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Apple is now selling replacement iPhone parts directly to customers, allowing them to repair their own devices rather than paying a professional. But if you were expecting a DIY repair to be a way of saving money, then you might be a little disappointed. Apple’s pricing for some of the most common replacement parts is very similar to what it’ll charge you to do the repairs at an Apple Store, even when you’re the one delicately taking your phone apart to swap out a broken part. Only once you factor in the credit you get for sending in a replaced part do you stand to see a more significant saving.Take battery replacements. Apple is charging $69 for a Battery & Screw Kit for iPhone 12 or 13 models and $49 for the same kit for the... Continue reading…

Image: Comcast As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ‘em, partner up with another overly powerful cable giant to give yourself a better shot. This morning, Comcast and Charter announced a new joint venture that will see the two companies teaming up to develop “a next-generation streaming platform on a variety of branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs.” This new platform and the devices that run it will square off against Amazon, Roku, Google, Apple, and other established streaming hardware players.The new venture is evenly divided between the two companies and is exclusively focused on streaming; it “does not involve the broadband or cable video businesses of either Comcast or Charter, which will remain independent.”Comcast says its Flex... Continue reading…

The screens on some 40mm Series 6 models may go permanently blank. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A small number of Apple Watch Series 6 models may have an issue that causes their display to go permanently blank. The good news is Apple now says you can get it fixed for free.The program (as spotted by 9to5Mac) was quietly launched late last week. According to Apple, the issue only affects 40mm models of the Series 6 manufactured between April and September 2021. If you’ve been experiencing this problem and have an eligible Watch, Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will fix the issue free of charge.To check for eligibility, you’ll need to know your device’s serial number. If your Series 6 display is blanked out, then it’s best to head to the Watch app on your phone. From there, head to the My Watch tab, select General, tap... Continue reading…

Justin Lin attends the Universal Pictures F9 world premiere at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 18, 2021, in Hollywood, California. | Image: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Though principal photography on Universal’s 10th Fast & Furious movie just recently began, Justin Lin announced this week that he will no longer be directing the project, a surprising turn of events that’s bound to bring production to a halt.On Tuesday, Lin broke the news in a public statement explaining that he ultimately settled on the decision to leave Fast X with Universal’s support and that he plans to stay on the film, which he co-wrote along with Dan Mazeau, as a producer.“Over 10 years and five films, we have been able to shoot the best actors, the best stunts, and the best damn car chases,” Lin said. “On a personal note, as the child of Asian immigrants, I am proud of helping to build the most diverse franchise in movie... Continue reading…

Rivian R1S with new sand mode. | Image: Rivian Rivian is experiencing a production issue with an interior trim option for its electric vehicles. Some reservation holders of the company’s R1T electric truck and R1S SUV received emails this week saying that the Ocean Coast trim is “more challenging to produce” and will be delayed to later this fall (via Electrek).It’s not the best look given the email came the same day as rival Ford’s launch event of its electric Lightning truck, but Rivian does have some cool new software updates to share as well. The company announced that it’s working on OTA updates that will enable a dashcam feature, which will go nicely with its Gear Guard video security feature. There’s also an upcoming “pet mode” that keeps HVAC running for your dog while you... Continue reading…

If you’ve seen The Witcher on Netflix and have been curious about giving the games a shot, you can get all three games in The Witcher series at Steam for an incredibly low price. The Witcher Trilogy costs just $11.22 right now. Outside of a sale, getting all three titles would cost you $69.97. Needless to say, this is a great deal for anyone who has a modestly powerful gaming PC (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt released in 2015, but it’s still graphically demanding, even to today’s standards). If you have a Steam Deck, you should know that only The Witcher 3 is verified to work on the portable console.It’s not always easy to find high-quality true wireless earbuds under $100 — never mind ones that are actually on sale — but every now and... Continue reading…

The iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is launching its DIY phone repair service in the US today, making spare parts available for the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and third-generation iPhone SE. When the company announced its “Self Service Repair” initiative last year, Apple said it planned to sell over 200 “individual parts and tools” to customers. They’re only available in the US for now, but Apple plans to expand the program to other countries as well as additional devices, like Macs equipped with M1 chips, later this year.Parts are available through Apple’s Self Service Repair Store. Tool rental kits will also be available to rent for seven days at a cost of $49 for customers who don’t want to buy tools outright, the company said in its press release.The program marks... Continue reading…

The iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is launching its DIY phone repair service in the US today, making spare parts available for the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and third-generation iPhone SE. When the company announced its “Self Service Repair” initiative last year, Apple said it planned to sell over 200 “individual parts and tools” to customers. They’re only available in the US for now, but Apple plans to expand the program to other countries, as well as addition devices like Macs equipped with M1 chips, later this year.Parts are available through Apple’s Self Service Repair Store. Tool rental kits will also be available for $49, the company said in its press release, for customers who don’t want to buy tools outright.The program marks a significant shift for Apple,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify’s latest earnings release suggests that the audio streaming service’s subscriber numbers haven’t seen much, if any, impact from the controversies that surrounded its Joe Rogan podcast just a few short months ago.In the quarter ending March 31st, Spotify says its premium subscribers rose 15 percent on a year-on-year basis to 182 million, up from 180 million the previous quarter. Monthly active users rose 19 percent year on year to 422 million, up from 406 million at the end of last year. For context, in the previous quarter, premium subscribers rose 16 percent year on year, while monthly active users were up 18 percent.Spotify had previously expected to hit 183 million premium subscribers this quarter but slightly missed this... Continue reading…

The new movie was just announced. | Image: Warner Bros. Robert Pattinson’s Batman will make a return, as Warner Bros. is making a sequel to Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Deadline reports Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group exec Toby Emmerich announced the new film at CinemaCon on Tuesday.While my colleague Charles Pulliam-Moore felt that the film was “one of the lesser entries, substance-wise, in the grand Batman cinematic canon,” it has proven to be a hit. The movie earned $760 million at the global box office and was watched by 4.1 million households on HBO Max the first week it was available, according to Deadline. (The movie came to the streaming service earlier this month.)Both Reeves and Pattinson will be back for the new movie, though there aren’t many other details known just yet. But the... Continue reading…

Circular. | Image: u/tagtech414 We’re now getting a look at what the leaked Pixel Watch looks like strapped to somebody’s wrist, courtesy of Reddit user tagtech414, who’s previously shared alleged images of Google’s as-yet-unannounced wearable (via 9to5Google). In the previous pictures, we could only see the little computer puck itself, not attached to a strap. While tagtech414 doesn’t seem to have successfully booted the device yet, they’ve given us a better idea of what it might be like to actually wear it.According to tagtech’s Reddit post, the strap is “kind of a pain to attach the first time,” but the connection feels solid when it's on there. Based on the images and tagtech’s description of a strap that’s “a soft silicone with good flex and doesn’t seem to show... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Fidelity will soon start allowing eligible individuals to save a portion of their 401(k) in Bitcoin, the company announced Tuesday. Employees will only gain access to the option if their employer signs off the option, which Fidelity says will start rolling out in mid-2022.While Fidelity doesn’t specify how much employees can dedicate to cryptocurrency in its release, the Wall Street Journal reports that employees can elect to save up to 20 percent of their retirement fund in Bitcoin. Dave Gray, Fidelity’s head of workplace retirement offerings and platforms, also told the WSJ that Fidelity plans on adding support for other cryptocurrencies at some point in the future.MicroStrategy is the first to announce that it has adopted the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More than 10 million people have streamed games over Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Tuesday during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. Cloud gaming is a feature that’s only available as part of the $14.99 per month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, so the figure shared Tuesday indicates that a lot of people are checking it out. It’s also a concrete stat in a field where there have been few — Google doesn’t break out numbers for Stadia, and any numbers shared by Nvidia for GeForce Now include people who have used a no-strings-attached free trial.Game Pass has proven to be popular, as Microsoft said in January that the service grew to have 25 million subscribers, which was up from 18 million the year before. That... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After a record-breaking 2021 with annual revenue of $257 billion — the first time it has gone over $200 billion for a year — Google’s parent company reports in a filing (pdf) that it has started off 2022 with Q1 revenue that’s up 23 percent from the same period last year, reaching $68 billion.However, with expenses up compared to 2021, its net profit actually dropped to $16.4 billion compared to last year’s $17.9 billion. Research and development costs for the quarter rose by over $1 billion compared to Q1 2021, going from $7.485 billion to $9.1 billion. As the New York Times notes, last year the company had a $4.8 billion gain in its stock holdings, and in Q1 2022 it recorded a $1.07 billion loss.Google’s search business brought in... Continue reading…

