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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Chrome has built-in phishing detection that scans pages to see if they match known fake or malicious sites (using more than just the URL, since scammers rotate those more quickly than it can keep up). And, now, that tech is getting better. Google also says that, in Chrome 102, it will use machine learning that runs entirely within the browser (without sending data back to Google or elsewhere) to help identify websites that make unsolicited permission requests for notifications and silence them before they pop up.As Google explains it, “To further improve the browsing experience, we’re also evolving how people interact with web notifications. On the one hand, page notifications help deliver updates from sites you care about; on... Continue reading…

iOS users can try on various brands within the Amazon app. | Image: Amazon Amazon is now letting iOS users virtually try-on shoes, the company announced in a blog post. Amazon customers in the US and Canada are able to try on shoes for various brands including New Balance, Adidas, Reebok, and more.In this virtual try-on, customers can simply point their camera at their feet and scroll through a variety of shoes to see how they look from different angles. But, the tool can’t be used to determine shoe size. While the new feature is currently available for iOS customers with an iPhone 7 or newer, Amazon confirmed in its blog post that it will be available for Android customers soon.In 2017, Amazon launched an in-app augmented reality feature that let customers preview how a piece of furniture would look in... Continue reading…

Porsche’s electric bike shopping spree isn’t over. The German automaker announced Thursday that it would be acquiring Fazua, an e-bike drivetrain manufacturer that specializes in lightweight motors.After buying a 20 percent stake in the company earlier this year, Porsche said it would acquire all of Fazua’s shares, making it the latest e-bike company to come under the automaker’s control. Porsche acquired a majority stake in Croatian e-bike company Greyp (pronounced like the fruit) late last year.Fazua is an intriguing purchase for Porsche and could indicate the direction of the company’s future lineup of e-bikes. The Fazua Drive System, which unites the battery with the motor into one single unit, weighs only 4.6kg (10 pounds) and... Continue reading…

Solar panels were installed on four buildings on the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, California. | Photo by Tony Avelar/Bloomberg via Getty Images Even though more companies than ever are proclaiming that they’re powered by renewable energy, those claims are usually exaggerated, new research shows. That disconnect between a company’s claims and reality could jeopardize global efforts to stop climate change.The problem stems from companies’ reliance on Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to back up their green claims. A company receives a REC by paying to support renewable energy projects around the world. When brands say that they’re powering their business with 100 percent renewable energy, they’re typically still using electricity generated by fossil fuels; they’re just buying up renewable energy certificates to try to cancel out the environmental impact of their energy use.T... Continue reading…

Image: the Dynamic World project A new dataset from Google shows the features on the surface of the Earth in near real time, the company announced Thursday. The tool, called Dynamic World, uses deep learning and satellite imagery to develop a high-resolution land cover map that shows which bits of land have features like trees, crops, or water.Land cover maps usually take a long time to produce, and there are big gaps between the time images are taken and when the data is published. They also often don’t have a detailed breakdown of what’s on the ground in a particular area — a city would be classified as “built-up” (a designation for human-altered landscapes) even if there are big sections with parks, for example.Dynamic World classifies the land cover type for... Continue reading…

Summer Game Fest Summer Game Fest isn’t quite E3 — which was unceremoniously canceled earlier this year. But it’s become one of the year’s big game events, and it’s kicking off with a livestream this afternoon.Game Fest host Geoff Keighley has tried to set expectations for the show this year, saying it won’t be filled with “megaton shocks” and will involve mostly known titles. “We’ve got a couple of new game announcements in the show and hopefully some surprises if everything holds. But it definitely is a show that’s primarily focused on stuff that is announced,” he said in a Twitter Spaces session.When does Summer Game Fest start?Summer Game Fest’s livestream starts on Thursday, June 9th, at 11AM PT / 2PM ET.The show will be immediately followed by... Continue reading…

I always thought the DJI Mini 2 was the perfect drone for most pilots — either beginners looking for a reliable drone or experienced pilots who want a more portable solution. Aside from its compactness, it was also affordable at $449 and provided very good, if not quite great, image quality. The newly announced DJI Mini 3 Pro drastically improves image quality, but at a starting price of $759 (with the remote controller), it is no longer easy to recommend for everyone.But I can also see the argument that the price hike is justified. After all, you are getting a lot more than you ever did with the Mini 2. For one, obstacle avoidance sensors open up the possibility of autonomous flights. The aperture is large and makes night images and... Continue reading…

