The Verge

Clippy is back to make or break your holidays. | Image: Microsoft Clippy has returned this year to appear on Microsoft’s latest ugly sweater. The Microsoft Office assistant that was both hated and loved is the latest in a series of Windows-themed ugly sweaters from Microsoft and will be available from the company’s Xbox Gear Shop today, priced at $74.99.That’s quite the price to pay to spread some holiday cheer, but all proceeds will be donated to the College Success Foundation this year, alongside a $100,000 donation from Microsoft. Image: Microsoft Nobody can see Clippy from behind. This is Microsoft’s fifth year of Windows-themed ugly sweaters and the third year the company has been selling them to the general public. “It started back in 2017, we had posted three made-up... Continue reading…

You can also send your location via satellite in the Find My app. You don’t have to hold your arm up to get a signal, though there is a lot of turning around and waiting when trying to connect to satellites. Continue reading…

Image: Activision Bored of hearing about whether Microsoft will keep Call of Duty on PlayStation or not? Good, because so is Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. In an interview on Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Spencer has settled the debate over the future of Call of Duty on PlayStation once and for all.“It’s not about at some point I pull the rug underneath PlayStation 7’s legs and it’s ‘ahaha you just didn’t write the contract long enough,’” says Spencer. “There’s no contract that could be written that says forever.”Spencer has spent weeks responding to questions over whether Microsoft would make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox if the company’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through.The Verge... Continue reading…

Aqara’s new automatic pet feeder works with smart home automations and voice commands. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Smart home company Aqara is bringing some connected fun to your pets. The new $99.99 Aqara Smart Pet Feeder C1 can feed your cat or dog on a schedule, remotely using its app, by a voice command with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri, or based on motion when connected with an Aqara motion sensor.There are plenty of automatic pet feeders out there, but very few can integrate with smart home devices to create useful automations for feeding your pet. The C1 uses Zigbee 3.0 and requires an Aqara smart home hub (starting at $30) to connect to the internet and Aqara’s app to set up those automations.For example, you can have an Aqara indoor camera start recording when the food is dispensed so you can check and see if your... Continue reading…

The Garmin Bounce is the company’s first LTE watch for kids. | Image: Garmin Garmin already has a ton of colorful fitness trackers for kids, but today, it’s launching the $149.99 Bounce — its first LTE smartwatch for kids. The device is meant to help parents keep an eye on their kids without having to shell out for a smartphone or manage what their kids are doing with it.Bounce includes both built-in GPS and LTE. On top of tracking their child’s whereabouts, Bounce allows parents to set alerts for whenever their child leaves a designated area. Children can also send their current location to their parents via a notification in the Garmin Jr. app. Like Apple’s Family Setup on the Apple Watch, parents can activate a do-not-disturb mode during school hours.Aside from location tracking, Bounce also supports... Continue reading…

Amazon Clinic is a new message-based virtual healthcare service that offers accessible treatments for a variety of common health concerns. | Image: Amazon Amazon has launched Amazon Clinic, a message-based online healthcare service that offers treatments for over 20 “common health conditions” such as allergies, dandruff, hair loss, birth control, erectile dysfunction, and acne.Amazon Clinic requires customers to select the condition they require treatment for and then choose a preferred provider from an available list of licensed telehealth providers. After completing an intake questionnaire, customers can connect with clinicians for a consultation via a secure message-based portal. A personalized treatment plan will then be provided via the portal alongside any necessary prescriptions, which can be filled at any pharmacy of the customer’s choosing — including Amazon Pharmacy. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter may be in big trouble when it comes to generating advertising revenue: GroupM, part of WPP, the world’s biggest ad company — and Twitter’s biggest spender — is reportedly telling its clients that buying ads on the platform is “high-risk,” according to Platformer and Digiday. That makes it the third advertising juggernaut telling massive corporations that they might want to take their money elsewhere, after IPG and Omnicom Media Group both recommended pausing advertisements on the platform.GroupM works with companies like Google, L’Oréal, Bayer, Nestle, Unilever, Coke, and Mars. If you’ve ever seen that graphic about how a few brands make pretty much everything you buy at the grocery store, you’ll notice a lot of Venn diagram... Continue reading…

