An almost worthy successor to the excellent Nest Hello, the new Nest Doorbell wired is faster, smarter, and sleeker and has better video quality. But spotty behavior on 2.4GHz networks lets it down. Continue reading…
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge The journalists behind a controversial series of stories tell us they haven’t been hoaxed. We’re not so sure Continue reading…
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge On Microsoft’s eBay page, you can score big price cuts on Sonos products. This sale was picked up by Slickdeals, which pointed out that the offer code COUNTDOWN22 can be applied at checkout to save 20 percent on either the Sonos Arc soundbar in white, the Sonos Beam (white, first-generation), or the second-gen Sonos Beam in white. Deals on Sonos gear were nonexistent during Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale. And if you can’t wait until Black Friday nears, this could be a great opportunity to score the savings that you may be looking for.The $899.99 Arc will go down to $719.20 after using the offer code. If you’d rather use it on the second-gen Beam soundbar, that’ll go from $429.99 (already a $20 discount) to $343.99. Given that it has... Continue reading…
Image: Sony Sony is launching its new DualSense Edge Wireless Controller in January priced at $199.99. The “high performance” controller is fully customizable, much like Microsoft’s Xbox Elite controllers, and includes removable analog thumbsticks, rear buttons, changeable stick caps, and multiple control profiles.The DualSense Edge allows owners to change out stick caps for three types: standard, high dome, and low dome. There are also two swappable back buttons (half-dome or lever) that can be mapped to any other buttons, much like paddles found on other controllers. You can even replace the stick modules, which will be sold separately. Image: Sony Everything that’s in the carrying case for Sony’s DualSense Edge. Sony... Continue reading…
A fully customized Xbox Elite 2 controller. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is bringing its Xbox Elite 2 controllers to the company’s Xbox Design Lab today. You can now order a custom color variant of the Xbox Elite 2 starting at $149.99, with options to buy and personalize separate Elite Accessory Packs or purchase all of the Elite components with the controller for $209.99.There are a variety of colors to pick from, and most of the external parts of the controller can be customized. That includes the body, back case, D-pad, bumpers, triggers, thumbsticks, and buttons. “You can even choose between a cross-shaped or faceted D-pad and for the first time ever in Xbox Design Lab, color-customize the thumbstick base and ring,” explains Microsoft in a blog post. You can also customize the colors on the... Continue reading…
Image: Adobe / Frame.io Camera giants Red and Fujifilm are partnering with Adobe and Frame.io to connect cameras directly to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Announced today at Adobe Max 2022, specific models of Red and Fujifilm cameras will be able to natively upload images or footage directly into the Adobe Creative Cloud without requiring users to first transfer files onto a computer.Red video cameras have previously supported camera-to-cloud functionality via the use of an external video encoder, but this new collaboration will allow both the Red V-Raptor and V-Raptor XL to directly upload up to 8K RAW files into Adobe cloud from the camera, without the need for additional hardware.You’ll be able to shoot up to 8K RAW and then upload the footage as fast as your... Continue reading…
New one-click functions are coming to help speed up edits for novice and veteran Lightroom users alike. | Image: Adobe Adobe is releasing new AI features for its Lightroom suite that aim to speed up some of the more tedious parts of image editing. That includes improving masking workflows and removing unwanted elements from your images.AI masking is being upgraded with new tools such as Select People, Select Objects, and one-click Select Background. The Select People feature can automatically detect and create layer masks in high detail, even on specific areas of a subject. The face, body, skin, eyes, teeth, lips, hair, and more can be detected with a single click, eliminating the time-consuming need to carefully create your own masks and generally speeding up the image editing process. Image: Adobe Areas of a subject such as... Continue reading…
Vincent Kilbride / The Verge On August 15th, an alarming email popped up in the inbox of Diana Pearl, a New York-based news editor. Someone in Moscow had logged into her verified Twitter account, it said. Pearl was familiar with the email content’s theme as it resembled previous automated correspondence from Twitter — featuring a minimal white background, black text, and blue links.Fearing her account’s safety, Pearl clicked the link inside the email that supposedly would instantly let her secure her account and entered her existing password on the following webpage to update it.Moments later, a message arrived in a Telegram group. All it contained was a screenshot of Pearl’s Twitter profile and a link. Three hours later, the admin texted, “Sold.”Pearl had... Continue reading…
