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Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images Amazon is raising the price of its Prime subscription across Europe in September by up to 43 percent a year. In an email to customers overnight, Amazon revealed its annual Prime cost will jump 20 percent in the UK from £79 to £95 from September 15th. In France the price hike is even more acute, moving from €49 per year to €69.90 — a 43 percent increase.Amazon will also hike prices in Spain and Italy by 39 percent annually, with the company’s second-biggest market, Germany, seeing an annual 30 percent rise. Amazon’s Prime price increases in Europe come just months after the price of Prime in the US rose to $139 per year, up from the previous $119 annual fee. Amazon Prime typically includes fast shipping, access to sales, and free movie /... Continue reading…

The keyboard, headset, and mouse (complete with color add-ons for each) cost a cool $639.97. | Image: Logitech Logitech has announced a lineup of PC gaming accessories that are designed to be more gender-inclusive — and specifically geared toward women — than any of its previous releases. Companies shouldn’t be trying to market consumer technology by gender in 2022 and should instead recognize the wide variety of tastes and physical needs consumers have. But Logitech’s gone and done it anyway.And the gadgets in the Aurora collection do seem cool, and notably, they’re new — not just new colorways of existing products. But aside from a few interesting features across the entirety of the Aurora collection, it still feels like a case of the pink tax at work.With its latest collection of gaming accessories (and the many pricey add-ons you can... Continue reading…

Pixel Buds Pro. | Image: Google Prepping for a summer cookout? If you head over to Amazon right now, you can pre-order the retailer’s hottest new charcoal grill: the Google Pixel Buds Pro.Yes, that sentence you just read didn’t make a lot of sense, but Amazon’s search engine thinks it does! The algorithm has apparently decided that not only do the new charcoal colored earbuds count as a “charcoal grill,” they’ve apparently been the best-selling product in that category for over 24 hours now (via Reddit and Mishaal Rahman) without Amazon doing anything about it.See for yourself: Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge One of these things is not like the others. “#1 new release in charcoal grills,” reads the badge provided... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Remember when everyone wanted to own your phone and your laptop? Dell’s finally tossing in the towel (via Windows Central).On a support page, Dell announced that it’s discontinuing Mobile Connect, the program that syncs your phone’s texts, calls, and notifications to your computer. While Dell is stopping downloads on November 30th for users in the US, Canada, and Japan, it will no longer be available to use starting January 31st, 2023. The service is shutting down even earlier for users outside these three countries, with downloads stopping on July 31st and a total shutdown occurring on November 30th.Dell Mobile Connect — sometimes called Alienware Mobile Connect — made its debut in 2018 and is, naturally, supposed to work best with... Continue reading…

Best Buy’s first digital-first location will open on Tuesday, July 26th, in Charlotte, North Carolina. | Image: Best Buy Best Buy is opening a digital-first, small-format store on Tuesday in Monroe, North Carolina, that takes a very different approach than most of its “big box” retail locations. The 5,000-square-foot location is only about 15 percent as big as the typical 35- to 40,000-square-foot Best Buy location and is even smaller than many smaller Apple Stores, which are typically between 6,000 to 8,500 square feet.Bloomberg reported last year that Best Buy was testing downsized locations of about 27,000 square feet to as small as 15,000 square feet, but this is much smaller, squeezing nearer to the now-closed Best Buy Mobile footprint. This test store is in the Charlotte area, where Best Buy also launched five other test stores last year, trying... Continue reading…

