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Fitness Plus users will be able to learn BTS choreography in the service starting next week. | Image: Apple When Apple Fitness Plus launched in 2020, it was not only a way to showcase the new Dance activity on the Apple Watch but also a subtle way to integrate other services like Apple Music. The fitness service has since added Artist Spotlight series with celebrated musicians, so it’s no surprise Apple is mashing all this together with Dance workouts based on mega-popular K-pop band BTS.The BTS collaboration is part of a content package for International Dance Day on April 29. Starting next week, workouts will be led by Fitness Plus trainer Ben Allen and feature choreography straight from BTS’ music videos. Some of the songs featured include hits like “Butter (feat. Megan Thee Stallion),” “Dynamite,” “Boy With Luv (feat. Halsey),” “DNA,”... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update April 21st, 1:20PM ET: Best Buy’s site has sold out of PS5 consoles for now.If you’re still in the market for a PlayStation 5, Best Buy just opened up another restock of the disc-based PS5 for $499.99. This restock is live now and is available to everyone, not just TotalTech subscribers, and is still likely to sell out extremely fast.As always, to better your chances at grabbing one of these consoles, make sure to log into your Best Buy account in another browser tab while you wait in line, and make sure all your personal info, including billing and shipping addresses, are up to date. Once you’ve done that, it's simply a matter of waiting in line and playing the waiting game. Once you’ve hit the “Add to Cart” button you are... Continue reading…

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Meta Platforms, used her influence to bury two stories about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, according to a bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal.The WSJ reports that, in 2016 and again in 2019, Sandberg contacted MailOnline, the online imprint of the U.K.’s Daily Mail tabloid, in an attempt to stop the outlet from reporting about a restraining order filed against Kotick by his ex-girlfriend. On both occasions, the story did not run. Now, Facebook is investigating the issue to see if Sandberg potentially violated company policy.According to sources in the WSJ report, Kotick said that Sandberg threatened the Mail in 2016, stating that any article published... Continue reading…

CNN Plus, the news network’s dedicated streaming service, is shutting down before even turning a month old. Chris Licht, the new CEO of CNN, delivered the news to his new team at an all-hands meeting on Thursday, and the service will shut down entirely on April 30th.Licht congratulated the CNN Plus team in a memo to staff announcing the shutdown and said that the decision “is not a reflection of the quality of the talent and content at CNN+, some of which will migrate to CNN’s programming or some of the company’s other networks.” The decision, he said, was about broader strategy. “In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in service, which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings.”... Continue reading…

Watching the latest footage of a solar eclipse on Mars gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “out of this world.”Earlier this month, NASA’s Perseverance rover spotted one of Mars’ moons, Phobos, passing across the Sun. The 40-second eclipse was captured by the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera system. It is a partial solar eclipse because of the moon’s size. While Phobos is the larger of Mars’ two moons, it is still extremely small, measuring 17 x 14 x 11 miles in diameter. Its small size means that there can never be a total eclipse on Mars. No matter what, parts of the sun will always peek out from behind the shadows of Mars’ moons.This is not the first solar eclipse spotted from Mars. Other rovers have captured eclipses from the planet’s... Continue reading…

California’s net neutrality law remains intact | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal appeals court has denied a request for a rehearing on its January decision that upholds California’s net neutrality law. The 2018 law, widely considered the strongest in the US, was signed into law a year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed the Open Internet Order. That order had established stringent net neutrality rules that prohibited internet service providers from throttling or blocking legal websites and apps, and banned ISPs from prioritizing paid content.California’s law, which finally took effect last year, also prohibits throttling and speed lanes. Wireless trade associations including the NCTA, the CTIA, and ISPs including Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T sued to block California’s law from taking... Continue reading…

Pixar/Disney Pixar and Disney’s upcoming Lightyear feature has already thrown people with the idea of it being an origin story about the “real” space ranger Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear is apparently based on. That aspect of the feature immediately raised questions about whether Toy Story’s been set in some sort futuristic universe this whole time without acknowledging it, or if the studios were dancing around Lightyear actually being an in-universe movie about Buzz.Lightyear’s latest trailer doesn’t clarify if either of those situations are the case, but it does lay out the broad strokes of the movie’s plot and reveal yet another interesting twist to its story. In the new trailer, Buzz (Chris Evans) along with his earthbound partner Alisha Hawthorne... Continue reading…

