The Verge - All Posts

The feature is available on the Mach-E. | Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Anyone lucky enough to get an F-150 Lightning in the next few months will find that one of the features they may have opted for is missing: the ability to unlock and control the electric truck using a phone. According to screenshots of Special Service Message notices and in-app messages posted to the Lightning Owners’ Forum, Ford will be rolling out support for its Phone as a Key system in “late summer 2022” via a software update instead of shipping it with the truck at launch.Ford’s Phone as a Key system lets you use its FordPass app to unlock and start your vehicle, as well as control various things like the windows, lights, and front trunk. What makes the delay slightly puzzling is that this isn’t new tech from Ford — the company... Continue reading…

Charlie Cox as Daredevil in Netflix’s Daredevil series. | Image: Disney Plus The Defender who first headlined Netflix’s partnership with Marvel is coming back in a new Disney Plus series.Variety reports that Matt Corman (The Brave, Deck the Halls) and Chris Ord (The Enemy Within) have signed on to write a new Daredevil series that could delve into what Matt Murdock was up to in the time after Netflix’s Daredevil show came to an end in 2018. The news comes in the wake of Charlie Cox reprising his role as Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home and all of Netflix’s Marvel shows migrating over to Disney Plus earlier this year. While there’s currently no word on whether this new series will directly address the events of the Netflix series, it stands to reason that it would given Vincent D’Onofrio’s reprisal of his... Continue reading…

What show is in the box? | Image: Netflix Netflix is introducing a new “mystery box” feature that’s intended to help kids discover new shows. Basically, it sounds like a kids-themed take on Netflix’s “Play Something” button, and it seems to take inspiration from the very popular trend of unwrapping toys.On “TVs around the world,” Netflix will add a sparkly icon with a question mark in the favorites row of a kid’s profile, according to a blog post about the feature. “Hover over the sparkly ‘mystery box’ to discover a title that is ‘new for you’! And voila, it’s showtime,” TJ Marston, Netflix’s director of product innovation for kids and family, said in the post.Netflix has steadily been investing in the version of its service for kids with things like a profile redesign, the T... Continue reading…

Santa Monica Studio In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Santa Monica Studio is showing off a bunch of the new accessibility features for God of War Ragnarok, including a new audio descriptive version of the game’s announcement trailer.All of the accessibility options from God of War have been brought forward, and new features have been added to Ragnarok, resulting in over 60 adjustable settings. A selection of the features described includes auto sprint, subtitle / caption size and color, as well as a high contrast mode that’ll make characters more visible against backgrounds. There’s also a neat feature that’ll sound audio cues whenever an interactable object is nearby. In God of War, there were several times when it was not obvious... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I once picked up a Chromebook that hadn’t been used for a while in order to try out what was then a relatively new Chrome OS feature: virtual desktops. But when I hit the key that was supposed to bring those desktops up on my screen, I didn’t see anything. I did some checking around, and I found that the feature was expected to be available as of version 77 of Chrome OS — several iterations after the version I was running.While Chromebooks pretty much run on their own, and you can usually ignore which version of the operating system your device is running, you may want to have that information available just in case you do need it. All you have to do is follow these steps:

It may not come in time for WWDC, though. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple showed a mixed reality headset capable of both augmented and virtual reality to its board of directors last week and has engineers hard at work on an operating system for the device, according to a report from Bloomberg. The story notes that while this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see a headset announced at WWDC next month, it may indicate that an announcement is drawing closer.Bloomberg says there’s historical precedent for the board seeing devices shortly before an announcement. Apple’s board reportedly got an early demo of Siri in 2011.It also makes sense that Apple wouldn’t want to go all in on software development until the hardware is close to completion, so it knows what features and software to build. To that point, B... Continue reading…

