The Verge

The OnePlus Buds Pro are currently on sale in white for a mere $79.99. | Image: OnePlus If you ask me, one of the best things about new products releasing is seeing the steep discounts on older models. With the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 set to debut next month, we’re starting to see some terrific deals on their soon to be predecessor, the OnePlus Buds Pro. In fact, the wireless earbuds are on sale in white right now at Amazon for just $79.99, their lowest price to date.For this price, the OnePlus Buds Pro bring a very compelling set of features. They offer good sound quality and effective noise cancellation along with an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance. They also feature multipoint support — a somewhat rare thing for earbuds in this price range — along with a comfortable fit that should accommodate most ear shapes. If... Continue reading…

Nell Tiger Free, Rupert Grint, Katie Lee Hill, and Toby Kebbell in season 4 of Servant on Apple TV Plus. | Image: Apple As the Apple TV Plus thriller from M. Night Shyamalan kicks off its fourth season, the mysteries continue to pile up. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is the latest tech company to announce mass layoffs. In an email to staff on Tuesday, CEO Brain Armstrong said the company would be letting 950 employees go as it attempts to “weather downturns in the crypto market.” The email was made public on the Coinbase blog, and the company also submitted an 8-K filing with the news.In a not-so-subtle reference to the collapse of major cryptocurrency player FTX, who’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has subsequently been charged with money laundering and fraud, Armstrong cited “the fallout from unscrupulous actors in the industry” as one of the reasons fueling Coinbase’s cost-cutting efforts. Armstrong says the layoffs are part of a plan to reduce Coinbase’s operating... Continue reading…

The LauncherOne rocket (visible under the left wing) was carried by the modified 747 Cosmic Girl to its launch destination over the Atlantic Ocean. | Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images What should have been a historic moment for the UK ended in failure last night after an undisclosed “anomaly” prevented the country’s satellite mission from reaching orbit. The Virgin Orbit “Start Me Up” mission was the first-ever rocket launched from British soil.The first stage of the mission proved successful — Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl (a converted Boeing 747 acting as a carrier aircraft) took off from Spaceport Cornwell on January 9th as planned and released the LauncherOne rocket over the Atlantic Ocean at 11:11 PM GMT (6:11 PM ET). According to the live Virgin Orbit mission updates on Twitter, the LauncherOne rocket experienced a successful stage separation and second-stage engine ignition.

Google Docs’ voice-typing feature in action. | Screenshot by Barbara Krasnoff / The Verge Google Docs’ voice-typing feature, which lets you “type” and edit text using your voice and a microphone rather than your hands and a keyboard, is getting a couple of key upgrades.First is that the feature is expanding to “most major browsers.” Currently, Google’s support page notes that it’s “only available in Chrome browsers.” Second is that it is being upgraded to “reduce transcription errors and minimize lost audio during transcription.”As 9to5Google notes, voice typing has been available in Google Docs for over half a decade, allowing users to get words on the (virtual) page even if their hands are full or otherwise not in a position to be able to traditionally type. It can also work as a handy transcription tool in a pinch,... Continue reading…

Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s The Last of US TV series is a faithful adaptation of the beloved video game, but it doesn’t feel distinct as an apocalyptic survival series. Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Plus more camera tech for the Raspberry Pi, and we say goodbye to this year’s CES. Continue reading…

The money machine is coming. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced that creators can start making ad revenue on Shorts starting February 1st, following a promise from September that the monetization option was on its way. The change is coming as part of a broader update to YouTube’s Partner Program, which will require everyone who’s currently part of it to sign new agreement terms, whether or not they’re looking to make money from Shorts.Creators have been able to make some money from the format that rolled out in 2021 for a while via things like Super Chats and shopping integrations, as well as a creator fund that the company had set up, but that model wasn’t all that much better that TikTok’s monetization scheme. What TikTok doesn’t do, though, is directly share ad revenue with... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Voice control, larger text, and other assistive features Continue reading…

Screenshots can be useful for a variety of reasons. For example, you can send copies of error messages to support services, show a friend what your game screen looks like, or save a tweet that you suspect is going to be deleted in a few minutes. Today’s laptops all include ways to take screenshots, and that includes Chromebooks.Chromebooks can be a little confusing for someone coming from another platform, especially because their keyboards are somewhat different than those of Macs or Windows PCs. Some keys present on other laptops are missing while new ones have been added. Luckily, there are two ways to take screenshots on Chromebooks: either by using key combinations or by using the Quick Settings pop-up. And you can even take a... Continue reading…