Apple’s latest iPad Air for 2022 in blue. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s latest iPad Air may be a somewhat incremental upgrade over the last-gen model, but it’s the most affordable way to get a device with the acclaimed M1 processor. Today, you can get one of these tablets with that excellent CPU for a bit less, as the 2022 iPad Air is $50 off at Best Buy. This deal encompasses both storage sizes for the Wi-Fi model and all available colors. That means the $599 64GB configuration is $549.99 and the 256GB model drops from $749 to $699.99. We saw a slightly steeper $70 discount at the beginning of this month, but that was limited to the 256GB version.The iPad Air looks a lot like the version that came out in 2020, but, in addition to its M1 guts, there’s now a Center Stage-compatible front-facing... Continue reading…

Full of improvements, but with fewer ports Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Older adults who turn to psychedelic therapies to treat psychiatric conditions like depression and PTSD are uniquely vulnerable to financial abuse, according to a STAT investigation. The substances could make people feel more emotionally connected with care providers who deliver the drugs, making them susceptible to manipulation by bad actors.The story highlights a lawsuit brought against psychedelic therapist Vicky Dulai alleging that she took more than $4 million from Holocaust survivor George Sarlo, who had turned to psychedelics to treat depression and trauma. Dulai and Sarlo met in 2002, and according to the lawsuit, she gradually took over as his personal assistant and caregiver. She had access to his bank accounts and personal... Continue reading…

Similar speckled design but with new internal hardware. Alienware has announced a release date and pricing info for its latest batch of gaming laptops. Today’s big news is that the new Dell G15, the Alienware M15 R7, and the Alienware M17 R5 are available now. Notably, each of the configurations will come equipped with AMD’s 6000-series processors (paired with Nvidia’s RTX 30-series graphics cards by default) and fast DDR5 RAM, among other impressive specs. Intel-based versions will likely release later in 2022.The most affordable option in the lineup is a 2022 iteration of the Dell G15 (pictured above), which is back in its speckled, Alienware-esque design. It starts at $899.99, equipped with a 1080p display that has a 120Hz refresh rate, AMD’s Ryzen 5 6600H six-core processor, a Nvidia RTX... Continue reading…

Video podcasts are now open to all in five markets. | Image: Spotify All creators in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand can now upload video podcasts to Spotify, the streaming service has announced. Video can be uploaded through Anchor, the podcast creation tool Spotify purchased in 2019. Video podcasts are compatible with Spotify’s podcast subscriptions feature and work with embeds. The company is also offering video-specific analytics for creators.Spotify has been gradually rolling out support for video podcasts since mid-2020, around the same time it acquired Joe Rogan’s podcast — which had long been available in video form on YouTube. Since then, Spotify has been slowly expanding the number of podcasters who are able to post their shows as videos to its service. Now, all creators in... Continue reading…

Netflix’s new Category Hub menu for smart TV interfaces | Image: Netflix Netflix is giving its TV interface a small refresh, refashioning its old row of categories into a “Category Hub” menu on the left rail that highlights genre recommendations tailored to your viewing habits.Although Netflix’s UI often seems to change every time you load it, the Categories menu generally appeared below the Popular, Trending, and Continue Watching rows. As well as listing basic genres like comedy, action, horror, and so on, it also highlights collections based on the odd holiday (like Earth Day). Now, instead of just listing these categories in the same order for everyone, the top three choices will be customized to individual users. Image: Netflix Netflix’s old Category row. Now these sections are... Continue reading…

