The Verge

“1337” seems appropriate. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Two Twitter icons joined Bluesky on Thursday. Dril was first, with AOC joining shortly after.The invite-only decentralized Twitter alternative has been gaining steam in recent days — I’ve seen a lot of people I follow on the bird-themed social network start to show up on Bluesky. But the Twitter clone might truly begin to feel like a New Twitter now that Dril (the Twitter legend who recently gave an interview as his real-life human self) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have officially joined the platform.There’s nothing on Dril’s Bluesky profile that makes it absolutely clear that it’s really him. (He hasn’t tied a domain name to his handle, for example.) Dril has posted once, but it’s an extremely not-safe-for-work post that... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Podcasts have finally started to arrive for YouTube Music users in the US. The change will allow you to tune into podcasts on the YouTube Music app, where you can gain access to on-demand, offline streams that support background listening without a Premium subscription.YouTube first announced that it was bringing podcasts to its music streaming service at The Verge’s Hot Pod Summit in February, and now it’s “gradually” rolling out to users. The YouTube Music app will now have a dedicated podcast tab where you can browse through shows that were once limited to the main YouTube app. You can also swap between the audio and video versions of a podcast while using YouTube Music.

Image: Clubhouse Clubhouse, the app that sparked a wave of audio-only features, is laying off over 50 percent of its employees. The app’s co-founders, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, shared the news in a memo to employees, where they emphasize a need to “reset” the company in a post-covid era.“As the world has opened up post-Covid, it’s become harder for many people to find their friends on Clubhouse and to fit long conversations into their daily lives,” the founders write. “To find its role in the world, the product needs to evolve. This requires a period of change.”In their memo, Davison and Seth say they’ve been unable to make things work with the current size of Clubhouse’s team, noting that it’s “difficult” to “communicate the strategy to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Windows 10 22H2 will be the final version of the operating system, Microsoft said in a blog post on Thursday. Moving forward, all editions of Windows 10 will be supported with monthly security updates until October 14th, 2025, when Microsoft will end support. (Some releases on the Long-Term Servicing Channel, or LTSC, will get updates past that end of support date.)Microsoft is encouraging users to now transition to Windows 11 because Windows 10 won’t be getting any new features.

Microsoft-branded keyboards will be a thing of the past. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft will no longer manufacture mice, keyboards, and webcams that are Microsoft-branded. Instead, Microsoft is now focusing on its Surface-branded PC accessories, which include mice, keyboards, pens, and more. It brings an end to the legacy of Microsoft-branded PC hardware after the company first launched its first mouse in 1983 and bundled it with Microsoft Word and Notepad.“Going forward, we are focusing on our Windows PC accessories portfolio under the Surface brand,” says Dan Laycock, senior communications manager at Microsoft, in a statement to The Verge. “We will continue to offer a range of Surface branded PC Accessories — including mice, keyboards, pens, docks, adaptive accessories, and more. Existing Microsoft branded PC... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla violated national labor laws by suppressing employees at its Orlando, Florida, service center from discussing pay and bringing up grievances on working conditions, a US labor judge ruled on Wednesday (PDF). The decision comes after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accused Tesla of instructing its employees to refrain from discussing the hiring, suspension, and termination of employees last year.Tesla has now been ordered by the judge to cease and desist from continuing to violate labor law. As pointed out in an email from NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado to The Verge, Tesla must post multi-lingual notices of the ruling around the Orlando facility in areas where it would normally post notices. The automaker will also have... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google Authenticator is getting end-to-end encryption — eventually. After security researchers criticized the company for not including it with Authenticator’s account-syncing update, Google product manager Christiaan Brand responded on Twitter by saying that the company has “plans to offer E2EE” in the future.“Right now, we believe that our current product strikes the right balance for most users and provides significant benefits over offline use,” Brand writes. “However, the option to use the app offline will remain an alternative for those who prefer to manage their backup strategy themselves.”