Image: Nike Nike’s still planning to get in on the non-fungible token (NFT) game, even though the NFT market is plummeting and the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume went bankrupt last week. The company’s launching what it calls .Swoosh, a Web3 platform that will eventually let users buy, sell, and trade virtual shoes and apparel.Nike didn’t offer too many details about what exactly to expect but suggests that you will one day be able to use its assets as wearable items in digital games and “other immersive experiences.” While signups for the platform open on November 18th, don’t expect to actually buy anything: .Swoosh’s first digital collection doesn’t come out until next January. Once that happens, Nike says it’ll let creators... Continue reading…

A solar panel installation by Californian solar company Sunrun. | Photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) new solar energy proposal removes a previously proposed monthly grid tax that could’ve added hundreds of dollars per year to the cost of solar installations (via Reuters).The CPUC was looking to slash solar incentives for customers of investor-owned utilities and, in December, proposed charging a monthly fee of $8 per kilowatt to connect new solar customers to the grid. As pointed out by my colleague Justine Calma, some industry groups opposed the plan saying it “would end California’s solar boom,” which has made it the state with more rooftop solar than anywhere else in the US.The CPUC responded by removing the monthly grid fee from its proposal.At the same time, the CPUC is also... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google has agreed to pay a $391.5 million settlement to 40 states over allegations that the company tracked users’ locations without their knowledge (via The New York Times). As part of the settlement, Google’s required to alert users when location tracking’s enabled, as well as provide information on how to turn off the feature starting in 2023.A coalition of attorneys general from Oregon, New York, Florida, Nebraska, and other states filed the lawsuit in response to a 2018 report from the Associated Press that reveals how Google silently tracked users’ locations across its various services on iPhone and Android. The lawsuit alleges that from 2014 to 2019, Google misled users into thinking their location had been switched off and would... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge These days, there seems to be almost daily upheaval at Twitter. You may be thinking about leaving the social network, or you may be determined to stay and see what happens. In either case, when an online app is experiencing that kind of Sturm und Drang, it’s usually a good idea to back up your data just in case. In Twitter’s case, that means downloading an archive of your data.According to Twitter’s support page, your archive will include your account info and history, any apps and devices you used to access it, any accounts you’ve blocked or muted, all the interests and other ad data that Twitter has listed for you, and your tweet history.It’s very simple to apply for a download of your archived material on Twitter. ... Continue reading…

This is not a photo; Hasbro’s only sharing digital renders of the product.  | Image: Hasbro If you’ve been to a toy aisle recently, you’ve probably seen how cartoony Fortnite renditions of real-world guns dominate the shelves. Now, Hasbro is licensing the blasters of another mega-hit video game: League of Legends. But if you or your giftee has a LOL obsession, know that the starting price of a Nerf object of power won’t be cheap.The company’s first blaster is the $170 Jinx Fishbones, a cosplay-grade blaster from the same pricey “Nerf LMTD” brand that’s producing the Destiny 2 Gjallarhorn rocket launcher, Halo Needler, Aliens Pulse Rifle, and Mandalorian Amban Phase-pulse blaster. The nearly three-foot-long blaster is now on preorder at Amazon and Hasbro Pulse and scheduled to release on December 1st of next year.It’s an... Continue reading…

An oil pumpjack pulls oil from the Permian Basin oil field on March 14th, 2022. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images One of the biggest oil producers in the US has a new kind of product in its lineup, one that’s supposed to clean up the climate pollution that’s still coming from its petroleum business. Its plan is to sell customers supposedly green credentials that they can show off to the world. That risks giving polluters a license to keep polluting, critics say, and positions Big Oil as a heavyweight in the carbon removal and trading business.This is all going down in Texas, where oil giant Occidental recently announced plans for a massive climate tech project. Occidental signed an agreement to lease over 100,000 acres within the historic King Ranch, where it plans to build “direct air capture” (DAC) plants capable of filtering millions of tons of... Continue reading…

