The Verge

Google’s new interface isn’t all that bad. | Image: Google Gmail’s permanent switch that moves everyone over to a new integrated view starts this month.In a blog post published on Tuesday, Google announced it’s getting rid of the option to revert back to the previous Gmail UI, so we’re all just going to have to get used to the bubbly — and very blue — interface. That includes its Material Design 3 font, Google Sans Text.Google calls Gmail’s new layout the “integrated” view because it comes with options for Mail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet on the far-left sidebar. While hovering over these buttons reveals a small pop-out menu, clicking on them makes the app fill the whole screen.In case you find the extra buttons distracting, you can disable Meet and Chat from your Settings menu. This saves you... Continue reading…

Twitter heard that everyone likes checkmarks. | Image: Twitter Twitter is rolling out another type of check mark to help distinguish accounts that users actually need to know are real. Although you can pay $7.99 per month for a blue check mark with the new version of Twitter Blue, select accounts for governments, companies, or public figures will get a gray “Official” check mark, according to a thread from Twitter’s Esther Crawford, who is heading up the new Twitter Blue initiative.“A lot of folks have asked about how you’ll be able to distinguish between @TwitterBlue subscribers with blue checkmarks and accounts that are verified as official, which is why we’re introducing the ‘Official’ label to select accounts when we launch,” Crawford says.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Peacock is adding live TV to its repertoire in a big way, but only for subscribers that pay for the service’s top-tier Premium Plus plan. Today, NBCUniversal announced that customers in all 210 affiliate markets will be gaining 24/7 access to their local NBC station. Peacock Premium Plus costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 annually.Once the new feature is available in your market — some are going live as early as today, and everyone will have live TV by November 30th — you’ll see a new channel on the Peacock homepage that matches your local broadcast network.The 24/7 live stream means you’ll be able to watch local news and sports, plus NBC’s primetime hits like Law & Order: SVU, Young Rock, Chicago Fire, and Dateline NBC. And we can’t... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s hard out there for NFT enthusiasts — the market has slowed down significantly, sales have plummeted since peaks, and the people involved in the space are grasping for ways to get their projects some attention.For crypto businessperson Martin Mobarak, the best way he knew how to do that was to destroy art by Frida Kahlo, valued at $10 million. In July, at a party for Mobarak’s Frida.NFT project, the art collector burned a drawing by Kahlo to a cheering crowd, according to the Miami Herald, promising to use the profits from NFT sales for charity.“I’m proud to say this event will solve some of the world’s biggest problems in honor of Frida Kahlo,” reads a title slide in a video produced by the NFT company.But according to The New... Continue reading…

Email and Calendars are now a click away in the new Zoom One interface — no need for a separate client. | Image: Zoom Zoom is releasing new Mail and Calendar clients and services as part of its latest round of business features announced at its annual Zoomtopia event. Available as a beta release, the Outlook-like Mail and Calendar will slot neatly into the company’s new unified Zoom One interface alongside its other tools like Team Chat, Whiteboard, Phone, and Meetings.With the recent release of Zoom Team Chat, the company already pushed into Slack and Microsoft Teams territories, and now the race for a complete hybrid work solution that includes instant communications, video, and email is on. Zoom is more closely taking on Microsoft 365 (formally Office 365) in particular by letting companies choose to connect to their existing email service or, if... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, says it’s monitoring a fix for a partial outage that affected its website and app for around two hours on Tuesday. According to the company’s status page, users experienced difficulties logging in or loading pages — and while the rest of the company’s infrastructure wasn’t affected, the easiest ways to use those services were cut off.Coinbase announced on Twitter that it was having network connectivity issues at around 12:39PM ET and announced that a fix was being implemented around an hour and a half later. Around 3PM ET, the company announced that the fix had been implemented, and it was monitoring to make sure it was working.

An ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) is deployed in 2001. The solar arrays are slowly being added to the space station to boost its available power. | Image: NASA In the next few weeks, astronauts will be heading out of the airlock on the International Space Station (ISS) on a series of three spacewalks, part of a long-term plan to upgrade the space station’s aging power system.The ISS uses large solar arrays to collect energy from the Sun and convert it into usable electricity for everything from life support and temperature controls to communications with Earth and propulsion systems to allow the station to dodge debris.The old ISS power system, including eight solar arrays that spread out from the exterior of the station like wings, had been able to meet the power needs of the station to date by generating an average of between 84 and 120 kilowatts of electricity. However, some of the... Continue reading…

You can currently buy the AirPods Max for around $479 instead of $549. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions.That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A report from The Washington Post has raised doubts about a root certificate authority used by Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and other tech companies with ties to US intelligence. The company in question, called TrustCor, works as a root certificate authority to validate the trustworthiness of websites — and while the report found no concrete evidence of wrongdoing, it raised significant questions about the company’s trustworthiness.Root certificate authorities protect against both website forgeries and attacks. Since root certificate authorities also have the power to give others the ability to grant certificates, it raises some concerns if the authority’s linked to surveillance or malware efforts, as it calls the entire... Continue reading…

John Wick says adopt and donate to your local ASPCA... or else | Image: Niko Tavernise Because everyone seems to have forgotten that John Wick Hex exists, Lionsgate, the studio behind the John Wick franchise, hasn’t ruled out AAA games for the future of everyone’s favorite dog-loving hitman. Over the course of three movies (going on four), the John Wick franchise has grown exceedingly rich and weird. However, spinoffs like The Continental are still a ways off, and with a reported second spinoff helmed by Ana de Armas in the works, Lionsgate is searching for other ways to keep attention on the franchise.During a recent earnings call, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said that the company had been perusing pitches for a John Wick game, but details are currently spotty. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself here ... We have been... Continue reading…

Shawn Levy could be the next of many directors to take on a Star Wars film. | Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images There are a lot of Star Wars films in development, and now, Disney might be adding one more, as Deadline reports that Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy is “in talks” to direct a new movie in the franchise. Deadline doesn’t have details on the plot or a writer, and the film may not happen for a long time given Levy is also on tap to work on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things and Deadpool 3.There hasn’t been a new Star Wars movie since 2019, when Disney released the divisive Rise of Skywalker. While we don’t know exactly when the next Star Wars film will come out, Disney is exploring a lot of options in addition to Levy’s potential entry:

Need a box of bandaids? Get it from a drone. | Image: Google Wing — a company from Google’s parent organization, Alphabet — is integrating its drone deliveries into another service for the first time, with some DoorDash users getting the ability to order grocery essentials and snacks to be dropped from the sky. The companies are launching a pilot (haha) program where users in certain Australian neighborhoods will be able to have some DoorDash orders delivered not by a person driving a car or riding a bike but by a drone.The test, which is launching this week, will be available to a “small number of households” in “select suburbs” of Logan, a town near Brisbane, Queensland, and there are plans to roll it out to more people over the next few months. If you’re lucky enough to be in that area,... Continue reading…

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro speaks at a rally with former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden. | Photo by Mark Makela / Getty Images In the middle of a rally during the final week of his campaign, Josh Shapiro received his first notification to BeReal. The on-the-spot photo app has amassed a huge following amongst young people seeking authenticity over platforms that encourage more polished posts — but it’s an unusual platform for politicians, who are used to more painstakingly rehearsed contact with voters.For the Shapiro team, launching the BeReal account was a natural next step for their digital program that hasn’t just advertised Shapiro as a candidate but also cast him as the leading role on the platforms young people use the most.“[Young people] see these platforms, where someone has to be wholeheartedly who they are, and they’re a little bit more discerning,”... Continue reading…

In an aerial view, dead and dying trees in a drought-stressed juniper and piñon pine forest are seen on September 6th, 2022, southeast of Hite, Utah. | Photo by David McNew / Getty Images The US is heating up faster than the world as a whole, making the nation already very vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. “The things Americans value most are at risk,” according to a recently released draft of a major national climate report. That includes Americans’ food and water supplies, cherished traditions and pastimes, and communities transforming into untenable places to live.The warning comes from a draft of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, expected to be finalized next year. The draft was made public yesterday to allow for public comment through January 27th, 2023. National researchers are mandated to deliver the report to Congress and the president every four years to take stock of the many ways global... Continue reading…