It may not be a sequel to Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, but it’s something: the Wu-Tang Clan is coming to Fortnite with a new clothing collection. The iconic members of the hip-hop supergroup aren’t coming to the game themselves; instead, players will be able to buy Wu-Wear gear in the Fortnite item shop starting April 23rd at 8PM ET. There will be two different outfits available, along with some Wu-Tang accessories like reactive backpacks and, naturally, a Wu-Tang hands emote.You can check out the entire offering in the gallery below:Music has steadily been infiltrating Fortnite’s battle royale in different ways, from a crossover with Coachella to in-game concerts from the likes of Ariana Grande and Travis Scott. Meanwhile, real-world... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk has lined up the funding he needs for his proposed takeover of Twitter. In a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Musk laid out his plan for the $46.5 billion worth of loans that will allow him to finance the buyout offer made on April 14th.The funding is provided through two debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, in which the bank commits to offering a series of loans worth $25.5 billion. The remaining $21 billion will be covered by Musk himself.Notably, the filing does not list any equity partners to share the cash burden with Musk. The Tesla CEO already owns a 9 percent stake in Twitter, valued at roughly $2.9 billion.“The Reporting Person is seeking to negotiate a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Melissa Mathieson / The Verge Joaquin Castillejos remembers walking past goats and alpacas in a neighbor’s yard to get to his elementary school in the 2000s. That home, the goats, and alpacas are gone now. In their place is a massive warehouse. Joaquin Castillejos in his family home. Joaquin is a community organizer at the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. From above, you can see those concrete boxes closing in on Castillejos’ hometown of Bloomington, California. It’s a community that’s been a haven for many families like Castillejos’ who wanted to escape Los Angeles’ urban sprawl. In Bloomington, they found open space — plots big enough for a home, horses, and gardens to grow squash, corn, beans, chilis, and tomatoes. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Brave announced a new feature for its browser on Tuesday: De-AMP, which automatically jumps past any page rendered with Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages framework and instead takes users straight to the original website. “Where possible, De-AMP will rewrite links and URLs to prevent users from visiting AMP pages altogether,” Brave said in a blog post. “And in cases where that is not possible, Brave will watch as pages are being fetched and redirect users away from AMP pages before the page is even rendered, preventing AMP / Google code from being loaded and executed.”Brave framed De-AMP as a privacy feature and didn’t mince words about its stance toward Google’s version of the web. “In practice, AMP is harmful to users and to the Web... Continue reading…

The 2022 Moto G Stylus 5G gets a spec and price bump this time around. | Image: Motorola Motorola is introducing a new version of its Moto G Stylus 5G with a couple of nice upgrades for 2022 — and, as a result, a higher $499 price tag. The 2022 edition of the G Stylus 5G includes a 6.8-inch screen with a super smooth 120Hz refresh rate, a more powerful 600-series Snapdragon processor, a stabilized main camera, and a bunch of built-in storage. The company is also debuting its $399, budget-oriented Moto G 5G in North America. (It was introduced in Europe earlier this year.)The most noticeable update on the 2022 G Stylus 5G — not to be confused with the 4G-only Moto G Stylus — is that 120Hz display for smooth animations and scrolling. It’s a 1080p LCD panel, and it houses a 16-megapixel front-facing camera. On the back,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Melissa Mathieson / The Verge Coming back to your hometown can be an alienating experience, especially when all you find is a dead link to a long-deserted website.For nearly a decade, that was the experience of Cytonians — members of an early virtual world called Cybertown, which operated between 1995 and 2012. But since 2019, a group of former citizens has dedicated itself to resurrecting their old home. Cybertown Revival, or CTR, successfully launched a pre-alpha version of a new Cybertown earlier this year. It’s the result of hundreds of former residents rallying to rebuild the digital city, drawing on everything from former users’ blog posts to the contents of their hard drives.The original Cybertown was launched during the early days of massively multiplayer... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge When you’re running a Windows system, sometimes things just go wrong. A couple of years ago, I made the mistake of not checking to make sure my laptop was securely plugged in while Windows was undergoing a major update. The battery ran out in the middle of the update and voila! I was stuck with what I was sure was now a very expensive brick. Another time, a Windows 10 system decided that it didn’t like the latest update and began misbehaving. (It would stop responding to input one minute after it booted.)In both cases, I was able to save an otherwise unusable PC by doing a reset, which removes all (or most) of the files and apps on the hard drive and reinstalls Windows.(By the way, you have backed up your computer, right?)Resets are... Continue reading…

Amazon’s Buy With Prime initiative lets merchants offer Prime shipping benefits on their own stores. | Image: Amazon Amazon has announced a new initiative named Buy With Prime that extends the purview of its Prime subscription service beyond the bounds of Amazon.com — a significant change to its business strategy that could help it compete with fast-growing rival Shopify.Merchants who ship products using Amazon’s warehouse and delivery services (known as Fulfillment by Amazon) will be able to add Buy With Prime buttons to their sites. This will let Prime subscribers buy from these stores directly while retaining the benefits of Amazon’s subscription service. Namely: free shipping, next-day delivery, and free returns.Buy With Prime will offer extra convenience and value to Prime subscribers, but its importance to Amazon is about more than bringing... Continue reading…