A Colonial Pipeline storage site in Charlotte, North Carolina | Photo by LOGAN CYRUS / AFP via Getty Images A giant pipeline spewed millions of gallons of fuel into a nature preserve for more than two weeks until two teens on four-wheelers noticed the spill and alerted authorities.The teenagers discovered the leak in the Colonial Pipeline in August 2020 in the Oehler Nature Preserve outside Charlotte, North Carolina, E&E News reports. Just how massive the leak actually was — about 2 million gallons — came to light recently on Friday, July 22nd.Colonial Pipeline Company was required to give an updated estimate of the damage because of a recent consent order with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. The company had previously reported that the spill released 63,000 gallons of gasoline shortly after the spill was discovered.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Carlo Cadenas / The Verge Unsurprisingly, it seems like the type of people who shun vaccinations are not great at preventative cybersecurity either.As reported by the Daily Dot, “Unjected” — a dating site specifically for people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 — failed to take basic precautions to keep users’ data secure, leaving sensitive data exposed and allowing potentially anyone to become a site administrator.The “Unjected” site was set up to leave the administrator dashboard fully accessible to anyone who knew how to look for it. Through this dashboard, an administrator could access user information for any member of the site, including name, date of birth, email address, and (if provided) their home address.The configuration error was discovered... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram If you’ve opened Instagram recently and noticed more Reels on your feed or less engagement on your posts and felt the platform was beginning to look a liiiittle too much like TikTok, you’re not alone. The app’s second most-followed person agrees.Kylie Jenner shared a screenshot of another user’s post on her Instagram Stories today, longing for the good old days of Instagram as a photo sharing app.“Make Instagram Instagram again,” the post says. “(Stop trying to be tiktok i just want to see cute photos of my friends). Sincerely, everyone.” Her sister Kim Kardashian also shared the same post, which has over 1.1 million likes. The associated Change.org petition has nearly 100,000 signatures. Image: Instagram I... Continue reading…

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images The Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which famously helped put Tesla on the map, is set to hand out its first loan in over a decade. The department will announce a $2.5 billion loan to a joint venture of General Motors and LG Energy Solution to help fund the construction of a new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility, the company confirmed. (The news was first reported by Reuters.)The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, or ATVM has attained almost mythical status in the EV startup world thanks to its timely $465 million loan to Tesla, which is credited with helping save the company from an early death. Since then, a number of cash-strapped EV startups have also requested... Continue reading…

The game’s going to be releasing “a few months” late. | Image: Sony The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a video game where you play as the titular jewelry fan, has been delayed from its September 1st release date. According to a statement posted on Twitter by the game’s developers, Daedalic Entertainment, it’ll be releasing “a few months” later, with the exact date coming soon.Game delays are exceedingly common these days, but this does make it so the Gollum game won’t be launching alongside Amazon’s Prime Video show, The Rings of Power, which is premiering on September 2nd. While the show is set long before Sméagol ever got his hands on the Ring, it’s easy to imagine the game getting a bit of a boost if it came out a day before a blockbuster show from the same franchise.

There is no straightforward “download” option for an image in a Google Doc. IssueThere is no obvious way to download an image from a Google Docs document.Quick fixDownload the document to an HTML file.The full storyLike most online publications, The Verge uses a CMS (content management system) to upload its content to the web. This particular CMS demands that you upload any images you want to use separately from the text — which usually presents no problems. But recently, a writer submitted an otherwise fine story in which they had included the images within the text. The writer had gone on vacation, so I couldn’t ask them to send the images separately — and there didn’t seem to be an obvious way to download the pictures so I could pop them into the CMS.After doing some research, I discovered there are... Continue reading…

Google Glass. Every major tech company is working on computer glasses. None of them really want to go first.They all remember how Google Glass, and the “Glassholes” who wore them in public, became the laughingstock of the world. So they’ve been waiting, biding their time, refining their prototypes, and every so often making sure investors know that, no, they’re not going to let the first potentially iPhone-sized opportunity since the iPhone slip by.But now, Google itself is taking the next step. And whether you’ve been dreading the moment when Big Tech’s all-seeing eyes reappear on people’s heads or merely counting the days until you can own a hands-free camera-computer, you should know we’re on the verge of contending with them once again. ... Continue reading…

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for Coachella Meta launched a new feature on Monday that allows creators to monetize Facebook videos that feature music from major artists like Post Malone and Tove Lo. By incentivizing creators to stay within the legal bounds of music use on its platforms, Meta may be able to reassure the music industry that it takes copyright infringement seriously.Creators will have access to a library of music licensed by Meta and can monetize videos that feature licensed music with ads. Those creators will then get a 20 percent cut of the ad revenue, while Meta and the music rights holders split the rest. But the new system has ground rules: eligible videos must be at least one minute long, and the music cannot be the primary purpose of the video. It also does... Continue reading…

You too can make a Verge-themed Lego minifigure. | Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge Lego is testing a new online Minifigure maker, the Minifigure Factory, that lets you create a Lego person of your very own (via Jay’s Brick Blog, which I promise has no relation to me).In the tool, you’ll be able to select different heads, headwear, torsos, legs, and accessories for your custom Minifig. For the torso, you can go really deep on customization by applying decals and custom text. (Lego will be moderating the designs to prevent users from making inappropriate Minifigs, according to Jay’s Brick Blog.) There are some fun accessories you can pick from, too, like a laptop, a pretzel, and a pizza. Completed Minifigs will cost $11.99, though you can only buy one per household. Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge... Continue reading…

