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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft says it’s “significantly” scaling down its business in Russia, more than three months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The software giant first pulled the plug on “new” sales of products and services in Russia in early March, and now Bloomberg News reports that the company is laying off 400 employees in Russia as it begins to wind down its business there.“As a result of the changes to the economic outlook and the impact on our business in Russia, we have made the decision to significantly scale down our operations in Russia,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to Bloomberg News. “We will continue to fulfill our existing contractual obligations with Russian customers while the suspension of new sales remains in effect.”M... Continue reading…

Amazon is selling the 41mm, GPS-equipped Apple Watch Series 7 for just $300 instead of $399. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update June 8th, 10:47AM ET: Our lead deal on the Vizio 5.1.2 soundbar sold out, unfortunately. So, we swapped it out for one on the Apple Watch Series 7 that we feel is just as appealing.We’ve got some good news today for Apple fans: for the first time ever, the Apple Watch Series 7 is selling for just $300 at Amazon instead of $399. That discount is available on the green, 41mm, GPS-equipped model, although you can also buy other colors for $329. If you’ve got larger wrists, the 45mm GPS-enabled wearable is on sale for $359. No matter which model you buy, each sports an always-on display that’s larger than its predecessors, making the screens easier to read at-a-glance. The newest Apple wearable comes with fast charging and IP6X dust... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A YouTuber named Yannic Kilcher has sparked controversy in the AI world after training a bot on posts collected from 4chan’s Politically Incorrect board (otherwise known as /pol/).The board is 4chan’s most popular and well-known for its toxicity (even in the anything-goes environment of 4chan). Posters share racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic messages, which the bot — named GPT-4chan after the popular series of GPT language models made by research lab OpenAI — learned to imitate. After training his model, Kilcher released it back onto 4chan as multiple bots, which posted tens of thousands of times on /pol/.“The model was good, in a terrible sense,” says Kilcher in a video on YouTube describing the project. “It perfectly... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sony’s WH-1000XM5 are the company’s latest flagship noise-canceling headphones. And as our review can attest, they’re perhaps the most comfortable, best-sounding set in the 1000X series so far.As a result, you’re inevitably going to see them a lot — on flights, at the coffee shop, etc. — over the next several years. And should you end up with a pair yourself, it’s worth knowing about some of their more advanced features and tricks that aren’t always obvious in basic day-to-day use. Here are some worth trying out as you explore your new headphones.How to control the WH-1000XM5 headphonesLike their predecessors, the WH-1000XM5 headphones are controlled using touch gestures on the surface of the right ear cup.

Installing a wired Ring doorbell such as this Ring Pro 2 takes about 45 minutes. Installing a Ring video doorbell is one of the easiest smart home upgrades to tackle (with the possible exception of screwing in a smart lightbulb). Made up of a motion-activated camera with a microphone and speaker, a Ring video doorbell will send alerts to your smartphone and smart speakers to tell you when there’s someone at your door so you can see and talk to them. This is handy for making sure you don’t miss a visitor as well as for keeping an eye on packages if you’re not home.Getting a Ring video doorbell set up on your front or backdoor should take between 10 and 45 minutes, depending on which of the seven models you decide to go with and whether you choose battery-powered or wired. If you have existing doorbell wires, I highly... Continue reading…

Ghostbusters: Afterlife. | Image: Sony The Ghostbusters cinematic universe is expanding once again — this time with an animated series.Netflix announced today that it’s partnering with Sony for a new animated show based on the long-running spectral franchise. There aren’t any real details yet, but there’s reason to be excited: the project will be led by two of the key minds behind 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Both Jason Reitman (director and writer on Afterlife) and Gil Kenan (writer on Afterlife) will serve as executive producers on the animated series. No word yet on what the show will be about or when it might hit the streaming service.The news comes as Netflix is in the midst of its now-annual Geeked Week event. So far, the company detailed quite a few new projects... Continue reading…

