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| Updated | 2025-11-07 02:33 |
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by Andrew Webster on (#69XT8)
Nell Tiger Free in Servant. | Image: Apple Endings are hard. That’s particularly true for serialized mystery box TV shows, ones where plentiful juicy secrets hook viewers but the answers often fail to satisfy them. Putting a final bow on a story like that is a unique challenge. That’s part of what makes Servant, the Apple TV Plus psychological thriller helmed by M. Night Shyamalan, so interesting. Whereas many of these shows seem like they’re making it up as they go, Servant had a specific ending in mind. As Shyamalan told me ahead of the most recent season premiere, “The story wanted to be four seasons.” The show has been weird, confusing, and frequently nonsensical. But at least there has been the promise that it’ll all make some sense eventually.So now, here we are at that... Continue reading…
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by Brandon Widder on (#69XT9)
Our exclusive discount drops the price of Google’s flagship earbuds in all four colorways to a mere $145. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’ve spent any time scouring the endless sea of headphones on the web recently, you won’t be surprised to hear that the wireless earbuds space is constantly evolving. Sony appears to be prepping a successor to our favorite pair of earbuds, the WF-1000XM4, while Nothing is set to launch its upcoming Ear 2 in less than a week. But if you’re looking to pick up a pair of earbuds today, you can grab Google’s Pixel Buds Pro at Wellbots for just $145 ($55 off) when you use promo code 55THEVERGE at checkout.Google’s flagships earbuds offer quite a bit over their flawed predecessor. They feature impressive noise cancellation and good sound quality, and if you’re a Pixel user, they offer easier controls and support for head-tracking spatial... Continue reading…
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by Chris Welch on (#64ZWM)
Our top fitness earbuds pick from Beats now comes in more colors, but there are also great options from Sony, Jabra, Sennheiser, and more. Continue reading…
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by David Nield on (#69XN3)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If you own an Xbox Series X or an Xbox Series S, and especially if you just got one, you might not spend a whole lot of time on the menu screens before diving into your games — but there are plenty of useful features and options that are worth exploring.Here, we’ll highlight 11 of the most useful settings that cover everything from screenshots to eye strain to audio output. You can find all of them in the Settings section of the Xbox interface.Mute notification audioIf you’re listening carefully for important sounds during gameplay, you don’t necessarily want to be distracted by pings from the console’s notification system. To turn these sounds off:
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#69XN5)
The FCC is cracking down on the relentless deluge of spammy, automated text messages. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Regulators in the US have introduced new rules to combat the growing number of text messaging scams. Announced on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) now requires that mobile service providers block automated text messages that are “highly likely to be illegal,” such as texts from unused, unallocated, or invalid phone numbers. This also includes blocking messages from phone numbers identified by government agencies or other organizations as not being used for texting.Automated messages, or “robotexts,” have become frustratingly common, relentlessly clogging up our phones with unwanted and often scammy promotions. It’s almost impossible to block junk texts completely, and some spammers have gotten creative to stand out... Continue reading…
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by Adi Robertson on (#69XG9)
Photo: Getty Images YouTube has lifted restrictions on former President Donald Trump’s YouTube account. YouTube announced on Twitter that the channel is no longer restricted and can upload new material. “We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election,” it said via the YouTubeInsider account. “This channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.”Trump was suspended from YouTube after the January 6th, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. The site removed a video that it said violated its policies against inciting violence, and it banned Trump from uploading new content — first for a... Continue reading…
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by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#69XDW)
Passing the buck is an all-American sport | Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge The culture war has come for the banks, and friends, it is stupid.There are a wide variety of proposed explanations for the fall of Silicon Valley Bank. For instance, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has suggested SVB’s board “may have been distracted by diversity demands” as I guess it had too many women, too many Black people (one), too many queer people (again, one), and too many veterans (???).Meanwhile, in The Financial Times, the problem is that Silicon Valley Bank let people work from home. “It is harder to have a challenging call over Zoom. It makes it harder to challenge management,” according to Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Stanford University who the FT chose to quote for some reason. “Ideas like hedging interest... Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#69XDX)