The gang’s all here. | Image: Nickelodeon The first animated movie from Avatar Studios, the team Nickelodeon set up to work on movies and shows in the Last Airbender universe, will feature Avatar Aang and his friends, according to an announcement made during San Diego Comic-Con (via Gizmodo). While there’s no word on casting or a story synopsis yet, some fans have expressed excitement over the possibility of getting to see Team Avatar — made up of Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Suki, and, of course, Appa — in something new.According to Polygon, the show will focus on Team Avatar as young adults, giving us a look at some of the events that happen between The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. There are, of course, a fair share of people who were hoping to see something f... Continue reading…

Anker 733 Power Bank (GaNPrime PowerCore 65W). | Image: Anker Anker just showed off a slew of new gallium nitride (GaN) chargers dubbed GaNPrime, which adopt the latest GaN 3 fast-charging tech to push up to 150 watts of power while taking up even less space than the previous generation. Anker points out that its new flagship 150W GaNPrime charger is 38 percent smaller than Apple’s 140W GaN MacBook Pro charger, and Anker’s 120W version is 39 percent smaller than Apple’s 96-watt MacBook Pro charger, which provides an obvious edge in portability.Compared to Anker’s own previous generation chargers, the sizes are only slightly smaller. But they can still provide more power for more devices. “The new [737 GanPrime] 120W charger is 8 percent smaller in volume than the Anker 736, but can output 20W more... Continue reading…

Blizzard Entertainment The match capped off OWL’s most exciting week all season Continue reading…

New running features won’t matter without multi-day battery. At this point, a rugged Apple Watch “Pro” has been all but officially confirmed. Not only did we start hearing whispers of this device over a year ago but also the rumor mill has been amping up as of late with new details about potential specs and features. The latest is that the Pro could offer multi-day battery life on a single charge as well as feature the Apple Watch’s first serious redesign... ever. And, if Apple truly wants to compete with the likes of Garmin and Polar, it will need both.The latest news comes courtesy of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his most recent Power On newsletter. In it, Gurman contends the Pro model will be a “good bit bigger than the standard Apple Watch” — to the point where it might only appeal to a “subset... Continue reading…

Some assembly required. Blue Apron’s new Ready to Cook meals mean even less effort on your part. | Image: Blue Apron Struggling meal kit company Blue Apron has launched a new line of ready-to-make meals, addressing the complaint that its home-delivered, pre-portioned recipes still require too much work to make and too much cleanup afterward.The new ready-to-cook meals do require some assembly but, crucially, no chopping or cleaning up, as its signature ingredient meal kits famously do. Just unpack the pre-portioned proteins, veggies, etc., throw it all into a provided (recyclable) aluminum tray, and pop it into the oven. It’s cooking, Jim, but not as we know it.With increased competition and a growing aversion to subscription services among customers, Blue Apron’s annual revenue hasn’t kept up with its early successes. Valued at $2 billion in 2015,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales If your Chromebook supports mobile connectivity, you may be able to start using it as a hotspot. The upcoming change was spotted by 9to5Google in Chromium Gerrit, the web-based code review system Google’s developers use to work on future updates.When the feature is available for testing, you will be able to activate it through chrome://flags. Details about the capability are still slim, with developers describing it as a way for a Chromebook to “share its cellular internet connection to other devices through WiFi.” But once it’s rolled out, it should allow you to connect your phone, tablet, or laptop to your Chromebook’s mobile network.Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T already offer — a very limited — line of Chromebooks that you can... Continue reading…

The compact Apple TV 4K box and its improved Siri remote with a touch-enabled clickpad | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge It’s another week of deals here at The Verge, and we’ve got some bangers ranging from the greatest hits to some of the most fun niches.First off, the Apple TV 4K streaming box with 32GB of storage is down to its frequent sale price of $129.99 at Best Buy and Amazon. Back during Amazon Prime Day, it dipped to $119.99, but if you missed that sale, this is still an excellent price. It supports 4K resolution, as its namesake implies, and it’s got a lot of top specs to bolster its performance — HDR support, HDMI 2.1, and Wi-Fi 6. While one of the latest Apple TV 4K’s standout features is that Apple finally fixed its awful remote design, it also includes an A12 Bionic processor for speedy performance. You can get a good streaming device for... Continue reading…