The OnePlus 10 Pro. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge A higher-capacity version of this year’s OnePlus flagship, the 10 Pro, is releasing in the US and Canada on June 15th, the company announced today. This model comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, up from 8GB and 128GB, respectively, in the base level model. It will retail for $969 in the US and $1,249 in Canada and be available in whatever color you want, so long as it’s black.OnePlus said it would eventually release this higher-capacity model in the US when it first launched the OnePlus 10 Pro in the country in April (the 12GB / 256GB model was already available in some other markets, like the UK). In the US, it’ll retail for $70 more than the 8GB model, whose MSRP sits at $899. It’ll support 5G on Verizon and T-Mobile’s... Continue reading…

After months of carefully dancing around the truth of what’s going on Jordan Peele’s new horror Nope, Universal’s final trailer for the film at last reveals the reason why everyone in it is terrified of the sky, and it has very little to do with the weather.The sudden death of Otis Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood’s (Keke Palmer) father Otis Sr. (Keith Haywood) is what initially sends the brother and sister reeling, and left with the task of figuring out what to do with the family’s ranch full of rodeo horses in the new trailer. Though both of the siblings are ready to step up to the plate in their father’s absence, Otis Jr. (who goes by “OJ”) can’t shake the feeling that their father was murdered — not by a person per se, but... Continue reading…

Image: Dell Today Dell is launching the 2022 revision of its XPS 13 to include Intel’s latest 12th-gen Alder Lake CPUs that add more cores and a hybrid architecture, while saying the new version is its thinnest and lightest 13-inch XPS ever. The new laptop is 13.9mm thick (0.55-inches) and weighs as little as 2.59 lbs, compared to its predecessor’s 14.80 mm (0.58-inches) and 2.64 lb starting weight for a non-touchscreen model. The new XPS 13 is available starting today in the US and Canada, starting at $999 with Windows 11 or $949 for an Ubuntu 20.04-equipped Developer Edition.The flagship XPS 13 has gone from previewing the future of laptops when Dell introduced the InfinityEdge design with thin bezels in 2015, to kind of stale a few years later,... Continue reading…

Dell’s new XPS 13 2-in-1 is a tablet now. | Image: Dell Dell is totally overhauling its XPS 13 2-in-1 laptop today by revealing a new design that’s a tablet instead of a thin laptop with a reversible hinge. The 2022 model swaps the reversible hinge for an XPS Folio keyboard case, which is much like Apple’s Magic Keyboard for the iPad. It magnetically connects to the XPS 13 2-in-1 and allows the device to transform into a laptop instead of a standalone tablet.The magnetic XPS Folio will support three angles: 100 degrees, 112.5 degrees, and 125 degrees, and there’s even a magnetic stylus that attaches to the top of the device to charge. Dell has designed the XPS Stylus for both right- and left-handed usage, and it should run for around 50 days on a full charge. Both the folio and stylus will... Continue reading…

Mengxin Li / The Verge If you were passing through Art Basel Miami in December, you might have heard about a Pudgy Penguins club night. The founder Cole Thereum was there, surrounded by penguin artwork on the wall and even etched into ice. The artist behind it all, Antoine Mingo, was there too, sipping a gin and tonic in the back of the venue, but he kept a lower profile. He drew the faces and bodies that made up the penguins, but his connection to the project has stayed under the radar. Unlike Cole, no one at the party recognized him.The Miami event was a high point in Mingo’s unusual career as an NFT artist. Tokens built from his art have sold for upwards of $400,000 even as he remains largely on the sidelines. As far as the NFT world is concerned, the real... Continue reading…

Microsoft is planning to bring a lot more games to Xbox Cloud Gaming later this year, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream most of their own game library. “We’re excited to share that later this year, it’s our intent to roll out the ability for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to play, from the cloud, select games they already own or have purchased outside the Xbox Game Pass library,” says Will Tuttle, Xbox Wire editor in chief.This expansion will make Xbox Cloud Gaming a lot more valuable, opening the service up to potentially thousands of more games. Microsoft only says “select games,” so it’s clear not every single Xbox game will be available, and the company isn’t saying anything more about its plans. But it looks... Continue reading…

