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Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge Omead Afshar, the Tesla executive tasked with overseeing operations at the company’s Texas factory, is reportedly the subject of an internal investigation over a glass purchase deemed “suspicious,” according to a report from Bloomberg. Sources close to the situation told Bloomberg that Afshar will likely go on a leave of absence before Tesla cuts him from the company completely.Afshar reportedly placed an order for a “special” type of glass that isn’t all that easy to procure amid supply chain constraints, and told staff it was for a “secret project.” According to Bloomberg, Tesla’s finance department flagged the glass purchase earlier this year, sparking the internal probe led by David Searle, Tesla’s acting head of legal.Afshar has... Continue reading…

Image: Paramount The new Star Trek: Picard trailer gives us a first look at the stars set to reprise their roles in the series’ third and final season. Paramount Plus debuted the one-minute trailer at San Diego Comic-Con, which features most of the main cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation, including Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, and Gates McFadden.The teaser gives us brief glimpses at each character, along with short, but profound quotes. Notably absent from the trailer is Brent Spiner, although Paramount Plus hinted at his appearance in a trailer back in April. Season 3 reunites Jean-Luc Picard with his old crewmates, and is set to debut on Paramount Plus in 2023.But... Continue reading…

Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam. | Warner Bros. During the Black Adam panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, star Dwayne Johnson emphasized that even though his character has no problem killing or maiming people who get in his way, he’s really more of an antihero than a proper villain. Watching Black Adam’s latest trailer, though, and the way the movie’s titular character bashes a number of DC’s classic superheroes, it’s hard not to see Teth-Adam as a clear and present danger.Black Adam’s latest trailer once again gives you the briefest of glimpses of the tragedy in Teth-Adam’s (Johnson) past that ultimately leads to his becoming a magically empowered superhuman somewhat similar (at least in power set and costume) to Shazam. Though Adam’s unable to save his family from a cruel... Continue reading…

Shazam! brought a lighthearted tone to DC’s theatrical run when it debuted in 2019, and the sequel looks to do much the same later this year — at least if the debut trailer is anything to go by. It’s called Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, DC revealed a first look at the superhero adventure. It starts off with the titular star (Zachary Levi) having some confidence issues (seriously, who can compete with Aquaman?) and espousing his love for the Fast and the Furious, before revealing a new villain played by none other than Helen Mirren. Other new cast members include Rachel Zegler and Lucy Liu. Also, there’s a very big dragon creature.Fury of the Gods has had a few different premiere dates, but — along... Continue reading…

A dose of monkeypox vaccine is prepared on July 23, 2022 | Photo by Hollie Adams/Getty Images Monkeypox is now a global public health emergency, the head of the World Health Organization decided on Saturday. The viral disease is officially a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, putting it in the same league as polio and COVID-19.In May, clusters of monkeypox cases were detected in the UK and Europe. Since then, 16,836 cases of monkeypox have emerged in 74 countries, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monkeypox outbreaks have historically been much smaller, and occurred in central and western Africa.“The cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg,” Albert Ko told the Associated Press. Ko is a professor of public health and epidemiology at Yale University. “The window has... Continue reading…

Photo by Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Dough is fantastic. You can make bread with it! Not to mention biscuits, cookies, pies, pizzas, pasta, and pastry. But — to the best of our knowledge — you cannot make a PC monitor with the stuff.Perhaps that’s why I can’t stop giggling at this message (via Liliputing): Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge The “Learn more!” has me in stitches every time. Eve is the company that makes the remarkably well-reviewed but pricey Spectrum monitor — and before that, the disastrously crowdfunded Eve V tablet.Now, the company’s name is Dough.Which, grammatically speaking, means its flagship monitor is now the Dough Spectrum. It rolls right off the tongue.Dough explains (lol) that it chose the name because it... Continue reading…

There’s me, virtually hiking the AT. Walk The Distance is the type of app that’ll motivate a very specific type of person to get off the couch and get some exercise. Instead of having you walk to escape zombies or catch Pokémon, it lets you virtually walk long-distance routes like the Appalachian Trail (AT) and Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) — perfect for those of us who don’t mind our local walking paths but wish for something a little more scenic.For every mile you walk at home, you get to see a little icon with your picture move along a map, making its way between famous landmarks like Springer Mountain in Georgia or Kennedy Meadows at the base of the Sierra Nevada. And as you reach certain points, Walk The Distance will give you pictures and facts about them. It is, in a... Continue reading…

