The Verge

Image: Apple Humans: a popular online comic strip is being adapted into a new format for your amusement.And by that I mean that Apple TV Plus is turning Nathan W. Pyle's Strange Planet comic into an animated series, with Dan Harmon on board as co-creator and executive producer. It's described as an adult" animated series, and the first episode will premiere on August 9th.The comics follow a pair of aliens struggling to understand human life and customs and describing things in, well, alien ways. It rose to popularity through social media before becoming a hit graphic novel. Here's an example:

Image: VW Volkswagen announced it will test autonomous vehicles in the US starting with driverless versions of its ID Buzz electric microbus. The new fleet will be tested on public roads in Austin, Texas, starting later this month.The announcement comes months after VW, along with Ford, pulled funding for Argo AI, the self-driving startup that had planned on launching robotaxi services in the US and Europe. The loss of funding caused Argo to shut down and cast a pall over the AV industry, which had been struggling to build a business model around driverless cars for more than a decade.VW had originally planned on using Argo's tech to power a fleet of self-driving ID Buzz microbuses. But now, it's developing the hardware and software in-house,... Continue reading...

Both the 40mm and 44mm versions of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge With Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event just around the corner, the chances we'll see a new Samsung smartwatch very soon are high. If you can't wait until then, though, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 has hit a new all-time low at multiple retailers. Right now, you can buy the Bluetooth-enabled 40mm wearable at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Samsung in select configurations starting at $199 ($80 off). You can also buy its 44mm variant, which offers a larger screen and battery, starting at around $229 ($81 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.The lightweight Android watch offers all the standard health, fitness, and sleep tracking features you'd expect, along with some unique extras, including body composition analysis. It can also measure... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge This is Platformer, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer. Sign up here.In early December, when word first leaked out that Meta was considering new ways to challenge Twitter, I messaged Adam Mosseri.We were then two months into Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter, and it was clear that the social network I depended on the most was beginning to break. For my own sake, it felt important that something like Twitter continue to exist - a place to share news, jokes, and other short snippets of writing, in a chatty public place that gave me a sense of the daily conversation.And so I told Mosseri that I hoped Meta would go through with it.On one hand, the history of Facebook and... Continue reading...

No, that is not the Moon. That is the Sphere. | Image: Sphere Entertainment The Sphere, aka the 366-foot-tall orb situated in the heart of Las Vegas, demonstrated what 1.2 million lit-up LEDs look like. During its first display on Tuesday night, animations showing fireworks, the American flag, the Moon, and even a giant blinking eyeball emanated from the 580,000-square-foot panel.Las Vegas is known for some pretty wild landmarks, but this one is more than just a humongous display-on-a-ball. On the inside, it's a spherical theater that houses 18,000 seats, along with a 16K wraparound LED screen. The whole thing cost Sphere Entertainment over $2 billion to build.According to the company, the LED pucks on this massive screen are spaced eight inches apart and contain 48 individual LED diodes, each of which can... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung only just announced that its next Unpacked event will take place on July 26th at 7AM ET, but the deals are already trickling in on the company's next slate of Galaxy devices (including the heavily rumored Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5). Starting today, you can place a preorder reservation one of two ways, each of which entitles you to $50 in Samsung credit when you preorder one of Samsung's forthcoming, yet-to-be-announced devices at a future date.Like Samsung's previous reservation promos, you won't have to hand over your credit card details, either. All you need to do is fill out your name and email address on Samsung's website or the Shop Samsung app before July 26th. You'll then be eligible to redeem the Samsung... Continue reading...

Image: Meta Threads, the Twitter competitor created by Meta, has finally arrived after months of rumors, leaks, and a billionaire cage fight challenge between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Now you can access the new platform from its desktop site at Threads.net or by downloading the app for iOS and Android. (If you're not seeing it on iOS or get an error, try force quitting the App Store and going back in.)In an interview about the Threads launch with The Verge's Alex Heath, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said, Obviously, Twitter pioneered the space... but just given everything that was going on, we thought there was an opportunity to build something that was open and something that was good for the community that was already using Instagram.On... Continue reading...

