The Verge

Image: Spotify Spotify’s heart icon is changing to a “plus” button that lets you save music and add songs to specific playlists. The music streaming app announced the change in a post on its blog, noting that you’ll now have to tap the new “plus” icon once to save a song or podcast to your library and then tap it again to add it to a playlist of your choosing.Some users already have the combined “plus” button on their app, as it seems Spotify has been testing the change since late last year. Previously, the Spotify app had a “heart” icon available up front that meant liking a song and saving it to your library as well as a separate “add to playlist” button that it hid within the app’s three-dot menu. Image: Spotify Tap once to... Continue reading…

Yes, Lady Dimitrescu looks even taller in VR. Sony’s new PlayStation VR2 is a solid headset with a relatively small launch catalog, and one of its most exciting titles is a VR mode for Resident Evil Village, Capcom’s first-person 2021 survival horror shooter. Village draws inspiration from Resident Evil 4, which got a stellar Meta Quest 2 port back in 2021, so I had high hopes. And they weren’t unfounded. The free PSVR 2 update to Village offers great shooting with the device’s Sense controllers and makes a solid case for the headset’s quirky “face rumble” feature. If only other parts didn’t torture me as badly as Ethan Winters’ hands.I’m not making any claims to fully reviewing Village in VR here. In my free time since the mode’s launch on February 22nd, I’ve been spending halting... Continue reading…

Image: CHRISTOS KALOHORIDIS/NETFLIX The trailer for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first action comedy TV series is here. The Netflix original, titled FUBAR — an acronym for “fucked up beyond all repair” — follows Schwarzenegger as a ready-to-retire CIA agent who gets wrapped up in one last mission.FUBAR’s first trailer has Schwarzenegger returning to his action movie roots, flashing between scenes of the star hopping on a motorcycle, zipping around in a sports car, and firing off a pistol. Here’s Netflix’s synopsis of the show:

The new Nokia logo. | Image: Nokia Finnish telecoms firm Nokia has redesigned its logo to remind the world that it doesn’t make mobile phones anymore.“In most people’s minds, we are still a successful mobile phone brand, but this is not what Nokia is about,” Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark told Bloomberg. “We want to launch a new brand that is focusing very much on the networks and industrial digitalization, which is a completely different thing from the legacy mobile phones.”Nokia revealed its new brand identity on Sunday at MWC — the first major redesign of the firm’s logo in nearly 60 years. The company has come a long way since its founding as a single paper mill operation in 1865. Its original logo featured a salmon head — a reference to the Nokianvirta river by which... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Snapchat is introducing a chatbot powered by the latest version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, it’s a bet that AI chatbots will increasingly become a part of everyday life for more people.Named “My AI,” Snapchat’s bot will be pinned to the app’s chat tab above conversations with friends. While initially only available for $3.99 a month Snapchat Plus subscribers, the goal is to eventually make the bot available to all of Snapchat’s 750 million monthly users, Spiegel tells The Verge.“The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day,” he says. “And this is something we’re well positioned to do as a messaging service.” At launch,... Continue reading…

A rare Apple Lisa desktop computer is among the over 500 retro Apple computers and gadgets being sold by Julien’s Auctions on March 30th. | Image: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images The entirety of one of the most comprehensive collections of retro Apple computers and gadgets released between 1977 and 2008 is about to go on sale. As seen via PetaPixel, the “Hanspeter Luzi Vintage Apple Archive” will be available via auction in California next month and contains over 500 classic Apple products spanning almost half a century, collected over the decades by the late Swiss teacher and entrepreneur Hanspeter Luzi.“The Apples” collection is being auctioned live and online by Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills on March 30th, with an exhibition to view the products running from March 27th through March 30th.

Image: McRib Locator The McDonald’s McRib’s last seasonal appearance in 2022 was said to be its last. McDonald’s marketed last fall’s release as its “farewell tour,” encouraging customers to get it before it was gone forever. Despite this, Alan Klein, creator of the McRib Locator, will continue to keep up his self-made website that reports and tracks McRib sightings. “I’m helping a larger community,” Klein says. “It’s fellow fans like myself, and that really is what keeps me driven to keep doing it.”Since McDonald’s introduced the McRib in 1981, an avid fan base has developed around the sandwich — and dealt with its inconsistent availability ever since. Despite its popularity, McDonald’s has removed the McRib from its menu numerous times over the past 40... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is splitting its annual product event into two separate gatherings in order to place more emphasis on its efforts to go carbon neutral.The first event, entitled Go/Get, will be held May 17th in New York City and will focus on “family and travel,” the company said. The second will be called Go/Get Zero and will be convened in London on June 8th. That event will highlight the various ways Uber plans to tackle climate change.The choice to hold the sustainability event in London is no accident. The city is a microcosm of the company’s efforts to green its platform, with 15 percent of the company’s vehicle kilometers traveled done in electric vehicles. Uber drivers in London are also the first to get access to a fleet of EVs through... Continue reading…