Sonic 3 & Knuckles will be among the games dropped from stores. | Image: Steam Sega is going to “delist the digital versions of” Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD starting on May 20th, according to a press release posted to multiple sites (via The Gamer). The announcement is extremely light on details. (You could read it faster than a speedrunner could do Green Hill Zone 1), but it does mention that the games being pulled will be featured in the upcoming Sonic Origins collection.Currently, this mostly seems like an issue for PC players. The games aren’t available individually on the PlayStation Store, and only 2 and CD are available to purchase separately on the Xbox. All the games, however, are available on Steam. Sega says you’ll be able to buy the Sega Ages versions of Sonic 1 and 2 on... Continue reading…

Update April 27th, 4:18AM ET: SpaceX successfully launched the crew from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 3:52AM ET. The astronauts will now spend roughly 17 hours en route to the ISS, and are due to dock with the space station at around 8:15PM ET, reports Reuters.Original Story: In the early morning hours, SpaceX is set to launch its seventh crewed mission to orbit, this time sending three NASA astronauts and an Italian astronaut to the International Space Station. Their launch will spark the beginning of a six-month stay on board the ISS, part of SpaceX’s commitment to NASA to periodically fly astronauts to and from the orbiting lab.The mission, called Crew-4, is SpaceX’s fourth operational human spaceflight mission to the ISS for... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Here’s the situation: you’re typing a report for work, and you suddenly have to write the phrase “Jones née Berkowitz.” Or you are adding a phrase in Spanish and need to use the word “años.” How do you add the special characters to the letters with your Windows 11 PC?Special characters (also known as diacritical marks) may be more common in certain languages, but there are plenty of circumstances in which English speakers may need to use them. But because they are so rare in English, native English speakers may not have learned how to add those marks to documents, emails, or other writings. It’s not difficult to add them to your Windows document, although it’s not quite as smooth an operation as on a Mac, where all you have to do is... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s third quarter 2022 financial results are here, and the company’s posting double-digit growth yet again: revenue of $49.4 billion and net income of $16.7 billion. Revenue is up 18 percent, and the profit represents an 8 percent jump year over year. Microsoft is crediting a chunk of this quarter’s growth to the cloud, with server and cloud services revenue up 29 percent specifically, and Microsoft Cloud up 32 percent to $23.4 billion.There was plenty of reason to suspect Microsoft would still sport a smile this quarter. While the PC industry has started to decline from its pandemic highs, it was flagging Chromebook sales — not Microsoft Windows machines — that were responsible for the entirety of the recent dip. Meanwhile, the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Most people who use smartwatches and other wearable devices that can track health are white, well-educated, and wealthy. That’s not because other groups aren’t interested in using the devices to keep tabs on their fitness, heart rate, or other metrics, according to a new study. It’s just that the cost of these devices is too high. That leaves lower-income groups and racial minority groups excluded from research studies that use wearable data.The study was conducted by researchers at the All of Us Research Program, an initiative at the National Institutes of Health aiming to build a health database that’s representative of the United States. The team is purposefully seeking to include groups historically underrepresented in medical... Continue reading…