There’s nothing particularly novel about the actual Xbox app. If you’ve used xCloud, you’ve seen this interface before. Playing games on the new Xbox app made for TVs feels like a big deal. There’s no console and no hidden HDMI streaming device. Yet, in my brief hands-on demo, games like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 loaded quickly and — most importantly — they played well with both Xbox and PlayStation 5 wireless controllers. And if you aren’t a Game Pass subscriber, you’ll still be able to jump into Fortnite immediately through the app for free after you sign in with a Microsoft account.The app aims to provide a console-like experience to people who don’t want the cost and cruft of buying and setting up a console. It lets you pair a Bluetooth headset to hear audio and chat with Xbox friends, and Xbox save data gets synced over the cloud, letting... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its Xbox TV app later this month, allowing owners of Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs and monitors to play Xbox games without a game console. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will be able to access more than 100 games through Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs, streaming through the cloud powered by custom Xbox Series X hardware. Fortnite is even available to stream free of charge if you’re not a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber.The Xbox TV app will work very much like Netflix does on TVs and will be available from Samsung’s gaming hub on June 30th in 27 countries. You simply log into your Microsoft account in the app and stream Xbox games just like you would through Xbox Cloud Gaming in a browser. Image:... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Xbox announcing a host of planned improvements to its hardware and services today. In addition to cloud gaming improvements and new supported platforms for the Xbox app, it was announced that Xbox will expand its Design Lab store with even more customization options.This includes new pastel colors — soft pink, orange, green, and purple — as well as new Camo Top cases with matching side caps — Mineral Camo, Arctic Camo, Forest Camo, Sandglow Camo, and Blaze Camo. These colors join the already expansive roster of personalization options that Xbox has been steadily adding to the Design Lab, including metallic finishes and rubberized grips. The Xbox Design Lab already has millions of different combinations. The Xbox... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Xbox is announcing that everyone’s favorite gaming platform, Microsoft Edge, is getting a number of new features that prioritize cloud gaming integration and personalization for the blue browser. Microsoft has been consistently growing and improving support for Xbox Cloud Gaming across multiple platforms and is clearly taking steps to optimize this service on browsers by providing it with more gaming-forward features.Some of the additions include a personalized gaming homepage that provides easier access to the Xbox Cloud Gaming library and a built-in efficiency mode that reduces resource usage of the browser when a game is launched. Edge will also be getting “Clarity Boost” to help improve the fidelity of games streamed over the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to Argentina and New Zealand today. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will be able to stream more than 100 games to phones, tablets, and PCs today, as well as Samsung TVs later this month thanks to a new Xbox TV app.“We’ve continuously heard from gamers in Argentina and New Zealand that accessing Xbox Cloud Gaming is a priority and we’re thrilled to make it a reality,” says Catherine Gluckstein, vice president and head of product for Xbox Cloud Gaming.Much like Xbox Cloud Gaming elsewhere, anyone will be able to use the service to play Fortnite free of charge, or you’ll need to be an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member to access the more than 100 games available on the service.This Xbox Cloud... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is working on Project Moorcroft, a program designed to bring early game demos to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. The demos will be similar to the limited levels and early samples of games that fans would typically spend hours waiting in line to play at E3 or PAX.These early game demos have largely been lost in the transition to virtual game conferences during the pandemic, and they’re key for indie developers trying to generate awareness for their titles. Sarah Bond, Microsoft’s head of gaming ecosystem, describes Project Moorcroft as a way to bring back that E3-like experience.“Why don’t we take Game Pass, and make it like the show floor?” says Bond. “Why don’t we make it possible for a developer to take a piece, a level of... Continue reading…