The Verge Google Chrome’s giving its page zoom feature a boost, which should make it more helpful for people who have difficulty reading the smaller screen on a phone. With the improved feature, you can increase the size of text, images, videos, and interactive controls on mobile web pages by up to 300 percent while preserving their original formatting.While the feature hasn’t yet become available for all Chrome users, you can access it now if you download the Chrome beta on your phone or tablet. To enable the feature, tap the three dots icon in the top right corner of the browser, hit Settings > Accessibility, and then adjust the zoom level to your liking. Image: Google New basketball-themed emoji combinations are coming... Continue reading…

Those glowing blue lines on the back aren’t (just) for show. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge OnePlus’ latest concept phone is all about keeping cool. The company showed off the OnePlus 11 Concept device at MWC Barcelona, which features glowing blue pipelines on its back to represent the cooling liquid of its “Active CryoFlux” cooling technology.Yes, it’s designed to look flashy, but OnePlus argues the cooling system serves an important practical purpose. By keeping the phone cooler under load, the company claims you can get better performance from games, and faster charging speeds. All without the need for the “size, weight, and noise” of a physically spinning fan like we’ve seen from the likes of Nubia or in smartphone cooling accessories from Razer or Asus.Two quoted performance benefits include a 2.1 degree Celcius (around... Continue reading…

Lenovo’s rollable laptop concept, with its screen fully extended. First teased last October, the devices made an in-person appearance at Mobile World Congress 2023. But it’s clear they’re still far from ready for a public release. Continue reading…

Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The Crew-6 mission bound for the International Space Station was postponed on Monday after experiencing last-minute technical issues just minutes from launch. With the help of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the company’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft was set to lift off early Monday morning at 1:45AM ET from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch countdown was “scrubbed” with just two minutes remaining “due to an issue with ground systems,” according to NASA, later revealed to be a problem with the TEA-TEB ignition fluid used to ignite the SpaceX Falcon 9’s rocket engines.NASA and SpaceX are now hoping to launch the Crew-6 mission at 12:34 a.m. EST Thursday, March 2nd “pending resolution of the technical issue preventing Monday’s... Continue reading…

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The massive mobile show is back. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter product manager Esther Crawford no longer has a job at the company following yet another wave of layoffs, as first reported by Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer. Crawford headed up various projects at Twitter, including the company’s Blue with verification subscription as well as Twitter’s forthcoming payments platform.Alex Heath of The Verge confirmed Crawford and most of the remaining product team were laid off this weekend, leading to speculation that Twitter’s owner Elon Musk may be about to install a new regime at the company.In a recent interview, Musk said, “I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place in that the product roadmap is clearly laid out” before guessing that “before... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Since Thursday morning, Dish Network has been experiencing a major outage that’s taken down the company’s main websites, apps, and customer support systems, and employees tell The Verge it’s not clear what’s going on inside the company. The company’s Dish.com website is completely blank save for a notice apologizing for “any disruptions you may be having” while promising that “teams are working hard to restore systems as soon as possible.” The Boost Mobile and Boost Infinite sites display a similar message.When we called each brand’s customer support lines, there were no humans on the other end — each call automatically hung up after delivering a recorded message about the outage. Dish’s website is currently just a... Continue reading…

Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Turner The 29th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards honors outstanding performances in both film and television. This year’s event will take place at the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, California, but won’t air on TNT or TBS as it has in the past.If you’re looking forward to seeing whether Michelle Yeoh takes away an award for her leading role in Everything Everywhere All At Once, or if the stunt performers in Avatar: The Way of Water win for those spectacular underwater action scenes, here’s how to watch the ceremony live.What time do the 2023 SAG Awards start?The SAG Awards take place on Sunday, February 26th, 2023 at 8PM ET / 5PM PT.Where can I watch the SAG Awards?While the year’s event won’t air on cable, you can watch it... Continue reading…