The LG C2 has many of the same features as the C1 but is much lighter. | Image: LG Our first deal of the week is a good one. You can get a $400 discount on the 42-inch LG C2 OLED TV, which is currently discounted to $899.99 at Best Buy — its lowest price yet. While the features of the C2 are largely identical to those found in the older C1, including a 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision support, and compatibility with AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync, the C2 offers faster performance and a slightly brighter panel than its predecessor. Plus, this 42-inch-sized model may be great if you want to use it as a glorified PC monitor.The C2 isn’t quite as bright as pricier QD-OLED televisions in a similar price bracket, and some people may be annoyed by its glossy panel coating, but its collection of features still makes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon could lay off as many as 10,000 employees this week, according to a new report from The New York Times. The move would follow wide-reaching firings at Twitter and Meta; last week, the latter announced it would lay off 11,000 employees.Amazon’s cuts are likely to focus on the company’s devices business (which includes numerous Alexa-powered products), human resources, and its retail unit. In a reminder of just how massive Amazon has grown, the Times says 10,000 workers would represent 3 percent of the company’s corporate ranks and 1 percent of its overall workforce.There have been recent indications that Amazon might be rethinking where Alexa and first-party devices fit into its priorities. At the very least, CEO Andy Jassy... Continue reading…

If you haven’t watched Andor yet, you should. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney Plus If you haven’t watched Andor, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel series on Disney Plus — and you really should, it’s quite good — Disney will be airing the show’s first two episodes on a few of its other channels over the Thanksgiving holidays, including on linear TV.The Andor episodes will air on ABC, FX, Freeform, and Hulu at varying times and days. For the TV airings, you’ll need to put aside an hour and a half to watch the episodes. On Hulu, the two episodes will be available over two weeks. Here’s the schedule, according to a press release:

The Digital Transparency Report contains data captured by Microsoft between January 1st and June 30th this year and provides information regarding content moderation and player safety. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has released its first Digital Transparency Report for the Xbox gaming platform, revealing that the company took proactive action against throwaway accounts that violated its community guidelines 4.78 million times within a six-month period, usually in the form of temporary suspension.The report, which provides information regarding content moderation and player safety, covers the period between January 1st and June 30th this year. It includes a range of information, including the number of reports submitted by players and breakdowns of various “proactive enforcements” (i.e., temporary account suspensions) taken by the Xbox team. Microsoft says the report forms part of its commitment to online safety. Image:... Continue reading…

Sharing is caring. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge A few months ago, one of my devices randomly decided it didn’t want to connect wirelessly to my internet anymore. This was annoying, but while I waited for it to be repaired, there was an easy fix. I could turn my Windows desktop into a mobile hotspot and use that to get the device online.This trick can also be handy to have in your pocket if you’re having guests over and want to give them easy access to your internet without throwing your password around.Here’s how to share your Wi-Fi from your Windows PC. (This was tested using a Windows 11 system.) This menu has everything you need.

It’s free if you own the PC, PS4, or Xbox One version of the game. | Image: CD Projekt Red The next-gen patch for The Witcher 3 will arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC on Wednesday, December 14th. If you already own the base game on PC, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One (any version will do, not just the Complete Edition), you’ll get the patch, which includes upgraded visuals, all of the DLC packs, and further content drops inspired by the Netflix series, for free.

