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You can pull it up at any time. Sometimes it’s not obvious, especially on a new computer, how well your storage is performing. Different models of the same product can even have vastly different storage speeds, as we’ve seen on the most recent MacBook Air models. If you’re running a Mac computer, and you’re curious how well the SSD is performing, there’s a very easy benchmark you can run called the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Here’s how to run it.How to run the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test It’s the first one on the right.

Darby Stanchfield, Jackson Robert Scott, Connor Jessup, and Emilia Jones in Locke and Key season 3. | Image: Netflix When it debuted in 2020, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Locke and Key got off to a pretty good start. Based on the brilliant comic series from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez, the show tells the story of the Locke family and their sprawling ancestral home in Massachusetts that also happens to be home to some very cool magical keys. The first season of the show mixed the comic’s dark family drama and fantastical premise with some high-school hijinks ripped right out of Riverdale. But with season two, a lack of a great villain and a sped-up pace took away from what made the show so interesting — namely the magic and the mystery. Now, the series is back with a third and final season that attempts to wrap things up once and for all. But... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meaningful triumphs in a broken world Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad This morning, I was idly looking through my Twitter feed and came across a thread discussing Starbucks’ recent hiring of a former Pinkerton intelligence analyst, which led to a discussion of the history of the Pinkertons as strikebreakers, which led to a 19th-century illustration of a crowd of women confronting uniformed men with guns. Curious as to the source of the illustration, I aimed my Pixel 6 phone at it and tapped on the Google Lens icon on the right side of my homepage’s Google search field.After maybe a minute, I found a series of websites that had used the illustration, including one from Wikipedia that told me that the image was of an 1884 wood engraving made from a sketch by Joseph Becker illustrating “the striking miners’... Continue reading…

Jesse Belinsky / The Verge It’s 2013, and tonight my friends and I are getting together to wish on falling stars during a meteor shower. Like many young teens meeting up with their pals, I want to show off my sense of style, so I spend a solid amount of time trying on different skirts, dresses, and accessories in order to find the cutest look. Luckily, I don’t have to worry about how comfortable the outfit will be or whether the fabric will chafe against my skin since the clothes aren’t going on my physical body but, rather, on my villager in the world of Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS.In real life, I’m a tall, slightly chubby, pubescent boy with the acne and self-esteem to match. Even though I go to a fairly liberal high school and have been... Continue reading…

Joi Mann / The Verge In 2017, I moved 8,345 miles from my family — from my pink and green painted childhood bedroom in Dubai to a dorm room at USC. Overnight, my world changed. I went from my parents’ mollycoddled child to an adult that had to do their own laundry. The whiplash was heavy, and images of my old life kept echoing in my head. When I woke up to hear the birds outside my window, I half expected to hear my mom playing her Suprabhatam devotional music, loud enough to shake the floor. I’d remember late mornings in Dubai, listening to the radio after missing the school bus, sleepily ingesting the Bollywood Top 40 my parents had on in the car. After class, heading to cram school, I’d blast Mura Masa loud enough to crush my eardrums. On the way home,... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google is striking back at Sonos with a pair of lawsuits alleging that the wireless speaker company is infringing on a number of its patents around smart speakers and voice control technology. It’s the latest volley in a back-and-forth battle over wireless speakers that has so far involved multiple lawsuits from Sonos, one lawsuit from Google, and one ruling in favor of Sonos that’s led to features being stripped from Google’s products.These new lawsuits allege infringement of seven additional patents. One lawsuit focuses on hotword detection and wireless charging, and the other revolves around how a group of speakers determines which one should respond to voice input.Google says Sonos “started an aggressive and misleading campaign... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US federal circuit court has confirmed that AI systems cannot patent inventions because they are not human beings.The ruling is the latest failure in a series of quixotic legal battles by computer scientist Stephen Thaler to copyright and patent the output of various AI software tools he’s created.In 2019, Thaler failed to copyright an image on behalf of an AI system he dubbed Creativity Machine, with that decision upheld on appeal by the US Copyright Office in 2022. In a parallel case, the US Patent Office ruled in 2020 that Thaler’s AI system DABUS could not be a legal inventor because it was not a “natural person,” with this decision then upheld by a judge in 2021. Now, the federal circuit court has, once more, confirmed this... Continue reading…