Here’s what you’ll see when trying to sign up for Netflix on the iPhone or iPad app. Netflix has started directing users on iPhone and iPad to an external webpage where they can sign up for the service, as first reported by 9to5Mac. The change comes just months after Apple started letting “reader” apps that provide access to digital content, like Netflix and Spotify, link out to account sign-up pages on their own websites.For as far back as 2018, Netflix didn’t provide an external signup link — or even tell users where they could sign up — in its iPhone and iPad apps. Users had to instead navigate to Netflix’s website from their web or mobile browser to sign up for the service before accessing the app. This was done to comply with Apple’s rules, which made it difficult for apps to get around its up to 30 percent... Continue reading…

After a trilogy’s worth of exhausting fights, John Wick is returning — but it’s not clear how much more fight he has left in him.The first trailer for John Wick 4, which was a surprise reveal during San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, features all the highlights you’d expect from a Wick movie, including Keanu Reeves looking very cool while training and new villains like a menacing Donnie Yen and a cold-blooded Bill Skarsgård. There are car chases, sword fights, and Laurence Fishburne calling out “You ready, John?” while holding up his iconic black suit.But it also raises an important question: where does all of this finally end? Mr. Wick clearly needs a break, but there’s no indication yet of how or when that might happen. I’m not... Continue reading…

Images: Prime Video/Netflix/Disney/HBO, GIF: Chris Welch / The Verge Earlier this week, Amazon announced a major redesign of Prime Video, and the overwhelming response was “finally.” Prime Video had become a relic frozen in time, with an ugly, laggy interface that seemed stuck in 2010. Amazon’s streaming competitors, meanwhile, have routinely switched up and refined the user experience.And it seems like Prime Video’s designers noticed. Because another thing that stuck out about the app’s makeover is just how closely Amazon’s video service now resembles Netflix. Column of navigation icons on the left side? Check. Top 10 list with big numbers? Yep, it’s there on the home screen. And Prime Video has even added “super carousels” of poster-style artwork that expand to landscape and start auto-playing a... Continue reading…

Camouflage debuts with the Pixel 6A when it goes on sale on July 28th. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google’s clever Magic Eraser tool debuted on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. It’s an editing feature that’s designed to remove people or objects you don’t want in the background of your photos. Considering that it’s dead simple to use, the results are okay, but it’s definitely not putting Adobe out of business anytime soon. But with the Pixel 6A — and coming soon to the 6 and 6 Pro — Google has added a new Magic Eraser function that I like a lot more than the standard erase tool: Camouflage. It’s just as easy to use, and the results are a lot more consistent.Magic Eraser works a bit like Photoshop’s content-aware fill. You make a selection, then it uses information from the surrounding image to remove the unwanted subject and fill in the area.... Continue reading…

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Mifepristone’s contraceptive possibilities have been known for decades Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Welcome to the weekend. This week was a deal drought relative to last week’s Prime Day-filled coverage, but there are still some cool, limited-time offers that are worth highlighting. For one, Google flipped on preorders for the Pixel 6A phone and the Pixel Buds Pro after a long wait since their announcement at Google I/O 2022. And for people who want the Pixel 6A, placing a preorder at Amazon or Best Buy will get you a complementary set of Pixel Buds A-Series wireless earbuds that normally cost $100 alone.Allison Johnson published a review of the Pixel 6A on Thursday, and it seems like it was worth the wait. While it has a 6.1-inch OLED screen that’s both smaller (some may prefer this) and slower in terms of refresh rate (60Hz vs.... Continue reading…

This diminuative gaming keyboard ticks a lot of boxes Continue reading…

The company reportedly says he violated confidentiality policies. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who publicly claimed that the company’s LaMDA conversational artificial intelligence is sentient, has been fired, according to the Big Technology newsletter, which spoke to Lemoine. In June, Google placed Lemoine on paid administrative leave for breaching its confidentiality agreement after he contacted members of the government about his concerns and hired a lawyer to represent LaMDA.A statement emailed to The Verge on Friday by Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel appeared to confirm the firing, saying, “we wish Blake well.” The company also says: “LaMDA has been through 11 distinct reviews, and we published a research paper earlier this year detailing the work that goes into its responsible... Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge There’s been a bit of back and forth since the change was originally announced, but this week Microsoft started rolling out an update to Microsoft Office that blocks the use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros on downloaded documents.Last month, Microsft was testing the new default setting when it suddenly rolled back the update, “temporarily while we make some additional changes to enhance usability.” Despite saying it was temporary, many experts worried that Microsoft might not go through with changing the default setting, leaving systems vulnerable to attacks. Google Threat Analysis Group leader Shane Huntley tweeted, “Blocking Office macros would do infinitely more to actually defend against real threats than all the... Continue reading…