The Health Connect platform can be used to sync data between fitness apps, simplifying app connectivity and centralizing privacy controls. | Image: Google Android has released Health Connect into public beta, a new app that assimilates data from across eligible health and fitness apps through a single platform.In an example provided by Google, Peloton members can use it to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps such as MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers, and Lifesum in addition to sharing workout data with other fitness apps. It also adds a central place to easily manage individual permissions and privacy settings.There are 10 notable health, fitness, and wellness apps integrated with the services so far, including FitBit, Oura, and Flo alongside MyFitnessPal and Peloton. Health Connect was first announced in May, with access initially restricted to developers building the new... Continue reading…

Autonomous vehicles have difficulty navigating bad weather. Heavy rain, snow, and fog can do a lot to scramble an AV’s perception systems, which largely rely on cameras, radar, and lidar to “see” the world around it. Wet roads can create reflections that confuse cameras. Fog can screw up sensor data. And ice can form on the lidar, inhibiting the sensor’s ability to send out laser points to gauge distance from other objects on the road.Waymo, the Alphabet company that aims to deploy fleets of robotaxis all over the country, has been quietly investing in weather research since its early days as a “moonshot” project out of Google’s X division. And while its autonomous vehicles still struggled to navigate certain inclement conditions, the... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Splatoon 3 is getting a big update, splashing down on December 1st. Dubbed Chill Season 2022, the update’s adding new weapons, stages, game modes, and a lot more cool clothes and gear to zhuzh up your octolings.The Salmon Run game mode is also getting a fish-lift with the new Big Run game mode. Details on what Big Run is are scarce at the moment, but — according to this hilarious, borderline incomprehensible sentence from the Chill Season 2022 press release — “the first Big Run will take place when the Salmonids invade the Wahoo World stage later this year.”For the more competitive-minded octoling, X Battles are also arriving with the chill update. X Battles happen once players reach a certain eel-ite level in Anarchy Battles. Then,... Continue reading…

The Schlage Encode Plus is one of the few smart locks with support for both Apple Home Key and Thread. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge The Schlage Encode Plus, the popular Home Key-enabled smart lock, will not get upgraded to support Matter. Schlage told The Verge that this is due to several factors, including changes in the spec since the product was manufactured. It also confirmed that none of its current smart locks will support Matter. Instead, Schlage plans to introduce a new Matter-enabled smart lock in the future but did not provide a timeline for a release.When the Encode Plus launched at CES 2022, Schlage said the $330 Thread-enabled smart lock should have the hardware on board to support Matter. “But we still don’t know where those tech specs will land,” Donald Beene, senior product manager for Allegion (parent company of Schlage), told The Verge in January.... Continue reading…

Jeff Bezos at The Rings of Power premiere earlier this year. | Photo by Dave J Hogan/Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said he plans to donate the majority of his net wealth to charity within his lifetime in a new interview with CNN. Bezos did not give any specifics about how he would distribute the money or exactly what percentage of his wealth he would give away but said he wanted to fight climate change and support people who can unify humanity, CNN reports. The Amazon founder is reportedly the fourth-richest person on Earth, with a net wealth of $124 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.CNN reports that this is the first time that Bezos has announced plans to give away the majority of his fortune. In a clip of the interview published by CNN, interviewer Chloe Melas asks if Bezos plans “to give away the... Continue reading…