Mobile spinoffs based on beloved console games can sometimes be hit-or-miss. But based on an initial pair of trailers, I’m cautiously optimistic about the newly announced Persona 5: Phantom of the Night (aka The Phantom X). Following a tease in April 2021, “P5X” is now official, and is in development for Android, iOS, and Windows. Unfortunately, none of the press materials mention an international launch, so it sounds like it might be exclusive to China.That’s a shame, because (from the trailers at least) this looks like a pretty faithful Persona experience. The game appears to be set in the same locations as 2016’s Persona 5, but revolves around a new cast of characters including protagonist Wonder, their owl sidekick Luffy, and friend... Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#69X9G)
Each figurine has a screen in its helmet to show off your face. | Image: Disney What’s better than a cool Tron action figure? A cool Tron action figure with your face and voice, obviously.That’s the idea behind the Tron Identity Program, a new piece of merch that Disney will be selling visitors to the Lightcycle attraction that’s opening in Tomorrowland in Walt Disney World Florida on April 4th. The idea is that you get your face scanned, record six lines of dialogue, and then manually customize your character’s look with different helmets, bodies, and team colors, and you’re left with a figurine that feels truly “you.”It’s a not dissimilar idea to Hasbro’s Selfie Series, which 3D prints your head onto an action figure of your choosing after you scan your face with an app. But while Hasbro is going down a 3D... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#69X3K)
Image: Capcom The updated version looks incredible, plays well, and has a level of focus that’s rare in modern games. Also, there are lots of explosive barrels. Continue reading…
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#69WW7)
Here’s to hoping Hyperkin fixes one of the worst D-pads of all time. | Image: Hyperkin Good news for nostalgic millennial gamers: Hyperkin’s remake of the Xbox 360 controller is inching closer to release. The Xenon controller was first announced by Hyperkin back in November, but not much solid info was given outside of some renders and the basic knowledge that this reissue will be a USB-C wired-only reprisal for Xbox Series X / S and PC.Now, Hyperkin says the Xenon controller is set for release on June 6th, with preorders on its store beginning May 5th. If you have enough love for the old Xbox 360 controller that you want to own a reissue, which eschews wireless connectivity and the classic green LED-surrounded guide buton, the new version will cost $49.99 in white, black, red, or pink. Photo by Antonio... Continue reading…
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by Adi Robertson on (#69WW9)
A Pornhub billboard in Times Square A Canadian private equity firm has acquired MindGeek, the company behind Pornhub, YouPorn, and other major adult media sites. Financial Times reported that newly formed Ethical Capital Partners acquired MindGeek for an undisclosed amount and that it will continue to operate under an unidentified group of current executives alongside an ECP management team that includes “lawyers and former cannabis investors.” ECP also confirmed the news on its site.MindGeek is a massive but troubled brand. The company owns some of the highest-trafficked sites on the internet, but it’s also faced persistent criticism that it’s failed to prevent users from uploading or viewing illegal videos, including child sexual abuse material. Its long-standing... Continue reading…
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by Barbara Krasnoff on (#69WSN)
Illustration: Samar Haddad / The Verge IssueGoogle’s Discover page, which is the leftmost page on many Android phones, can be a useful source of news, or it can be an irritating list of clickbait headlines and repetitive articles. And because it is an intrinsic part of the OS on many phones, unless you actually installed it yourself, you probably can’t uninstall it.You can try to adjust the content by selecting the two dots at the bottom right of each article and letting the algorithm know you’re not interested, but that doesn’t always work. Or you can simply get rid of it. Sometimes, you’ve seen enough rats. You can try to tweak the Discover page algorithm; it doesn’t always work. Quick fixLong-press on any homepage screen... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#69WSP)
Another addition to a tweet’s report card — this bar is getting full. Twitter is adding yet another public metric to measure posts by. There’s now a counter for how many bookmarks a tweet has gotten that lives beside the retweet, quote retweet, and like numbers. The counter is currently only showing up for iOS users who visit the tweet details page, but a help document says there are “plans to expand.”Unlike other metrics, you can’t tap the bookmarks counter to see who’s added it to their list. According to the Twitter Support account, “bookmarks are still private” and the company will “never display which accounts have added a Tweet to their Bookmarks.”
