The Verge

UN Secretary-General António Guterres (L) speaks next to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (R) at the start of The International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva on January 9th, 2023. | Image: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images When it comes to tackling climate change, achieving “net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050” has become a ubiquitous rallying cry. It’s in goals set by cities, states, and the Biden administration. It’s a hallmark of companies’ sustainability pledges, from Big Tech to Big Oil. It’s not enough.The world’s leading climate experts called for more swift action on climate change in a major report released today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Near-term goals to slash greenhouse gas pollution need to be a much higher priority, advocates say, and there’s precious little time to reach them.“The climate time-bomb is ticking. But today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is laying off another 9,000 workers, according to a memo to employees CEO Andy Jassy sent to workers on Monday. The employees affected by the cut include those in roles in AWS, Twitch, advertising, and human resources.In his memo, Jassy cites the “uncertain economy” as the reason for the cuts and says the company has “chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount.” Amazon just got done laying off a total of 18,000 people across the company late last year and in January, which included workers in its hardware and services, human resources, and retail teams.“The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term... Continue reading…

Monument Valley coming to Netflix in 2024. | Image: Netflix In 2024, Netflix will be adding two of the most revered mobile titles of all time to its fledgling gaming service. The company announced that both Monument Valley and its sequel will be available to Netflix subscribers starting in 2024.It’s a big get, as both games were huge mobile hits on release and are currently available as part of Apple’s Arcade subscription service as well. (It’s not clear yet if the games will be available on both subscriptions simultaneously next year.)The announcement was made as part of a bigger reveal of upcoming titles from Netflix. On April 18th, Ubisoft will be releasing its second game on the service, a roguelite called Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace, while Super Evil Megacorp — the studio behind mobile... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is still working on its cloud gaming service, which could make its burgeoning games lineup easier to play and available across more devices. The company’s VP of games, Mike Verdu, announced in October that Netflix was “seriously exploring” a cloud gaming service, and work on the project is “underway,” Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s VP of external games, said in a briefing with reporters.“We are very early in that side of our journey,” Loombe said. “We do believe that cloud gaming will enable us to provide that easy access to games on any screen and be frictionless and provide the accessibility into gaming experiences.” She cautioned that Netflix is being “super thoughtful” about how it builds the service, perhaps to avoid a Google... Continue reading…

Image: Ingka Ikea has enlisted more drones to keep tabs on its inventory. In a blog post shared last week, Ikea’s parent company, Ingka, says the retailer now has a total of 100 autonomous drones counting stock in its warehouses during nonoperational hours.Ikea first partnered with the drone-making company Verity in 2020 to deploy the drones in Switzerland, but now, the company says they’re zipping around 16 locations across Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The Swedish furniture giant says the drones help improve the accuracy of product availability and also support “a more ergonomic workplace,” as it saves employees from counting stock manually.Verity, which specializes in creating self-flying drones for warehouses... Continue reading…

Tumblr’s poll game phenomenon often shares a likeness with the infinite monkeys on a typewriter theorem. | Image: im-a-freaking-joy / Tumblr On February 3rd, Tumblr user Relientk used the site’s then-recently released poll feature to list several common baking ingredients. “Okay let’s bake a cake,” the poll urged. There were no further instructions, no rules. Users’ votes just implicitly set the percentage of things like butter, flour, sugar... and vanilla extract.If you’re already a Tumblr user, you know how this went. The resulting cake recipe was 44 percent vanilla — briefly turning the phrase “vanilla extract” into a sitewide meme. While the gag was short-lived and the cake (based on one real-life baking test) far from delicious, it’s become part of a much larger trend on Tumblr: turning the site’s polls into sometimes surprisingly complex — and often very funny — games.... Continue reading…