Eric Migicovsky’s dream: an iPhone Mini but with Android. | Image: Eric Migicovsky Eric Migicovsky, who founded and helmed the Pebble smartwatch company and who’s working on a chat app that will bring iMessage to Android, has a new quest: getting someone, anyone, to make an Android phone you can actually use in one hand. He wants to, as he put it in an interview with The Verge, “unionize” a community of small phone lovers to get sway with phone manufacturers and suppliers.To do that, he’s built a site — smallandroidphone.com — that explains his dream phone. Basically, he wants a flagship that’s the size and shape of the iPhone Mini but running stock Android. The site argues that small phones are good, actually, and it asks like-minded people to essentially sign a petition. Migicovsky says he’s looking for 50,000 or... Continue reading…

The latest video game sales event for Epic substitutes a flat discount for 25 percent off. | Image: Epic Games Epic is starting up another sales promotion for PC games available through its Epic Games Store. The Epic Mega Sale runs from today until June 16th at 11AM ET / 8AM PT and encompasses an unlimited-use 25 percent off digital coupon. This coupon stacks on top of ongoing sale prices, though you can’t use it on titles priced below $14.99. Epic is also releasing four free mystery games each Thursday during the promotional period, the first of which is Borderlands 3.If you’ve seen or participated in previous sales events on the Epic Games Store, this may feel very familiar. A notable departure from those deals is that the coupon now offers a 25 percent discount, where it had previously provided a flat $10 off. With that change, this new Mega... Continue reading…

These budget earbuds don’t disappoint for their under $40 price Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US Department of Justice says it won’t subject “good-faith security research” to charges under anti-hacking laws, acknowledging long-standing concerns around the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Prosecutors must also avoid charging people for simply violating a website’s terms of service — including minor rule-breaking like embellishing a dating profile — or using a work-related computer for personal tasks.The new DOJ policy attempts to allay fears about the CFAA’s broad and ambiguous scope following a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that encouraged reading the law more narrowly. The ruling warned that government prosecutors’ earlier interpretation risked criminalizing a “breathtaking amount of commonplace computer activity,” laying... Continue reading…

Second Dinner Hot off the heels of Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness comes a new game from Marvel Entertainment that offers the same flavor of throwing everybody from everywhere in a big ole pot, shaking, and seeing what kind of shenanigans come out.Marvel Snap is a new collectible card game that its creators claim has some of the fastest gameplay in the CCG space. According to the announcement video, matches only last about three minutes, and players take their turns simultaneously so there’s no waiting for your opponent to just finally figure out they have lethal and kill you already.Marvel Snap matches seem to be based around arranging cards under one of three areas on the board in order to take control of them. The player who takes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro On Thursday, Twitter announced a new policy for dealing with misinformation during a period of crisis, establishing new standards for gating or blocking the promotion of certain tweets if they are seen as spreading misinformation.“Content moderation is more than just leaving up or taking down content,” explained Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, in a blog post detailing the new policy, “and we’ve expanded the range of actions we may take to ensure they’re proportionate to the severity of the potential harm.”The new policy puts particular scrutiny on false reporting of events, false allegations involving weapons or use of force, or broader misinformation regarding atrocities or international response.Hoax tweets and... Continue reading…

Cazzie David as Jayme, Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves, Christopher, and Jake Epstein as Alphonso. | Netflix The Umbrella Academy’s second season followed the Hargreeves siblings into the not too distant past where they narrowly managed to prevent a doomsday scenario that would have turned the future into yet another apocalypse. Though the siblings believed they’d put everything right enough as they returned to their own time, The Umbrella Academy’s first season 3 trailer illustrates just how wrong they were.It’s unclear what about the Hargreeves’ actions in the past led to their timelines splitting and made it possible for them to travel into an alternate, unfamiliar reality where the Umbrella Academy was never founded by their adoptive father Sir Reginald (Colm Feore). Rather than the Umbrella Academy of their youths, Luther (Tom Hopper),... Continue reading…