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by Justine Calma on (#69WNM)
Flooded strawberry fields in Pajaro, California, on Wednesday, March 15th, 2023. | Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images An extremely wet winter has lifted much of California out of drought, and more rain is on the way. The deluge of rain and snowfall this season has “wiped out exceptional and extreme drought in California” for the first time since 2020, according to a spring outlook published today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).The agency forecasts more improvement throughout spring, with even more regions potentially seeing their drought conditions end. Even so, California’s recovery will be patchy, and it’ll take years to replenish some crucial water sources. And as recent storms have already shown, the state will continue to face new dangers from flooding.“Climate change is driving both wet and dry extremes”“Climate... Continue reading…
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#69WNN)
V2 of Celsys’ art and animation software provides new features for automatic illustration adjustments and referencing. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Celsys has released Clip Studio Paint 2.0, the first major update for its popular digital illustration app that introduces new 3D referencing tools, brush effects, and additional language support.Some of the most notable additions for the update build on the app’s existing support for 3D models, which can be imported into the app and used as drawing references. Version 2.0 of Clip Studio Paint introduces a customizable head model within the 3D section of the Material palette that can be freely positioned to find the desired angle. There are nine preset faces to choose from that cover realism, anime, ultra-masculine superhero, and more. Head size, shape, lighting, and facial features are all adjustable.
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#69WNR)
Image: VW Volkswagen unveiled its affordable, mass-market electric vehicle in the form of a concept called the ID. 2all. With a starting price of 25,000 euros ($26,600) and an estimated range of 450 kilometers (279 miles), the Golf-looking electric hatchback is intended to be that most elusive thing: a plug-in vehicle for the people.VW revealed the ID. 2all during an investor event in Germany — calling to mind Tesla’s own investor day event, in which Elon Musk was expected to show off his own affordable EV but didn’t. Tesla’s share price dropped after the event as investors griped about the absence of the promised EV. And less than two weeks later, VW has responded with its own spin on what an EV for the mass might look like.The Golf-looking... Continue reading…
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by Sean Hollister on (#69WNS)
Valve’s Steam Deck portable gaming PC. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It’s been just over a year since Valve launched its Steam Deck portable gaming PC — and it’s just now going on sale.Until March 23rd at 10AM PT, you can get a Steam Deck for 10 percent off — in the US, that translates to $359.10 for 64GB, $476.10 for 256GB, or $584.10 for the 512GB model, before tax. Shipping is free. Prices for the Steam Deck with the 10 percent discount. Why now, instead of exactly at the one-year mark? It might be that it coincides with Valve’s Spring Sale or that it took some time to put together this Happy Birthday video...It also might be that sales of the always-improving portable have finally begun to drop.While the Steam Deck has spent staggering nonconsecutive weeks atop Steam’s... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#69WGM)
Microsoft Business Chat | Image: Microsoft One of the new Copilot AI features coming to Microsoft 365 apps and services is dubbed Business Chat. It’s a chatbot experience that’s able to summarize information pulled from meeting transcripts, recent contacts with customers, entries in your calendar, and more that you can plug into emails for the team or as slides in a presentation.According to Microsoft, by using grounding to focus the AI on your business’ trove of data, it can create relevant, accurate responses to natural language prompts, like “Did anything happen yesterday with [customer X]?” The bot is accessible from Microsoft365.com, Bing when signed in with a work account, or via Microsoft Teams. Image: Microsoft Microsoft Business Chat The... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#69WBR)
Image: Lawrence Sumulong/Getty Images Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is resigning, effective immediately, he announced in a blog post on Thursday.Shear has been at Twitch since before it was Twitch. He was a co-founder of Justin.tv, the platform where Justin Kan streamed his life 24/7. That became Twitch in 2011 to focus on popular gaming livestreams, and just three years later, the platform was acquired by Amazon for nearly a billion dollars.