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is rolling out a bunch of new features for Microsoft Designer, its AI-powered graphic design tool, to streamline how users design social media posts. The platform will soon be accessible directly through the Edge web browser and has additional AI-powered creative tools to help it compete with rival graphic design services like Canva.Microsoft Designer was first unveiled in October last year and includes AI text-to-image features similar to tools like Stable Diffusion. Users can generate images using text prompts, incorporating the results into projects like invitations, greeting cards, and social media posts. Think of it as a combination of DALL-E and Adobe Express, albeit with significant limitations. Image:... Continue reading…

Image: Speedrookie (Reddit) AMD says it has resolved the voltage issues that have apparently been causing the company’s new 7000X3D series processors to randomly burn out, killing both the CPU and motherboard. The company has now distributed a BIOS firmware update to its board partners that place voltage restrictions on the AM5 socket motherboards they ran in, which should prevent the affected CPUs from operating beyond their intended limits.“We have root caused the issue and have already distributed a new [AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture] that puts measures in place on certain power rails on AM5 motherboards to prevent the CPU from operating beyond its specification limits, including a cap on SOC voltage at 1.3V,” AMD spokesperson Matthew Hurwitz... Continue reading…

FromSoftware Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon has a release date: August 23rd. To mark the announcement, FromSoftware has revealed a new trailer and a blog sharing gameplay details and more.Armored Core VI takes place on the ruined planet Rubicon that was devastated by the detonation of a volatile but highly sought energy source called coral. As an armored core pilot, your job will be to complete missions, fighting back against the other forces desperate to get their hands on the material.Through the glimpses of gameplay in the trailer, combat in Armored Core VI looks blisteringly fast with heavy mechs darting about the battlefield. According to game director Masaru Yamamura, the new assault boost feature lets mechs swiftly close the distance... Continue reading…

Photo by Thomas Trutschel / Photothek via Getty Images Dropbox is laying off around 500 employees, making up about 16 percent of the company’s entire workforce. In a memo to employees, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston attributes the layoffs to a rocky economy — but also says that the cuts will allow the company to build out its AI division.“In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible,” Houston writes. “However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we’ll need even more.”

Photo by Sergei Supinsky / AFP via Getty Images Colorado has become the first US state to pass a law that gives farmers the right to repair their own equipment. Governor Jared Polis signed the bill into law on Tuesday, requiring manufacturers to provide access to the parts, software, tools, and documentation necessary for farmers or independent repair shops to fix agricultural equipment.“This is a common-sense bipartisan bill to help people avoid unnecessary delays from equipment repairs,” Governor Polis says in a statement. “Farmers and ranchers can lose precious weeks and months when equipment repairs are stalled due to long turnaround times by manufacturers and dealers. This bill will change that.”The move marks a step forward in the right-to-repair movement. It addresses a... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge General Motors announced the creation of its own open-source software protocol as a “starting point” for other automakers and developers to create better software experiences for its customers. The move comes as the auto industry scrambles to hire more software developers and programmers to help produce cars that are essentially computers on wheels.GM’s “uProtocol” is part of the automaker’s plan to “speed up software development by streamlining the creation of software that is distributed across multiple devices within vehicles as well as across the cloud and mobile,” the company said in a release.More importantly, GM says it sees this as an opportunity to work across the industry on software projects that could be beneficial to all... Continue reading…

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max is down to just $34.99 ($20 off) at multiple retailers right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The latest season of The Mandalorian may be over, but there are still plenty of other shows to look forward to, including a third season of The Witcher. The first batch of episodes will drop in late June, but you can prep yourself now with today’s deal on Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Right now, the streaming stick is available for its all-time low of $34.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.As far as streaming devices go, the 4K Max offers quite a bit for the price. It provides access to a terrific selection of streaming services along with support for Wi-Fi 6, Dolby Vision, HDR, HDR10 Plus, and Dolby Atmos, allowing for more immersive sound quality. Plus, it offers impressive voice capabilities via the included Alexa remote,... Continue reading…

Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images Lawyers for automaker Tesla have argued that statements by Elon Musk about the capabilities of the company’s Autopilot software can’t be trusted as they could be deepfakes, according to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg.Tesla presented this argument as part of its justification as to why Musk shouldn’t be interviewed under oath for a lawsuit blaming the company for the death of Apple engineer Walter Huang in a fatal crash in 2018.Huang died while driving a Tesla Model X, with attorneys for his family arguing Tesla’s driver assist software was at fault. The attorneys seek to interview Musk regarding statements he made about the safety of this software. These include an interview in 2016 in which Musk claimed that “a Model S and Model... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung’s memory chip business just had a terrible quarter, as falling demand and high inventories contributed to a 4.58 trillion won (around $3.4 billion) loss from the division, Bloomberg reports. The loss at the unit, which CNBC reports is typically its largest profit driver, contributed to Samsung’s quarterly operating profit plunging 95 percent in the quarter to 640 billion won (roughly $478 million).A few different factors contributed to Samsung’s losses at its memory chip division. Smartphone and PC makers stockpiled chips during the pandemic as a hedge against supply issues as demand boomed, but have since been left with large inventory excesses as consumer demand has dropped off amidst high inflation and broader global economic... Continue reading…

Image: Asus Sure, Asus can build a faster Steam Deck-like handheld gaming PC, but there’s no way it could compete with Valve on price, right?Guess again. The higher-end Asus ROG Ally will apparently cost just $699.99. That’s for the model with an AMD Z1 Extreme chip, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD — meaning that Asus’ 512GB handheld costs just $51 more than a 512GB Steam Deck.That’s according to data shown to The Verge by reliable gadget leaker Roland Quandt, a leaked screenshot from BestBuy provided by Wickedkhumz, and an earlier leak by SnoopyTech. The data we’ve seen leaves little room for confusion — even the product number associated with the $699.99 gadget identifies it as the Z1 Extreme model with 512GB of storage, and we’ve got a long list... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google Meet finally supports 1080p video calls — but only for paying subscribers. In an update on Wednesday, Google says it’s bringing the upgrade to select Workspace and Google One users.Additionally, you can only access 1080p video calls on the web-based version of Google Meet, and it all depends on whether your computer’s webcam actually supports the resolution. Google also notes that you’ll need additional bandwidth to send 1080p video and says that it will automatically adjust your resolution if bandwidth is “constrained.” Image: Google The feature isn’t enabled by default, but you can toggle it on by selecting the three dots in the top right corner of your video feed and then hitting Turn on HD video. Since... Continue reading…

The existing Ayaneo 2. The new 2S looks much the same. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Z1 Extreme who? Ayaneo has just confirmed it will use AMD’s similar but unannounced Ryzen 7000 U-series chips in a new batch of handheld gaming PCs — including the never-before-seen Ayaneo 2S and Ayaneo Geek 1S, the previously announced sliding keyboard Ayaneo Slide, and a new version of the Ayaneo Air Plus.What’s more, the company is now promising upgrades for its existing PCs instead of just rapidly making them obsolete — it will offer a free speaker upgrade for every Ayaneo Air and a free cooling module for every Ayaneo 2 and Ayaneo Geek that can lower its temperature by up to 12 degrees Celsius. Image: Ayaneo via Webandme (Discord) Image: Ayaneo via Webandme (Discord) The new three-pipe... Continue reading…

Image: Evan Blass via Twitter The latest leaked images of the upcoming Motorola Razr give us an even better look at the foldable’s large outer display and interface, as first spotted by 9to5Google. In a set of images posted to Twitter by reliable leaker Evan Blass (who has made his account private), you can see how the display extends from the phone’s hinge and wraps around the device’s dual cameras.The images also show off some of the different clock displays you can use and suggest that you can customize the interface’s font, layout, color, theme, and wallpaper to your liking. It seems like Motorola may add a new color option into the mix as well, with the above image showing two devices featuring a deep red hinge.Blass calls the pictured device the “Motorola... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is planning to move Microsoft 365 apps onto a single domain, cloud.microsoft. Currently, the company’s apps are scattered across a wide variety of domains, which means it can be confusing to know where to find a certain service if you don’t have it memorized or bookmarked somewhere.Seriously, Microsoft currently uses a lot of domains. Check out this word cloud from Microsoft showing just a few of the domains Microsoft customers have to sort through: Image: Microsoft Oof. But under this new system, you can instead use URLs like “outlook.cloud.microsoft” and “teams.cloud.microsoft” to get to the app you’re looking for, as shown in the below GIF from the company. Much cleaner. GIF:... Continue reading…