Finland was again named the happiest country in the world for 2023, followed closely by other countries in Northern Europe. | Image: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images Despite causing millions of deaths, economic downfall, and worldwide disruption these past few years, the 10th annual World Happiness Report reveals that the covid pandemic hasn’t impacted our overall happiness. The 2023 report published today reveals that happiness levels from self-reported “life evaluations” have been “remarkably resilient” — with global averages between 2020 and 2022 just as high as those reported pre-pandemic.The annual World Happiness Report uses data from studies like the Gallup World Poll, which collects around 1,000 self-assessed life evaluations from each of the 137 participating countries to determine its overall rankings. The self-reported evaluations are then broken down into six key factors — social... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is getting ready to launch its Xbox mobile gaming store as soon as next year. The software giant revealed its plans for an Xbox mobile store last year, and now Xbox chief Phil Spencer says the company is building the store in the anticipation of companies like Apple and Google being forced to open up their mobile app stores.“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in an interview with the Financial Times. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”Microsoft said last year it was... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Around one million accounts are now signed up to Netflix’s ad-supported tier in the US, according to internal figures seen by Bloomberg. The tier was first launched in early November, and is thought to have gotten off to a slow start. Come January, however, 19 percent of new signups in the US opted for the $6.99 ad-supported tier, according to analytics firm Antenna.Bloomberg cautions that the internal data it saw is “at least” a month old, and that it doesn’t account for multiple users watching via the same account. But the figures suggest that Netflix is finding its footing with the new revenue stream, after having been overwhelmingly reliant on subscriber revenue for most of its history. And Bloomberg notes that ad-supported... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you haven’t switched away from Twitter’s SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) method yet, today’s the last day to do it. Starting on March 20th, Twitter will place its text message-based 2FA behind its $8 per month Blue paywall.As part of this change, Twitter will also turn off 2FA for your account completely if you don’t switch away from SMS verification or pay for Blue before that deadline, leaving your account vulnerable to hacking. Fortunately, you can still enable 2FA for free using an authenticator app, like Google Authenticator or Authy. You can also use a security key, but this requires the purchase of an actual piece of hardware.Twitter’s making SMS 2FA a paid feature because it’s the least secure form of authentication.... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The FBI has arrested the person allegedly in charge of the BreachForums online hacking community, as reported earlier by Krebs on Security and Bleeping Computer. Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, also known online as “Pompompurin,” was arrested at his New York home on Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to a pair of court filings.In a sworn statement, the FBI agent involved in the case claims Fitzpatrick admitted to owning BreachForums at the time of his arrest and identified himself as Pompompurin. Pompompurin created BreachForums after the FBI seized RaidForums, a similar hacking site that also sold leaked information.The hacker is implicated in a number of breaches, with many of them targeting the... Continue reading…

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Two men have been charged for their alleged roles in last year’s hack of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s web portal, as reported earlier by Gizmodo. In a press release posted earlier this week, the Department of Justice says Sagar Steven Singh and Nicholas Ceraolo stole a police officer’s credentials to access a federal law enforcement database that they used to extort victims.Prosecutors claim the 19-year-old Singh and 25-year-old Ceraolo are members of a hacking group called Vile, which often steals personal information from victims and then threatens to dox them online if they don’t receive a payment. While the DOJ doesn’t explicitly say which agency Singh and Ceraolo allegedly hacked into, it states the portal contains “detailed,... Continue reading…

Look, you can make art on your iPad without having to pay for Apple’s Pencil. For the past few months, I’ve been cheating on my Apple Pencil. Instead of using Apple’s $129 stylus with my iPad Mini for notetaking, I’ve been using an alternative I purchased off of Amazon for about $25. It looks nearly identical, works nearly as well, and even snaps onto and charges from your iPad. And while this $25 stylus doesn’t quite match all of the Apple Pencil’s features, it comes awfully close to providing a similar experience for a fraction of the price.The stylus I’ve been using is from a random brand called “StylusHome,” but there are many similar ones listed on Amazon for around the same price. It apes the styling of Apple’s second-generation Pencil exactly — if it weren’t for the logo on the first-party one, I wouldn’t... Continue reading…

Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell in the original 1997 Good Burger movie. | Photo by Paramount/Getty Images It’s official: Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell will reunite for a Good Burger sequel that’s set to hit Paramount Plus later this year. The duo revealed the news during a segment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Friday night, noting that they will start filming in the summer.Good Burger 2 takes place in a present-day version of the fictional fast food restaurant of the same name, with Thompson reprising his role as Dexter Reed and Mitchell as Ed, the store’s hilariously oblivious cashier. Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro from 2021 offers a lot of the same functionality as the newer M2 models at a fraction of the cost. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The nice thing about the entry-level M2-powered MacBook Air is the fact it's relatively affordable (for a Mac, of course). But that lower price tag comes with a drawback: it’s just not powerful enough for more demanding creative work. Thankfully, today’s $500 discount on the 14-inch MacBook Pro means you can buy a laptop that’s an absolute powerhouse for content creation at what’s closer to an entry-level price for the M2 Air.Right now, the M1 Pro-equipped laptop is on sale at Best Buy with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $1,599 ($400 off), which is just $100 more than buying an M2-equipped MacBook Air with 512GB of storage and half the RAM. What’s more, the 14-inch MacBook Pro supports up to two external displays as opposed to... Continue reading…