Foxconn founder Terry Gou introduces the prototype Model B. | Photo by SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images Foxconn’s chairman and CEO Liu Young-way hopes to one day be in a position to produce electric cars for Tesla as the iPhone assembler expands into transportation. Liu made the comments at the unveiling of two new Foxconn electric car prototypes — the Model B crossover and Model V pickup truck — which the contract manufacturer hopes will serve as reference designs for companies who want to outsource manufacturing of their own EVs.“Foxconn is not in the business of selling its own EV brand,” Liu said at its annual tech day, in comments reported by the Financial Times. “I hope one day we can do Tesla cars for Tesla,” he added.The company has ambitious targets for its fledgling EV business. “Based on our past records for the PC and... Continue reading…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta says it will accept a ruling by the UK competition watchdog to divest itself of social media GIF library Giphy.A spokesperson for Meta, Matthew Pollard, told The Verge: “We are disappointed by the CMA’s decision but accept today’s ruling as the final word on the matter. We will work closely with the CMA on divesting Giphy.” When asked if the divestment would apply to all of Giphy’s international operations, Pollard said: “Yes, this applies globally.”Meta was originally ordered to sell Giphy last year but appealed the ruling. Today, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that Meta had failed on five of the six objections raised in its appeal. The CMA said that the... Continue reading…
DuckDuckGo’s new Duck Player offers a more private way for users to watch their favorite YouTube content. | Image: DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo is rolling out its web browsing app for Mac users as an open beta test. Designed for privacy, the app was announced back in April as a closed beta, but is now available for all Mac users to try before its official public launch.The desktop browser includes the same built-in protections we’ve seen already featured in DuckDuckGo’s mobile apps, combining DuckDuckGo’s search engine, defenses against third-party tracking, cookie pop-up protection, and its popular one-click data clearing ‘Fire Button.’ Image: DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo’s web browser integrates some of its most popular search engine features, such as the ‘fire’ button that clears your browsing data. Some additional features have been added to... Continue reading…
New features are available for Photoshop for iPad, as well as the desktop Photoshop application and Photoshop for web beta. | Image: Adobe / Danner Orozco Photoshop is getting some new collaboration tools and AI capabilities to help remove some of the more tedious parts of image editing. Announced at Adobe Max 2022, these new features include improvements to automated object selections, content-aware fills, file-sharing collaboration, and content crediting to ensure proper attribution of work. The new features are shipping in updated versions of Photoshop for desktop, iPad, and web (beta) rolling out today.First up, improvements to the Adobe Sensei AI mean that higher-quality object selections can be made in the desktop Photoshop app. The Object Selection tool was originally introduced back in 2020, allowing users to quickly select an object with a single click, negating the need to... Continue reading…
The 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre is the automaker’s first foray into electrification. | Image: Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce revealed its first all-electric vehicle, the 2024 Spectre, an ultra-luxury coupe with an estimated 260 miles of range and a price tag that is sure to make even the wealthiest choke on their tea. For those who can afford it, the Spectre is expected to make its first customer deliveries starting in late 2023.The Spectre marks the first step toward a fully electrified Rolls-Royce lineup, which the company has said it will achieve by 2030. That stands in contrast to the company’s parent company, BMW, which has yet to declare when it expects to transition to 100 percent EV sales. (Mini, another BMW-owned brand, has also said it would be all-electric by the end of the decade.)The Spectre marks the first step toward a fully... Continue reading…
Image: Google Google TV added kids profiles to the platform in 2021, giving young viewers their own portal designed to showcase only age-appropriate content. Today, the company is building upon kids profiles with new features, including parent-managed watchlists, recommendations on the homescreen, and supervised usage of the normal YouTube app. All of these software capabilities begin rolling out today and will continue to reach Google TV customers over the next several weeks.Managed watchlists are exactly what they sound like: parents can add movies and TV shows to a universal watchlist that will appear on the child’s Google TV homescreen. This will make it easy for them to progress from one video to the next. Adding content to a kids profile is... Continue reading…