It has analog hands! | Image: Garmin International, Inc. Garmin has added yet another rugged fitness smartwatch to its lineup. This time, it’s the $499.99 Garmin Instinct Crossover. As the name suggests, it’s a mash-up of a hybrid analog and multisport GPS watch. It’s a baffling combo, but hey, it’s got analog hands.Hybrid analogs look like traditional watches but have basic smart features like push notifications and alarms. They’re aimed at folks who want a discreet yet sleek wearable that’s good enough for casual fitness tracking. As for the Instinct Crossover — which really sounds like it should be a Suburu — it seems like it’s for folks who want a slightly less “ugly” Garmin without sacrificing rugged capabilities.Design-wise, it looks like a Garmin. You’ll either love the Casio vibe or... Continue reading…

Fast times at FTX | The Verge Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, has signed a letter of intent to buy competitor FTX, the third-largest exchange by volume. The acquisition came after a CoinDesk article prompted speculation about FTX’s balance sheet. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.The letter of intent is nonbinding, and Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said the firm will conduct due diligence before the acquisition. Binance’s acquisition came after CZ said on Sunday he’d sell FTX’s FTT token, leading to a plunge in the token’s value. That token was the biggest asset on the balance sheet of Alameda Research, the trading firm also founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, according to CoinDesk’s story.Bankman-Fried said yesterday that... Continue reading…

Photo by Universal Images Group via Getty Images In a world first, two people were injected with red blood cells grown in a lab as part of a clinical trial, the research team announced this week. It’s a first step toward seeing if lab-grown blood cells are safe and work in the body — which would be a major advance for people living with rare blood types or blood disorders.“This world leading research lays the groundwork for the manufacture of red blood cells that can safely be used to transfuse people with disorders like sickle cell,” said Farrukh Shah, medical director of transfusion for National Health Service Blood and Transplant in the United Kingdom, in a statement.The milestone in this trial comes after decades of work trying to figure out how to grow these types of cells in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The European Commission has opened what it calls an “in-depth investigation” into Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Regulators in the EU first started looking at Microsoft’s Activision acquisition in September and set a provisional deadline of today to approve it or signal a more in-depth review.Microsoft now faces a larger probe over its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, with the European Commission set to take 90 working days up to March 23rd to take a decision. The Commission says it’s opening up an in-depth investigation because it’s “concerned that the proposed acquisition may reduce competition in the markets for the distribution of console” and PC games.EU regulators are also concerned... Continue reading…

The key question in the lawsuit is whether open-source code can be reproduced by AI without attached licenses. | Credit: Getty Images Microsoft, its subsidiary GitHub, and its business partner OpenAI have been targeted in a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the companies’ creation of AI-powered coding assistant GitHub Copilot relies on “software piracy on an unprecedented scale.” The case is only in its earliest stages but could have a huge effect on the broader world of AI, where companies are making fortunes training software on copyright-protected data.Copilot, which was unveiled by Microsoft-owned GitHub in June 2021, is trained on public repositories of code scraped from the web, many of which are published with licenses that require anyone reusing the code to credit its creators. Copilot has been found to regurgitate long sections of licensed code... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo could be planning a deeper dive into the mobile gaming industry to make up for a slowdown in Switch sales. Along with its earnings report released on Tuesday (PDF), the company announced a joint venture with DeNA, the Japanese mobile gaming giant that co-developed several Nintendo titles for iOS and Android, including Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and Mario Kart Tour.The joint venture will establish a new company called Nintendo Systems Co., Ltd, which is set to open in April 2023. Nintendo first partnered with DeNA in 2015 and says the joint venture will “strengthen the digitalization of Nintendo’s business,” which has already proven incredibly lucrative for the company. In May, data... Continue reading…

PhotoRoom’s new feature has a few issues to work on, but it’s a great example of how AI-powered image generation could be practically applied for small businesses. | Image: PhotoRoom / The Verge Photo editing app PhotoRoom has launched a new feature named Magic Studio that uses AI to personalize product shots for e-commerce vendors and small businesses.To use the feature, which is powered by the open-source text-to-image AI Stable Diffusion, users first have to upload an image of their product. They’ll then be prompted to describe the item in a single word (bottle, sneaker, lipstick… you get the idea) and describe a desired background or setting. The feature then automatically removes the background, places the item in the newly generated setting, and sends the images via email to the user within a few minutes. Magic Studio can’t be used on shots of humans or animals.