If you’re a Pokémon fan, loading up on some of the more recent titles for the Nintendo Switch doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Sadly, Pokémon Legends Arceus isn’t looped into this $20 off deal (although it is $10 off at Amazon), but these other games should help you get your gotta-catch-em-all fix for less. Best Buy and Amazon are each discounting Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (the remakes of Diamond and Pearl, originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2006) for $39.99 each.The biggest upgrade to these games is the full 3D treatment, though it plays a lot like those original titles. For people who don’t like to grind XP to level up each pokémon individually, you may be happy to know that these remakes have EXP share,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Thursday, a group of Senate Republicans and Democrats introduced a new bill that could force Google and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to spin off their online ads businesses, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act — co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — would ban companies processing more than $20 billion a year in digital ad transactions from running more than one portion of the digital advertising ecosystem.The restrictions would directly impact Google, which tech antitrust hawks have long seen as a vertical monopoly in display advertising. Omidyar Network advisor David Dinielli made the... Continue reading…

Boeing’s Starliner capsule on the launchpad | (NASA/Joel Kowsky) Thursday afternoon, Boeing is slated to launch its passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, to the International Space Station for the second time without people on board. The mission, called OFT-2, is part of an elaborate dress rehearsal that will help pave the way for people to ride on the vehicle in the future.Today’s mission is a critical milestone as Boeing works to certify the vehicle for human spaceflight. Boeing developed Starliner as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an initiative that tasked private companies with developing spacecraft capable of carrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA’s other Commercial Crew provider, SpaceX, is already ferrying astronauts to the ISS on a regular... Continue reading…

Let’s just get this out of the way: there’s very little that’s original about MultiVersus, an upcoming free-to-play fighting game. It is, very clearly, designed to be like Super Smash. Bros., only with Warner Bros. characters in place of those from Nintendo and other classic video games. This means that instead of Super Mario getting beat up by Sephiroth, you have Shaggy and Wonder Woman teaming up to fight Arya Stark and Bugs Bunny in the Batcave. It’s strange and crass but also feels right at home in a world of Fortnite, Space Jam, Doctor Strange, and Rescue Rangers. As shameless as it may be, though, after spending some time with the MultiVersus, I’m starting to think that it could end up being a big hit.Functionally, the core of M... Continue reading…

We now have a timetable for when to expect the update. | Image: CD Projekt Red The next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is “planned” to release in Q4 2022, developer CD Projekt Red (CDPR) announced Thursday. Previously, CDPR was targeting a Q2 2022 launch for the free update, but it pushed the release in April without providing a new date. Alongside that April announcement, CDPR said it would be bringing development of the update in-house, meaning it would be taking the reins from Saber Interactive.

Netflix Netflix’s closed captioning, subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing (SDH), and audio descriptions (AD) are all powerful tools designed to help make films and television shows more accessible to people with disabilities. But those kinds of features have also become integral parts of how people from all walks of life consume the streaming platform’s content, and Netflix is planning to give its subscribers more of what they want.In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Netflix is gearing up to expand its accessibility features across the globe and launching a new collection highlighting stories focused on people living with disabilities. Celebrating Disability with Dimension will function much like the platform’s other special... Continue reading…

The OnePlus Nord 2T in green. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus is officially announcing a trio of more affordable devices for Europe today: the OnePlus Nord 2T, the Nord CE 2 Lite, and the Nord Buds true wireless headphones. The Nord 2T starts at £369 (€399) and is best thought of as a souped-up version of last year’s Nord 2. Meanwhile, the Nord CE 2 Lite is a step-down model of the Nord CE 2 and starts at £279 (€299). Finally, there’s the Nord Buds, which will sell for £49 (€49). The latter two launched in India last month but will be on sale in the UK on May 24th.You can check out my full review of the OnePlus Nord 2T right here, but its features won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with its predecessor. It’s using an upgraded MediaTek chip and has speedier 80W fast charging, but... Continue reading…