Alex Castro / The Verge The First Amendment is up for debate Continue reading…

Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam and Aldis Hodge as Hawkman. After some major delays, director Jaume Collet-Serra’s Black Adam feature starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is finally hitting theaters this fall, and a new trailer’s just dropped introducing the movie’s titular antihero as he first comes to power in the modern age.Black Adam’s first trailer introduces Teth-Adam (Johnson), a man born into enslavement in the fictional country of Kahndaq some time in the distant past. Though Teth-Adam dies by the hand of his enslavers, he’s brought back to life by a magical bolt of lightning seemingly called down by his son shortly before the boy dies from the strain of the ritual. It’s Teth-Adam’s son’s death in the past that first radicalizes him and emboldens him to use his newfound powers to seek a... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo There are few things in life that aren’t improved with the addition of destructive red shells and slippery banana peels. It turns out that soccer is no exception. Mario Strikers: Battle League is Nintendo’s latest attempt at an arcade-style soccer game, and it’s an experience that’s both streamlined and chaotic. That means that it’s easy to pick up and play but also that there’s a lot going on, offering both depth for skilled players and some shortcuts for newbies. It follows much of the same ethos as Mario Kart, only you’re kicking a ball around instead of hugging the curves on Rainbow Road. It’s an incredible amount of fun — but to get the most out of it, you’ll definitely need to bring some friends along.At its core, Strikers is a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge IRA Financial Trust, a platform that lets users save for retirement in alternative assets like cryptocurrency, is suing the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange over an alleged failure to protect its customers from a heist that resulted in the theft of $36 million in crypto. The financial platform partners with Gemini, owned by the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, to allow customers to trade and store cryptocurrency.In February, IRA was the victim of a major attack that drained the millions in funds customers had stored with Gemini. The company was reportedly swatted, the act of calling the police to report a fake crime at someone’s location, when the cyberattack occurred. Police showed up at IRA’s South Dakota headquarters after false... Continue reading…

Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge If code is law, countless NFTs are built on buggy code Continue reading…

The phone’s 16-megapixel selfie camera is neatly concealed under a 6.8-inch screen. To grossly oversimplify it, there are two challenges behind making an under-display camera (UDC): to convincingly hide the camera under the screen and to produce images that look as good as traditional selfie cameras. With its third-gen UDC on the Axon 40 Ultra, ZTE has nailed the “hide the camera” part of that challenge. As for “take good photos,” ZTE has come a long way on that since its first attempt, but there’s still work to be done.First, some basics: this is a 16-megapixel camera residing under a 6.8-inch 2480 x 1116 OLED panel. On the back of the phone, there are three 64-megapixel cameras: a 16mm-equivalent ultrawide; a stabilized 35mm standard wide; and a stabilized 91mm telephoto lens. ZTE has made some improvements to the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge An art critic takes stock of the tokenized digital aesthetic Continue reading…

An early image of the phone’s home screen released in March. | Image: Nothing Nothing, the consumer tech startup led by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, will announce its first smartphone at an event on July 12th, the company has announced. The Nothing Phone 1 will be the company’s second device, following the release of its Ear 1 true wireless earbuds last year. The in-person event will be held in London alongside a simultaneous livestream at 11AM ET. Nothing is branding the launch as Nothing (event): Return to Instinct.The company has already teased and officially announced several aspects of the smartphone. At an event in March, the company teased details of its Nothing OS launcher, which will run on top of Android 11. This launcher was released in beta last month. The phone will reportedly feature transparent... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Insider is reporting that Microsoft’s Alex Kipman, who led the teams that developed the company’s HoloLens augmented reality headset and the Kinect motion controller for Xbox and serves as one of Microsoft’s top technical fellows, has resigned after allegations of verbal abuse and sexual harassment.Microsoft wouldn't immediately confirm or deny the report, but GeekWire has already corroborated it by obtaining an internal email from Microsoft cloud boss Scott Guthrie: “We have mutually decided that this is the right time for him to leave the company to pursue other opportunities,” he writes. The memo, which you can read at GeekWire, says nothing about the allegations, and says Kipman will stay on for two more months to help with the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In January, Protocol revealed that Google was working on a cheaper Chromecast video streaming dongle that would top out at 1080p resolution, which could possibly be sold as the “Chromecast HD with Google TV.”Now, a new Google filing with the Federal Communications Commission (via Droid-Life) suggests that device is indeed on the way.Mind you, the FCC filing doesn’t straight-up confirm a Chromecast. For now, it’s simply designated the “Google G454V.” There aren’t any juicy leaked pictures; the filings simply describe as a “wireless device” with dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi plus Bluetooth LE.But if you’ll let me direct your attention for a moment to this diagram, friends, I think it will all become clear: ... Continue reading…