The hack is costing the company big. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the 2021 hack that it says exposed around 76.6 million US residents’ data. According to the proposed agreement filled on Friday, which you can read in full below, T-Mobile will put $350 million into a settlement fund to go to lawyers, fees, and, of course, to people who file claims. It’ll also be obligated to spend $150 million on “data security and related technology” during 2022 and 2023, in addition to what it had already budgeted for.In August, the company announced that its systems had been breached, following reports that Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and driver’s license information for over 100 million of its customers was for... Continue reading…

An image of a Horizon Worlds location made to look like a club | Image: Meta Meta is expanding what type of content is allowed in the virtual worlds that people make for Horizon Worlds, its platform that lets people create VR spaces for shared experiences. The company has added an 18 and up tag for user-created worlds and updated its policy to allow creators to include “mature” content that was previously banned altogether. According to UploadVR, creators who have published worlds received an email saying they have to manually mark whether their world is mature or safe for all audiences — if they don’t, it will be restricted to 18 and up by default.Based on a Wayback Machine archive of Meta’s Horizon Mature Worlds Policy page from April, this means Meta is now allowing content that was previously banned. The... Continue reading…

Though Marvel’s live-action projects are a big part of what’s got people hyped for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, the studio’s Hall H showcase today made clear that animation’s going to be a big part of the MCU’s future.In addition to announcing its I Am Groot series, Marvel Studios head of streaming, TV, and animation Brad Winderbaum and head of visual development Ryan Meinerding took the stage in Hall H to discuss new details about Spider-Man: Freshman Year, X-Men ’97, Marvel Zombies, and upcoming seasons of What If...?Like its first season, What If...?’s second and newly announced third seasons will once again focus on the Watcher (Geoffrey Wright) as he gazes across the multiverse upon the many different realities that now make... Continue reading…

Image: Warner Bros. Games MultiVersus, Warner Bros. Games’ Super Smash Bros.-like fighting video game, is adding real-life NBA player LeBron James and Rick and Morty from the cartoon Rick and Morty to its already crossover-laden roster. (This actually isn’t the first time LeBron and Rick and Morty have shown up in a big crossover game — they’ve also appeared in Fortnite.)LeBron James will be playable in MultiVersus beginning July 26th, the same day the game will be available in open beta, and you can see him in action in his debut trailer. If you listen closely, you might be able to tell that LeBron isn’t actually voiced by LeBron — instead, he’s played by John Bentley, who also voices Barrett Wallace in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Rick and Morty will be added... Continue reading…

The rumored Fitbit Sense 2’s new bezel | Image: 9to5Google Buttons are a touchy subject among smartwatch owners, but new leaked Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 photos from 9to5Google indicate the company is ditching capacitive buttons for both of its next-gen smartwatches.We got a hint that Fitbit may be bringing back physical buttons on the Versa 4 a few months ago, but it wasn’t clear at the time if that would extend to the Sense 2. The decision isn’t surprising. Fitbit introduced the capacitive button as a way to create a slimmer profile and prevent accidental presses, but in reality, it made for a finicky user experience. Many Versa and Sense users found the button to be unresponsive or just plain unreliable. (Ironically, when I reviewed the original Sense, it was way too easy to accidentally... Continue reading…

I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT.**I Am Groot is a series of five animated shorts coming to Disney Plus on August 10th.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ford is eyeing major cuts to its workforce in the midst of a shift to electric vehicles. According to a recent report in Bloomberg, the Blue Oval is gearing up to lay off 8,000 salaried workers — about a quarter of its workforce in the US — as it aims to reduce $3 billion in operational costs by 2026.The cuts will be coming from Ford Blue, the company’s legacy internal combustion engine business. Earlier this year, Ford split itself into two entities, with Ford Blue covering ICE vehicles and Ford Model E focused on electric vehicles and software projects. At the time, Ford said that Ford Blue would generate the revenue that would help power Ford Model E to develop new and innovative products.Ford Blue will have to generate those... Continue reading…