A leaked photo of the DJI Avata. | Image: @AttaccoG A leaked video has given us another look at the DJI Avata, a rumored FPV (first-person view) drone from DJI that reports suggest will be designed to be flyable indoors thanks to a compact, so-called “cinewhoop” design. The Avata follows the release of the DJI FPV, the company’s debut first-person drone released last year.The video, which was posted by reliable drone leaker @OsitaLV, appears to show the drone being piloted with DJI’s motion controller, which was previously available alongside its first FPV drone last year. The drone’s pilot is wearing a pair of FPV goggles unlike any that DJI currently has on the market, suggesting they’re the new model shown off in previous leaks. These DJI Goggles 2 look to have a similar design to its... Continue reading…

Image: LG LG is today announcing two new sets of wireless earbuds. First up are the Tone Free T90 buds, which now become the company’s flagship pair. They still have the signature bacteria-killing UVnano charging case. And like the previous Tone Free FP9, the case can also double as a Bluetooth transmitter, letting you run an aux cable to devices that might lack wireless connectivity — like a treadmill — and still use the earbuds like normal.According to LG’s press release, the noise-canceling T90s have “a new internal structure with larger drivers that helps generate deeper, more satisfying bass.” But what’s more interesting is that they support Dolby Head Tracking “across your favorite content and devices.” Here’s how LG describes that... Continue reading…

The beta for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will arrive next month, with PlayStation players getting access first, followed by those on Xbox and PC. Infinity Ward shared the news at the CDL Champs (Call of Duty League Championship) tournament. As with its previous betas, the dates are separated by console and whether you preordered the game or not.The first early access beta kicks off on September 16th to 17th for PlayStation 4 and 5 players who preordered the game. This is followed by the open beta for all PlayStation players, which begins on September 18th and ends on the 20th.The crossplay beta for players who preordered the game on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC will last from September 22nd to 23rd, while the open crossplay beta for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A security vulnerability on Twitter allowed a bad actor to find out the account names associated with certain email addresses and phone numbers (and yes, that could include your secret celebrity stan accounts), Twitter confirmed on Friday. Twitter initially patched the issue in January after receiving a report through its bug bounty program, but a hacker managed to exploit the flaw before Twitter even knew about it.The vulnerability, which stemmed from an update the platform made to its code in June 2021, went unnoticed until earlier this year. This gave hackers several months to exploit the flaw, although Twitter said it “had no evidence to suggest someone had taken advantage of the vulnerability” at the time of its discovery.Last... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Around the same time Meta hiked up the price on its Quest 2 headsets, it also announced that it’s ending Quest 1 support for Population One, a popular battle-royale shooter set in virtual reality. BigBox VR, the Meta-owned developer behind the game, shared the update in a post on its blog, noting that Quest 1 owners will no longer be able to launch or play the game starting October 31st, 2022.BigBox VR says the shutdown is necessary so it can focus on developing new experiences “that will push the boundaries of multiplayer VR.” Quest 1 players can still technically play the game if they have a VR-ready PC, however. The game supports cross-buy, which makes the PC version available via Air Link and Oculus Link. This should let users play P... Continue reading…

A bridge between two charging worlds Continue reading…

New customization options in the One UI 5 beta. | Image: Samsung Samsung has officially started to roll out its One UI 5 open beta to Galaxy S22 owners in the US, Germany, and South Korea. The update comes only a few weeks ahead of Android 13’s expected release, and just a few days before Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event. Like the operating system it’s powered by, the One UI 5 beta looks like a relatively small update that adds some customization options, tweaks to notifications, as well as new accessibility and security settings.One UI 5 builds off of Android 13’s theming options by offering up to 16 preset color themes based on your wallpaper and 12 additional color options for your home screen, icons, and quick panels. It also introduces a way to stack similarly-sized widgets on top of one another... Continue reading…