Mengxin Li / The Verge So let’s say you bought an NFT. Not because you want to make a bunch of money and you’re just going to flip it — we’ll call those people the JPEG flippers — and not because someone sold you on a big idea about “community” and you didn’t buy an NFT so much as a link to a Discord — those are the yacht clubbers — but you bought it because you just liked the way the thing looked. Maybe you’re a collector, maybe this is the first valuable piece you’ve ever acquired. Either way, you bought it not to sell it or use it. You bought it to look at it. You want to hang it up in your home!On one hand, you have plenty of ways to get your digital art on display. It’s just a picture, after all. (You could even — gasp — just print the thing and hang it... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft released the final version of its next big Windows 11 update (22H2) to Release Preview testers on Tuesday, and accidentally made it available to PCs that aren’t officially supported. Oops.Twitter and Reddit users (via WindowsLatest) were quick to spot the mistake, with hundreds of Windows Insiders able to upgrade their Windows 10 machines on older CPUs. Microsoft has strict minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, leaving millions of PCs behind, so the mistake will once again highlight the company’s controversial upgrade policy. Image: AceRimmer412 (Reddit) An unsupported PC gets offered Windows 11. Windows 11 officially requires Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen 2 CPUs and up, with very few... Continue reading…

Apple is adding an easy method to swap your eSIM to a new iPhone in the upcoming iOS 16 release. Twitter user Carson Waldrop has spotted (via MacRumors) that iOS 16 supports transferring eSIM cards from an existing iPhone to a new one using Bluetooth. The switch looks effortless, allowing you to easily transfer your phone number when you buy a new iPhone.Currently in iOS if you purchase a new iPhone and you use an eSIM you have to contact your carrier to get the eSIM reissued. While some carriers make this effortless through QR codes in their mobile apps, others force you to go to a store to transfer an eSIM. Apple’s new eSIM swap support in iOS 16 looks like it will remove some of these headaches, but MacRumors points out that it’s... Continue reading…

Google integrates hyperlocal data from PurpleAir’s network of sensors. | Screengrab by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Google Maps on both iOS and Android has a new Air Quality layer that can be useful when planning your next hike or bike ride in good times, or to plan your escape from smog and smoke in bad.The new layer displays an Air Quality Index (AQI) overlay directly onto the map grid using government data gathered from agencies like the EPA in the US to show how healthy the air is in general. Better yet, it also presents data collected from PurpleAir’s network of sensors to report hyperlocal conditions at the street level. Clicking on the AQI readings dotted around Google Maps provides more information on the health impact of the air quality, time and source of the last reading, and links to learn more.PurpleAir’s relatively low-cost sensors... Continue reading…

The app lets you “schedule a break” after a set period of time. | Image: TikTok TikTok is adding a series of new features that are designed to stop you from disappearing inside its infinite feed of addictive short-form videos, the service has announced. A new tool will show a reminder after using the app for a prolonged, user-defined period of time, adding a new safeguard to existing daily limits. Teenage users (between the ages of 13 and 17) will be prompted to use the screen time limiting tool if they spend over 100 minutes in the app in a single day.TikTok is also adding a new screen time dashboard that shows a summary of app usage. Statistics include the amount of time the app has been opened, a breakdown of daytime and nighttime usage, and an overall counter for the amount of time spent in the app daily. ... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge The Biden administration is revealing a new set of standards to help accelerate the installation of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers across the US by 2030.The new standards give states guidelines on awarding contracts for EV charging projects, directing the companies who get them to build chargers that are convenient, affordable, and accessible to the broadest number of people. And they outline the types of projects that won’t receive federal money, including proprietary charging stations that can only be accessed by one company’s vehicles, like Tesla’s Supercharger network.The new standards come as much of President Joe Biden’s climate change fighting agenda remains stalled in Congress. The president was able to secure $5 billion in... Continue reading…

Images of the prototype device published by Bloomberg. | Image: Bloomberg Meta has halted development of a smartwatch with two built-in cameras, Bloomberg reports. The device — codenamed “Milan” — had reportedly been planned for release in spring 2023 at a price of around $349. Technical issues, as well as general cost-cutting at Meta, are reportedly to blame for the cancellation. The existence of the watch had previously been reported by The Verge last year.Most smartwatches, including the Apple Watch, currently don’t feature any cameras at all, so Meta had hoped that the presence of not one but two cameras could have differentiated its wearable in a competitive market. The first would have been a 5-megapixel front-facing camera contained within a small display notch for use with video calls, while a... Continue reading…