Another reliable entry in OnePlus’ Nord range Continue reading…

Who needs a family photo album when you have a fridge? | Image: Samsung Samsung is adding a new and extremely exploitable customization option to its line of Bespoke refrigerators. Sling the company $500 and you can have any photo or image you like printed on the unit’s double doors. You could choose a favorite piece of artwork, a child’s doodles, or just put your own face on your own fridge for no good reason at all.The option is launching for buyers sometime later this year (if you need to know the exact minute it goes live you can sign up here for alerts), and if you already own a Bespoke fridge, you can order the door panels separately and swap them in. The cost is $250 a panel, and Samsung says they’ll take about 8 weeks to print and ship. Image: Samsung New from Samsung:... Continue reading…

Good performance and great battery stamina don’t compensate for its shortcomings Continue reading…

Image: Glitch Fastly, a major provider of cloud services, announced today that it’s acquiring Glitch, the quirky and capable web coding platform. Glitch will continue to operate within Fastly, with Fastly planning to grow the team and enable Glitch apps to tap into its edge computing services.Glitch CEO Anil Dash will join Fastly as its VP of developer experience, overseeing Glitch and a new team focused on creating a “repository of tools and resources” to help people start using Fastly’s products.“The web is back as a place that people want to create, and you have to have this bigger platform to do it,” Dash tells The Verge.“This edge platform that they’ve built is cool as shit.”Dash says Glitch could have raised more money to continue on its... Continue reading…

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as it is wheeled out to its launchpad on an Atlas V rocket. | Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky Perhaps this time will be the one Continue reading…

Fortnite is leaving beta on GeForce Now. | Image: Nvidia After four months in closed beta, a touchscreen-optimized version of Fortnite is now available to stream via Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service on iOS and Android. It means iPhone users have another workaround to play one of the most popular games in the world after it was unceremoniously booted from the App Store in August 2020 for bypassing Apple’s in-app payment system. On iOS, GeForce Now is available via the browser, while Android owners can access it via an app.The official launch follows a months-long beta period during which Nvidia says 500,000 people streamed over 4 million sessions of Fortnite via the service. As a result of the testing, Nvidia claims it’s been able to optimize its “on-screen touch controls and game... Continue reading…

Three monitors, one MacBook. | Image: Anker Anker has announced a new $249.99 10-in-1 USB-C hub that, among other things, allows an M1-equipped MacBook to output to three external displays, MacRumors reports. It’s designed to overcome a key limitation of Apple’s M1-powered MacBooks which, by default, can only output to a single external monitor.The Anker 563 dock has a total of 10 ports, including USB-C, USB-A, 3.5mm audio, and Ethernet. But we’re most interested in the display connectors, which consist of an HDMI port that can go up to 4K at 30Hz (it’s unclear what the maximum refresh rate is at lower resolutions), a second HDMI port that can do 2K (aka 1440p) at up to 60Hz, and a DisplayPort that’s also capable of 2K at 60Hz. Image: Anker The specs of... Continue reading…

The 2022 BMW iX is the German automaker’s flagship EV in the US. | Photo by Abigail Bassett for The Verge BMW’s all-electric crossover is packed to the gills with technology, power, and range Continue reading…

Here it is, the 16-inch Intel machine. HP has made a number of minor refreshes across its Spectre and Envy lines. Several of these consumer devices, at a variety of price points, have been updated with new processors — 12th Gen Core chips on the Intel side and Ryzen 5000 chips on the AMD side.A few devices also have new GPUs, including the Spectre x360 16. This device, the flagship of HP’s gorgeous, pricey, premium Spectre line, was previously powered by Intel’s 11th Gen processors and either Iris Xe integrated graphics or Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050. This year, the processors are from Intel’s new 12th Gen line, and the discrete GPU option is Intel’s brand new Arc A370M. It’s Intel all the way down.This is not necessarily the most exciting announcement in the world as far... Continue reading…