Sample images generated by Stable Diffusion. | Image: The Verge via Lexica Stability AI, the company behind popular text-to-image AI program Stable Diffusion, has raised new funding that values the company at around $1 billion (according to a report from Bloomberg citing a “person familiar with the matter”). It’s a significant validation of the company’s approach to AI development, which, in contrast to incumbents like OpenAI and Google, focuses on open-source models that anyone can use without oversight.In a press statement, Stability AI said it raised $101 million in a round led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and O’Shaughnessy Ventures, and that it will use the money to “accelerate the development of open AI models for image, language, audio, video, 3D, and more, for consumer and enterprise use... Continue reading…
FedEx’s Roxo robot was able to navigate autonomously, but was overseen by human operators at all times. | Image: FedEx FedEx is stopping development of its last-mile delivery robot, Roxo. The news was first reported by Robotics 24/7, with FedEx confirming to the publication that the company would be shifting focus away from the bot to more “nearer-term opportunities.”Roxo was announced in 2019 as a collaboration with DEKA, makers of the iBot wheelchair, which used multiple sets of wheels to “walk” up and down stairs, and raise its user from a sitting level to eye-height. Roxo also used multiple sets of wheels to climb steps and curbs. The robot had a top speed of 10mph, a cargo capacity of 100lbs (45kg), and was able to autonomously navigate around cars and pedestrians using cameras and LIDAR sensors. Human operators were used to oversee its movements... Continue reading…
The Ear 1 earbuds released last year for $99. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Nothing is hiking the price of its debut Ear 1 earbuds from $99 to $149, the company’s CEO Carl Pei has announced. Citing “an increase in costs,” Pei said that the new price will come into effect on October 26th. No price changes were announced for Nothing’s more recently-announced Phone 1 smartphone.In a followup tweet, Pei justified the price increase by noting the amount of development effort that’s gone into the earbuds since their original release last year. “When we started developing it, we only had 3 engineers,” the CEO said. “A year later, we have 185. During this time, the Ear 1 has received 15 firmware and tuning updates, and is a completely different product to when we launched it.”
Image: Epic Games Spooky season has arrived in Fortnite. The game’s most recent patch has ushered in Fortnitemares, the annual Halloween event, and it includes the ability to turn into a werewolf.As part of the update, there’s now a DJ hanging out at the Reality Tree, and players can perform a ritual to get access to an item called “howler claws” that results in the werewolf transformation. (If you don’t play Fortnite, I promise that sentence actually makes sense.) With the claws equipped, you’ll have a sense ability to find other players, a new melee attack, and a double jump. It sounds similar to the wraith-like abilities from 2020.Elsewhere, the update also brings a new Zero Build version of the classic horde rush mode, the return of... Continue reading…
The device appears to extend and retract with the push of a button. | Image: Motorola At parent company Lenovo’s Tech World 2022 event, Motorola is showing off a rollable mobile phone in a quick video demo. With the press of a button, the screen extends and retracts, with a moving wallpaper to match.The demo video only gives us a glimpse of the front of the device, and the screen appears to wrap around the phone, rolling up from the bottom edge. At least as far as prototypes go, this concept appears to be on the “operational” side of the spectrum — there are at least battery and cellular indicator icons on screen. The rolling display is a flexible OLED panel, measuring 6.5 inches when extended and retracting down to “just over” 4 inches. Image: Motorola The device wallpaper expands and contracts... Continue reading…
Looks like 4K’s back on the menu, boys. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has ended the experiment that locked the ability to watch videos in 4K behind its $11.99 a month premium membership, according to one of its official Twitter accounts (via 9to5Google). Earlier this month, the company made waves when it confirmed with a series of now-deleted tweets that some of its users were part of a test meant to explore “the feature preferences Premium & non-Premium viewers,” and asking users to provide feedback on the idea.The idea of having to pay to access higher resolution videos was a divisive one, with some users calling it a sign of the platform’s downfall, and others saying it was understandable given the cost of streaming 4K content. YouTube’s announcement that it had “fully turned off” the... Continue reading…
The 2024 Celestiq is not your typical Cadillac. The low-volume ultra-luxury Celestiq is the second EV in Cadillac’s lineup and features a host of 3D-printed parts for extensive customization Continue reading…