Text or images can now be dragged between apps. | Image: Google Google is rolling out some much-needed upgrades to its Android tablet apps, the company has announced, as it attempts to make them work better on devices with larger screens. Updates are coming for apps including Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Keep, and Google’s announcement says they should arrive over the coming weeks.Docs, Sheets, and Drive are being updated to support drag and drop, letting you easily pull elements like text and images from one app to another. Meanwhile, Drive is getting the ability to open two files side by side, similar to the functionality Apple brought to the iPad with 2019’s iPadOS update. Keyboard shortcuts are also coming to Drive, Docs, and Slides, which should make them much more efficient to use for... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google Play is getting a new logo today to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Google has slightly tweaked the overall shape of its Google Play logo, but the most notable changes are the less vibrant colors that more closely match the green, yellow, blue, and red hues that Google uses for many of its other services. It’s a subtle adjustment that also complements the new Chrome logo updated earlier this year.“We’re introducing a new logo that better reflects the magic of Google and matches the branding shared by many of our helpful products — Search, Assistant, Photos, Gmail and more,” explains Tian Lim, VP of Google Play. The new logo and iconography also mark 10 years of Google Play after it was rebranded from the Android Market in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Abortion rights, gun control, and climate change have taken center stage for Democrats running in this year’s midterm elections. But the popular streaming service Hulu has repeatedly rejected Democratic ads focusing on these central campaign issues over the last few weeks, as first reported by The Washington Post on Monday.On July 15th, a group of Democratic campaign organizations attempted to purchase a joint ad on abortion and gun control on the Disney-backed Hulu platform along with other digital buys on Facebook, YouTube, and Roku and more traditional placements on broadcast and cable channels. The ad ran on every other platform, but Hulu rejected it. Hulu hasn’t told the groups if it will run the ad, a Democratic party official... Continue reading…

Now that’s what I call a Zoom room. | Image: @POTUS/Twitter President Joe Biden tweeted his Zoom rig on Friday, and it looked so good I suddenly needed to know everything about it. The tweet wasn’t about his video gear, of course; it was to pat himself on the back for falling gas prices. But I don’t want to talk about that. I also don’t want to talk about the chart next to the screen, which was obviously placed there just for this photo and is deeply hilarious. I want to talk about the big easel-looking Zoom rig in front of Biden, as he sits at a desk at the White House residence.It makes sense that politicians would have the best video chat gear, right? Nobody has more to gain from looking good on video, and nobody has more to lose from a dropped call, low-res cameras, or that thing where you... Continue reading…

One of the biggest clubs in the world is coming back to EA Sports’ FIFA games. Today, EA announced a “multi-year partnership” with Juventus that will once again see the Italian side featured in the developer’s wildly popular soccer video games. The deal will start with FIFA 23, which launches on September 30th. Juventus had previously been available exclusively in Konami’s rival series Pro Evolution Soccer for the past three years.In addition to adding Juventus and its stadium and jerseys to the game, the deal also goes a step farther; EA says that the two sides will “work across a number of lifestyle and cultural initiatives bringing new opportunities outside of football,” while Juventus notes that EA will become its “official urban... Continue reading…

The Víctor M. Blanco 4-m Telescope and other telescopes on a mountain peak in Chile at sunset | Image: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Tafresh For decades, the standard way to search for asteroids in our Solar System has been to scan the night sky for fast-moving specks of light — but a new method of hunting for these space rocks at twilight is also proving fruitful. It’s much harder to pull off, but by scanning parts of the sky at dusk, astronomers have been able to find key asteroids they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.The two largest asteroid finders at the moment are the Pan-STARRS observatory out of Hawaii and the Catalina Sky Survey, which operates multiple telescopes out of Arizona. For the last decade, these two programs have been the premier hunters of near-Earth asteroids. But they primarily search the sky at night, looking away from the Sun. That limits the parts of... Continue reading…