The new Eve Motion Sensor is speedy and stable as long as you keep Bluetooth at bay Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re the owner of a Fitbit Versa, Versa 2, or Ionic, you’ll soon no longer be able to transfer music from your computer to your Fitbit device. In a support page spotted by 9to5Google, Fitbit says it’s discontinuing its Fitbit Connect app on October 13th, leaving you with only two ways to download music to your device: a paid subscription to either Pandora or Deezer.Fitbit Connect is a companion app for Mac and Windows computers that lets you sync fitness data between devices and transfer music to legacy Fitbit devices. Fitbit has slowly been phasing out the software in favor of its mobile app, as it no longer recommends that users download it on its setup page.But without access to Connect, there’s no way to download music to your... Continue reading…

Photo by Abigail Bassett for The Verge Toyota is offering to buy back its bZ4X electric SUV crossovers after recalling the vehicle in June, as first reported by Electrek. The recall, which Toyota issued not even two months after the bZ4X’s release, involves loose hub bolts on the wheel that could cause it to detach while driving.Toyota initially advised bZ4X owners not to drive the vehicle, and suggested that they notify their local Toyota dealer so they can pick up and store the car while they wait on a fix. The company would then provide customers with a free loaner car in return.But a letter to customers obtained by Electrek and confirmed by The Verge reveals that Toyota is also offering to throw in a few extra freebies in exchange for the inconvenience, including a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Maybe Elon Musk doesn’t want a court battle with Twitter? After having his lawyers spin up a 165-page argument about why he no longer wants to go through with his $44 billion deal to buy the platform, Musk suggested hashing things out in public — perhaps before a jury of the Tesla fans, Dogecoin hodlers, and potential Mars colonizers among his Twitter followers — to get to the bottom of Twitter’s so-called bot issue.“I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage,” Musk proclaims to all 102 million members of his forum. “Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!”

Welcome to the weekend. Whether you’re working today, or you’re off, we have a range of deals that you might be interested in. Most of these were big hits throughout the week that we’re resurfacing for your perusal, though we’ve packed in a few deals that popped up more recently. In terms of what to look forward to on The Verge, this week will be Samsung’s Unpacked event. That’s all happening on Wednesday, August 10th, and based on rumors, we expect to see new foldable phones and other gadgets, and plenty of preorder deals. See you then.At the Epic Games Store on PC, you can play as much Far Cry 6 as you can fit into this weekend. The storefront is offering an extended free trial of Ubisoft’s latest open-world first-person shooter.... Continue reading…

The Go 2 is the rare, premium sub-compact laptop left Continue reading…

The Stealth line has outgrown its name Continue reading…

Alex Jones speaks to supporters of President Donald Trump during a protest on December 12th, 2020 | Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images A Texas jury has ordered Alex Jones to pay around $45.2 million for spreading a false conspiracy theory about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The punitive damages come on top of a $4.1 million verdict from yesterday, potentially marking a major blow to Jones’s Infowars media empire. But the number could be vastly reduced by limits built into the Texas legal code, which caps damages on defamation punishments.The jury handed back its verdict on Friday after hearing testimony about Jones’s finances — something he’s allegedly taken significant steps to obscure. It included an assessment that Jones’ company Free Speech Systems was worth at least $130 million; previous testimony indicated its annual revenue in recent years has been... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Forbes report raises questions about how TikTok’s moderation team handles child sexual abuse material — alleging it granted broad, insecure access to illegal photos and videos.Employees of a third-party moderation outfit called Teleperformance, which works with TikTok among other companies, claim it asked them to review a disturbing spreadsheet dubbed DRR or Daily Required Reading on TikTok moderation standards. The spreadsheet allegedly contained content that violated TikTok’s guidelines, including “hundreds of images” of children who were nude or being abused. The employees say hundreds of people at TikTok and Teleperformance could access the content from both inside and outside the office — opening the door to a broader leak.T... Continue reading…