The Apple Watch Series 8 is at a new low price today. | Image: Apple With Black Friday just a few weeks away now, the deals seem to be just getting better and better. If you were waiting until the big day to score a stellar deal on the new Apple Watch Series 8, Amazon already has you covered. The retailer is currently offering $110 off the 41mm LTE-enabled wearable in blue and red, dropping the final sale price to $389. That’s a new all-time low on the flagship wearable, which offers several improvements over the last-gen model, including temperature sensors and car crash detection. If you don’t need the newer features, however, you can also buy the 41mm LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 7 in blue for $329 instead of $499 at Walmart or in green for $10 more at Best Buy.The current deal pricing is excellent... Continue reading…

Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge A vocal Tesla critic is alleging that Twitter rejected an anti-Tesla ad from his safety advocacy group, claiming that the ad violates the company’s policy against “political” advertising.The Dawn Project, an anti-Tesla advocacy group fronted by software developer Dan O’Dowd, claims that Twitter rejected its attempts to promote a tweet about a full-page ad running in The New York Times criticizing Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature. In a screenshot of an email provided by the group, Twitter said the tweet contravened its policy regarding “political” ads.The rejected ad was the latest development in a weird, long-running feud between Elon Musk and O’Dowd, who ran a failed campaign for US Senate in California earlier this year. In... Continue reading…

Amazon emphasizes that the new navigation options are all “within a thumb’s reach.” | Image: Amazon Amazon Photos on Android has been redesigned to make app navigation and sharing photos and videos easier for its users, bringing the service in line with a similar update that rolled out to iOS devices almost a year ago.Now, Amazon Photo users can search a photo gallery from the home screen singlehandedly — emphasizing navigation options all being “within a thumb’s reach.” Swiping up within the Amazon Photos gallery on your device will open a new control panel where users can find curated features to filter photos by object, place, or year. Image: Amazon The new home screen can be navigated using just your thumb and features a new control panel, accessible by swiping up within the gallery. Tapping the... Continue reading…

These glowing eyes will be your host. | Image: Netflix Netflix’s Triviaverse is a new “quick-hit trivia experience” that will begin rolling out on the streaming service on Tuesday. Games are fast, typically under five minutes, and you can play by yourself or head-to-head with another person. I got to check it out ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, and I think a lot of people will be loading it up for fierce trivia competitions with loved ones over the holidays.Here’s how it works. Guided by your host, a mysterious pair of spooky glowing eyes, you’ll pick if you’re playing solo or against someone else. Each round features an increasingly difficult series of trivia questions, and you’ll have a minute to answer as many as you can correctly. Image: Netflix Triviaverse ... Continue reading…

Image: Nvidia Nvidia paused the launch of its 12GB RTX 4080 graphics card last month, after a backlash over the naming and pricing. Now a well-known leaker says the “unlaunched” GPU will return as the RTX 4070 Ti in January, as Nvidia attempts to fix the confusing naming around two RTX 4080 cards that had totally different specs.Twitter user kopite7kimi says “the original RTX 4080 12GB will become RTX 4070 Ti instead,” and replied to questions on a January 2023 release date with a thumbs up. Kopite7kimi previously correctly predicted the specifications of the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, and that the RTX 4090 would require 450 watts of power.

Photo by Eric Piermont / AFP via Getty Images Google and the Renault Group are expanding their four-year-old partnership to include the development of an advanced software platform for future vehicles. This “software-defined vehicle” will be built on Google’s Android Automotive operating system and send data to the company’s cloud servers for processing, the companies announced.In 2018, Renault struck a deal with Google as part of a broader partnership between the tech giant and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, which collectively is one of the largest auto groups in the world. As part of the deal, the Alliance announced that it would adopt Google’s native car operating system, which offers built-in Assistant, Maps, and Play Store.Renault says it is appointing Google as... Continue reading…

For when your boss really wants to be on the big screen. | Image: The Verge File this one under collaborations we didn’t see coming: AMC is working with Zoom to turn some of its movie theaters into massive videoconferencing spaces for 75 to 150 people for when you really need your meeting to leave an impact. AMC will even provide “food and beverage offerings, possible movie viewings, and concierge-style personalized handling of meeting needs,” though for an additional cost, of course.The theater chain says that when companies are planning a gathering, they can book theaters across the country online, so their employees can have a similar experience on the call. When you book the service, you’ll get a three-hour block at whatever theaters you select, with AMC and Zoom providing “the necessary equipment for a... Continue reading…

Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I can’t change my screen name on Twitter. I can change my bio. But not my screen name. So although I was helpfully trying to describe myself as “Elizabeth Lopatto (parody)” that simply wasn’t possible. TFW Twitter is broken Now I hear Elon Musk fired about 50 percent of Twitter employees (though apparently he’s trying to hire some of them back). I also hear that lots of people have been changing their screen names to “Elon Musk” in order to get excommunicated. According to David Sacks, an investor in Musk’s deal to take Twitter private, “Twitter’s longstanding policy is that the account name must indicate a parody account.” Unfortunately, I can’t comply.Anyway Sacks, who is part of a “war room” of advisors helping... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile is reportedly considering building a multibillion-dollar fiber network that it would use to provide home internet service, according to Bloomberg. While the company started testing fiber internet last year, its main home-focused offering connects with 5G instead of other wired infrastructure like DSL or cable.Bloomberg reports that the carrier has been working with Citigroup to find financial partners for a potential $4 billion joint venture or “commercial partnership.” It seems like early days for the plan, and it’s possible nothing will come of it, but it still feels like a significant step for the wireless carrier, which has traditionally used and managed a very different kind of infrastructure.The same can’t be said for... Continue reading…

A screenshot from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. | Image: Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard’s 2023 plans for Call of Duty include the “next full premium release in the blockbuster annual series,” according to the company’s third-quarter earnings published Monday (pdf). While that wouldn’t be particularly notable most years given the regular fall release cycle of Call of Duty, Bloomberg reported in February that Activision Blizzard had planned to delay its planned annual entry for 2023.According to Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard was going to delay the 2023 title following the poor response to 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, which failed to meet the company’s projections. And Bloomberg had said in January that the company was considering a change in the annual releases.At the time, Activision Blizzard... Continue reading…

Lille Allen / The Verge Twitter’s daily user growth hit “all-time highs” during the first full week of Elon Musk owning the platform, according to a company document obtained by The Verge.Since Musk’s dramatic takeover, Twitter’s monetizable daily user (mDAU) growth has accelerated to more than 20 percent, while “Twitter’s largest market, the US, is growing even more quickly,” according to an internal FAQ obtained by The Verge that was shared with Twitter’s sales team on Monday to use in conversations with advertisers. Per the FAQ, Twitter has added more than 15 million mDAUs, “crossing the quarter billion mark” since the end of the second quarter, when it stopped reporting financials as a public company.If those numbers are in line with how Twitter reported... Continue reading…

Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images Wordle will now have its own dedicated editor to help make the hit guessing game word puzzles, The New York Times announced on Monday. Tracy Bennett will be the editor, and the game will have a word list curated by the NYT and “be programmed and tested” like its crosswords and the Spelling Bee game.The changes appear to mean that the NYT will be lining up some of its own solutions instead of relying on the long list of answers you could find if you knew where to look. However, it sounds like the game itself won’t be changing.“Wordle’s gameplay will stay the same, and answers will be drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words, with some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that’s fun,... Continue reading…

Insert chainsaw noise here. | Image: Netflix Netflix is planning a slate of Gears of War adaptations, the streaming service announced on Monday. First up is a “live action feature film,” then “an adult animated series,” and after that, there’s the “potential for more stories to follow,” Netflix said. Netflix will be working with The Coalition, the Vancouver-based Xbox Games Studio that manages the Gears of War franchise, to bring the franchise to the streaming service. There are no details about when the adaptations will be released.The announcement arrives on the 16th anniversary of the release of the first Gears of War game, which came out in 2006. Since then, the series has had multiple sequels (the latest being 2019’s Gears 5) and a handful of spinoffs, including one themed... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge You have an opportunity to buy a PlayStation 5 console ahead of the holidays if you jump into the queue at Sony’s online hardware shop. At the time of publication, it’s offering the $499.99 disc-based PS5 console (the more elusive $399.99 digital edition that lacks a disc drive has already sold out). Both consoles have the same 825GB of usable storage space, and they can be opened to install more fast storage via an M.2 SSD slot.Picking up a PS5 is a good idea, as it’s the best (and sometimes, only) way to play PlayStation-exclusive games. God of War Ragnorök, for example, releases this week and offers several high frame rate modes that all look spectacular in their own ways compared to the PS4 version. Check out our review, and if... Continue reading…