Image: Meta The volatility' of Twitter under Elon Musk has opened a window to compete. It's a risky' bet worth trying, says Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. Continue reading...

If you're planning on tuning in live from North America, you'll want to brew a pot of coffee first. | Image: Samsung We have a confirmed date for Hot Foldable Summer's biggest party. Samsung has announced it's hosting its next Unpacked on July 26th at 7AM ET - bright and early for the east coast, but it'll be an evening affair in Seoul, where Samsung previously announced that it's hosting the event. The image and text released with the announcement make it quite obvious that we'll see a flip-style foldable at the event, which would naturally be the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and the Z Fold 5 is anticipated as well. We will likely see the Galaxy Watch 6, too, as well as some Galaxy Tablets. That's quite a packed Unpacked.The flip-style foldable in Samsung's promotional image looks right in line with the rumors and leaks we've seen thus far with a lower-profile... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is being sued by its former employees again - this time for allegedly refusing to pay the expected cost of legal arbitration. As previously reported by Bloomberg, the suit was filed on July 3rd in the Northern District of California. It seeks to force Twitter to cover most of the costs in a slew of arbitration claims, which, of course, Twitter doesn't want to do.This latest lawsuit is part of a host of litigation between Twitter and many of the thousands of employees it abruptly fired when Elon Musk took over last year. Laid-off employees previously sued Musk for giving insufficient notice before firing them and later altered their claim to add that they were not paid what they were owed in their severance agreement.But the... Continue reading...

Image: Elgato Got a great idea for a Stream Deck plug-in but don't want to give it away for free? Wish you could buy premium software for the Stream Deck's handy array of LCD screen-equipped keys?Either way, it's officially happening: Elgato general manager Julian Fest says a paid Stream Deck app store is coming later this year.We will go live later this year with a platform where people can distribute paid products, whether it's plug-ins, profiles, icon packs - anything Stream Deck related," Fest tells The Verge.Yes, the Corsair-owned Elgato already has a software store," but you can't buy or sell anything there - today, it's simply a repository of plug-ins and icon packs you can download for free. Those who've wanted to start businesses... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram's Twitter competitor, Threads, may launch a few hours earlier than we expected now that the countdown on threads.net has suddenly skipped forward and indicates it will end today at 7PM ET / 4PM PT.We were expecting Meta's new text-based social media platform to launch tomorrow at 10AM ET, but maybe something has changed and moved up the launch schedule. The app likely won't be available in the European Union today, however, as Meta reportedly delayed the launch there over the region's privacy regulations.A listing in Apple's App Store for iPhone and iPad devices (it also appeared on Google Play if you use Android, although the website suggests that version will launch later) indicated the launch would occur on July 6th, and... Continue reading...

LG's last-gen C2, one of the best OLED TVs you can buy, is still available starting at just $896.99. | Image: LG Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner, but if you can't wait until then, July 4th often brings deals on a host of tech. Even now, a day after the holiday, you can still pick up a wide range of deals at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and a number of other retailers. What's more, the lingering discounts still span a range of popular tech categories, from 4K TVs and speakers to laptops and robot vacuums.Not every deal that is still available is worth shelling out for, though. Fortunately, to make sifting through the remaining sea of lawn chairs and watermelon-laden tablecloths a little easier, we've rounded up some of the better deals you can still get. Take a look, and to save even more money, be sure to check out our guide to the best... Continue reading...

Even with the small price increase, Xbox Game Pass remains a solid value, especially if you find a deal. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass is arguably one of the best deals" in gaming right now, but starting tomorrow, July 6th, the subscription service will be slightly pricier. Announced last month alongside a price increase on Xbox consoles outside the US, Game Pass is getting a $1 to $2 price hike. That means today is the last day to lock in a subscription at the current $9.99-per-month base price or $14.99-per-month Ultimate tier.Starting tomorrow, the base price of Xbox Game Pass will be $10.99 a month instead of $9.99. That entry-level tier allows you to download and play the monthly rotating roster of over 100 games on Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One consoles. The pricier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, which encompasses PC Game Pass (which... Continue reading...