The NYZX Wizard Wireless Joy-pad, with Hall effect sensors. | Image: NYZX How many joy-cons have you gone through? I think I have like three with some degree of drift, and I am not that hard on my Switch. That’s why I’m pumped that NYXI has jumped on the bandwagon along with Gulikit and 8BitDo, announcing a retro-styled Switch controller called the NYXI Wizard Wireless Joy-Pad that features drift-free Hall effect sensors.If you are like me, few things fill you with a berserker-level rage like a broken controller that you shelled out 70 bucks for a few months ago. It can feel like a cop-out to say that “they don’t make them like they used to,” but when it comes to controllers, this is absolutely the case. The quality of goods is getting worse, and this absolutely should not be an issue. I... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram users will soon have a revamped navigation bar on their home feed.Beginning next month, Instagram will remove the shopping tab from the main bar at the bottom of the screen, and the button to create a new post will move down. The Reels tab, which is currently front and center on the navigation bar, will take the place of the Shop tab. Image: Instagram The new nav bar will roll out in February globally. Instagram began testing a main feed without a shopping button back in September, saying it wanted to “simplify [the] Instagram experience” for users. But the test was part of a larger pivot on Instagram’s part, according to a report by The Information, as the company pulls back on its shopping... Continue reading…

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reached out to Tesla with questions about a tweet by Elon Musk suggesting he would remove an important safeguard from the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. The news was first reported by the Associated Press.An NHTSA spokesperson confirmed that the agency has reached out to Tesla to gather information about the Musk tweet, in which the controversial billionaire suggested he would eliminate a driver monitoring function that warns users to keep their hands on the steering wheel while using FSD.The information gathering by NHTSA is part of a broader investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot, which has been linked to over a dozen crashes involving stationary emergency vehicles.T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is taking another shot at bringing new features to phones that haven’t gotten OS updates in years. It’s releasing something called the “Extension Software Developer Kit,” which should let developers use features like Android 13’s new photo picker in apps running on some versions of Android 11 and 12. In a blog post announcing the change, the company says the feature lets it “extend the support of certain platform functionality to existing Android versions.”While more access to the photo picker previously exclusive to Android 13 is definitely nice, Google seems to have much bigger plans for the Extension SDK. “This update also sets the stage for expanding Privacy Sandbox testing on Android,” says Scott Westover, a Google... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Casterline / Getty Images The Houston Texans, the NFL team reppin’ the city that’s arguably the oil and gas capital of the world, says it wants to go green. So of course the team is working with an oil and gas giant to try to tackle climate change.A subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corporation called 1PointFive announced a new agreement and sponsorship with the Houston Texans on Friday. 1PointFive is Occidental’s huge new initiative to pull planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in an effort to limit climate change. It can then sell credits for each ton of CO2 it captures to other companies trying to offset their own climate pollution. Essentially, Occidental can now make money from both its oil and gas business — and from emissions generated by... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As Twitter slashes staff and pares back moderation under Elon Musk, it may soon run into a problem it can’t ignore: its potential liability for copyright infringement. TorrentFreak reported last week that the company faces a lawsuit by celebrity photo agency Backgrid. Backgrid says that Twitter systematically failed to take down unauthorized copies of its pictures, arguing it shouldn’t be protected by American safe harbor laws for copyright. The allegations leave plenty of questions unanswered, but claims like them could pose a problem for Musk’s increasingly bare-bones operation.Backgrid’s claims predate Musk’s ownership of Twitter, dating to at least September 2021. The complaint, filed in a California court in late December, alleges... Continue reading…

John Deere has stood at the center of the right to repair debate for years. | Image: Getty Images John Deere has finally committed to giving farmers the tools they need to fix their own equipment. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with the agricultural lobbying group, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), on Sunday, an agreement that’s also supposed to ensure that farmers can take their machines to third-party repair shops, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.For years, John Deere has been at the center of the right-to-repair debate, and not in a good way. The company put software locks on equipment that only authorized dealers can disable, preventing farmers or an independent repair shop from diagnosing and fixing a machine. It can also remotely shut down machines at any time (like it demonstrated when R... Continue reading…

Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge BMW issued a recall notice for over 14,000 electric vehicles for a software malfunction that could lead to a loss of power and an increased risk of a crash.The automaker said that the recall covers certain iX SUVs and i4 and i7 sedans produced between October 14th, 2021, and October 28th, 2022. The software issue relates to the high voltage battery electronic control unit. According to BMW:

The new Stem Projector. | Image: Kano Kano Computing’s Stem Player is one of the coolest gadgets I’ve ever used. It’s a strangely soft puck-shaped device that lets you manipulate parts of songs in real time just by swiping up and down. But because the Stem Player was linked heavily with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West who has taken an extremely antisemitic turn, I wasn’t much of a fan lately.Now, Kano is back with its next Stem device, and not only is it Ye-free, but it’s a different type of gadget entirely: a video projector called the Stem Projector. The company is also teasing some wild future concepts for Stem products, like Stem food — yes, food — but we’ll get to that later.Like the Stem Player, the projector is another small circular puck made of a... Continue reading…

The new Camera Module 3. | Image: Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi is launching a new camera module for use with its diminutive DIY computers — the Camera Module 3. Its upgraded Sony IMX708 sensor is higher resolution, but perhaps more important is that the new module supports high dynamic range photography and autofocus. Alongside it, Raspberry Pi is also releasing a new camera board for use with M12-mount lenses.Combined, the new features mean the Camera Module 3 should be able to take more detailed photographs (especially in low light), and can focus on objects as little as 5cm away. The autofocus uses a Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) system, with Contrast Detection Autofocus used as a backup. In contrast, previous versions of the camera module had fixed-focus lenses, which Raspberry... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has already started hiring to fill out its not-yet-announced stores in India, as first reported by The Financial Times. The company’s recent job listings show new openings for 12 retail roles at “various locations” throughout the country, including store leaders, senior managers, Genius Bar workers, and more.The job listings, which include both full-time and part-time positions, directly refer to the Apple Store, although there’s no indication of how many roles are available. According to The Financial Times, at least five employees located in Mumbai and New Dehli shared on LinkedIn that they have already been hired for the upcoming stores, while Apple’s head of recruiting in India, Renu Sevanthi, “celebrated” the news of their... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple’s getting ready to launch its long-rumored mixed reality headset this spring, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The company’s reportedly planning to reveal the device ahead of the Worldwide Developers Conference in June and will start shipping it this fall.The headset, which could cost as much as $3,000, is expected to provide both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences using Apple’s new xrOS operating system. Gurman says Apple has already shown off the Reality Pro-branded device to “a small number of high-profile” developers so they can start creating third-party apps for it.

Rounding up the best and boldest tech news to come out of Las Vegas in 2023. Continue reading…

Alfred’s new DB2S smart deadbolt will charge via Wi-Charge’s infrared power transmission, though the transmitter will be sold separately. | Image: Alfred The first wirelessly powered smart deadbolt is launching later this year — but you’ll have to wait for the wireless power. The Alfred DB2S is the first DIY-installable smart lock that can charge via infrared power transmission, and Alfred says it’ll be available for $299 at The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other retailers in early Q2.There’s a slight catch, though: that $299 doesn’t get you wireless charging, at least not yet. For that, you’ll need a Wi-Charge charging kit, which won’t be available through consumer channels until the second half of 2023 at the earliest. Pricing for the kit has not been set.When it is available, the charging kit will consist of a replacement backplate for the lock with a built-in Wi-Charge receiver, as... Continue reading…

I ran into a bit of a surprise when I tried to log into TweetDeck. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I ran into a bit of a surprise when I tried to log into TweetDeck today: it didn’t work.When I started typing the word “tweetdeck” into my URL bar, my browser suggested the rest of the URL, tweetdeck.com, like I’m used to. But after I hit the Enter key, my browser unexpectedly took a few seconds to attempt to load TweetDeck and then showed me this error message on a largely blank page:

Stadia’s shutdown is nearly here. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google Stadia, the company’s not-long-for-this-world cloud gaming service, will be shutting down for good on January 18th. (Specifically, January 18th at 11:59PM PT, Google spokesperson Patrick Seybold confirmed to The Verge.) While the shutdown means that you’re about to lose access to all of your titles and saves on Stadia, many publishers have shared ways to bring your purchases and progress to other platforms so you can keep playing your games.We’ve rounded up some of those options below; if you want to carry over what you can, you might want to start those processes soon. (If I forgot any, email me and I can add them.)