The FuboTV Sportsbook app. | Image: FuboTV On Monday, the live TV streaming platform FuboTV dropped a shocking announcement with its decision to immediately close its gambling business, Fubo Gaming, and the Fubo Sportsbook product. It came at the same time FuboTV reported preliminary earnings results of over 1.2 million subscribers and income for the quarter that exceeded its prior guidance.In a world where advertising-supported media has struggled to scale steadily, and even the biggest subscription video giants are looking shaky, streamers across the industry have looked at gambling as a reliable source of revenue in the years to come. FuboTV had promoted Multiview tech to show multiple games at once in a single stream, plus overlays on live sports broadcasts and games that... Continue reading…
Two thirds of new hires in 2021 didn’t last 90 days. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last year, only a third of Amazon’s new hires stayed with the company for more than 90 days before quitting, being fired, or getting laid off, according to leaked documents obtained by Engadget. The report is the latest indication that Amazon is having serious issues retaining employees, and it reveals the company’s estimate that its attrition rate costs it almost $8 billion a year across its global consumer field operations team.The report, which is based off internal research papers, slide decks, and spreadsheets from Amazon, claims that workers are twice as likely to leave by choice, rather than because they were laid off or fired. It also says that the issue is widespread throughout the company, not just with warehouse workers; from... Continue reading…
The Fossil Gen 6 smartwatches are eligible for the upgrade to Wear OS 3 starting today. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Last week, Fossil announced the Gen 6 Wellness Edition, its first Wear OS 3 smartwatch. But starting today, the company is also beginning to roll out the Wear OS 3 update for patient owners of existing Gen 6 smartwatches. The update has a few significant omissions, but one of the more surprising ones is Google Fit — an app that was once preloaded onto nearly every Wear OS 2 smartwatch. The app is also missing from the newly launched Pixel Watch.First reported by 9to5Google, the lack of Google Fit was confirmed in an update that Fossil posted in r/WearOS. The gist is the Google Fit app hasn’t been updated to support Wear Health Services, a new system layer in Wear OS 3 that collects health data for apps in a more battery-efficient way.... Continue reading…
Destroyed houses, hotels and railway tracks pictured during ongoing cleanup efforts in the Ahr Valley region following catastrophic flash floods on August 4th, 2021, near Dernau, Germany | Photo by Thomas Lohnes / Getty Images Earthquake sensors can detect fast-moving floods barreling toward them, new research finds. That information is especially valuable to people working on early warning systems for floods, which could give people crucial time to get to safety, preventing deaths and flood damage, according to the authors of a recently published paper.Communities in Germany’s Ahr Valley experienced a devastating flood that washed away homes and killed almost 200 people in July 2021. Studying that disaster, the researchers discovered that a nearby seismometer station — intended to monitor earthquakes — detected valuable details about the flood as it was happening.“If the data stream from that station had been available and analysed as our research now... Continue reading…
What’s up with iMessage’s privacy? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Mark Zuckerberg spent last week dragging Apple about how it could run an ecosystem for VR apps, but now it seems he’s chosen a different target: on Monday, he posted a picture of an ad for WhatsApp on Instagram, along with a comment about how the platform is more secure than iMessage. Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp, also posted a tweet thread going over many of the same talking points.The ad, which is shown at Pennsylvania Station in New York City, is relatively simple, making fun of the green bubble / blue bubble dichotomy and urging users to use WhatsApp instead so they can use end-to-end encryption to message privately. In his post, however, Zuckerberg is more direct, saying that WhatsApp is “far more private and secure than... Continue reading…
Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge Not all gadgets are meant to make life easier.Some gadgets break things, exploiting cracks in our digital systems, prying them open, and crawling inside. Most often used by penetration testers — a kind of white-hat hacker hired to test a company’s security by breaking in themselves — these gadgets serve as a kind of road map to the most common vulnerabilities in our digital world.For the most part, they’re commercialized versions of tech that already existed in a scrappier form, leaning on open-source software projects and decades of work developing attacks. But most importantly, they’re available, so if you decide you want to try out one of these attacks, the equipment is only a click away.Please use them only for good. Continue reading…