Wouldn’t it be neat if you could get free streaming TV channels without downloading an app or signing up for a new service? Well, you just might be getting that soon if you’re Google TV user, 9to5Google has decompiled the latest version of the software and reports the company’s TV streaming platform (formally Android TV) contains text that hints at 50 included live TV channels.The purported new feature seems to be called “Google TV Channels” based on text found in the launcher app. And there’s also an image in the software that hints at what channels will be included in the new service. It’s the usual lineup of internet-streamed free channels like ABC News Live, NBC News Now, and USA Today. There’s also a bunch of background noise... Continue reading…

Intel had an incredibly rough quarter, unexpectedly losing half a billion dollars due to a PC purchasing slump, and yesterday seemed like more bad news — a report from TrendForce about manufacturing delays sparked rumors that Intel’s next big flagship processor Meteor Lake would be delayed until 2024, which would put it as much as a year behind schedule. (In a February investor meeting, Intel said that Meteor Lake would be “powering on” this summer before shipping in 2023.)However, Intel is flatly denying those rumors today, with spokesperson Thomas Hannaford clarifying to The Verge that not only are they untrue, but that Meteor Lake will actually ship, launch, and be available to consumers in 2023. Image: Intel ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Maria Chimishkyan When Apple introduced passkeys, its implementation of FIDO Alliance’s password-less secure authentication technology, the company did it in the most Apple way possible. It made an icon and printed a very on Apple brand-looking “Passkeys” next to it, complete in the San Francisco font. And if you’ve watched only part of the WWDC presentation on Apple’s passkeys, it’s possible to assume passkeys are an exclusive feature of Apple’s iCloud Keychain. Just a reminder: it’s not.The term “passkey” will also be used by major players Microsoft and Google. It’s used as a common noun and can be pluralized or singular, for instance: “you should set a passkey for your banking app.” In other words, treat the word “passkey” as you would treat the word... Continue reading…

Clearing notifications is like playing red dot whack-a-mole. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge It starts innocently enough. You download an app, and the app asks for your permission to send you push notifications. Sure, you think. What harm could come of it? I’d like to know when my package arrives or my burrito is ready. But then you download more apps, and they all need your permission to send you notifications, and before you know it your lock screen is awash with apps clamoring for your attention.The apps never shut up. They’re hungry for engagement. They want you to know that your favorite items are on sale, that you haven’t practiced your Spanish today, that your delivery driver is five stops away, that your child at daycare just had a blowout – all day, all at once. Welcome to a place we all live, a place called... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Valve is working to add support for the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers in Steam. As part of the the newest Steam beta, Joy-Cons will be supported either individually or as a matched pair, similar to how you can use them either way for Switch games. If you want to try the feature out, you can opt into the Steam beta — Valve has helpful instructions on the Steam website — though fingers crossed that your Joy-Cons aren’t experiencing any drift.Valve is also improving its support for Nintendo’s classic controllers it sells for Switch Online subscribers, though in the beta patch notes, the company didn’t specify exactly how. That feature was introduced to the public version of the Steam client just last week, letting you use the... Continue reading…