A little more than a year after announcing the first version of its ultra-repairable, upgradeable notebook, Framework is launching the second-generation Framework Laptop. It’s meant to be substantially faster and a little more sturdy but mostly it’s a signal that Framework is serious about building truly long-lasting devices and might actually be fulfilling the often promised and rarely delivered dream of upgradeable, modular gadgets.The new laptop’s headline spec is the processor: it comes with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5 or i7 chip with the top-of-the-line, $2,049 model running the Core i7-1280P. (That’s a full generation jump from the current model, and these new Alder Lake chips promise big performance improvements and a boost in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sometimes it’s a little too obvious when a company is launching a big advertising campaign on YouTube. If you’re a regular viewer, you may end up seeing the same ads over and over again. This week, though, YouTube announced that it’s expanding the power of tools that let brands control how often their ads are shown to specific users.This ad frequency tool (named Display & Video 360 in marketing jargon) was actually launched in February to cover ad campaigns running across different smart TV apps, including YouTube’s app and apps from rivals like Hulu. But YouTube has confirmed to The Verge that the program also counts ads shown not only on smart TV apps, but across its mobile and desktop platforms. That should mean less ad spam for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok is offering users a new way to credit videos that kick off viral trends.When uploading content, users will be able to tag not only individual creators in video descriptions, but also specific videos — an addition the platform claims will “better enable creator credit and equitable attribution for our creator community and content originators.”The change is, in part, a response to complaints by users that the platform thrives off a parasitic approach to viral content. Last summer, for example, a number of Black dance creators went on strike from the app, noting how many viral dances (like the Renegade and the Savage, etc) were created by Black users before spreading to the rest of the community without due credit or attribution.... Continue reading…

Image: Garmin For the first time since Varia devices launched seven years ago, Garmin has added a built-in camera to its much-loved rearview radar lineup. The Varia RCT715 not only makes road cyclists more visible and warns them of approaching vehicles, it automatically records any incidents that might occur. That means safety-minded bicyclists now only have to worry about mounting and charging a single device instead of two.The Varia RCT715 (the RCT stands for Radar, Camera, Taillight) features a 1080p/30fps camera with a 140-degree field of view. A built-in accelerometer triggers automatic incident detection to capture video footage from before, during, and after an incident. Video can also be set to record continuously, giving you about four hours... Continue reading…

A screenshot of the web search box in the latest Windows 11 Preview Build. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding an optional web search to the Windows 11 desktop in the operating system’s latest Insider Preview Build. The company describes the feature as “lightweight interactive content” — the first, it says, of many such tools it’s considering adding to Windows 11 — but let’s call the thing what it really is: a widget.Not everyone signed up to the latest Windows 11 preview build will see the new search box, but anyone who does and doesn’t like it can disable the feature by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting “Show more options,” and then toggling “Show search.”If you are running the latest preview build, you’ll also have to restart your computer to give the search box a chance to show up.Is web search on your desktop... Continue reading…

The complaint centers on alleged anti-union activity in Apple’s World Trade Center store. | Image: Apple Apple has been accused of union-busting at its flagship World Trade Center store in New York City. According to a complaint filed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the iPhone-maker violated federal labor laws by interrogating workers about union activity, prohibiting employees from posting union flyers in shared spaces, and forcing workers to attend anti-union presentations.It’s the second time the CWA has accused Apple of union-busting activity this week, with similar complaints filed in Atlanta on Tuesday. These complaints form part of a wave of union organization in retail and tech sectors, including the successful unionization of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island. Three Apple stores have officially launched union... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Meta is pulling back its investments in a number of products, including the teams it spun up early in the pandemic to compete with Zoom and build shopping features, The Verge has learned. In addition to a hiring freeze for certain engineering roles, the company also recently paused the hiring of recruiters and low-level data scientists.While the hiring freezes have caused employees to fear that layoffs are around the corner, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an internal all-hands meeting last Thursday that job cuts are not being planned. “I can’t sit here and make a permanent ongoing promise that as things shift that we won’t have to reconsider that,” Zuckerberg said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “But what I... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More long-term Netflix subscribers are canceling their subscriptions, according to a report from The Information. Survey data viewed by the outlet revealed that subscribers who have been with the service for more than three years accounted for 13 percent of cancellations in the first quarter of 2022.The Information says it got its data from Antenna, an analytics firm that gathers data from 5 million Americans who share their streaming subscriptions anonymously. The data showed that overall cancellations hit 3.6 million people last quarter, an increase from the 2.5 million cancellations in the past five quarters.As the number of cancellations overall has grown, The Information reports that new users are accounting for a smaller share... Continue reading…