The company showed off its tech at CES 2020. | Image: The Verge One of the companies working on smart contact lenses is calling the project off. On Friday, Mojo Vision announced that it’s going to “pivot its business and focus its resources” on the MicroLED display tech it built during its work on the Mojo Lens (via Axios). Unfortunately, part of the pivot includes laying off around 75 percent of its workers as it restructures, according to a news post from the company’s CEO, Drew Perkins. The company had around 150 employees, according to data from PitchBook and LinkedIn.The post says the reason for the change is that Mojo hasn’t been able to keep raising money to work on its smart contact lens. “The slumping global economy, extremely tight capital markets, and the yet-to-be proven market potential... Continue reading…

From the front row to a no-show. | Image: The Verge When it wasn’t being overshadowed by covid resurgences, CES, for the past few years, has partially functioned as a big 5G pep rally. But as cars, smart home standards, and so many screens took center stage at this year’s show, 5G took a back seat.Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg gave a very similar keynote speech in 2019 and 2021, showing off all of the things 5G would supposedly enable: remote surgery, self-driving cars, augmented reality, and so on. T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert was slated to deliver the 2022 keynote before omicron put a stop to that. But in 2023, 5G was hardly a footnote on the speaker roster.Why? It’s not as if all of the things we were promised with 5G have come to pass. I don’t remember getting into a fully autonomous... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It seems like Samsung will be announcing its new Galaxy S23 lineup of phones on February 1st, according to screenshots of the company’s Colombian website posted by leaker Ice Universe on Twitter. The announcement is no longer live on the site (though Android Central points out that the Wayback Machine managed to archive it), but it was up long enough to give us an idea about when the next Unpacked event will be, and to show that Samsung is promising “epic moments.”The site didn’t specifically say that the S23 lineup would be announced at the event — it mentions registering to “meet the new Galaxy” — but that almost certain given that Samsung usually announces its flagship traditional phones around this time of year. The page also showed... Continue reading…

The LinkBuds S are some of the comfiest buds you can buy. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Happy first Saturday of 2023! What, that’s not a thing that people celebrate? Well, it is today because we’ve got some exceptional deals for you to check out. Teeing us off are the Sony LinkBuds S, which are on sale at Best Buy for $129.99 ($70 off) in their desert sand color. This colorway is a Best Buy exclusive, and the current sale drops the active noise-canceling (ANC) earbuds to their lowest price to date.The LinkBuds S are one of Sony’s more premium pairs of wireless earbuds. In addition to their ANC, they’re also special because of how lightweight and comfortable they are. Another bonus is that they support Sony’s LDAC codec for near-lossless audio. Their sound quality may not exactly match that of Sony’s pricier WF-1000XM4... Continue reading…

I can’t be the only one who appreciates how similar the logo is. | Image: Motorola I’m generally a Windows user, but one of the things that’s always sorely tempted me about the Apple ecosystem is the interconnectedness. Not only are macOS and iOS comfortably similar in form and function (and getting moreso every year), but there are so many easy ways to transfer content between a Mac and an iPhone. That’s why I enjoyed testing out Lenovo’s ThinkPhone by Motorola, which is supposed to be — and I never thought I’d be writing this phrase — the smartphone version of a ThinkPad.The ThinkPhone has a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, a 6.6-inch OLED screen, a 5,000mAh battery, a bunch of fancy enterprise security features (a phrase ThinkPad enthusiasts will certainly be familiar with) and two rear cameras including a... Continue reading…

Sim Wong Hoo, the Singaporean entrepreneur, who founded and ran Creative Technologies. | Image: Creative Creative Technologies founder, CEO and chairman Sim Wong Hoo has died, his company has confirmed. He “passed away peacefully on 4 January 2023,” according to a press release. He was 67 years old.It might seem hard for younger readers to believe, but there was a time that computer sound wasn’t guaranteed. If you wanted to plug in headphones or speakers that could do more than bloops or bleeps, you probably needed a sound card — and none were as successful as Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster. It sold over 400 million units as of its 30th anniversary in 2019.In the pre-Windows 95 / DirectX era, few words in PC gaming were as important as the phrase “Sound Blaster compatible,” allowing players to hear the dogs bark in Wolfenstein 3D, or mess... Continue reading…