As Twitter user SwiftOnSecurity once quipped: “Nobody has fun in the deposition room fam.” | Photo by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Several top Meta executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg, and the person set to replace Sandberg as COO when she leaves the company later this year, are set to give depositions in a lawsuit about the Cambridge Analytica scandal (via Bloomberg). According to a court document filed earlier this week, Zuckerberg will have to answer questions for up to six hours, while Sandberg could face up to five hours of deposition.You can read the full filing below if you want to see the plaintiffs and Meta argue about what the company has and has not provided during the discovery period.Zuckerberg and Sandberg have already faced tons of questions about Cambridge AnalyticaThe lawsuit, which could wind up as a class action case... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More than two years into the pandemic, as video calls have taken over workspaces, Google Meet is now rolling out the ability to livestream meetings on YouTube, which could open them up to viewers more easily than the old way of livestreaming events through Meet itself. Google Workplace admins can opt in to public streaming for the business accounts they manage, which also includes a few guardrails to make sure your weekly standup doesn’t turn into an open mic.The feature is available to most paid Workplace accounts: Enterprise tiers (starter, standard, and plus), Education Plus, Teaching and Learning upgrade, and Workplace individual subscribers, as well as Google One Premium plan members in certain countries. People on most starter,... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge If you’re interested in one of Apple’s new M2 MacBooks but you’re confused about which one you should buy, don’t worry — it’s confusing. The two devices are very similar, but they do have a few important differences.To get one big group of folks out of the way: if you’re using this device for work on a consistent basis and your work primarily involves anything more intense than Chrome (for example, any program with Adobe in its name), you should buy a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or M1 Max instead of one of these computers. Those laptops are much faster, with bigger screens and a much more useful port selection, and those upgrades are going to be worth the extra money.But if you’re not in that category and you’ve got your heart... Continue reading…

Amazon’s very big and very expensive take on Lord of the Rings has yet another trailer. At San Diego Comic-Con, the company revealed the latest look at The Rings of Power, a new series for Prime Video that takes place thousands of years before the events of Lord of the Rings, during the “Second Age” of the history of Middle-earth. The three-minute-long clip features more stunning vistas along with some fantasy warfare.Here’s the official premise:

Image: apple.com Apple developers got a taste of iOS 16’s new Nearby Interactions feature at WWDC last month that lets third-party smart devices talk to Apple’s ultra-wideband (UWB) U1 chips in the background for “new hands-free user experiences” — making things like activating a light bulb when just walking by it possible. Developers can take advantage of the real-time, precise location triggers with the new framework, and chipset makers can seek MFi certification for interoperability with U1, something that chip manufacturer Qorvo did this week (via MacRumors).“Our extensive portfolio of UWB chips, modules and software will help accelerate the ecosystem of connected UWB products and accessories,” said Qorvo Mobile products president Eric Creviston in... Continue reading…

Magic Eraser isn’t magic, but it is simple to use. It doesn’t take much to ruin an otherwise great photo. That could mean there’s someone you don’t want in the background or a distracting, brightly colored object behind your subject that you didn’t see when you snapped the shutter. Removing these uninvited guests from images usually takes time, expensive software, and advanced knowledge of photo retouching. If you’re short on any of the above, Google wants to help — that is, if you have a current Pixel.Google introduced its Magic Eraser feature with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and it’s available on the Pixel 6A, too. It’s designed to address the scenarios above by removing or masking distracting elements from your photos. The results aren’t exactly, uh, magic, but they’re often better than... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge In a major shake-up, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess is stepping down as head of the world’s second-largest automaker and will be replaced by Porsche chief Oliver Blume, the company announced Friday.Blume will replace Diess in his role as chairman of the board of management on September 1st, the company announced. In a statement, Hans Dieter Pötsch, who chairs the company’s governing supervisory board, thanked Diess for his service and for his “key role in advancing the transformation of the company.”It was a surprising development, considering Diess had narrowly avoided ouster by the VW supervisory board late last year. The German automaker has clashed frequently with labor unions and other key stakeholders over VW’s strategic direction... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Canadian town of St. Marys, Ontario, has been hit by a ransomware attack that has locked staff out of internal systems and encrypted data.The small town of around 7,500 residents seems to be the latest target of the notorious LockBit ransomware group. On July 22nd, a post on LockBit’s dark web site listed townofstmarys.com as a victim of the ransomware and previewed files that had been stolen and encrypted. LockBit ransom listing for the Town of St. Marys In a phone call, St. Marys Mayor Al Strathdee told The Verge that the town was responding to the attack with the help of a team of experts.“To be honest, we’re in somewhat of a state of shock,” Strathdee said. “It’s not a good feeling to be targeted, but the... Continue reading…