Photo by John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images Tesla is expanding its open Supercharger pilot program in Europe that lets owners of non-Tesla EVs take advantage of the company’s extensive charging network. Previously, the pilot consisted of select stations in The Netherlands, Norway, and France, but now it’s also available in the UK, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, and Austria.Non-Tesla owners in both Belgium and Germany originally could only take advantage of Tesla’s network if traveling to a country that has the open Superchargers. With Belgium now added to the program, German residents remain the only oddity that can use them outside of its borders, but not domestically.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ransomware — and particularly the Conti ransomware gang — has become a geopolitical force in Costa Rica. On Monday, the new Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves – who began his four-year term only ten days ago – declared that the country was ”at war” with the Conti cybercriminal gang, whose ransomware attack has disabled agencies across the government since April.In a forceful statement made to press on May 16th, President Chaves also said that Conti was receiving help from collaborators within the country, and called on international allies to help.“We’re at war and this is not an exaggeration,” Chaves told local media. “The war is against an international terrorist group, which apparently has operatives in Costa Rica. There are very... Continue reading…

New York Attorney General Letitia James. | Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that her office has launched an investigation into Twitch, Discord, 4chan, 8kun (previously 8chan), and other web and social media platforms in response to the racist attack in Buffalo, New York. The investigation will focus on “platforms that may have been used to stream, promote, or plan the event.”James is focusing her attention on the platforms the shooter used to “discuss and amplify” the attack. The gunman reportedly planned his attack in a private server on Discord before the shooting. In a document written by the shooter, he mentions using and getting influenced by both 4chan and 8chan, two sites known for a lack of moderation.“As we continue to mourn and honor the... Continue reading…

The new Outlook will feature support for Loop components. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has announced the beta for the new Outlook for Windows, which will make the desktop email client a lot more like the web version. While screenshots and an entire build of the app were recently leaked, Microsoft’s announcement gives us a good look at what kind of features we can expect to see coming to our inboxes.According to Microsoft’s Tuesday post, Outlook will be getting quite a few new features in addition to an updated design. For starters, it’ll integrate with Loop, Microsoft’s system for collaborating on things like polls, task lists, and more throughout Office. There’s also a new system for attaching files. If you’ve got something stored in the cloud, you can type the “@” symbol and then the filename, and you’ll get a... Continue reading…

Stan Lee as he appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron. | Image: Marvel Studios Even though Stan Lee has been dead since 2018, a new deal between Marvel Studios and POW! Entertainment may be a sign that the legendary comics creator’s going to be appearing in more than a few Marvel-branded projects in the near future.POW! Entertainment, the production house Stan Lee co-founded in 2001 and subsequently sued in 2018 for allegedly forging his signature on legal documents, has entered a licensing agreement with Genius Brands and Marvel Studios granting the Hollywood giant the right to use Lee’s likeness in its upcoming projects. In a press release about the 20-year deal, Genius Brands CEO and chairman Andy Heyward expressed feelings of pride and stewardship for “the incredibly valuable rights to Stan Lee’s name,... Continue reading…

How people feel about Big Tech has changed since last year.A new study from the Pew Research Center found that fewer people in the US want more regulations for Big Tech companies. This decline, which spans across the political spectrum, showed that 44 percent of Americans are in favor of more government regulation compared to 56 percent of those surveyed last year.That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re all in favor of less regulation; for example, 32 percent of liberal Democrats surveyed say that the current amount of regulation is just right compared to the 23 percent who thought so in 2021. However, 27 percent of moderate or liberal Republicans do support less regulation, up from 13 percent, and 36 percent of conservative... Continue reading…