Microsoft's official wireless Xbox headset has hit a new all-time low price. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge It's not every day you see an excellent gaming headset sell for just under $50, which is why today's deal on Microsoft's official Xbox headset is one to jump on. Right now, Microsoft's Xbox Wireless Headset is half off at Walmart, where you can buy it at a new all-time low of just $49.99. What's more, shipping is also free.The gaming headset offers a lot of value for your money, featuring both excellent sound quality and compatibility with a range of devices. That includes the Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S consoles, while Bluetooth support means you can pair it with laptops, tablets, phones, and other devices. The well-designed headset also comes equipped with intuitive dial controls along with an impressive level of customizability... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Tesla has racked up a series of EV charging wins in recent weeks, with Ford, GM, Volvo, Polestar, and Rivian all announcing plans to adopt the company's charging connectors for their vehicles. But there are still a number of notable holdouts - although that could shift dramatically in the days to come.Volkswagen, one of the world's largest automakers, with brands like Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche, and Lamborghini under its umbrella, said in a statement that it is in talks with Tesla about installing ports in its EVs compatible with Tesla's plugs. The statement followed the news that Electrify America, the company's EV charging station operator, would soon begin adding Tesla charging plugs, also called the North American Charging... Continue reading...

The WH-1000XM5 may not fold up like their prior version, but they're the best around for performance. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you're feeling the post-Fourth of July holiday hangover today, we've got some deals to help distract you. While Amazon's upcoming Prime Day may bring bigger savings for Prime subscribers in less than one week, here are several great deals today that are open to everyone.Starting us off, Woot is selling the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones in black for a new low price of $299 ($100 off). That's the lowest price yet on Sony's excellent noise-canceling over-ear headphones, which remain our top choice of noise-canceling headphones. However, the one small catch here is that the deal only comes with a 90-day warranty from Woot instead of a one-year warranty from Sony. If that's okay with you, then you're getting an excellent value on these... Continue reading...

Whatever content is publically available on the web, Google has given itself permission to use it to train AI. | Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge On Monday, Gizmodo spotted that the search giant updated its privacy policy to disclose that its various AI services, such as Bard and Cloud AI, may be trained on public data that the company has scraped from the web.Our privacy policy has long been transparent that Google uses publicly available information from the open web to train language models for services like Google Translate," said Google spokesperson Christa Muldoon to The Verge. This latest update simply clarifies that newer services like Bard are also included. We incorporate privacy principles and safeguards into the development of our AI technologies, in line with our AI Principles." Image: Google These are the most recent changes to Google's... Continue reading...

Image: OnePlus OnePlus has today announced the OnePlus Nord 3, the latest entry in its midrange Nord lineup and successor to last year's capable OnePlus Nord 2T. One notable improvement compared to last year's phone is the length of support that OnePlus is promising: namely, three major Android updates and four years of security updates. That's a year's increase for both over the Nord 2T, though it falls short of the up to five years of support the company promises for its top-of-the-line OnePlus 11.The OnePlus Nord 3 is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor and can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It has a 120Hz refresh rate screen this time around, rather than the 90Hz panel found on its predecessor, and the... Continue reading...

You won't get the standard Android experience with the Murena version, but that, too, could eventually make its way to the US. | Image: Murena / Fairphone The Fairphone 4 - a user-repairable smartphone built using ethically sourced materials - is finally coming to the US, almost two years after it first debuted back in September 2021. Well, sort of anyway. Fairphone is partnering with Murena, a company best known for de-Googling Android phones, to launch the US pilot of the Murena Fairphone 4 - a variant of the handset that runs on a privacy-oriented Android-based operating system: /e/OS.There are two configurations available: one with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $599 and another with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $679. The storage of both models can be expanded via microSD, and the phone features a modular design that can be easily disassembled using a standard Phillips #00... Continue reading...

The Threads web interface. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Instagram's new Threads app, a Twitter competitor, isn't supposed to launch until July 6th, but the web interface went live for a few hours today for everyone to explore. It provided an early look at what to expect from the full Threads app that will launch on iOS tomorrow - and presumably Android, too.Meta briefly made Threads available on the web before pulling profiles offline a few hours later. The Verge was able to access Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's first thread (is that what we call them?!) using the web app, and many other brands and creators including Netflix, Gary Vee, and Instagram. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Mark Zuckerberg's first post on Threads. The web interface is fairly basic right... Continue reading...