A glimpse into the new Vivaldi Mail 1.0. | Image: Vivaldi Vivaldi has launched its own free built-in email client, Mail 1.0, with Vivaldi's Calendar and Feed Reader integrated.Mail 1.0 also grants users the option to add multiple email accounts, including Google and existing calendar services. As a result, users should be able to organize their emails and manage schedules, to-do lists, feeds, and more without leaving their browser.The new email client is similar to Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, with messages that are searchable and organized into multiple folders or views. Yet Vivaldi also offers a few slightly more unique ways to customize and manage emails, calendars, and feeds. Image: Vivaldi There are toggle buttons you can turn on and off and a search bar at the... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. | Image: Netflix With all of the drama surrounding Cyberpunk 2077’s initial launch, it would be easy to forget that there’s another exciting project on the way: an anime spinoff from famed studio Trigger. (That’s the same team behind projects like Promare, Little Witch Academia, and Kill la Kill.) The Netflix series was first announced back in 2020, and now we finally have the first trailer for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It’s hard to tell precisely what is going on in the one-minute-long clip, but it sure looks incredible.If you’re curious about the actual premise, here it is:

Entergalactic. | Image: Netflix The first-look trailer for Entergalactic — a musical animated series from Kid Cudi and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris — is brief, but it’s bursting with style and life. The series follows a young artist named Jabari (voiced by Cudi) and has a slick visual style that’s almost like a cross between Arcane and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.Netflix also revealed today that the series has quite the cast of voice actors. Joining Cudi are Jessica Williams, Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla $ign, Laura Harrier, Vanessa Hudgens, Christopher Abbott, 070 Shake, Jaden Smith, Keith David, Teyana Taylor, Arturo Castro, and Macaulay Culkin. And the description of Chalamet’s character, Jimmy, sounds absolutely perfect:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s going to handle the lending for its new buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, and doesn’t plan on shifting that responsibility to a financial service, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNBC. The company’s subsidiary, Apple Financing LLC, is reportedly licensed to provide lending services and will remain separate from Apple’s main business.Apple announced its BNPL service, Pay Later, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday. The service will let users make a purchase through Apple Pay, and then pay back that amount in four equal installments over the course of six weeks with no interest.It’s the first time Apple will take on financial responsibilitiesThis isn’t Apple’s first foray into finances, but, as... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Another executive change is hitting Meta after the recently announced departures of COO Sheryl Sandberg and head of AI Jerome Pesenti.David Mortenson, the company’s top engineering leader responsible for its data centers and core infrastructure, is stepping down from his role, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. Santosh Janardhan, one of his direct reports and a current VP of engineering, will assume the role later this month. A spokesperson for Meta, Jon Carvill, confirmed the change.“I’m incredibly proud of everything we’ve achieved over the past two years I’ve been supporting Infra,” says Mortenson in the memo, adding that the company “survived the biggest capacity crunch in the company’s history (at least in the... Continue reading…

Charging cables for different mobile phone models. | Photo by Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images Slashing e-waste was a major driver in European Union lawmakers’ proposal yesterday to mandate a universal charger for mobile phones and other devices. But there are still a lot of other factors that have to come together for the measure to make a meaningful difference in the world’s e-waste problem.Piled together, unused and discarded chargers add up to about 11,000 metric tons of e-waste in Europe annually, according to the European Parliament. They’re hoping to shrink that pile by eliminating the need for different chargers for different devices — so in just a couple years, most new mobile phones will likely need to come with a USB-C charging port to be sold in the EU. Making the switch to USB-C will ultimately help consumers save... Continue reading…

NASA’s new powerful space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, got pelted by a larger than expected micrometeoroid at the end of May, causing some detectable damage to one of the spacecraft’s 18 primary mirror segments. The impact means that the mission team will have to correct for the distortion created by the strike, but NASA says that the telescope is “still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements.”NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is the agency’s incredibly powerful next-generation space telescope, designed to look into the farthest reaches of the Universe and see back in time to the stars and galaxies that formed just after the Big Bang. It cost NASA nearly $10 billion to build and more than... Continue reading…