Climate activists target banks in Germany’s financial capital. Even tech companies that have promised to slash their greenhouse gas emissions have a big climate-related blind spot, according to a new report published by three environmental groups. With their cash and investments, Google, Apple, Meta, and other tech giants are indirectly financing fossil fuel companies.While these companies might have taken steps to cut down on pollution within their own operations and supply chains, the financial institutions they bank with still funnel Big Tech’s profits into heavily polluting industries. Emissions associated with that financial activity are so significant that they actually far exceed emissions from each company’s operations, the report finds.Financial institutions they bank with still funnel... Continue reading…

An investigation will follow the complaint. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The New York State Division of Human Rights has filed a complaint against Amazon for failing to accommodate reasonable changes requested by workers who were pregnant or disabled, according to a Wednesday press release from Governor Kathy Hochul.Even in cases where the company agreed that workers should be accommodated, the complaint alleges that managers would still force them to do work they shouldn’t be doing. According to one example listed in the press release, a pregnant worker filed a request to avoid strenuous activity, specifically lifting boxes over 25 pounds. Amazon approved the request, but the worker’s manager allegedly refused to adhere to the accommodation, and Amazon didn’t intervene despite internal complaints. The... Continue reading…

J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek in Night Sky. | Image: Chuck Hodes / Amazon Prime Video Irene and Franklin York are a lot like other older couples. They keep on top of each other about following doctor’s orders, joke about their complicated daily intake of pills, and, when the mood is right, they put on some Sam Cooke and dance in the living room, just like in the good old days. In short, they’re adorable. But there’s one key difference between the Yorks and most retired couples: hidden away in their shed right behind a wooden sign that says “to the stars” is a portal to another world.This is the basic setup for Night Sky on Amazon Prime Video. The show’s first episode debuts this week and, early on, follows Irene (Sissy Spacek) and Franklin (J.K. Simmons) as they go about their life, which just so happens to include the... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Whenever possible, I like to use FaceTime Audio or WhatsApp instead of making regular phone calls. The people I’m calling see it like a normal phone call, but the audio quality is leaps and bounds better than a good old-fashioned phone call.But! It turns out I wasn’t even doing my internet calls the right way. Today, I learned that there’s a newish feature buried in the Control Center that instantly improves the quality of your microphone during calls, whether you’re audio-only or on video.It’s called Voice Isolation, and it works on most iPhones, iPads and Macs from the last few years as long as you’re running iOS 15 or macOS Monterey. (Anything that supports Spatial Audio seems to also support Voice Isolation.) It’s weirdly hard to... Continue reading…

Photo by Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images Google’s Russian subsidiary will file for bankruptcy, according to a report from Reuters, with the company stating it can no longer keep the branch. The Russian branch reported making 134.3 billion roubles (about $2.086 billion USD) in Russia in 2021 and employed over 100 workers.“The Russian authorities’ seizure of Google Russia’s bank account has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “Google Russia has published a notice of its intention to file for bankruptcy.”In March, Google suspended the sale of ads in Russia shortly after Russia... Continue reading…

Armand Fields as Bussey | Alyssa Moran/Peacock Both the original British and American Queer as Folk series were celebrations of queer culture that also took the time to tell stories about the violence and hatred queer people face simply for existing. In its first trailer, Peacock’s upcoming Queer as Folk reboot from Stephen Dunn appears to be following in its predecessors’ footsteps as it pulls its cast of clubgoers together for a night of drag and debauchery at Babylon, a club in New Orleans, Louisiana.The new Queer as Folk follows recent med school dropout Brodie (Devin Way) as he journeys from Baltimore to Louisiana in search of anything but a committed relationship. Though Brodie’s glad to be reunited with old friends like debutant Brenda (Kim Cattrall) and pop culture nerd... Continue reading…