Subaru is sticking to its outdoorsy roots when marketing the Solterra. | Image: Subaru Subaru has announced the pricing of its first all-electric vehicle, the Solterra SUV. The vehicle, which comes standard with all-wheel drive like most Subarus, will start at $44,995, with the “Limited” and “Touring” trims starting at $48,495 and $51,995, respectively. All models will have an extra $1,225 destination and delivery charge, bumping their cost out the door up a bit more.The Solterra will have an “up to a 228-mile” range, according to Subaru, and will be able to charge 80 percent of its battery in under an hour. While the Limited and Touring models add features like roof rails, wireless charging, and a glass roof, there’s currently not an option to add more range to the vehicle — something that many other manufacturers offer.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If combining NFTs with the medical industry doesn’t sound the most logical, this report from BuzzFeed News will likely confirm your skepticism. An NFT project called MetaDocs assigns doctors / influencers, like Dr. Pimple Popper, to (somewhat unsightly) cartoon personifications of themselves, which users can then purchase to gain access to one-on-one conversations, question-and-answer sessions, or DMs.But despite MetaDocs’ goal of cutting the “red tape” that comes with gaining access to doctors, the MetaDocs themselves aren’t legally able to give medical advice to NFT holders. As BuzzFeed points out, MetaDocs doesn’t have a license to practice telemedicine, barring its doctors from giving medical advice, writing prescriptions, or... Continue reading…

HUNGA TONGA-HUNGA HA’APAI, TONGA – DECEMBER 24, 2021: In this image 2. of a series created on January 19, 2022, Maxar overview satellite imagery shows the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano on December 24, 2021, | Photo by Maxar via Getty Images Catastrophe has become more commonplace, according to data from a new United Nations report. Not only that, but humans are largely responsible for the increasing number of disasters, which are only going to become even more frequent, the report warns.Looking back, from 1970 to 2000, the world averaged between 90 and 100 disasters reported per year, according to the report published today by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). That grew tremendously from 2001 to 2020, to between 350 to 500 disasters a year.That includes disasters caused by hazards like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, extreme weather, crop plagues, epidemics, and more (the UN counted biological, geophysical, and weather... Continue reading…

Blizzard Entertainment Happy Overwatch 2 Beta Day! As many players awake to find the golden beta ticket in their inboxes, there will inevitably be those who are left without one. But take heart, heroes, for Blizzard has designed a way by which you can earn an invite to what is, essentially, Overwatch 2’s soft-launch day.Starting tomorrow and lasting for a few hours, anyone who connects their Battle.net account to their Twitch profile and watches at least four hours of Overwatch 2 from a list of streamers can earn access to the OW2 beta. You can find the list of approved streamers here.In the beta, players will be able to check out the 33rd hero Sojourn, all the new hero updates, the brand-new Push game mode, and the five vs. five rework. Unfortunately, the... Continue reading…

The Studio Display’s camera quality was a mess upon release. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge When we reviewed Apple’s $1,599 Studio Display one thing immediately jumped out: its built-in webcam is bad. At the time, Apple told us that an update to improve the camera would be forthcoming, and now it appears to be here. Apple spokesperson Jennie Orphanopoulos tells The Verge that “an update to the Studio Display firmware is now available with today’s beta release of macOS Monterey 12.4. This beta update has refinements to the Studio Display camera tuning, including improved noise reduction, contrast, and framing.”Developers are able to install the Monterey 12.4 beta now; everyone else will be able to install it from Apple’s public beta program later today.Will the improvements to the camera be enough to make your average Zoom... Continue reading…