Evolution Championship Series Nature may not be fully healed from the pandemic yet, but EVO is live in Las Vegas again so hopefully that means it’s getting better. For the first time since 2019 and after Sony became part-owner in 2021, the Evolution Championship Series — one of, if not the, biggest fighting game tournament in the world — is streaming live from the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Starting today until Sunday August 8th, some of the best fighting game players in the world will compete in nine different games including Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate, The King of Fighters XV, and Tekken 7.EVO 2022 will be streaming on Twitch across seven different channels to ensure you don’t miss any of the nine different tournaments taking place. Most of time will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram might have halted its controversial redesign, but that doesn’t mean the company plans to stop focusing on full-screen content. During his weekly Ask Me Anything today, CEO Adam Mosseri confirmed that Instagram will begin testing ultra-tall 9:16 photos “in a week or two.”“You can have tall videos, but you cannot have tall photos on Instagram,” Mosseri said. “So we thought maybe we should make sure that we treat both equally.” Currently, Instagram tops out around 4:5 when displaying vertical images that’ve been cropped accordingly. But introducing support for slimmer, taller 9:16 photos will help them fill the entire screen as you scroll through the app’s feed.Instagram’s TikTok-like redesign was criticized by some... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s newest update for ChromeOS is rolling out to users this week, and one of its new features is support for switching to a dark theme, as 9to5Google reported. Previously hidden behind developer flags while in testing, it finally made an official debut on ChromeOS 104, following dark mode settings popping up more in other Google products.In a Google blog post mentioning the incoming feature, the company says that the new dark theme would make it easier to “read at night or in low light, and to conserve power,” which switching to a light theme changes the entire UI and wallpaper to make things “bright and airy.” Until now, ChromeOS only included a “Night Light” setting in its software to help you look at your screen in dim light by... Continue reading…

The LinkBuds S and their USB-C charging case in white. Sony’s LinkBuds S are some of the comfiest true wireless earbuds around. A big part of this is owed to their lightweight build of just 4.8 grams per bud, though that light and airy feel normally comes at a hefty price tag of $199.99. However, the LinkBuds S are currently on sale for $148 at Amazon and B&H Photo, while Best Buy also has them discounted to a close $149.99.Those discounts of around $50 are the best we’ve seen yet on these great buds, which offer active noise cancellation and LDAC support. If you’re in the market for earbuds that may offer you a comfier fit for longer listening sessions, you can have your pick of these in black or white at those multiple retailers. (Best Buy also carries an exclusive desert sand color.)W... Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images Facing pressure from progressives and tech hawks on both sides of the aisle, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to hold a vote on the bipartisan antitrust bill targeting tech giants as early as this fall, according to a new report from the New York Post on Thursday.The bill — the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICO) — would restrict dominant tech platforms, like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook’s parent company Meta, from favoring their own products and services on their platforms over those of their competitors.Earlier this year, Schumer vowed to hold a vote on the legislation this summer so long as there were 60 senators who would approve it. But as Congress’ August recess approached, at least a dozen... Continue reading…

Its purchase of iRobot brings Amazon much-needed context for its ambient smart home ambitions. | Image: iRobot When I spoke to iRobot’s Colin Angle earlier this summer, he said iRobot OS — the latest software operating system for its robot vacuums and mops — would provide its household bots with a deeper understanding of your home and your habits. This takes on a whole new meaning with the news today that Amazon has bought iRobot for $1.7 billion.From a smart home perspective, it seems clear Amazon wants iRobot for the maps it generates to give it that deep understanding of our homes. The vacuum company has detailed knowledge of our floor plans and, crucially, how they change. It knows where your kitchen is, which your kids’ rooms are, where your sofa is (and how new it is), and if you recently turned the guest room into a nursery.Knowing... Continue reading…

Bibi gave birth to a baby hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden in August 2022. | Image: Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden This column is part of a series where Verge staffers post highly subjective reviews of animals. Up until now, we’ve written about animals without telling you whether they suck or rule. We are now rectifying this oversight.There’s nothing like a baby hippo to remind me there are still good things in this world, and we have Bibi the hippo to thank for a brand-new 60-pound social media star.Bibi, a hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo, gave birth to her latest little one this week. To commemorate her achievement, the zoo has gifted us with a Twitter feed filled with little ear wiggles.