Image: Nintendo Over the weekend, in a shocking series of videos shared on Twitter, Hellena Taylor, Bayonetta’s original voice actor, shared that the reason she did not return for Bayonetta 3 was because of an “insulting” offer for the role. As a result, she’s asking fans to boycott the game, which releases on October 28th.On October 15th, the voice actor posted three videos on Twitter sharing her story, detailing her years of experience and training. “And what did they think this was worth?” she said in the video. “The final offer to do the whole game [...] was $4,000 US dollars.”Taylor called the offer “an insult to me” and asked fans to boycott the game and donate the money they intended to spend on Bayonetta 3 to charity. In the subsequent... Continue reading…
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Netflix announced a new feature on Monday called Profile Transfer after months of testing in a few countries around the world. The feature allows users to move their “personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games, and other settings” to a new account, according to the company’s press release.There are two reasons this feature exists, only one of which Netflix would probably like you to think about. The first is users who share an account with a roommate, a partner, or their parents, and then eventually, you part ways, but you’re still stuck awkwardly staring at their name every time you log in. Do you quietly change your password and lock them out? Do you call them and tell them to get their own account? Netflix... Continue reading…
Image: Focus Entertainment Not all of the changes are for the better with the new game, but the core remains unlike anything else out there Continue reading…
You can touch grass while streaming your games — as long as your Wi-Fi reaches your porch. The new Turtle Beach Recon Cloud is an all-in-one controller for playing games on Xbox, PC, Android, and mobile streaming (Xbox Cloud Gaming, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Steam Link). This controller, now available in the US, is essentially Turtle Beach’s existing Recon but with the addition of Bluetooth to wirelessly pair with phones, tablets, and PCs.The other key component giving the Recon its “cloud” designation is the simple addition of a mobile phone clip in the box, which screws into the gamepad’s top for a very sturdy mount. While it offers more flexibility than a dedicated mobile phone controller like a Backbone One or Razer Kishi, its $99.99 price point seems a little high if you’re not frequently using all the functionality it... Continue reading…
Harrison Ford will appear in the next Captain America movie. | Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto / Getty Images The rumors are true: Harrison Ford will be appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’ll be taking over the role of General Ross in the fourth Captain America movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ross was previously played by William Hurt, who died earlier this year.Ford will join Anthony Mackie in Captain America: New World Order. Mackie will reprise his role as Sam Wilson and, after the events of the Disney Plus series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Captain America. The new movie is currently scheduled to debut on May 3rd, 2024.Ford has had something of a resurgence in tentpole movie franchises over the past several years, though many of his appearances have been reprisals. He came back to play Han Solo in Star Wars:... Continue reading…
The G Cloud Gaming Handheld from Logitech has a launch price of $349.99. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Happy Monday, campers, the Verge Deals team is back in action. While we aren’t seeing quite the same amount of exciting discounts we saw during last week’s Prime sale, there are still plenty of deals to take a look at. Starting off, if you’re excited about the impending release of Logitech’s new G Cloud Gaming Handheld, today is your last chance to preorder one and save $50 off the launch price at Best Buy, Amazon, and the Microsoft Store.Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld Our review of the Logitech handheld makes it clear that cloud gaming has an awful lot of potential in this form factor, even if it isn’t a perfect device by itself. The G Cloud differs from conventional gaming handhelds like the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck in that... Continue reading…
You’ll be able to bowl online again soon. | Image: Nintendo Nintendo says it will be bringing Nintendo Switch Sports back online after it shut down the servers due to a bug last week. The servers will return when a patch, version 1.2.2, begins rolling out on Tuesday, according to a Google-translated support page on Nintendo’s Japanese website (via VGC). A second patch scheduled for Thursday, version 1.2.3, will once again let you back up your saves to Nintendo’s cloud services.The bug, which caused the game to shut down during a pre-match loading screen and affects both online and offline play, was included as part of the Switch Sports version 1.2.1 update, Nintendo said on Friday. The company halted the rollout of that update, temporarily shut down the servers, and suspended save data backups... Continue reading…