A bathtub ring watermark at Hoover Dam / Lake Mead has dropped two inches every day since February (26 feet in one year) is viewed on July 12th, 2022, near Boulder City, Nevada. | Photo by George Rose/Getty Images The US’s largest water reservoir, Lake Mead at the Hoover Dam, is in very, very bad shape. How bad is it? New satellite images from NASA show just how much the reservoir’s footprint has shrunk over the past two decades — and the difference between July 2000 and July 2022 is stark.Water levels at Lake Mead are at a historic low — the reservoir hasn’t been this empty since 1937 when it was being filled for the first time. It’s currently at just 27 percent capacity. The last time it was close to full capacity was 1999, just one year before the image on the left of the slider below was taken.The water elevation at the Hoover Dam stood at a meager 1,041 feet on July 18th, 2022, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Lake... Continue reading…

The HomePod Mini is a Thread border router. With the launch of the new Thread specification, border routers from different manufacturers can now be part of a single Thread network. | Photo by Jennifer Tuohy / The Verge Matter is getting closer. The new smart home standard promising to make setting up a smart home as easy as screwing in a lightbulb took a big step toward that lofty goal this week. Thread, the main wireless protocol Matter will run on alongside Wi-Fi, just dropped a major upgrade. Thread 1.3.0 will enable Thread devices to work with any Thread border router, removing the current manufacturer-specific roadblocks. It also sets the stage for Thread-enabled Matter devices — which should start arriving later this year — to join existing Thread networks using those border routers.If you have any of these devices in your home today, you are in luck. Once upgraded by the manufacturer, they can become a Thread 1.3.0 border router. This will... Continue reading…

The Lockly Vision Elite is a $500 do-everything smart lock. | Image: Lockly Smart door locks and video doorbells are useful for keeping an eye on and controlling what's going on at your front door. But there are very few that actually work together, meaning you end up with two different apps or two different taps in your smart home app to both see a visitor and then unlock (or lock) your door.Smart door lock maker Lockly has a three-in-one solution for this problem: the $499 Lockly Vision Elite. A camera and a doorbell built into a door lock, the Lockly Vision Elite launched this week and is the successor to the company’s Lockly Vision video smart lock.The Vision Elite has a number of improvements over its predecessor, including full 1080p HD video, a wider viewing angle, night vision, and a motion sensor. It... Continue reading…

Killzone Shadow Fall. | Image: Sony Guerrilla Games, the Sony-owned studio most recently known for Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, is shutting down online multiplayer for three games in August (via Polygon). The shutdowns, which will happen on August 12th, will affect Killzone: Mercenary, Killzone Shadow Fall, and Rigs: Mechanized Combat League.“Online features (including online multiplayer modes) will cease on that date,” Guerrilla wrote in a tweet on Friday. “Single player offline modes remain available.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Still on the hunt for a PlayStation 5? Today could be your lucky day: you now have a chance to buy the disc-based PS5 as part of the Horizon Forbidden West bundle for $549.99. Even better, unlike some of Best Buy’s past console restocks, this one is available to the general public online after waiting through a short queue.While there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to nab the PS5 today, there are a couple of things you can do to reduce the time it takes to check out and thus improve your chances. First, make sure to log in ahead of time to ensure both your billing and shipping details are current. Be sure also to click on the “Add to Cart” button to actually get into the queue as well, and be prepared to potentially verify your account... Continue reading…

Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro is discounted to its lowest price ever. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Whether you’re trying to make the most of your summer or planning ahead for the fall semester, our deals team is always busy chasing down deals. And if you’re a college-bound student looking for a powerful machine for content creation, Apple’s latest MacBook Pro likely fits the bill (if you can afford it). Thankfully, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is currently on sale at Best Buy and B&H Photo with an eight-core M1 Pro CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $1,749 ($250 off), matching the lowest price we’ve seen for Apple’s premium laptop.In addition to providing some of the best performance and battery life we’ve seen in an Apple laptop, the 14-inch MacBook Pro offers extensive connectivity options, allowing you to use microSD cards or... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Google search engine will be banned in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, currently under Russian occupation, as reported by The Guardian.Denis Pushilin, leader of the Russia-backed separatist state Donetsk People’s Republic, posted a message on Telegram accusing Google of “promot[ing] terrorism and violence against all Russians, and especially the population of Donbas,” according to The Guardian.Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine this spring, a number of social media platforms have been banned in Russia and in the occupied regions. In March, a Russian ban on Facebook and Instagram was upheld, accusing the platforms of engaging in “extremist activities” for policies that allow for... Continue reading…