NFL Plus iPhone app | Image: NFL The National Football League (NFL) has finally launched its mobile streaming service, NFL Plus. The service is available in two different tiers: NFL Plus and NFL Plus Premium, for $4.99 / month ($39.99 / year) or $9.99 / month ($79.99 / year), respectively.Both NFL Plus and Premium offer the ability to stream live local or nationally broadcast regular and postseason games (including the playoffs, Pro Bowl, and Super Bowl) but only on a mobile phone or tablet screen — not on your TV. There’s also live game audio for all games (with your choice of home, away, or national broadcasters), the entire slate of preseason games, and ad-free access to NFL’s on-demand programming. NFL Premium comes with a few extra perks, including ad-free full... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The White House wants to accelerate the development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, Stat News reported Monday. Ideally, future vaccines would offer longer-lasting protection against infection with and transmission of the virus, not just serious illness and death.Federal officials, researchers, and representatives from pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna will meet Tuesday at a White House “summit” to discuss next steps. It’s unclear if President Biden — who currently has COVID-19 — will participate.The currently available COVID-19 vaccines still work well to keep most people from getting seriously ill or dying from COVID-19. But the churn of new variants of the virus — most recently with the various forms of the omicron... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber admitted to covering up a massive cybersecurity attack that took place in October 2016, exposing the confidential data of 57 million customers and drivers, as part of a settlement with the US Department of Justice to avoid criminal prosecution.In order to not be prosecuted for the cover-up, Uber “admits that its personnel failed to report the November 2016 data breach to the [Federal Trade Commission] despite a pending FTC investigation into data security at the company,” according to a press release from the DOJ.Hackers used stolen credentials to access a private source code repository and obtain a proprietary access keyHackers used stolen credentials to access a private source code repository and obtain a proprietary access... Continue reading…

As interest in electric vehicles continues to grow, consumers may find they have a lot of questions that they would like answered even before stepping inside a dealership or taking out a car loan. To that end, General Motors is launching a new online platform called EV Live designed to educate curious car buyers about the brand new world of battery-powered vehicles.Anyone with questions about EVs who owns a computer or smartphone can log into EV Live to chat in real time with one of GM’s EV experts, who can offer tutorials, vehicle walkarounds, and (perhaps unsubtly) help promote the automaker’s many EV related products.“We’re hoping to break the internet on Monday,” Hoss Hassani, GM vice president of EV ecosystem, said in a briefing... Continue reading…

John Wick surrounded by wicks in John Wick 4. | Image: Lionsgate Orcs, gelatinous cubes, and far too many zombies Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Our fearless leader, Nilay Patel, sent me an article about Chipotle accepting cryptocurrency for payment earlier this year. I did think about writing something to troll my cryptocurrency-hating editor who loves Chipotle, but then Elon Musk did some manner of nonsense, and I forgot.Chipotle did pay $25 million for giving its customers norovirus, so I guess this is how they’re recruiting new onesUntil now. Chipotle made the mistake of tipping us to its new game for National Avocado Day. It’s called “Buy the Dip” because guac costs extra. The game will, according to its press release, “engage fans in a stock market simulation to ‘buy the dip’ at its lowest point and give away a total of $200,000 in crypto.” Chipotle did pay $25 million... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft is speeding up the boot time of its Xbox Series X / S consoles. In the latest Xbox Insider test builds of the Xbox dashboard, the cold boot startup time has been reduced by around 5 seconds. Microsoft was able to speed up the boot sequence by creating a shorter bootup animation.Xbox testers noticed a faster bootup time recently, and Microsoft confirmed the changes on Friday. Josh Munsee, director of Xbox integrated marketing, says the company created “a shorter boot up animation (~4s) from the original boot up animation (~9s), helping to reduce the overall startup time.” Image: Tom Warren / The Verge The old and new Xbox Series X / S boot times. Xbox Series X / S owners will only benefit from the... Continue reading…

The game tasks players with managing immigration in the fictional Soviet state of Arstotzka. The self-described “dystopian document thriller” Papers, Please is getting a new mobile port for iOS and Android, out on August 5th as a paid, standalone app.The news was announced on Twitter by the game’s indie developer Lucas Pope. Papers, Please was originally released for PC in 2013, with an iPad-only version launched in 2014, and PlayStation Vita port in 2017.On Twitter, Pope joked that the game was now “On track for a console release in 2031.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has settled its lawsuit with Chicago over the city’s so-called “Netflix tax,” according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. The tax placed a 9 percent levy on “amusements that are delivered electronically” — essentially targeting streaming services.The exact terms of the settlement weren’t made public. Though, Bloomberg Tax last year reported that revenues from the tax — widely thought to be the first of its kind — grew to over $30 million in the year ending June 30th, 2021.The decision has been a long time coming. Chicago introduced the new tax in 2015 as it attempted to make up for the lost revenue from traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Apple filed its challenge in 2018, and was one of many groups and companies... Continue reading…