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#69WGN)
The artwork itself may not be for everyone, but Ikea sells easy drop-in, drop-out alternates. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Maybe Ikea is feeling buoyed by the hype around the new Sonos Era 100 and 300 speakers, especially now that the speakers are up for preorder; the flat-pack furniture maker has dropped the price even further on its art-like smart speaker you can hang on your wall.The Ikea Symfonisk picture frame Sonos speaker is now on sale for $169.99 ($90 off) direct from Ikea until May 29th or “while supplies last.” We don’t know if that means the unusual speaker is on its way out or that a new one is coming, but we do know this is a great deal. Now, I know I said the Symfonisk was a screaming deal last month at $194.99, but surprisingly, it is now another $25 cheaper. Don’t worry if you bought one last month — Ikea offers a 90-day price protection if... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#69WAZ)
Image: Microsoft Microsoft is announcing a new AI-powered Copilot for its Microsoft 365 apps and services today, designed to assist people with generating documents, emails, presentations, and much more. The Copilot, powered by GPT-4 from OpenAI, will sit alongside Microsoft 365 apps much like an assistant (remember Clippy?), appearing in the sidebar as a chatbot that allows Office users to summon it to generate text in documents, create PowerPoint presentations based on Word documents, or even help use features like PivotTables in Excel. Microsoft’s Copilot leaked earlier today.“It works alongside you, embedded in the apps millions of people use everyday: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more,” said Microsoft 365 head Jared Spataro.... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#69WB0)
Venus beside a crescent Moon on July 15th, 2018. | Image: NASA / Bill Dunford We’ve been getting fooled by photos of the night sky for years; now, tech is making it even easier. Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#69WB1)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition is at the messy stage. After recruiting Nvidia, Nintendo, and two other cloud gaming companies to help convince regulators to approve its $68.7 billion deal, Microsoft is now criticizing the UK’s Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) math calculations.The CMA published a financial model that calculated Microsoft could turn a profit by withholding Call of Duty from PlayStation to draw former Sony fans to Xbox, basing its calculations on profits and losses from Xbox hardware, subscriptions, and games over a period of five years.Microsoft argues that the CMA’s financial modeling is flawed. The CMA’s model compares gains on a five-year basis to losses on just a one-year basis, and... Continue reading…
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by Nilay Patel on (#69WB3)
Illustration: Alex Parkin / The Verge CEO James Daunt explains how Barnes & Noble is different than Amazon. Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#69WB5)
Leaked images of what could be the Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds. | Image: The Walkman Blog Sony could be on the cusp of announcing a successor to the excellent WF-1000XM4 true wireless earbuds, if a series of leaked images published by The Walkman Blog are any indication. The new earbuds will reportedly be called the WF-1000XM5, which shouldn’t be confused with the over-ear WH-1000XM5 headphones Sony released last year. The Walkman Blog has a pretty good track record with these kinds of leaks given it published similar photos of the XM4 earbuds prior to their announcement in 2021.Although it’s great to see evidence of a potential successor to the best true wireless earbuds available today, the images themselves suggest any changes could be minimal. The Walkman Blog notes that the earbuds seem to be more compact overall, with... Continue reading…
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by Mia Sato on (#69W61)
Image: TikTok TikTok is adding a way for users to “refresh” For You page content when they want to switch up their feed. In February, the company previously said it was testing the feature. Now, the Refresh button is set to roll out to users globally over the coming weeks.When users turn on the reset feature, the recommendations algorithm will revert back as if they just signed up for TikTok. As the user watches and interacts with content, the algorithm will begin to serve up recommendations based on the user’s actions after hitting Refresh.The app’s closely guarded recommendations system takes in user signals like watch time, comments, and likes to suggest related content. TikTok says users may want to reset their feed if they lose interest in the... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#69W62)
Image: H0x0d (Twitter) Microsoft is holding a big AI event later today, but one of the announcements appears to have just leaked. Twitter user h0x0d has published details of a PowerPoint Copilot feature, which appears to include ChatGPT-like AI that will create presentations for you.The Copilot appears in a sidebar in an online version of PowerPoint where you can ask the assistant to create a presentation based on a Word document. PowerPoint then immediately drafts a presentation, complete with a full slide deck based on the contents of the Word document supplied.