Sony Electronics announced new over-the-counter hearing aids. | Image: Sony Electronics Hearing aids are now available over the counter for the first time in the United States. They’re on sale at places like Walgreens and Walmart, and companies like Sony have already developed new hearing aids for this new regulatory turn.The Food and Drug Administration announced the rule change allowing over-the-counter hearing aids in August. They go into effect Monday, opening up cheaper and more accessible options to people with mild to moderate hearing loss.Prescription hearing aids can cost thousands of dollars a pair. In contrast, Walmart will offer over-the-counter hearing aids at a price point ranging from $199–$999 per pair. “Offering easy access to OTC hearing aids — something that seems quite small — is a solution that can... Continue reading…
This well-designed machine is great for playing cloud games (or streaming local PC games). But it’d be easier to recommend if it were either less costly or if its hardware could run games better when you’re away from Wi-Fi. Continue reading…
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge TikTok is updating its livestream system to limit kids from going live and to allow streamers to only reach adults.In a blog post, TikTok announced a slew of changes to its livestream feature, including new age gating methods and creator tools. Currently, anyone with at least 1,000 followers who’s over the age of 16 can start a livestream on TikTok, and people over 18 can send and receive tips — one of the ways creators make money on the platform. Beginning November 23rd, only users 18 and up will be able to host a livestream.“To protect our users and creators and support their well-being, we constantly work to evolve the safeguards we put in place,” TikTok says in the blog post.In addition to higher age minimums, people hosting... Continue reading…
Wargaming Sydney helped to develop gaming architecture used by online titles and MMOs such as World of Tanks. | Image: Wargaming Video game developer and publisher Riot Games has announced its acquisition of Wargaming Sydney, a gaming software development studio that’s part of Cyprus-based Wargaming, the publisher behind titles such as World of Tanks and World of Warships. Riot did not disclose the price of the purchase.Wargaming Sydney is one of the largest games studios in Australia, formed under its original name of BigWorld back in 2002. It was by Wargaming in 2012. The studio has created game development tools and other software architecture required to develop online games such as MMOs. After the acquisition by Riot, Wargaming Sydney will be renamed Riot Sydney and will assist in the development of Riot games such as Valorant and League of Legends.W... Continue reading…
Image: Discord Discord is launching a Nitro Basic subscription alongside a new Activities feature that includes YouTube integration and casual games. The YouTube integration comes more than a year after the Google-owned video service forced two popular Discord music bots offline. Discord has been testing this YouTube Watch Together feature for more than a year, which allows Discord members to watch YouTube videos in sync.While it’s not a straight replacement for the popular Discord YouTube bots, it’s certainly a lot more interactive. Discord users can create a playlist of videos that can be played, and friends will have to join the activity to watch and listen. It also arrives weeks after Discord users began noticing more bots that rely on YouTube... Continue reading…
Speeds are going up for many plans. | Image: Comcast Comcast is upgrading internet speeds for more than 20 million Xfinity customers, the company announced Monday. The changes, which will affect “most of our customers” across the country, according to a statement from Bill Connors, president of Xfinity for Comcast Cable, roll out beginning this week. Speeds will go up at no extra charge.Here’s which plans are impacted and how much they’re changing, per a press release:
Persona 5 Royal is just as good as you might have hoped on Nintendo Switch. | Image: Atlus The Nintendo Switch is a fantastic machine for role-playing games; it’s something Nintendo has been aware of from the very start. The hybrid nature of the Switch makes it easy to settle in for hours-long sessions on your TV or, when you have just 15 minutes to spare on the bus, tackle a mission or battle in handheld mode.More than five and a half years in, the Switch has a robust library of RPGs, both new and old. But this month, two modern classics join that collection — including Persona 5 Royal, which is just as good as you might have hoped.Everything that made Persona 5 such a hit is intactI first played through Royal in 2020 on the PS4, and to me, the Switch version feels nearly exactly the same. Everything that made Persona 5... Continue reading…
Ye at Paris Fashion Week. | Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images Kanye West, the musician now known as Ye, is buying Parler, a social media platform that styles itself as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter. The acquisition was announced by Parler in a press release, which said that it has entered into an agreement in principle with Ye that’s expected to close later this year.“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” said Ye in a press statement.