A stock photo of a chess-playing robot in Shanghai — unconnected to this incident. | Photo by Gao Yuwen/VCG via Getty Images A chess robot broke the finger of a seven-year-old boy playing in a tournament in Russia, according to reports from local news outlets (seen via The Guardian).The incident happened last week at the Moscow Chess Open, where the robot was hired to play competitors. Video of the incident (below) shows the machine is a standard industrial robot arm customized to move pieces on three chess boards simultaneously.“The robot broke the child’s finger. This, of course, is bad,” Sergey Lazarev, President of the Moscow Chess Federation, told Russian news agency TASS (translation via Google Translate).Said Lazarev: “The robot was rented by us, it has been exhibited in many places, for a long time, with specialists. Apparently, the operators... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk allegedly fractured an old friendship with Google co-founder Sergey Brin after having an affair with his wife, Nicole Shanahan, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Sources familiar with the situation told the WSJ that the couple filed for divorce earlier this year, citing “irreconcilable differences,” however, Musk has now denied both the alleged affair and said he is still friends with Brin, claiming the report is based only on “third-party random hearsay.”Musk and Shanahan’s affair allegedly occurred at the high-profile Art Basel event in Miami following Musk’s split with then-girlfriend Claire Boucher, also known as Grimes. Sources tell the WSJ that Brin and Shanahan were separated but still living together... Continue reading…

A Long March 5B rocket with the Wentian module takes off from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site. | Photo by Hou Yu/China News Service via Getty Images China successfully launched its second module, called Wentian, to the Tiangong space station early Sunday morning (via SpaceNews). Wentian took off aboard a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan, China at 2:22AM ET (2:22PM local), docking at the Tiangong space station about 13 hours later at 3:13PM ET (3:13AM local).The Wentian module contains equipment that allows the Chinese astronauts, also known as taikonauts, to perform various scientific experiments during their time on the station. As noted by The New York Times, the additional module will also provide three extra spaces to sleep, as well as another airlock that crewmembers can use to conduct spacewalks.

The OnePlus 10T in green. | Image: OnePlus The OnePlus 10T isn’t due to launch until August 3rd, but it wouldn’t be a OnePlus phone if the company didn’t reveal a few details early. Today, we’re getting a look at the device’s exterior design, which reveals a couple of interesting (and, depending on your viewpoint, potentially disappointing) changes compared to its predecessor. Although the 10T’s overall design is similar to that of the OnePlus 10 Pro, there’s no alert / mute slider this time, nor is there any sign of the Hasselblad branded-camera system found on recent OnePlus flagships.The alert slider has been a staple of OnePlus’ flagship phones for years, offering a quick and easy way to put its phones into silent and vibrate modes without having to tap through any onscreen... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon Fios is the latest provider to drop One American News (OAN) network, a move that leaves the right-wing news channel without a major carrier, as reported earlier by The Daily Beast. In a notice on its website, Verizon explains viewers will no longer have access to OAN starting July 31st.“Our negotiation with OAN has been a typical, business-as-usual carriage negotiation like those that routinely happen between content distributors and content providers,” Verizon said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “These negotiations were focused on economics, as they always are, but OAN failed to agree to fair terms.” Verizon didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.OAN is left without a major broadcasting platformOAN,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An FBI investigation into Huawei reveals the Chinese telecom company had a pattern of installing equipment on cell towers near military bases in rural America — even if it wasn’t profitable to do so, according to a report from CNN. The unearthed investigation sheds some light on the US government’s motive behind the stalled “rip and replace” program that pushes for the removal of Huawei’s tech throughout the country.According to CNN, the federal investigation centers around the potential for Huawei’s equipment to intercept military communications, including those transmitted by the US Strategic Command, the agency tasked with handling the US nuclear arsenal. It’s no secret that Huawei sold cheap equipment to smaller, regional telecom... Continue reading…