Image: Comedy Central Warner Bros. Discovery is suing Paramount for allegedly “stealing” South Park content it claims it should have the exclusive streaming rights to, as reported earlier by Variety. In a lawsuit filed on Friday, HBO Max’s parent company claims Paramount worked with South Park’s creators and its MTV subsidiary to “divert as much of the new South Park content as possible” to Paramount Plus to attract viewers to the platform.In 2019, Warner Bros. Discovery says it paid around $1.6 million for each of the over 300 episodes that South Park Digital Studios (SPDS) — a joint venture between Paramount and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone — agreed to license. Warner Bros. Discovery claims Paramount, which also owns Comedy Central, South... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has once again accidentally offered the Windows 11 upgrade to PCs with unsupported hardware. Twitter user PhantomOcean3 spotted the mistake earlier this week, where Microsoft was showing fullscreen prompts on unsupported hardware. Microsoft has now explained the mistake, noting that PCs that didn’t meet the minimum requirements for Windows 11 weren’t able to complete the upgrade.“Some hardware ineligible Windows 10 and Windows 11, version 21H2 devices were offered an inaccurate upgrade to Windows 11,” explains Microsoft in a support note. “These ineligible devices did not meet the minimum requirements to run Windows 11. Devices that experienced this issue were not able to complete the upgrade installation process.” ... Continue reading…

Apple’s M2-powered Macbook Air is on sale for $1,049. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Just in case you woke up this morning feeling like spending a thousand bucks, we’re starting off the weekend with a terrific deal on Apple’s latest MacBook Air. Right now, the M2-powered model with 8GB of RAM, an eight-core CPU, and 256GB of storage is on sale at Best Buy and B&H Photo for $1,049 ($150 off), which is one of its best prices to date.If you need a laptop that’s a jack-of-all-trades, the M2-powered MacBook Air will likely fit the bill. It boasts a lot of the same features as the excellent M1 model from 2022 — including all-day battery life, Touch ID, and MagSafe charging — yet it offers faster performance and a lighter build. It also features a 1080p webcam and a brighter display than its predecessor. So long as you don’t... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge A short story titled “The Last Hope” first hit Sheila Williams’ desk in early January. Williams, the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, reviewed the story and passed on it.At first, she didn’t think much of it; she reads and responds to writers daily as part of her job, receiving anywhere from 700 to 750 stories a month. But when another story, also titled “The Last Hope,” came in a couple weeks later by a writer with a different name, Williams became suspicious. By the time yet another “The Last Hope” came a few days later, Williams knew immediately she had a problem on her hands.“That’s like the tip of the iceberg,” Williams says.Since that first submission, Williams has received more than 20 short stories all titled “The... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Sony’s PlayStation VR2 arrived this week, and while it’s one of the best virtual reality headsets we’ve ever used, there’s still a number of common VR pitfalls and PSVR 2-specific annoyances new buyers might run into.Whether this is your first VR headset or just your most recent purchase, here are a handful of tips that might keep you from getting sick, tripping on a cord, running out of battery, or — and we hear this is particularly common — thinking Sony shipped you a blurry VR headset when it’s probably just a trick of the light.In fact, let’s start with that one. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge This is how to wear most VR headsets, for that matter. How to wear the PSVR 2 and avoid blurIf... Continue reading…

Ads may be coming to Ted Lasso. | Image: Apple Apple has made a notable hire that could signal its intent to move into ads on Apple TV Plus. The company has hired advertising exec Lauren Fry to “to help build a video advertising business for its Apple TV Plus streaming service,” according to The Information.Apple has been turning more to ads to help grow its revenues; it added new ad placements in the App Store last year and reportedly wants to bring ads to apps like Maps, Books, and Podcasts, so it’s not surprising that it’s looking at ads for TV Plus as well. And this hire isn’t even the first exploration of ads with its streaming offerings, as it has run ads against its Major League Baseball games and is reportedly building an ad network around its streaming service with Major... Continue reading…

A bear roaring into a cloud of cocaine. | Image: Universal Director Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear over-delivers on a very simple, silly premise that mostly works because it doesn’t take anything seriously except being ridiculous. Continue reading…