A rendering of a high-tech facility representing eBay’s new 31,000-square-foot vault facility that stores collectables. | Image: eBay Consider dusting off your attic shoeboxes filled with baseball cards; eBay might have a new home for some of them soon. The pioneering online marketplace site built a new 31,000-square-foot facility, called the eBay Vault, which is open now to house graded trading cards that are valued at over $750 and, in the future, physical collectibles of all kinds.The launch of the eBay Vault comes hot on the heels of its Authenticity Guarantee push, where it expanded from validating sneakers over $100 to partnering with Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) to grade trading cards valued at over $2,000. eBay is so far only accepting trading cards purchased on their site that are already graded by a list of reputable organizations like PSA and... Continue reading…

An update to Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridge brings an art mode and live TV through the Samsung TV Plus streaming service. | Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Samsung is releasing a new update for its Family Hub refrigerators that brings Samsung TV Plus — the tech giant’s free, ad-supported live TV service — to its fridges with a tablet built-in.At its second annual Bespoke Home event on Tuesday, the company said the update (which was first announced last year) will arrive this July on Family Hub 2.0 models (2017 and later). The live TV option is only available in the U.S. and Korea.Currently, users of Samsung’s smart fridge can watch television on the fridge’s built-in touchscreen by mirroring a Samsung TV to the fridge or content from a Samsung smartphone. But without one of those devices, your fridge just had to be boring.I have attempted to watch TV on a Family Hub and it’s not a... Continue reading…

Last year’s iPhone 13. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge This week, European Union lawmakers agreed on new proposals to force manufacturers of everything from smartphones and headphones to digital cameras and tablets to use the same universal charging port: USB Type-C. The plan is for the new rules to come into effect by fall 2024, after which these devices that charge using a wired cable will need to do so via a built-in USB-C port.The single biggest impact of this legislation is likely to land on Apple’s iPhone. While the rest of the smartphone industry has gradually converged around USB-C as a single, standardized wired charging port, Apple has steadfastly stuck with Lightning, the proprietary connector it introduced with the iPhone 5 way back in 2012. The EU’s legislation could finally... Continue reading…

Image: Unit 2 Games Crayta, a platform that lets players create, share, and play games with friends, is coming to Facebook Gaming’s cloud-streaming service. The collaborative game-building platform is built on Unreal Engine 4 and features a library of thousands of player-made games users can browse or add to with their own creations.While Crayta shares the element of game creation with Roblox, it also takes some cues from Fortnite, with the most obvious being its bright and cartoonish art. It also has rotating seasons, offers a battle pass, and lets users customize their own avatars. But probably one of the coolest — and most unique — things about Crayta is that it lets you share a game with just a single link, allowing your friend to hop right in from... Continue reading…

Insteon hubs are back online. | Image: Insteon Last April, Smartlabs switched off its cloud servers, leaving users of its Insteon smart home system without app or voice control of their connected switches, plugs, thermostats, and other devices paired to its smart home hub. It happened overnight with no warning, and now, the same thing has happened in reverse: someone suddenly turned the switch back on.As first reported by Stacey on IoT, numerous Insteon users across the country say that their hubs are up and working again today, with the Insteon app now functioning and voice control through services such as Amazon Alexa also working. Because Insteon devices used a proprietary wireless radio protocol, many Insteon users’ homes were able to continue running in some fashion. It was... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Twitter is preparing to grant Elon Musk unprecedented access to platform data in an effort to address his concerns about automated accounts, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Citing a person familiar with the company’s thinking, the report says Twitter is preparing to give Musk access to the so-called “firehose” API that contains every tweet as it is posted.In April, Musk legally committed to purchasing Twitter but has grown increasingly vocal about possible bot activity on the platform, in what some see as an effort to cancel or renegotiate the deal on more favorable terms.“Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations”In an SEC filing on Monday, the Tesla CEO accused Twitter of... Continue reading…

It’s no secret that Infinity Ward has been working on a sequel to 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and, now, the studio is finally unveiling its next blockbuster. It’s called Modern Warfare II, and it features both a single-player campaign that’s a direct sequel to the previous game as well as multiplayer including a new tactical co-op mode.First, the campaign. Here’s how Infinity Ward describes the setup:

Android 13’s latest beta arrives today. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google announced Android 13’s third public beta today and says that it has reached platform stability. That’s an indicator that Google has locked in major updates, and from here until the final release, it’s all about putting on the finishing touches. It’s also reaching this milestone a full two months earlier than Android 12, which was a much more ambitious update that reached Android device owners with plenty of bugs intact.Android 13’s first developer preview arrived in February, the first public beta came in April, and the second public beta came with a big I/O announcement in May. While Android 12 centered around introducing some major new customization options in the form of Material You, Android 13 is a smaller update that takes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is testing a new shopping feature for previewing upcoming product releases. The feature, called Product Drops, allows brands to tease items before they go on sale, and customers can sign up to be reminded prior to the release through in-app notifications.The company shared how reminders would work in a blog post today. When brands set up product drops, shoppers can sign up for alerts by clicking a “remind me” button. Product drop tweets act like other posts on Twitter and can be liked, retweeted, bookmarked, and shared. Users who opt in to get reminders will get a notification 15 minutes before the time of the release and at the set time of the drop. When it’s time to purchase and users click the notification, they’ll be... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge At WWDC 2022, Apple announced it was adding a number of big fitness updates to watchOS 9. Most notably, that included a ton of new running metrics, as well as a new multisport mode for triathletes. As a runner and wearables reviewer, the presentation immediately made me think, “Holy guacamole, Apple is gunning for Garmin.”Right now, smartwatches fall into one of two categories. First, you have full-featured flagship watches. These are the ones with not-so-great battery life, but the most advanced tech. They can call emergency services if you’re injured, have built-in voice assistants, control your smart home, have third-party apps, enable advanced health features like EKGs, and support cellular connectivity. The Apple watch obviously... Continue reading…

General Motors released some more images of the Cadillac Celestiq show car, and as you can see, we’re still only getting the bare minimum here.The Celestiq, which is expected to be the next all-electric luxury vehicle from Cadillac, “represents the purest expression of Cadillac design, technology and performance,” the automaker says. And here’s a picture of a door hinge to prove it! GM first showed off the Celestiq to a handful of reporters at its EV Day event in early 2020, but it has yet to publicly release any images of the full vehicle. The ultra-luxury sedan is meant to serve as a companion to the Cadillac Lyriq, which just entered into production earlier this year. Both vehicles will be built on... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge More than six years after Apple’s Eddy Cue proclaimed that “the future of TV is apps,” Apple’s 2022 WWDC keynote came and went with barely any mention of tvOS — the software that runs on its Apple TV hardware. That quote from Cue came alongside the introduction of the Apple TV’s App Store back in 2015. But the dearth of WWDC news on tvOS suggests the platform isn’t exactly one of Apple’s top priorities at the moment.tvOS has continued to steadily evolve in recent years, and the Apple TV 4K remains perhaps the best all-around option on the market. The user experience is intuitive, app performance is consistent and stable, and Apple doesn’t shove ads in your face like Roku and Amazon. And the Apple TV app has actually gotten fairly good... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge PayPal has been granted a full BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services, the company announced in a press release. This makes PayPal the first company to trade in a conditional BitLicense for the real thing.New York introduced its BitLicense in 2015 as a way to regulate businesses that provide customers with the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency in the state. However, some crypto advocates criticized the policy, stating it could potentially make it harder for businesses to get involved in crypto. In 2020, New York launched a proposed conditional BitLicense in response, a supposedly more streamlined process for obtaining the documentation.“The conditional license is now a proven framework for licensure”C... Continue reading…

Image: Razer Razer has announced the $99.99 Kishi V2, its new mobile controller that can cradle your Android phone to deliver a more handheld console-like experience. In terms of what’s new over the previous iteration, the Kishi V2 features some hardware traits in common with Razer’s Wolverine V2 controller. Namely, that its buttons utilize microswitches instead of membranes, so they’ll have a clicky feel. Also, there are two macro buttons near the triggers, one on each side, that can be custom programmed with a mobile app.Let’s be honest, there’s a lot about the Kishi V2 that looks aped from the Backbone One controller for iPhone. To start, the Kishi V2 uses a similar extendable rear bridge design in place of the not terrible, but less intuitive... Continue reading…