This character’s name is Jay. That’s my name! | Image: INTERIOR/NIGHT As my wife and I played through As Dusk Falls, a tense new interactive thriller that recently launched on Xbox Game Pass, we would regularly turn to each other on the couch and say, “Coin flip.”In As Dusk Falls, up to eight people playing together in local co-op can simultaneously vote on what the game’s characters should do next. Think Black Mirror: Bandersnatch mixed with Jackbox’s many-player multiplayer brand of trivia. Similar to Jackbox games, you don’t even need a controller — you can just use your phone (though you’ll have to download a companion app).Think Bandersnatch mixed with JackboxMuch of As Dusk Falls’ story revolves around a hostage situation at a motel, and as you might expect, decisions can be pretty tough. In one... Continue reading…

Marvel is looking far into its future at San Diego Comic-Con. The company confirmed that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which just got its first trailer) will end phase four of its cinematic universe on November 11th, and outlined what to expect for phase five. But Marvel also took things one step farther and detailed phase six of the MCU with a trio of movie announcements.Things will kick off with Fantastic Four on November 28th, 2024; followed by Avengers: The Kang Dynasty on May 2nd, 2025; before wrapping up with Avengers: Secret Wars on November 7th, 2025. Marvel is calling this period of the MCU — phases four through six — the “Multiverse saga,” which will come to a close with Secret Wars. The... Continue reading…

Concept art for Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. | Marvel Studios Though the titles for a number of Marvel Studios’ upcoming films like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania are a little cumbersome, fairly soon, we’re all going to know them as the projects that marked the ending the the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4 and the beginning of Phase 5 — two chapters in the Multiverse Saga.Kevin Feige and the rest of Marvel Studios’ braintrust took to Hall H at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con to discuss details about how Phase 4 is set to come to an end later this year with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Phase 5 will kick off with the third Ant-Man film. While we knew that movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the fourth Captain America, and Blade were on the... Continue reading…

Winston Duke as M’Baku in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. | Marvel Studios More so than any of Marvel’s other big reveals at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s first trailer’s something to legitimately get hyped about.During Marvel’s big Hall H showcase today, actress Letitia Wright said that her and the rest of the cast and crew’s goal with Wakanda Forever was to honor the legacy that Chadwick Boseman left following his passing. Wakanda Forever’s trailer doesn’t directly acknowledge what’s become of T’Challa in the MCU, but his absence and the recent discovery of a new underwater nation once again have the world — Wakanda in particular — on edge. While Wakandans like Shuri (Wright), Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and Okoye (Danai Gurira) are seen mourning and seemingly trying... Continue reading…

Now it’s official: a new live-action Daredevil series is coming to Disney Plus. The news was first reported earlier this year, but at Comic-Con this evening Marvel confirmed the series’ existence. It will be called Daredevil: Born Again, and will once again star Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio as Daredevil and the Kingpin. The show is expected to hit Disney Plus in the spring of 2024.Cox and D’Onofrio will be reprising their roles from the original series which debuted as part of partnership with Netflix; earlier this year, however, all of Netflix’s Marvel series — including Jessica Jones and Luke Cage — left the streamer in order to move to Disney Plus. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin has already made an appearance on Disney’s streaming platform... Continue reading…

The next big Marvel series on Disney Plus is She-Hulk — and at Comic-Con this evening, Marvel Studios provided a fresh look at the show. The new trailer has a decidedly more lighthearted tone than the first, with Bruce Banner explaining just how important both spandex and yoga are when you’re a gigantic superhero. But it also gets into some legal drama and, of course, includes some cameos from elsewhere in the Marvel cinematic universe.The trailer was released during a SDCC panel that also detailed the future of the fifth phase of the MCU, which includes films like Blade, Captain America: New World Order, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, alongside Disney Plus series like the second season of Loki. Elsewhere at SDCC, Marvel also... Continue reading…

Netflix Though the first glimpses of Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman were already plenty promising, it was difficult to get a sense of how much the show would lean into the graphic novel’s focus on the macabre. Along with teasing out some of the more eye-popping moments that’ll shape The Sandman’s first season, a new trailer from San Diego Comic-Con also makes clear just how dark the series is going to get.The Sandman’s latest trailer once again finds Morpheus / Dream of the Endless (Tom Sturridge) newly-freed from his imprisonment by mortals, and in need of retrieving restoring himself to his former power. Some of The Sandman will seemingly follow as Dream tracks down a number of sacred magical items and returns to... Continue reading…