Taco Bell Defy in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota | Image: Taco Bell / Border Foods Today, Taco Bell opened the doors to its new digital-driven, two-story restaurant concept, Taco Bell Defy, in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Taco Bell first told us about Taco Bell Defy back in August 2021. The location uses technology to speed up service, with a “bold goal of creating a 2 minute or less drive-thru experience for customers of this concept,” according to Taco Bell President Mike Grams.Most of all, the design of the new restaurant is meant to be more mobile order and third-party delivery friendly. It delivers orders from the elevated kitchen area via a vertical lift / “food tube” seen in the video below that brings meals down to ground level — think a drive-thru bank but you get a Chalupa and Baja Blast instead of cash.... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Nearly a year ago, YouTube TV announced plans to add 5.1 surround sound support for its streaming TV package. When we spoke to YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan earlier this year on The Vergecast about new features rolling out for the platform, he told us it would arrive soon. Now, it’s here for more devices, including the most recent Chromecast with Google TV.The company announced that, in addition to previously existing surround sound support on traditional Chromecasts and TVs made by Vizio, LG, or Samsung, the immersive audio experience is rolling out to Google TV, Android TV, and Roku.According to a support page for YouTube TV, if you have a compatible hardware setup and the program you’re watching is available with 5.1... Continue reading…

Apple software developer Karen Xing details and demos Continuity Camera. | Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge It was easy to laugh yesterday when Apple revealed that you’ll soon be able to stick an iPhone on the back of your Mac to get a better webcam. Some joked that Apple design legend Jony Ive was off crying somewhere. Others wondered whether this was truly the best Apple could come up with after years of grainy MacBook images and how the Apple Studio Display’s camera fell short.

A few years ago, I was shopping for a Chromebook to take on a business trip. I wanted something lightweight enough to carry around all day and inexpensive enough that I wouldn’t mind as much when I spilled coffee on the keyboard. I was considering two different models when a sales rep came over to see if I needed help. “You’re aware,” he said, “that these are Chromebooks, right? They only work online; you can’t save any files to the hard drive.”It wasn’t the first time I’ve caught a sales rep in a mistake, of course. But this is a mistake that seems to have persisted.Yes, Chromebooks were created to be used predominantly online. In fact, when the first Chrome OS laptops were introduced in 2011, there were very few apps that could be... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Ford has been vocal about the new F-150 Lightning’s bi-directional charging capability that enables owners to use the electric truck’s massive battery to charge other EVs. And, now, the company is apparently including a new accessory so these Good Samaritan truck owners can help out stranded Teslas.A member of an online forum for new F-150 Lightning owners shared a photo of the new accessory, a J1772 Adapter for Tesla vehicles by an EV charging company called Lentz. The owner was surprised because the adapter was not listed among the standard accessories that would be provided with the new truck.While most electric vehicles feature a standard J1772 charging connector, Tesla requires a proprietary connector that’s found at the... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram now lets you pin up to three posts or reels to the top of your profile. Just like pinned posts on TikTok and Twitter, they’ll sit at the forefront of your Instagram grid as if you recently posted them.You can use the feature by selecting one of your posts or reels and then tapping the three dots at the top-right corner of the post. From there, hit Pin to your profile. When you return to your profile, you’ll see your post at the top-left corner of your grid with a white pin icon. If you decide to add another post or reel, any existing pinned posts will get pushed to the right.