Nintendo Accounts may be key to the transition to a Switch successor. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At Nintendo's 83rd annual shareholders meeting last week, president and CEO Shuntaro Furukawa said the company is hoping for a smooth transition from the Switch to its unannounced next game console, pointing to Nintendo Accounts as being key to the generational hand-off.Nintendo has pointed to its accounts as being integral to future business in the past, as in the Nintendo Account segment of a special report it released at the end of 2021.In response to an investor asking if the company has any specific measures in place to make the leap to a Switch successor, Furukawa pointed to the difficulty of switching customers from one console to the next, saying in the past, the company had to rebuild a relationship with its customers each... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A US federal judge ruled that a slew of Biden administration officials are prohibited from contacting social media companies about moderating posts protected by the First Amendment.Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in a 155-page memorandum ruling that he believes the plaintiffs are likely to prove that federal government officials are targeting and suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens."Doughty:

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge An important deadline just passed for the biggest tech platform companies in the world to notify the European Union (EU) that they are gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Seven companies have officially acknowledged they meet the criteria: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), Microsoft, and Samsung. Companies on the list have a market capitalization of over 75 billion ($82 billion) and own a social platform or app that has at least 45 million monthly users or 10,000 active business users.The statement published by EU commissioner Thierry Breton says it will now check their submissions and designate the gatekeepers for specific platform services by 6 September," and... Continue reading...

Cassian Bilton and Lee Pace in season 2 of Foundation. | Image: Apple It's already been a pretty eventful summer for science fiction fans. Last week saw the finale of Apple's post-apocalyptic series Silo, Strange New Worlds season 2 is keeping Star Trek going through August, and Disney Plus is still in the midst of Secret Invasion, its alien conspiracy offshoot of the MCU. Oh, and there's the return of Black Mirror. On top of all of that, there are also a number of series making their debut in the coming weeks and months - so many, in fact, that you might need a little help plotting out your precious free time. So here's a handy list to make life a little easier.Foundation season 2Apple TV Plus - July 14thApple's attempt at adapting Foundation got off to a slow start, but by the end of season 1 the... Continue reading...

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 1, 2023. | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images This weekend saw the launch of the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Euclid mission: a space telescope which aims to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. The 2.2 ton spacecraft with its 1.2 meter telescope was carried into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and is now on its way to its orbit around the sun.The mission had originally been slated to launch using a Russian Soyuz rocket from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, but following Russia's invasion of Ukraine cooperation between ESA and Russia was halted. So instead, the telescope launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, lifting off at 12:11AM ET on Saturday July 1st.The telescope is headed for an orbit called L2, the second Lagrange point, which... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft thinks we're getting a PS5 Slim model later this year that might be priced at $399.99. The software giant is currently waiting a ruling in the FTC v. Microsoft hearing and as part of the case Microsoft has filed documents which reveal it thinks a PS5 Slim is on the way later this year." Here's exactly what Microsoft says:

Image: Epic Games It's summer in Fortnite, which can only mean it's time for ice cream. Epic has kicked off the battle royale's annual summer event, called Summer Escape, which means a handful of changes to the game, including a number of freebies players can unlock. It runs from now until July 18th.The only major gameplay tweak appears to be the addition of ice cream cones, which, as in the past, grant you various abilities when you eat them. The in-game flare guns have also been replaced with ones that shoot fireworks for a festive touch.As per usual, the real meat of the update comes in the form of quests that have some nice unlockables in addition to some useful experience points. New quests will be added every few days during the event, and players... Continue reading...