RIP the Halo View. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amazon has decided to shutter its health-focused Halo division, The Verge has learned. Amazon has stopped selling its three Halo products and plans to lay off portions of the Halo team.“We have made the difficult decision to wind down the Halo program, which will result in role reductions,” Melissa Cha, Amazon’s VP of smart home and health, told staffers in an email obtained by The Verge. “More recently, Halo has faced significant headwinds, including an increasingly crowded segment and an uncertain economic environment. Although our customers love many aspects of Halo, we must prioritize resources and maximize benefits to customers and the long-term health of the business.”Cha went on to write that all Halo hardware would be... Continue reading…

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images The damage to the launch pad went far beyond what experts were expecting. And nearby residents are left dealing with the environmental fallout. Continue reading…

Unlike prior models, the 2022 model features a matte display that dramatically reduces glare. | Image: Samsung Let’s face it: good art is rarely cheap. Thankfully, however, Samsung’s 32-inch Frame TV is currently on sale at BuyDig right now for $380 with promo code FNJ23, providing you with a more cost-effective way to outfit your living room with well-known masterpieces.This 2022 QLED panel isn’t a vast update over the prior model — it still touts a 120Hz refresh rate, HDMI 2.1 support, and compatibility with voice assistants like Amazon Alexa — but the 4K set now comes with a new anti-glare matte finish, which helps it look like a piece of actual artwork when turned off (as opposed to the hulking black box that it is). Sure, some of said art is paywalled behind a $5 monthly subscription, but if good picture quality and aesthetics are what... Continue reading…

Is Apple really good for your health? | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Here are some cursed words: “Apple Plans AI-Powered Health Coaching Service, Mood Tracker and iPad Health App.”I can see why you might say, Liz, this sounds benign and obvious. What’s the big deal? And I think about a meeting I had in 2014 with a freelance writer who was wearing three fitness trackers, inadvertently imitating Madonna’s 1980s stacked bracelets look. He asked me how I slept. I was — and am — a pretty good sleeper. I snooze heavily for seven to eight hours and wake up feeling good, sometimes even before my alarm goes off because I am (sorry) a morning person.The freelancer I’d been speaking to, perhaps obviously, had been having trouble sleeping, and as someone who was fairly devoted to optimizing his life through fitness... Continue reading…

Though you’re going to miss out on owning this excellent box art in physical form. | Image: Nintendo Are you hyped for the impending launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom but still a little miffed about it being the first $70 Nintendo Switch game? If you’re a Nintendo Switch Online subscriber, there’s something you can do about that. By buying Nintendo’s digital game vouchers, you can effectively preorder your digital copy of the new Zelda for just $49.99.Spend $100 to save up to $30 on two gamesThe Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers cost $99.98 for two, each of which is redeemable for a qualifying full-price game on the eShop. The game list includes preorders like the upcoming Zelda, Pikmin 4, and recent hits that haven’t seen many discounts yet — such as Splatoon 3. If you pay $99.98 for the two vouchers and use one to... Continue reading…

Photo by Joseph Prezioso / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Disney is suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, alleging his administration waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” against the company’s “protected speech.” In the lawsuit, Disney claims DeSantis “threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”“Disney regrets that it has come to this,” the lawsuit states. “But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution, the Company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.”T... Continue reading…

Toad and Princess Peach. | Universal For anyone who’s been holding out hope for a subbed US release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie with performances from the film’s Japanese voice-acting cast intact, your time has finally come, but it won’t last very long.It’s not really clear when, exactly, Illumination and Universal’s Super Mario Bros. Movie will step off the other movies’ necks and let someone else have a turn at being number one at the box office. But beginning this Friday, Japanese-language screenings of the film will begin showing “for a limited time only” in select theaters in Honolulu, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver.