Level Infinite Honor of Kings, one of the highest grossing mobile games of all time, is getting a worldwide release. Today, developer Level Infinite announced that it’s bringing Honor of Kings to the rest of the world and that invites to a closed beta would be coming soon.

This large Pokemon Go SMS group text thread gets inundated with iOS Tapback reactions. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Anyone who’s been in a text message group chat with participants spread across iOS and Android probably knows about the annoying reaction texts coming from iPhone users, usually formatted as: Person A Liked/Disliked “Person B’s message.” But now, after Google implemented a workaround inside its text message app on Android, Apple is doing something about it with iOS 16. After the update, it will hide those written messages and output them as the expected bubble icon next to the message it was in reaction to (via 9to5Mac).Google’s fix on the Android side earlier this year worked a similar way, by adding iOS-friendly emoji reactions to the Google Messages app. Apple’s iMessage Tapbacks have since appeared as proper emoji icons on Androids... Continue reading…

Updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems make them a little more human-centric. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s WWDC 2022 announcements lacked big, splashy new features, and Siri was largely MIA. But in the absence of Apple’s virtual assistant, we got a lot of small but potentially meaningful software updates centered around a very real individual: you. And me. Developers know us as “end users,” but we’re otherwise known as humans.Humans are different from end users, because we forget words, make typos, and accidentally hit send on an important email before it’s ready. Humans also have individual personalities and strong opinions about typefaces, and we’d like it if the devices we carry around 24/7 reflected that a little more. Historically, Apple has preferred to keep a tight grip on every aspect of its devices, from how they look to... Continue reading…

Kerry Washington as Professor Dovey, Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso. | Helen Sloan/Netflix © 2022 While most children grow up simply thinking of figures like Cinderella as fictional people, in Netflix’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil, fairy tales are very real accounts of historical events that everyone should know. Agatha and Sophie, the story’s heroines know that there’s a reason everyone in their village insists that kids learn the lessons woven into tales about the fae folk and warn them to steer clear of the nearby menacing forest.But, in The School for Good and Evil’s first teaser trailer that dropped as a part of this year’s Netflix Geeked Week, Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) discover that the truth that’s been looming over them their whole lives is... Continue reading…

A new plant in Puertollano, Spain, will be Europe’s largest production site for green hydrogen for industrial use. | Image: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg via Getty Images The Department of Energy kicked off a new $8 billion program yesterday to develop a network of hubs for producing hydrogen as a clean fuel. It’s a milestone for one of the Biden administration’s most contentious strategies for tackling climate change.Hydrogen has the potential to slash emissions from some of the industries that are the hardest to clean up. It might replace coal used in making steel or fossil fuels that power diesel trucks and cargo ships. When burned, it produces water vapor instead of greenhouse gas emissions (although it can still contribute to nitrogen oxide pollution in the air).The tricky part is that not all hydrogen is created the same wayThe tricky part is that not all hydrogen is created the same way and can... Continue reading…

Photos By: Coco Van Oppens Photo After two seasons, HBO Max has decided to cancel the sci-fi TV show Raised by Wolves, Variety reports. Originally ordered to series for the cable channel TNT, its first season premiered in 2020, and four months after HBO Max launched, it ranked as the service’s top streaming series.The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, and the plot, which focused on two androids raising human children on a desolate alien planet, aligned well with the hallmarks of his style. We mentioned the show as one of the standout options on HBO Max in 2021, saying, “There is a strong sense of foreboding in this world, but you just can’t turn away.” The cancellation of big-budget shows with intense fandom followings is a move we’ve seen from Netflix... Continue reading…