Sifu, the tough martial arts game released earlier this year, will be getting difficulty modes on May 3rd as part of a major content update, developer Sloclap announced Tuesday. The game had received some criticism for its challenging difficulty, so, hopefully, the new modes will make the game more approachable.As part of the May 3rd update, the game will get “student,” “disciple,” and “master” difficulties, though it’s unclear exactly how the modes will be tuned in comparison to one another. If I had to guess, though, they translate to “easy,” “medium,” and “hard” modes.I was a big fan of the game’s difficulty at launch. It was hard, but I loved going through the game’s levels multiple times to improve. When I defeated the game’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The first public beta of Android 13 is now available for anyone with a compatible Pixel device to download and try out, the search giant announced today. Its release comes ahead of Google’s annual developer conference next month when the company is expected to fully detail its plans for the update — due for release later this year.For end users, the most interesting features are those that have already appeared in Android 13’s initial two developer previews. There’s support for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, a new photo picker that lets you restrict which of your photos an app is able to access, new app icon theming options, and a new permission that could cut down on notification spam. Image: Google Apps will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is testing a feature that would let users pin posts to their profile grid, according to TechCrunch.The feature, which is currently live only for some as part of the test, allows users to highlight specific posts at the top of their profile grid. Similar to pinned tweets on Twitter or pinned videos on TikTok, highlighting individual Instagram posts at the top of a profile would allow creators to draw attention to content without asking followers to scroll down through past posts to look for it.Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing a new feature that lets users “feature posts on their profile.” It appears the feature has been in the works for a few months, having been spotted in January by reverse engineer Alessandro... Continue reading…

Every color and configuration of Samsung’s S22 is currently on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re looking to upgrade your smartphone, you’re in luck. Both Best Buy and Amazon have discounted the entire Samsung Galaxy S22 lineup, with some models getting up to $200 knocked off their original price. This offer applies to all unlocked models of Samsung’s latest smartphone, regardless of the configuration. This either matches or beats the best prices we’ve seen for the S22 line, and we consider this an excellent deal on what we consider the default Android phones to buy. Read our reviews of the S22 and S22 Plus.Kicking things off with the standard model of the S22, the 128GB model is currently available at Amazon and Best Buy for $699.99, as opposed to its usual retail price of $799.99. The base model of this 6.1-inch phone... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Let’s break it down Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’ve managed to get your hands on a Playdate or have one on the way, you’re guaranteed a full “season” of 24 games delivered to your device over the span of 12 weeks. And there are some great ones included — check out my full Playdate review for a round-up of my favorites. But there’s also more to the device than just those games, thanks to sideloading. Playdate maker Panic has made it very easy to get games onto your device. You can check out the process here, but essentially, you just need to download a file — usually from somewhere like Itch.io — and then either load it onto your device via USB or load them wirelessly by adding them to your account on the Playdate website.It’s a pretty painless process, and there are already... Continue reading…

Drop’s new white-on-black DCX keycaps. | Image: Drop There’s a new keycap style in town: DCX Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is expanding its Super Thanks tipping program, giving more creators another way to monetize their presence on the platform.Super Thanks, which allows fans to send creators tips directly on videos, was previously in beta since being announced last year. Tip amounts vary between $2 and $50, and fans can include a custom comment when they send creators money. The program is now open to all eligible YouTube Partner creators in 68 countries, the company announced in a blog post.YouTube has introduced a variety of ways creators can monetize interactions with fans and viewers. In addition to Super Thanks, a feature called Super Chat allows livestream audience members to pay to have their comment pinned in the accompanying chat. With... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is expanding its Community Funds program, the company announced this week, and it plans to spend $1 million funding various projects across the platform. “We will invite communities to submit ideas for projects, events, contests, giving, almost anything you can think of to bring people together for inspiration and delight,” the company said in its announcement. Projects can ask for between $1,000 and $50,000, and Reddit will start issuing grants in June.In a way, this is Reddit’s version of the creator funds that Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and, well, pretty much everybody has been offering to people using their platforms. And, in that sense, Reddit’s commitment here is pretty small: Facebook pledged to spend... Continue reading…

