’re not sure, after all, how much longer Gmail will let users revert to the old design — so let’s enjoy the luxury while we still can.)H... Continue reading…

Ford’s F-150 Lightning | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Ford is laying off about 3,000 employees and contract workers, with the cuts primarily affecting staff in the US, Canada, and India, The Wall Street Journal reports. Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Jim Farley sent a memo on Monday informing staff of the layoffs, with affected workers being told later this week.“Building this future requires changing and reshaping virtually all aspects of the way we have operated for more than a century,” Ford and Farley said in the memo, according to CNBC. “It requires focus, clarity and speed. And, as we have discussed in recent months, it means redeploying resources and addressing our cost structure, which is uncompetitive versus traditional and new competitors.”It’s unclear how the cuts may be spread... Continue reading…