Microsoft is releasing its next big Windows 11 update to the Release Preview ring of final testing today. Windows 11 22H2 is expected to be available in the coming months and will include a number of big changes to the operating system, including new Start menu folders, updated touch gestures, and drag and drop for the taskbar.While you can wait for Microsoft to officially roll the update out through Windows Update, you can grab the final version, build 22621, through the Windows Insider option inside the Windows Update section of Windows 11. Just follow the prompts to sign up for the Windows Insider Program, and make sure you select Release Preview. Image: Microsoft Windows 11’s new Start menu folders. W... Continue reading…

Because they tend to be inexpensive and fairly hardy, Chromebooks are often bought as laptops for families — to be shared between parents and kids or passed around among friends. And because a Chromebook may have more than one user, it needs to have more than one login so that each user has access to their own personal apps and content.Adding a new user to a Chromebook is not difficult. Here’s how to do it:

Wendell & Wild. | Image: Netflix Regardless of the circumstances, it’s never not a great idea to make deals with demons from the underworld when they pop up offering to make deals. In the first look at Netflix’s upcoming stop-motion animated feature Wendell & Wild, from director Henry Sellick, that’s precisely what an unsuspecting teenager does.Rather than debuting a new Wendell & Wild teaser or trailer during this year’s Netflix Geeked Week, the streamer instead released a short clip introducing Kat Elliott (Lyric Ross), a 13-year-old girl dealing with a load of guilt that leads to her making a pact with demon brothers Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Jordan Peele).

Image: Apple Apple can’t seem to build its own car, so it’ll just have to take over everyone else’s.At its annual WWDC event on Monday, the tech giant announced that the next generation of CarPlay will soon break free from the bonds that confine it to the main infotainment screen and spread to additional screens within the vehicle. CarPlay will also, for the first time, use vehicle data to show crucial driving information like speed, fuel level, and engine temperature measurements as well as allow users to control settings including radio or climate.Will your car be ready for this more expansive version of CarPlay? Because the car companies certainly aren’t.Will your car be ready for this more expansive version of CarPlay? Because the car... Continue reading…

Jamie Foxx as Bud Jablonski. | PARRISH LEWIS/NETFLIX In Netflix’s upcoming action horror thriller Day Shift from director J.J. Perry, Jamie Foxx stars as Bud Jablonski, a father who provides for his family by living a dangerous double life. While his loved ones believe Bud spends his days working hard as a pool cleaner, in reality he’s one of many unionized vampire hunters who’ve committed their lives to exterminating the bloodsucking living dead.For this year’s annual Geeked Week presentation of its upcoming projects, Netflix has just released a new behind-the-scenes look at Day Shift that teases a sizable chunk of the fast-paced action that Foxx, Perry, and producer Chad Stahelski have infused the film with. In the video, Stahelski describes how his previous working relationships with... Continue reading…

When Game of Thrones was in its prime in 2014, I was really, really annoying about it. All I wanted to do was talk about the show and books, and I was running out of humans in my life who cared enough about it. Podcasting as an industry was far less developed than it is now, but there were still plenty of GOT recap and analysis pods to feed my obsession — some good, like Boars, Gore and Swords and A Cast of Kings, and some very bad, which I won’t name because it was eight years ago and we are all different people now. They allowed me to obsess over details, criticize the show when necessary (which was often), and, maybe most importantly, kept me awake on my 4AM commute to MSNBC.Inspired by grassroots recap podcasts, official podcasts... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Meet is getting an automatic transcription feature for educators signed up to Google’s Workspace for Education Plus and Teaching and Learning Upgrade plans. The text-based documents should take up less space than a full recording for educators looking to store or share their past lessons and may also make it easier to review, search through, and send lessons to students.Google is also bringing polls and Q&A sessions to teachers who use Meet to livestream their lessons, potentially opening up more opportunities for interactivity. These features were already available in standard meetings but not during livestreams.Users will be able to livestream events directly to YouTubeGoogle is expanding the reach of Meet livestreams as... Continue reading…