A liftboat off the beach near Wainscott, New York, on December 1st, 2022. The vessel’s drill will be used in the construction of a wind farm. | Image: Johnny Milano/Bloomberg via Getty Images The largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments is calling on the Biden administration to pause offshore wind projects. They want to ensure that tribes are included in project planning and that there are measures in place to protect their territories and traditional resources.In a resolution adopted this week, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) “strongly urges the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt all scoping and permitting for offshore wind projects until completion of a comprehensive and transparent procedure adequately protecting tribal environmental and sovereign interests is developed and implemented.” It was adopted during a meeting... Continue reading…

Motorola Defy Satellite Link accessory by Bullitt. | Image: Bullitt Bullitt, the company that brought you rugged Cat-branded smartphones with thermal cameras, is stuffing trendy emergency-response satellite tech into a Motorola-branded Bluetooth keychain accessory.Making its debut at MWC 2023, the new Motorola Defy Satellite Link can enable almost any smartphone to send and receive text messages in places lacking cellular signals. Satellite communications features are being mainstreamed after Apple added Emergency SOS via satellite in the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultra. Qualcomm is also looking to stick similar tech into upcoming high-end Android devices later this year, but Bullitt and MediaTek say their devices will be the first ones you can buy that communicate in both directions.Outdoorsy users... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo has confirmed to The Verge that it will not be attending E3 2023.“We approach our involvement in any event on a case-by-case basis and are always considering various ways to engage with our fans,” the company said in a statement. “Since this year’s E3 show didn’t fit into our plans, we have made the decision to not participate. However, we have been and continue to be a strong supporter of the ESA and E3.”Nintendo’s participation had been in doubt since IGN reported that it, Sony, and Microsoft would all be skipping E3, and now we know for certain that Nintendo won’t be at the show. E3 is set to take place in-person from June 13th through 16th in Los Angeles, which is just over a month after the release of The Legend of Zelda:... Continue reading…

Photo by George Rose / Getty Images Controversial solar geoengineering startup Make Sunsets says it released three balloons carrying atmosphere-altering particles in Reno, Nevada, this month. It’s an escalation of the company’s questionable climate change-fighting tactics, which got it banned from launching balloons in Mexico in January. And while the company says it got the green light from the FAA and local authorities, officials say no such authorization was granted.The way Make Sunsets explains it, this kind of geoengineering is a solution to humanity’s epic failure to stop planet-heating pollution. But experts say Make Sunsets has jumped the gun with its experiments — even those who are optimistic about solar geoengineering. There are still way too many questions... Continue reading…

Brightly colored earbuds in your ears may do a good job of subtly telling others not to bother you. | Image: Beats The colorful new variants of the Beats Fit Pro wireless earbuds just came out yesterday, and today, the yellow and pink models are already on sale. You can pick up a pair of “volt yellow” or “coral pink” Beats for $169.83 at Amazon, $30.12 off their regular $199.95 price. New products and colorways usually take a little longer than one day before they start seeing some discounts, but if you dig a tennis ball-like color for your electronics (the electric volt Xbox controller says hi!), then you’ve got yourself a nice deal here on something new and fresh.Not only are the Beats Fit Pro now brighter than ever but they’re also one of our favorite pairs of Bluetooth earbuds — especially for running and fitness. They sadly lack the convenience... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Plus LumaFusion comes to Android and ChromeOS, and PlayStation holds another trailer showcase. Continue reading…

Once the king of fitness trackers, Fitbit’s recent outages and a decision to shutter Challenges have left users disgruntled. | Illustration: The Verge These days, Fitbit users seem to be asking each other the same question: is it me, or is the app down for everybody else, too? Between frequent server outages and a recent decision to shutter popular social features, frustrated Fitbit customers say they’re weighing their options.Earlier this month, Google-owned Fitbit suffered a massive server outage that left users unable to sync trackers or view their data within the app or on Fitbit’s website. If it had been a one-off server outage, it’s likely users would’ve written it off as a fluke. But it extended into a second day and then a third. Then, around 1PM ET yesterday, over 1,600 users reported yet another outage, according to Downdetector. Others reported the outage to the @... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google is running tests that block access to news for some Canadian users in response to a new bill that could force it and other large platforms like Meta’s Facebook to negotiate deals with news publishers to pay them for content, Reuters reports. The tests will reportedly impact less than four percent of Canadian users, run for around five weeks, and will “limit the visibility of Canadian and international news to varying degrees.”The tests come in response to Canada’s Online News Act, also known as “Bill C-18,” which is currently being considered by the Canadian Senate, according to The Globe and Mail.In a tweet, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canadians won’t be intimidated by Google’s behavior. “It’s... Continue reading…