Streamer Iateyourpie’s Blissey was a beast. For the past two weeks, every time I hop onto Twitch, I’ve found myself browsing through Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen streams so I can watch people play the classic games in perhaps the most difficult ways possible.If you’ve played through a mainline Pokémon title before, you’ve probably been able to get through the game without too much trouble. I’m pretty sure all of my friends growing up experienced some variation of just letting their starter carry them to becoming the Pokémon champion. But there’s a community of players making the games dramatically more challenging by applying some form of what the community calls “IronMon” rulesets.The IronMon challengeThe gist of IronMon is that it’s a really hard randomizer. The pokémon you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every Wednesday and Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors make sense of the week’s most important technology news. On Fridays, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.Today’s episode raises some questions about the future of HBO Max, the next generation of the iPad, handheld gaming systems, and electric vehicles.We saw a lot happen with Warner Bros. Discovery this past week: the shelving of the Batgirl movie; numerous Warner TV shows on the chopping block; and a not-so-impressive earnings report. So what’s next for the HBO Max and Discover Plus... Continue reading…

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Now, you can read the entire argument Elon Musk’s lawyers are making that his latest change of heart is actually all Twitter’s fault, laid out in this 165-page document just made public by the Delaware Court of Chancery.You know the basics of the story. Musk bought a bunch of Twitter shares. Musk agreed to take a seat on the company’s board and promised not to try to buy Twitter. Then, he changed his mind, lined up the necessary financing using some of his shares in Tesla, and eventually agreed to a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. Then he changed his mind again and tried to exit the deal, resulting in Twitter suing the world’s richest man to force him to buy the company like he said he would.Twitter’s lawyers are already poking... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta’s AI research labs have created a new state-of-the-art chatbot and are letting members of the public talk to the system in order to collect feedback on its capabilities.The bot is called BlenderBot 3 and can be accessed on the web. (Though, right now, it seems only residents in the US can do so.) BlenderBot 3 is able to engage in general chitchat, says Meta, but also answer the sort of queries you might ask a digital assistant, “from talking about healthy food recipes to finding child-friendly amenities in the city.”BlenderBot 3 is designed to both shoot the breeze and answer questions like GoogleThe bot is a prototype and built on Meta’s previous work with what are known as large language models or LLMS — powerful but flawed... Continue reading…

Tesla’s Cybertruck, that object of intense fascination and ridicule that may or may not go into production next year, was supposed to start at the extremely attractive price of $39,900. But that was back in 2019 when the Cybertruck was first announced, and as Tesla CEO Elon Musk put it recently, “a lot has changed” since then.Speaking at his company’s annual shareholder meeting, Musk said that the Cybertruck’s specs and price “will be different,” citing inflation and other “various issues” that have cropped up in the three years since the electric truck was first unveiled.“I hate to give a little bit of bad news”“I hate to give a little bit of bad news,” he added, before going on to hype the Cybertruck as “one hell of a product” and... Continue reading…

The 2021 iPad is the last model of the Apple tablet to be equipped with a headphone jack. | Image: Apple Originally priced at $479, the 256GB version of the ninth-generation iPad is currently discounted to $399 at Walmart, the best price yet. While this iPad uses the A13 Bionic CPU instead of the faster M1 found in other models, it still has more than enough power for any app. And its 10.2-inch 2160 x 1620 resolution display looks great. A key selling point may be its 3.5mm audio jack, depending on the person. Rumor has it that Apple’s next entry-level iPad may be getting rid of the headphone jack altogether, though we won’t know that for certain until Apple shows it off.Even without a beefy graphics card, the Asus ROG Flow X13 makes for a pretty decent laptop for gaming and other tasks. Regularly priced at $1,599.99, Best Buy has... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This Week In Elon, we’re talking about M&A again — but this time, we mean mergers and acquisitions — not marriages and affairs.The Delaware Court of Chancery handed Elon Musk an unfavorably speedy schedule last month in his ongoing fight to not buy Twitter, and now we’ve got specific dates for the trial: Elon and Twitter will square off from October 17th to October 21st. That leaves two and a half months for both parties to fight over what evidence they’ll get to introduce, and Twitter has already started digging — while Musk has been preparing a counterstrike with whatever dirt he’s already got.As The Washington Post and the newsletter The Chancery Daily reported earlier this week, Twitter has cast a broad net of subpoenas over... Continue reading…