Figma CEO Dylan Field. | Image: Getty Google for Education has announced a new partnership with Figma. The companies will bring Figma’s design and prototyping platform as well as its collaborative whiteboarding app FigJam to education Chromebooks. Schools can apply now to the beta program, which will begin over the summer.Verge reporter Dami Lee described Figma as “Google Docs for design.” Like Google’s software, Figma is primarily web-based and is a lighter load for a computer to run than many industry-standard creative programs. Figma also allows team members to collaborate in a way that is similar to how they might in Google Docs — but on prototypes and design projects rather than text. Users can add annotations and notes to projects, mark things with stickers, and even... Continue reading…

The iOS 16 developer beta is here. | Image: Apple At this year’s WWDC, Apple introduced a bevy of new features for the forthcoming iOS 16. That includes new lock screens and widgets as well as the ability to edit Messages. And, if you’ve got an Apple developer account, you can now download the developer beta to get a firsthand look.Fair warning: beta software isn’t the finished product. If you download the iOS 16 developer beta, you have to be prepared for some apps and features to be a bit wonky. That’s why we recommend downloading the beta onto an iPhone that isn’t your daily driver. If that’s not an option for you, it’s not a bad idea to wait for the public beta, which arrives next month. And as always, back up your phone before you download the beta in case anything goes wrong.T... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram’s Sensitive Content Control feature, which puts an adjustable filter on content recommended by the platform, now applies to more areas on Instagram. In a post on its blog, Instagram says it’s expanding the setting’s impact beyond the Explore page to include anywhere it makes recommendations, including in your feed, search, hashtag pages, Reels, and Accounts You Might Follow.While you could always choose from three toggles that vary in how much sensitive content Instagram filters out, Instagram is renaming those existing options. Instead of “Allow,” “Limit,” and “Limit Even More,” Instagram’s now calling the tiers “More,” “Standard,” and “Less.” Instagram will set accounts on Standard by default, which will allow you to see... Continue reading…

Family Sharing gets a simpler setup in iOS 16. | Image: Apple I’m irrationally excited about a new feature coming to Apple’s Screen Time, the company’s gentler term for parental controls. When my kid wants that extra 15 minutes on her favorite app, her plaintive request will come through iMessage as well as a pop-up notification on my Apple devices.Why is this exciting? Well, it’s a small thing, but if you miss that Screen Time notification, which is currently the only alert you get, you have to dive into the Settings app to manually address the request. This is fiddly and time-consuming, especially when you’re in the middle of making dinner, as it involves passcodes and multiple taps. With the request sitting handily in my Messages app with a dropdown menu that presumably will give me the same... Continue reading…

Image: Waymo Waymo and Uber, former legal foes and bitter rivals in the autonomous vehicle space, are teaming up to speed up the adoption of driverless trucks. Waymo is integrating Uber Freight, the ride-hail company’s truck brokerage, into the technology that powers its autonomous big rigs.This “long-term strategic partnership” will enable fleet owners to more quickly deploy trucks equipped with Waymo’s autonomous “driver” for on-demand delivery routes offered by Uber Freight, the companies said.The announcement represents a convergence between two of the companies’ major side projects. Waymo divides its autonomous projects into two divisions: Waymo One, its consumer ride-hailing service, and Waymo Via, which is focused on goods delivery in both... Continue reading…