Photo by Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images It’s a great time to be shopping for an electric cargo bike.Not only are there a bunch of great, modestly priced models that have just been released from an assortment of really interesting companies, but there are also a growing number of states offering incentives to curious shoppers that could help bring the cost down even further.It feels as if the industry and the government have simultaneously woken up to the enormous potential of cargo e-bikes to replace car trips and improve the environment, and honestly, it’s about time.The planet-and-community-saving superpower of cargo e-bikes is widely known. They’ve been shown to decrease car dependency, save people money, reduce carbon emissions, and speed up delivery times for... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Growing up, I learned The Way Things Work from author David Macaulay’s incredible illustrated books. This week, I was surprised to see Macaulay’s endorsement in my inbox for a new illustrated explainer by a different author — but the surprise didn’t last long.Fifteen minutes after I began skimming through an advance copy of Hidden Systems, which just came out this week, I immediately ordered the book for my kids. It looks like a fantastic way to help them conceptualize the internet, the world’s water supply, and our power grid — and get them thinking about the infrastructure of the world they’ll someday inherit. Images by Dan Nott / Random House How Dan Nott defines a hidden system, from his website excerpt. ... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is trying to make it easier to share your experiences with its GPT-4-powered Bing Chat by adding a button that lets you post the AI’s response to Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. People have already been sharing the interesting (and sometimes upsetting) things that the chatbot has been saying via screenshots, but it seems like Microsoft is leaning into it now. Perhaps that’s a sign that it’s more confident in all the guardrails it’s put up around the system after users pushed it to the breaking point.In a blog post on Friday, the company shows off the share button, saying that you can use it to generate a persistent link to the answer in addition to sharing it to social media. Clicking the link takes you to a Bing Chat window,... Continue reading…

I want this to be me. Hoodie and all. | Image: Razer Mouse pads are one thing. Mouse pads made of glass? Quite another. This, at least, is what I’m assuming based on the promotional materials for the Razer Atlas, Razer’s first glass mouse pad. “Absolute functionality and durability,” Razer’s website proclaims. “Experience pure polished precision,” the press release demands of me.The $99.99 tempered glass Atlas has an anti-slip rubber base, is available in black or white, and is 0.19 inches (five millimeters) thick. But the main idea behind a glass mouse pad, or so I gather, is that you can glide a mouse across it very, very fast.It’s not like I have a problem with the speeds afforded by whatever piece of foam is currently on my desk. But I just keep looking at this thing, and I feel... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is promising significant changes to the way Windows manages which apps open certain files by default and how users can select programs to pin to their Start menu on the Windows desktop or on the taskbar.A new Settings deep link URI scheme will let developers send users directly to the right spot in Settings to change which program is the default for particular file or link types. Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s nonfinal concept design for the button that would let you confirm pinning an app tile to your Windows taskbar. Separately, Microsoft will start testing a new API to let apps pin a primary or secondary tile to the taskbar.Described on a company blog as “a principled approach to app pinning and... Continue reading…

Image: Team Meat The next title in the ultra-hard Super Meat Boy series is going to be, of all things, a puzzle game. The new game, Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine, is a match-four puzzler that’s clearly inspired by Sega’s Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, but it will have some Super Meat Boy-esque flair.“As you’re trying to get your color-coded clones to the bottom of the screen and build combos, you’ll have to deal with buzzsaws, missiles and a host of other hazards primed to destroy your clones if you don’t play with the precision that the Super Meat Boy series has always demanded,” Team Meat’s Tommy Refenes said in a blog post. Sounds, uh, brutal. The game will have more than 100 hand-built levels “filled with hazards and traps that will test your... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Federal authorities seized nearly $3 million from Gettr last September as part of a sweeping billion-dollar fraud investigation into a Chinese billionaire.On Wednesday, the Justice Department arrested Chinese billionaire and dissident Guo Wengui, also known as Ho Wan Kwok and Miles Guo, for allegedly defrauding thousands of people out of more than $1 billion. Authorities said that Guo carried out the massive fraud through a complex web of investment schemes that has now entangled Trump-aligned social network Gettr.Guo, an exiled Chinese dissident living in Manhattan, is a prominent Trump supporter and friend to Steve Bannon. A 2021 Daily Beast report revealed that Guo was an original investor in Gettr, where he touts nearly 900,000... Continue reading…

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…

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…

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…

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:

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…