Photo by Ty O’Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Bird overstated the revenue it received from its shared electric scooters for at least two years, the company admitted in documents filed (PDF) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.The phantom revenue was discovered after an audit of financial statements from 2020 and 2021 in which Bird found it was counting as revenue customers’ preloaded “wallet” balances following the completion of certain scooter trips. This revenue “should not have been recorded,” the company said.As a result, Bird said that two years’ worth of financial statements “should no longer be relied upon” and that the company would be late in filing its third quarter earnings report, which was expected later today. A spokesperson for the company did... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter eliminated a large number of contract employees on Saturday, affecting anywhere from 4,400 to 5,500 workers, according to Platformer’s Casey Newton. As noted by Platformer and confirmed by other reports from Axios and CNBC, most contract employees didn’t receive any notice that they’ve been terminated and only found out after losing access to the company’s email and internal communications systems.The job cuts follow layoffs that culled about half of Twitter’s workforce and slashed 15 percent of its trust and safety team. Platformer first reported about the mass firings on Saturday night, which span both US-based and global employees working in content moderation, real estate, marketing, engineering, and other departments.T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) told Elon Musk, “Fix your companies. Or Congress will,” after Musk snarkily replied to the senator’s concerns about fake verified accounts on Twitter, and suggested Markey’s real account “sounds like a parody.”On Friday, Markey sent out a tweet containing a link to a letter he wrote to Musk, criticizing the new $7.99 per month Blue with verification subscription. The letter cites a report from the Washington Post that details how a reporter was able to easily create a fake verified account impersonating Markey and calls on Musk to address the issue. “Twitter must explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” Markey writes.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Crypto.com just admitted to making another very large and concerning clerical error: it mistakenly sent 320,000 in Ethereum (~$416 million USD) to another cryptocurrency exchange, called Gate.io, about three weeks ago (via Web3 Is Going Just Great). In a post on Twitter, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says the company was supposed to send the crypto to one of its cold, or offline, wallets, but accidentally sent it to a “whitelisted” address belonging to its corporate account at Gate.io.This all unfolded after Marszalek publicly posted the company’s cold wallet addresses to provide transparency about what the exchange does with its funds. After digging into Crypto.com’s transactions, one user, Conor Grogan, points out that the exchange... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge FTX moved users’ funds to offline wallets early Saturday morning after a wave of “unauthorized transactions” drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange. Ryne Miller, the general counsel at FTX US, didn’t confirm a hack, but said on Twitter that the company made the move to “mitigate damage” caused by the potential theft, as transferring funds offline, or to “cold storage,” helps prevents outsiders from gaining access to them.The millions in funds evaporated from the platform shortly after FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, affecting the domestic FTX US trading platform, the global version of FTX, and Alameda Research. It’s still unclear how much is missing from the exchange, but a... Continue reading…

Image: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Republicans predicted a “red wave” that would crush any hopes of a Democratic majority this election cycle. But as the dust settles and vote counts wrap up, that prediction has shattered.While Republicans saw success in states like Florida and New York, Democrats fared better in battleground states, where polls often significantly underestimated their support. On the eve of the election, FiveThirtyEight’s poll average had Dr. Mehmet Oz ahead by just half a point, only to see him lose by 4 percent in the final tally. In Michigan, the same average put incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer only five points ahead of her Republican challenger; but on election day, she won by more than 10 points.Many Democratic strategists and White House... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Grogu, meet Totoro. This evening famed animation house Studio Ghibli — best-known for films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro — confirmed its new Star Wars project, which is called Discover Zen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies and is described as a “a hand-drawn animation.” There aren’t many other details on it, but that’s not such a big deal because you’ll be able to see it for yourself very soon: it starts streaming on Disney Plus on November 12th.Studio Ghibli has been teasing the collaboration for a few days. First with a short video featuring the studio’s logo alongside Lucasfilm’s, and later with a photo depicting both The Mandalorian star Grogu and legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney CEO Bob Chapek is predicting “some staff reductions” once the company reviews its spending, according to a leaked memo published by CNBC. The company will also reportedly freeze most hiring, only bringing on new employees for “the most critical, business-driving positions.”If Disney does end up carrying out a round of layoffs, it’ll be far from the only one among the companies pushing streaming services. Dozens of workers have lost their jobs at Warner Bros. Television and HBO Max this year. Netflix has also laid off hundreds of employees this year while reporting slower subscriber growth but noted during the last earnings call that its business remains profitable, unlike its premium streaming competitors, which include Disney.... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Crypto’s no-good, very bad 2022 got even worse as FTX (along with its international platform, the independent FTX.us exchange, and Alameda Research), previously the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by volume, couldn’t come up with the money to satisfy customers’ withdrawal requests and then suffered an aborted acquisition attempt by a competitor.Now, the company is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States while announcing that founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned from his post. Seamus Hughes pointed out that the bankruptcy filing itself is now available (pdf), and it lists a total of 134 corporate entities included in today’s announcement, as well as the proposed appointment of crypto investor Stephen Neal... Continue reading…