Joo Won in Carter. | Image: Netflix Joo Won stars in the streamer’s new action showpiece Continue reading…

Smart lighting company LIFX has been bought by Feit Electric. A few years back, there were two big names in the high-end smart bulb game — Philips Hue, which worked with a proprietary Zigbee bridge, and LIFX, which worked over Wi-Fi, no extra white plastic box required. (We all know how much people hate hubs and bridges cluttering up their smart homes.) Yet, the Zigbee-based Hue went on to become the Kleenex of smart lighting, whereas LIFX went into receivership earlier this year.However, there’s good news for LIFX customers and for the smart home in general. California-based Feit Electric has stepped in and snapped up LIFX from its bankrupt Australian owner Buddy Technologies and says it will keep LIFX alive.“Feit Electric will offer the current suite of LIFX products and plans to expand the... Continue reading…

Tom Sturridge in Neflix’s The Sandman. | Image: Netflix Neil Gaiman’s beloved story comes to life on the screen Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge | Photography by Halfpoint Images / Getty Images Working from home can be a balancing act between your business and personal life — especially if you’ve got kids. If your children are toddlers, then you must depend on partners, family, or childcare providers to keep them away from your Zoom sessions. If they are school age, you may have some time for yourself and your job during school hours — until the school day is done.Below are some toys, videos, and ideas that some of our staffers with kids have come up with to help keep things a little saner while you’re finishing up your work day.Keep the kids busyMarbrasse Acrylic Pen Holder Image: Marbrasse Marbrasse Acrylic Pen Holder. Esther Cohen, associate director of audience development for The Verge, says,... Continue reading…

Image: iRobot Amazon has signed an agreement to acquire iRobot, makers of Roomba robot vacuums. The deal is valued at approximately $1.7 billion, and Amazon will acquire iRobot for $61 per share in an all-cash transaction.“Customers love iRobot products — and I’m excited to work with the iRobot team to invent in ways that make customers’ lives easier and more enjoyable,” says Dave Limp, SVP of Amazon Devices. It’s not immediately clear how iRobot will be integrated into Amazon once the deal is finalized and cleared by regulators, but Amazon intends to keep Colin Angle as the CEO of iRobot.iRobot has been designing robot vacuums since 2002, and it has sold millions of its popular Roomba vacuums. Earlier this year iRobot launched its latest iRobot OS,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge For a long time, Adobe’s PDF file format has been the format for legal and business documents, largely because they most closely resemble their hardcopy versions — and because they can be locked down relatively easily so that no changes can be made. But while PDFs are great for producing accurate digital versions of paper documents, you can also very easily create a PDF out of an ordinary Word document as well.Save a Word file to a PDF from Microsoft WordAs you might imagine, creating a PDF from a Word document is very easy when you do it using Microsoft Word.On a desktop / laptop

Image by DuckDuckGo After a revelation in May that DuckDuckGo’s (DDG) privacy-focused web browser allows Microsoft tracking scripts on third-party websites, the company now says it will start blocking those too. DuckDuckGo’s browser had third-party tracker loading protection by default that already blocked scripts embedded on websites from Facebook, Google, and others, but until now Microsoft’s scripts from the Bing and LinkedIn domains (but not its third-party cookies) had a pass.A security researcher named Zach Edwards pointed out the exclusion that he apparently uncovered while auditing the browser’s privacy claims, and noted it is especially curious because Microsoft is the partner that delivers ads in DDG’s search engine (while promising not to use... Continue reading…