Google Play’s new safety section. | Image: Google Google is rolling out a new safety section in the Play Store designed to show users more detail about the data apps collect and how it is used, the company has announced. The section will be gradually rolling out for users over the coming weeks, and app developers have until July 20th to add the information to their listings — so the section may not immediately appear for everyone. The initiative was first announced last year.According to Google, the section is an attempt to give users more information and context. It’ll list the data each developer is collecting, if they share it, and their security practices (such as whether they encrypt the data while in transit). There will also be information on whether a developer follows Google... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Panic has just begun shipping the Playdate, its unusual new gaming handheld. Part of the Playdate’s appeal is its quirky hardware: in an era where new handhelds have glorious OLED screens or are powerful enough to play your library of Steam games, the Playdate is a tiny device that has a crank and can only display games in black and white. But the Playdate is also interesting because of its “season” release model for games.Everyone who purchases a Playdate will get access to a full season of 24 games, though you won’t be able to play all of them right away. Instead, you’ll get two games when you first set up the device, and after that, Panic will send you two new games on Mondays in an almost TV show-like release cadence.“I think I... Continue reading…

Claire Danes as Cora Seaborne and Tom Hiddleston as Will Ransome. | Apple Author Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel The Essex Serpent is a story about a fictional village descending into madness as more and more people become convinced that there’s a mythical beast lurking in the nearby waters. But The Essex Serpent also revolved around a complicated romance that Apple seems keen on exploring in its upcoming adaptation of the book — at least judging from the first trailer.The Essex Serpent follows as Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) and her companion Martha (Hayley Squires) journey to the fictional village of Aldwinter in pursuit of Cora’s dream to become a paleontologist following the sudden death of her abusive husband. While local tales of a massive primordial serpent capable of causing earthquakes are cause for alarm... Continue reading…

You can reset your Apple Watch passcode from the wrist or on your phone. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge When you set up a passcode on your Apple Watch, you’ll ideally pick one that you can easily remember. However, mishaps happen to the best of us. Maybe you needed to change up your usual passcode for security reasons and plumb forgot the new one. Perhaps you’re booting it up for the first time in a while and didn’t remember setting one up to begin with. In my case, I wore my Apple Watch to bed and vaguely remember taking it off in the middle of the night. When I tried to unlock it this morning, I was instead greeted by a message saying I had entered in one too many wrong passcodes.Regardless of the reason, getting locked out of your Apple Watch is no fun. Thankfully, this is an easy problem to fix. Photo by Victoria... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Roku has signed a multiyear deal with Lionsgate to exclusively offer the studio’s theatrical releases for free on its ad-supported Roku Channel immediately after their showing on Starz, starting with its 2022 release slate. It includes films like John Wick: Chapter 4, The Expendables 4, Borderlands, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and more, which will be available on the channel in two separate windows. The second window will be nonexclusive, however, so the Roku Channel will be the first place viewers can see the films for free.“This agreement affirms the great demand for first-run studio movies across a broad array of platforms,” said Jim Packer, the president of worldwide television distribution at Lionsgate. “This partnership... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge On the frontier of fighting the NSA Continue reading…

Gaming phones have resorted to babes Continue reading…

Display your photos on your Google Nest Hub. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google’s family of Nest Hub smart displays can do a lot of things: control your smart home devices; show you a feed of your video doorbell; play YouTube videos; double as a digital cookbook; and even track your sleep for you. But they also make excellent digital photo displays.There are many digital picture frames out there, but what sets Google’s apart is the auto-adjustment feature that makes your digital pictures look like a printed image in a frame rather than a digital image on a computer screen. The Nest Hubs are also really easy to use — all you need is a free Google Photos account. And, starting at $100, they’re some of the least expensive options out there.Google also has a feature called Live Albums that will automatically... Continue reading…

Samsung Samsung has announced the T7 Shield USB-C portable SSD, which, by all accounts, has the same internal hardware as the T7 but with a more rugged design that endows it with IP65 water and dust resistance. The grippy rubber coating inherently makes it better at deflecting scuffs and scratches than the metal design of the T7, and it boasts better drop resistance of up to 9.8 feet. And, thanks to that rubber, Samsung says it can maintain high performance, transferring up to 2TB of data without triggering its Dynamic Thermal Guard feature that throttles data transfer speeds to safeguard the hardware.The T7 Shield is available starting today in 1TB and 2TB configurations, priced at $143.99 and $260.99, respectively. It has the same transfer... Continue reading…

Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images Well hi, everyone, I hope we’re all relaxed and ready for a very calm, very normal week. I know I’m certainly ready to stay focused on my own projects and not get wildly distracted by the whims of billionaires with money to burn. Wish me luck.Joe Rogan “gained two million subscribers” from recent controversyFrom the department of any press is good press: Joe Rogan says the recent firestorm around his ongoing vaccine misinformation and past use of a racial slur only added to his fan base. “It’s interesting, my subscriptions went up massively — that’s what’s crazy,” Rogan said on an episode Friday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “During the height of it all, I gained 2 million subscribers.”The Reporter adds that, according to... Continue reading…

The Wyze Garage Door Controller uses a Wyze Cam v3 and QR code to watch over your garage door. | Image: Wyze Hot on the heels of its latest smart door lock release, Wyze is launching a garage door controller to manage access for that other way into your home. The Wyze Garage Door Controller launches today and costs $39.99 plus shipping. This gadget lets you control and view your garage door from anywhere using a Wyze Cam v3 and a controller box, so you can see the door while you open or close it remotely using the Wyze app. Instead of using a contact sensor to monitor the state of your door as similar products do, Wyze is deploying some AI tech to its integrated camera to watch your door.A smart garage door controller is a retrofit device that connects to your existing motorized door opener to let you control it remotely over a Wi-Fi... Continue reading…

Image: Fiture When Mirror debuted its fitness mirror in 2018, it was a unique, space-efficient take on at-home fitness. Since then, several competitors including NordicTrack and Echelon have launched their own versions. Today, another challenger has appeared in the form of the Fiture — a $1,495 interactive connected mirror that offers real-time form feedback, gestures, voice control, and the ability to build custom workouts.I got the chance to check out the Fiture in person recently, and the device looks, well, like a mirror. It measures 43 inches long and, at 1.3 inches thick, is relatively slim. Aside from a plug in the back, speakers on the sides, and button controls, it looks like any other full-length mirror you’d buy at a furniture store.L... Continue reading…

Touchpad! | Image: Dell Asus is no longer the only big laptop manufacturer doing funky touchpad things: Dell has thrown its Latitude business line into the mix. The new Latitude 9330 has a new “collaboration touchpad” that I’m having trouble seeing as anything other than the trackpad version of a Stream Deck. Simply put, there appears to be a row of LED buttons across the top of the touchpad that access controls for the microphone, camera, chat, and screen-sharing function.Also of interest is that this laptop is the first 13-inch device of the Latitude 9000 series. The 9000 line, while generally outside of many consumers’ price ranges, is the high-end segment of the Latitude line known for being thin and feature-packed. Business customers looking for flagship... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo During a Nintendo Direct event last fall, the company revealed a release date for the animated Super Mario Bros. movie that it’s making with Minions animation studio Illumination. Now the company has revealed that the movie will not hit theaters on December 21st as planned and instead will be released in the spring of 2023.A tweet credited to Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto says that after consulting with co-producer Chris Meledandri, the new release dates for the Super Mario Bros. film are April 28th in Japan and April 7th in North America. The tweet did not offer an explanation of how Chris Pratt will portray Mario, a title, or answer any of the other questions we’ve had since this project was announced in 2018.

Ford CEO Jim Farley and the F-150 Lightning. | Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images Ford CEO Jim Farley knows there’s lots to improve as Ford turns into an EV company Continue reading…

Photo by MARCO BELLO/AFP via Getty Images You know what, I’m into it. Let’s go full, unkempt beard for this one. The Gen-Xers are online and they are posting Radiohead on main.

Blue Origin Just before Twitter announced it’s accepting Elon Musk’s $44 buyout bid, the world’s richest man tweeted, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”His commitment is getting a mild test thanks to a fellow tech billionaire / rocket enthusiast / media mogul. Jeff Bezos quoted a New York Times reporter’s tweet pointing out that Tesla’s business interests in China could give the government leverage over Twitter via its new owner, saying, “Interesting question. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?.”