Wi-Fi is how most people connect to the internet most of the time — but from a security standpoint, it’s a remarkably wobbly foundation.We treat Wi-Fi connections like hardened tunnels to wherever we’re connecting on the internet, but there’s nothing inherently private about the signal. Wi-Fi is just radio, and like any radio, the signals go out in all directions all the time. Anyone with the right antenna can listen to what’s being broadcast, and it’s nearly impossible to tell that they’re doing it. Even more dangerous, anyone can offer Wi-Fi, so it’s hard to be absolutely sure who you’re connecting to. This is why hardened systems like SecureDrop often pull out a computer’s Wi-Fi card completely. Without wireless capability, the... Continue reading…
Image: Straight Talk Straight Talk, a subsidiary of Verizon’s Tracfone provider, is now offering a prepaid 5G home internet service that you can sign up for without having to go through a credit check. The $45 per month service uses Verizon’s 5G and 4G networks and a router, available at “nearly 2,000 Walmart stores across the country,” according to a press release, to provide home internet without having to have a company come and hook up a modem. But while the company pitches it as an affordable option, there are definitely some considerations you’ll want to take into account if you’re looking to get cellular internet as cheaply as possible.Compared to Verizon’s 5G home internet plans, Straight Talk’s home internet is less expensive in most cases.... Continue reading…
Vincent Kilbride / The Verge Hackers commandeer online accounts at industrial scale. Here’s how to restore and protect your access to Apple, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, TikTok, and Twitter. Continue reading…
The Chromecast with Google TV 4K, originally released in 2020. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Android 12 is rolling out for the 4K model of the Chromecast with Google TV, 9to5Google reports. The update for the 2020 streaming dongle follows the release of Google’s cheaper HD model last month, which shipped with Android 12 out of the box. To download the update on the 4K dongle, navigate to the profile icon at the top right of the interface, then hit Settings, System, About, and select System Update.The update doesn’t add any major new features to the two-year-old streaming dongle, but it contains a couple of new settings that should improve playback in certain situations. FlatPanelsHD reports that the biggest is a new frame rate matching feature that should cut down on judder by allowing the Chromecast to match the frame rate of... Continue reading…
Image: G4 TV Comcast is shutting down G4 after attempting to relaunch the gaming channel last year, according to a report from Deadline. The channel first appeared on linear cable back in 2002 until it met its demise as the final studio shows were axed in 2012, and it was eventually replaced by the Esquire Network.Dave Scott, the CEO of Comcast’s Spectacor division, announced the shutdown in an internal memo obtained by Deadline before it was even sent, saying that the channel has had low viewership and has not “achieved sustainable financial results.”
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google may soon start letting you pick from cast devices when using the audio output switcher on Android 13, according to Esper’s Mishaal Rahman. The output switcher, which was first introduced in Android 11, currently only lets you swap between media playback sessions on paired Bluetooth devices, such as wireless headphones or a speaker.But an update to the Google Cast SDK (software development kit), suggests that Android 13’s output switcher could allow for local-to-remote, remote-to-local, and remote-to-remote transfers. As pointed out by Rahman, “local” refers to transfers involving paired Bluetooth devices, while “remote” refers to cast devices.
Image: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz announced today that it’s bringing support for Apple’s Music’s spatial audio to certain vehicles. Apple Music launched spatial audio with Dolby Atmos last year on a range of devices, including the iPhone, Mac, HomePod, and Apple TV, but this is the first time it’ll be available natively in a car.As you might have guessed, the integration doesn’t come cheap. Mercedes-Benz started adding Dolby Atmos to its top-of-the-line Maybach, S-Class, as well as electric EQS and EQE models that come with the automaker’s latest MBUX interface and the 31-speaker Burmester 3D or 4D sound system. While the vehicles themselves cost upwards of $100,000, this doesn’t even include the additional $4,550 (3D) or $6,730 (4D) Burmester sound system... Continue reading…
The EQE SUV will be out by 2023. | Image: Mercedes-Benz The Mercedes-Benz EQE has been SUV-ified. The German automaker revealed a higher riding, more utility-focused version of its EQE sedan, and while the price is still being kept under wraps, the EQE SUV is expected to hit US dealerships starting in 2023.We’ve known that we’d be getting an SUV version of the EQE sedan since it was first revealed last year. Mercedes did the same for its flagship EV, the EQS, coming out with the SUV version earlier this month. It’s the fourth EV to be built on the automaker’s new EV platform.Mercedes says the EQE SUV will be “the most spacious representatives of its class”With the EQE SUV, we’re getting three trim levels — one rear-motor and two dual-motor versions — as well as an AMG performance... Continue reading…