Raindrop works practically everywhere, like any good bookmarking app should. | Image: Raindrop Bookmarking apps are a lost art. They were once a hot industry, where Delicious and Diigo and Wink and Furl (these are all real names, I swear!) competed to be the home for all your URLs. But those went out of style right around the time James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” dropped off the radio charts, and the whole idea of “bookmarks” never really came back in style. You have browser bookmarks; what else do you need?Here’s why you should be using a bookmarking app: because it’s the storage unit the internet needs. Seriously, think of it like you rented one of those self-storage squares, and now you have a place for all of the stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Instead of emailing yourself links or keeping 100 tabs open just in case,... Continue reading…

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.In today’s episode, the crew starts the show with Tesla’s quarterly earnings, which leads to a discussion of the state of electric cars in America — what models are actually available, the move from green to blue branding, and if Tesla has figured out the Cybertruck’s windshield wipers yet.

Florence Pugh as Alice Chambers in Don’t Worry Darling. | Warner Bros. In Warner Bros.’ upcoming thriller Don’t Worry Darling from director Olivia Wilde, most everything about the fictional company town of Victory seems perfectly normal from a distance — as do the handful of picture-perfect nuclear families who call the place home. But there’s something sinister about Victory that at least one of its Stepford-esque housewives is becoming aware of in Don’t Worry Darling’s new trailer.Like all of Victory’s homemakers, Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) adores her husband Jack (Harry Styles) and delights in almost every aspect of “traditional” suburban domestic femininity like cooking, cleaning, and always having a full face of makeup. Though Alice and the other women don’t exactly know what the men of the town d... Continue reading…

Can a $30 dongle make you a better player? | Image: Razer Razer continues to stretch the limits of what gamers are willing to buy to get the edge on their opponents. Starting today, fans of the Razer Viper V2 Pro wireless gaming mouse can obtain the luxury of having a higher polling rate than the other guy with the $30 Razer HyperPolling dongle. Currently, this dongle is only compatible with the Viper V2 Pro and exists for the sole purpose of giving you an almost imperceptible edge against your competition by providing the wireless mouse with a 4000Hz polling rate. The Razer Viper V2 Pro. The polling rate of a device refers to the number of times a mouse or other peripheral relays its information to your desktop. The typical polling rate for wired or wireless peripherals is... Continue reading…

VoiceOver is Apple’s built-in screen reader for iOS. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge If you’re looking to enable screen reading on your iPhone, you don’t have to go very far. Since 2009, Apple has included a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver as part of its accessibility features to help those with visual impairments.VoiceOver essentially works by describing aloud everything that appears on your iPhone’s screen. Over the years, Apple has expanded the feature to include more detailed descriptions of people, objects, text, and other graphics. It also uses gestures and haptics to help users explore their iPhone without ever having to look at the screen itself.While this feature was developed to help blind and low-vision users, VoiceOver can also be helpful in other use cases. For instance, you can use VoiceOver with... Continue reading…

A good monitor with a great leg to stand on Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Nintendo Switch Sports is getting a free update on July 26th that will no doubt cause a rise in living room-related injuries. Soccer, one of the six sports you can play, will be getting increased motion control support allowing you to use your legs to kick your way to victory.In addition to the soccer update, volleyball will also get some new moves — slide attack and rocket serve. And for online players, Nintendo is adding a new S and Infinity rank so you can really brag about how good you are at badminton.In Nintendo Switch Sports, players use a combination of Joy-Con and motion controls to play. When bowling, you swing your arm back just as you would at the lanes, and for Chambara — the sword-fighting mini-game — you flail your arms... Continue reading…

Alex Castro / The Verge ‘My life would be a whole lot simpler right now if none of that had happened’ Continue reading…

Stray. Evolving our relationship with virtual beasts Continue reading…