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by Tom Warren on (#69W64)
Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is holding a special “future of work with AI” event today, where the company says it’ll be “reinventing productivity with AI.” Microsoft is expected to demonstrate how its ChatGPT-like AI will work in Microsoft 365 and Office apps like Teams, Word, and Outlook. CEO Satya Nadella and head of Microsoft 365 Jared Spataro will host the event starting at 8AM PT / 11AM ET.The event takes place just two days after Google announced AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft, in what looks like another front in the battle between the two companies over the future of productivity apps.The Verge revealed last month that Microsoft was planning an AI event in March to demo how its new ChatGPT-like AI will transform its Office... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#69W63)
Photo by Brandon Sloter / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images The next time a coach or umpire calls for a review, they’ll get the results beamed in from the Major League Baseball (MLB) replay center in New York over Zoom, creating one more meeting that could’ve been an email.Starting this season, umpire crew chiefs on the field will use the new “Zoom Replay Operations Center” to beam into replay reviews taking place at the league’s replay center in New York. Previously, umps only had access to audio of review conversations, and now they’ll have video, too, even though the remote umpires’ decision will be the one that’s final. Once an umpire or team manager calls for a review, the results depend on the person watching the replay.Naturally, it won’t just be umps that will see more Zoom branding... Continue reading…
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#69W65)
Snapchat’s latest safety feature allows parents to filter out sensitive content on their children’s devices. | Image: Snapchat Snapchat has rolled out new parental Content Controls to help prevent minors from being exposed to potentially inappropriate content while using the app. Announced on Tuesday, parents and guardians can now access new content filtering capabilities through Snapchat’s Family Center supervision tool to block “sensitive or suggestive” content from appearing on their child’s Snapchat Stories or Spotlight feed.The feature can be enabled by selecting “Restrict Sensitive Content” within the Family Center settings. Snap notes that enabling the feature won’t restrict the content your child can view elsewhere on the app outside of Snapchat’s Stories and Spotlight sections, such as Chat, Snaps, and Search.Snapchat has publically released its... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#69VQM)
Illustration: The Verge Have you ever spent money on microtransactions or in-game items and then regretted it? Bernard Kim, CEO of Match Group, has. During a talk at New Street Research’s online dating summit, he dropped this anecdote while talking about mobile games (emphasis mine):
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by Emma Roth on (#69VK9)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge ChipMixer, a cryptocurrency mixing service with ties to the hacks targeting FTX and Axie Infinity, has been pulled offline by the FBI, Europol, and other international authorities. In a press release published Wednesday, the Justice Department says authorities seized $46 million worth of cryptocurrency along with the service’s domains and GitHub account.Crypto mixing services like ChipMixer make it more difficult for third parties, such as law enforcement, to trace crypto transactions, as they funnel different payments into a single pool of crypto before splitting up each amount and sending them to designated recipients. According to law enforcement, unlike crypto services registered to operate in the US, it naturally didn’t collect... Continue reading…
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