The Twitter competitor from Meta, Instagram Threads, is expected to launch on July 6th, according to the App Store listing for the app showing a version ready for Apple's iPhone. Sleuths have also spotted what appears to be an early listing on the Google Play Store, which originally showed up over the weekend.Meta has also added a launch date teaser to the Instagram app. Typing threads" into the search box (or a number of other keywords) causes a ticket icon to appear on the search bar. Tap it and a spinning ticket appears to show your Instagram username alongside a local launch time translated from 10AM ET on the 6th. The spinning ticket also includes a QR code that links to threads.net, seemingly the new social media platform's web... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google can't display tweets and pages from Twitter in search results as effectively as it usually does because of changes at Twitter, according to a statement given to The Verge. We're aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results," spokesperson Lara Levin said. Websites have control over whether crawlers can access their content."Over the past few days, Twitter has made some major changes to the visibility of tweets on the site. On Friday, it started blocking unregistered users from being able to browse tweets, and on Saturday, it introduced temporary" limits for the number of tweets people can read in a day. Given Levin's statement, it... Continue reading...

Image: Twitter Twitter is officially launching its new" version of TweetDeck to everyone, according to a tweet from Twitter's support account, which is a step that it had to take to help mitigate some of the issues TweetDeck has been experiencing lately. The switch comes with a potentially-heartbreaking catch: TweetDeck is going to become a Verified-only feature in 30 days, the account says, meaning you'll need to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription to be able to use it.This updated version of TweetDeck has been in preview for nearly two years. All users will be forced to switch over to the new version, according to two Twitter employees, and those staffers have also shared some slight clarifications about what's been going on with... Continue reading...

Image: Tidal Music streaming service Tidal is increasing the pricing of its HiFi tier by one dollar from $9.99 to $10.99 a month on August 1st, the company is announcing in emails to subscribers, Billboard reports. Similar price increases appear to be coming for international subscribers as well, according to reports on Reddit, with users in markets like the UK, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina all saying they've been contacted.Tidal is just the latest music streaming service to have increased its subscription pricing in the past year. Apple Music's monthly price went from $9.99 to $10.99 last October, while Amazon Music followed suit in January.If recent comments by CEO Daniel Ek are to be believed, Spotify might not be far behind. In an... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pornhub is now blocking people in Mississippi and Virginia from visiting its website over laws that would require the service to verify their age. The company says it's blocking users to protest unfair enforcement of these new laws, claiming that sites enforcing the new rules will lose traffic to irresponsible platforms" that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content."Traffic dropped by 80 percent for Pornhub after it began enforcing age verification in Louisiana earlier this year, the company writes. After that experience, it decided to start taking its sites offline instead of enforcing an age gate. In May, it blocked access to users in Utah over a similar law. Techdirt... Continue reading...

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images An era of the internet is ending, and we're watching it happen practically in real time. Twitter has been on a steep and seemingly inexorable decline for, well, years, but especially since Elon Musk bought the company last fall and made a mess of the place. Reddit has spent the last couple of months self-immolating in similar ways, alienating its developers and users and hoping it can survive by sticking its head in the sand until the battle's over. (I thought for a while that Reddit would eventually be the last good place left, but... nope.) TikTok remains ascendent - and looks ever more likely to be banned in some meaningful way. Instagram has turned into an entertainment platform; nobody's on Facebook anymore.You could argue, I... Continue reading...

A still from Insecure season 5. | Image: HBO Some big HBO titles are heading to Netflix - just not the absolute biggest.Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached a deal to start streaming select HBO series on Netflix's platform. All five seasons of Insecure, which ran on HBO between 2016 and 2021, are now available, and others are on the way.Deadline reports that Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, and Ballers will come to Netflix, too, and True Blood will stream on Netflix outside the US. The shows will all remain available on Max, as well. The list includes some classic HBO series - but notably not the network's big recent titles, like Game of Thrones and Succession, or some of the biggest titles from its past, like The Sopranos or The Wire.The agreement comes... Continue reading...

Image: IFC Films It's always nice when the end of the world can have some levity. Biosphere, from director Mel Eslyn, manages to mash up a post-apocalyptic story with a buddy comedy for a movie about two best pals who just so happen to be the last remaining people on the planet. It's a high concept told at a small scale, with the entirety of the film taking place inside of an apartment-size biosphere home to lifelong friends Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown). Their incredible chemistry propels the film forward, but it's a major twist mid-way through that makes this strange, funny, and at times uncomfortable movie worth checking out.We don't know much about what actually happened to end the world. We do know that the movie appears to... Continue reading...