TikTok is launching a new feature that lets users turn themselves into custom animated avatars in the style of Apple’s Memoji, Snapchat’s Bitmoji, and Meta’s Avatars.The feature is rolling out globally today and is accessible from the app’s camera alongside TikTok’s various other effects. To use the feature on yourself, open the app, flip the camera to selfie mode, tap effects, and select the avatar effect. You can then either use a preset look or hit “new” to create a custom avatar. This lets you customize your avatar’s face shape, skin tone, hairstyle, and accessories, including makeup and piercings. You can then record a video with the avatar following your movements and facial expressions. The new avatar feature... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales The Google Pixel 6 Pro, a behemoth smartphone with a brilliant telephoto lens (along with wide and ultrawide lenses), is $100 off in time for Father’s Day. Normally $899, it’s $799 at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store through June 19th. What kind of person surprises their dad with a $799 phone? Someone who’s very giving, obviously, but also someone who wants their dad to be able to take pretty spectacular photos wherever they go.But back to that 48-megapixel telephoto lens with 4x optical zoom, which makes the Pixel 6 Pro worth getting if you or your dad is into taking intimate, close crop shots — whether portraits or landscapes. One of the biggest gripes we had in our review of this phone, however, was the price you have to pay... Continue reading…

Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge In March 2021, an artist called Beeple sold an NFT-based artwork for a record-setting $69 million — and NFTs began to shake up the art world, the tech world, and dozens of other subcultures. The year that followed has been a rollercoaster: artists and collectors have made fortunes off NFTs, brand after brand has launched digital marketing gimmicks, and NFT apes even made it onto The Tonight Show.But more recently, the NFT scene has lost much of that early momentum. Sales of NFTs have cratered, and the entire crypto market has lost much of its value. This slowdown has put the space in a new light. Can the tremendous growth and the communities that formed around it in the early days of NFTs be maintained, or was this whole thing just a... Continue reading…

Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. | Image: Marvel Studios Ms. Marvel stars Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan Continue reading…

The Wyze Scale X adds additional modes for measuring luggage, pets, and babies. | Image: Wyze Wyze announced today that it’s launching the $33.99 Scale X, a refresh of its previous Wyze Scale. For the most part, it’s a slightly cheaper but pretty standard smart scale. But the interesting thing is it includes new Baby, Pet, and Luggage modes so you can more easily measure other things without having to do the math.It might seem like a silly thing. After all, anyone can whip out their phone to subtract a baby, pet, or suitcase’s weight from their own. That said, doing the math for you is neat as it saves you from having to measure twice — once by yourself and once with the thing you’re trying to actually measure. As someone who regularly has to wrangle a cranky 18-pound cat to see if his diet is working, eliminating the extra... Continue reading…

Furbo’s dog treat camera can now rotate 360 degrees to catch your pooch wherever he may be. | Image: Furbo A favorite among Verge staff, Furbo is a smart dog camera that lets you see, hear, and talk to your pet and — their favorite part — throw treats at them. But it’s had one flaw: your animals roam around all day, and this camera can’t move. (Well, unless you pop it in the back of Amazon’s Astro home robot, but that’s a whole other blog). This week, Furbo fixed that issue with the launch of its new Furbo 360° Dog Camera, which is available now and costs $210 but is launching on Amazon and Furbo.com at the discounted price of $167.In addition to rotating 360 degrees on its base to catch all the action, the new Furbo has been upgraded with a wide-angle lens, color night vision, and auto dog tracking to automatically follow your pup as they... Continue reading…

Mengxin Li / The Verge What happens when the hype wears off? Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Conservative judges are falling for the glamour of big data Continue reading…

Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge In the Sotheby’s salesroom one evening in late February, fluorescent lights beamed down on the assembled crowd. A sea of spectators is not unusual for Sotheby’s — the 278-year-old auction house typically hosts more than 600 sales per year — but this sale was different. It was the auction house’s first-ever evening sale dedicated solely to NFTs.Sotheby’s described the event, titled “Punk it!,” as “a truly historic sale for an undeniably historic NFT project.” It consisted of a single lot — 104 CryptoPunks sold as an all-or-nothing bundle. Sotheby’s estimated the bundle would go for $20–30 million, on par with sales of paintings by David Hockney or Jean-Michel Basquiat.To drum up interest, the auction house had thrown a series of events... Continue reading…