Here are some steps that can make layoffs slightly less stressful. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge There’s no sugarcoating it: getting laid off stinks. And while there’s no such thing as a “good” layoff, a bad one can absolutely be made worse if your now ex-company cuts off your access to contacts, emails, and work without warning.You probably know someone who had this happen to them. (Or perhaps you’re worried it could happen to you.) It seems heartless, but the bottom line is that companies abruptly cut off access to protect their interests. You might just want a colleague’s email to keep in touch or might want to save examples of your work to prove your worth to possible employers. To the company, however, the most important thing is to make sure disgruntled ex-employees don’t abscond with sensitive information like internal... Continue reading…

Image: Enhance Some of the most memorable games in PlayStation history have been downright strange, whether about dancing wireframe rabbits, deadly cubes, or mannequins traversing impossible architecture. These “very designer-led games,” as Mark MacDonald from Tetris Effect studio Enhance describes them, were often iconic — but they’ve also largely fallen out of favor. That’s where Humanity comes in. It’s an introspective game about a dog guiding a sea of humanity through puzzle-like mazes, and it’s as odd as it is compelling, a callback to exactly those kinds of classic PlayStation experiences.Humanity is a collaboration between Enhance — led by the legendary Tetsuya Mizuguchi, of Rez and Lumines fame — and designer Yugo Nakamura. Ahead of its launch... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix We knew a sixth season of Netflix’s Black Mirror was on the way, but now, we know a lot more about it: a new teaser trailer shared Wednesday reveals that the season will be out in June and features big actors like Aaron Paul, Kate Mara, and Salma Hayek.In a blog post, Netflix is promising that the season will be the show’s “most unpredictable” yet. The company isn’t saying why that is just yet, but a quote from Charlie Brooker, the show’s creator, sheds a bit of light on what you can look forward to.“The stories are all still tonally Black Mirror through-and-through”“Partly as a challenge, and partly to keep things fresh for both me and the viewer, I began this season by deliberately upending some of my own core assumptions about what... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is now rolling out a new update to its Phone Link app that includes iOS support for the first time. The Phone Link app now allows iPhone owners to connect to a Windows 11 PC and send and receive messages via iMessage, make and receive calls, and see their notifications on a PC or laptop.Microsoft started previewing this update earlier this year, and it’s now rolling out in 39 languages across 85 countries. Microsoft says all Windows 11 will get access to the iPhone support in Phone Link by mid-May.Phone Link works by sending messages over Bluetooth to contacts. Apple’s iOS then intercepts these messages and forces them to be sent over iMessage, much like how Apple’s operating system detects when you’re sending a message to an... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Rural customers subscribed to Verizon’s 5G network could see a jump in their speeds later this year. The telecommunications giant revealed plans during its quarterly earnings call this week to extend its C-band 5G network — which uses a radio spectrum that enables faster speeds on a wide scale — to more rural and suburban areas by December 2023.We don’t know specifically which areas the expansion will cover. During the earnings call, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg mentioned that the company’s C-band 5G coverage has so far been deployed to 70 out of the 406 available markets, mostly in urban and suburban areas. “It’s 330 markets left, we will get the C-band,” said Vestberg. He didn’t clarify how many of these markets would be covered by the... Continue reading…

Apps like Weather Fit are coming up with new ways to think about the forecast. | Image: Weather Fit Forecast Advisor might be the best-kept secret in the weather business. It’s a website, run by a company called Intellovations, that compares the accuracy of a dozen of the largest weather forecasters. You put in your ZIP code (it only works in the US), and it spits back a ranking of the services based on how correctly they predicted the weather over the last month and the last year. You might be shocked at how different the various sources are and how bad some of them are at predicting the weather.Depending on which weather app you use, this is extremely actionable information. Many third-party weather apps allow you to switch between data sources, so you can pick the one that’s most accurate near you — AccuWeather, in my case — and... Continue reading…

Is it still Time to BeReal? | Image: BeReal The ongoing collapse of Twitter has lots of folks wondering when an all-consuming new social app will rise up to take its place. This week, I want to talk about how things are going at one such upstart — and what it tells us about how new social products win and lose in 2023.That upstart is BeReal. In July of last year, the photo-sharing app had a breakout moment when frequent discussions of the app on TikTok pushed it to the top of the app store charts. Like most insurgent social networks, BeReal arrived with a novel creative constraint: a once-a-day window to post, delivered at a different time each day via push notification, that attempts to create a less performative social experience by inviting you to post your life at its most... Continue reading…