The Boring Company’s plan to revolutionize transport is best summarized as “Teslas in tunnels.” | Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images The Boring Company has raised a new round of funding worth $675 million, with Elon Musk’s grand plan to “solve traffic” with tunnels now valued at $5.675 billion.In a blog post announcing the news, the company reiterated its goals and achievements so far, drawing particular attention to its “next generation” of Prufrock tunnel-boring machines (TBMs).“Unlike traditional TBMs which require upwards of a dozen or more people to operate, Prufrock is designed to be capable of operating completely remotely and autonomously via computerized systems and requires zero people in the tunnel to operate,” said the company. “The current iteration of Prufrock, called Prufrock-2, is designed to mine at up to 1 mile/week, meaning a tunnel the length of... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony has pushed back the release date of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s sequel, the films’ official Twitter account has confirmed. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is now scheduled for release on June 2nd, 2023, rather than October 7th this year. Sony originally said its Spider-Verse sequel would arrive on April 8th 2022.It’s not immediately clear what’s caused the most recent delay, but Across the Spider-Verse’s writer and producer Christopher Miller tweeted that it has offered the team “More time to make it great.”Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the first of two sequels Sony is planning in its animated Spider-Man film series, with the second part planned for release on March 29th, 2024. Additionally, Spider-Man... Continue reading…

Image: Google Anyone switching from an iPhone to an Android device has more to worry about than just green bubbles, they also want to bring along as much of the data from their phone as they can. While backing things up to Google Drive or plugging in a cable are solutions that Google can walk you through, now we know Google built an iOS app called Switch to Android to get the job done wirelessly.Switch to Android popped up in the App Store last week, but it’s unlisted so you’d need the link to dig it up. As TechCrunch reported, Google is starting to roll the app out to the public, but it may be a little while before you can actually use it. Google spokesperson Ivy Hunt confirmed to The Verge that the rollout should be complete in a few weeks. What... Continue reading…

Lincoln, Ford’s luxury brand, says it will release four new electric vehicles by 2026, by which point 50 percent of its global sales will be EVs. The company also revealed its Lincoln Star Concept as a way to introduce the new design language that will come to define its upcoming electrified lineup.And what a concept it is! Carriage doors, a frunk that extends out like a drawer for added storage, a full suite of sensory interior moods, and a sleek, aerodynamic profile that feels more Faraday Future than Ford. The Lincoln Star Concept is designed to be “the ultimate sanctuary” for wealthy elites who prefer to be chauffeured through the teeming megalopolises of the future.Lincoln has been mulling plans to electrify its portfolio for... Continue reading…

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images Barack and Michelle Obama won’t be signing a new podcast deal with Spotify, Bloomberg reports, marking a major departure for the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground Productions. “The company is instead talking to other distributors about a deal worth tens of millions of dollars, among the most-lucrative in the podcasting business,” according to the report.Amazon’s Audible and iHeartMedia are among the “several” companies Higher Ground is in negotiations with for a new deal. Higher Ground had talked to Spotify as well, but it “declined to make an offer,” Bloomberg says. Higher Ground apparently wants to be able to make multiple shows and release them on platforms simultaneously, which would go against Spotify’s typical... Continue reading…

Dieter Bohn / The Verge My favorite kind of software update is the kind that unlocks secret hardware features, and the Apple MagSafe Battery Pack is the latest surprise — you’ll be able to cordlessly charge an iPhone at a faster 7.5 watts instead of the original 5 watts, once you apply firmware update 2.7 (via 9to5Mac).You can wait for an update over the air, or plug a Lightning to USB cable from the pack to a connected Mac or iPad to get the fix, and then you’re off to the races, as they say.But if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t install the update quite yet — I might wait until we hear back from Apple (or reviewers) on whether it’ll affect how warm the battery gets.You see, I bought a MagSafe Battery Pack myself last year for my iPhone mini, but I returned... Continue reading…

Lexus’ first ever electric vehicle is the RZ 450e SUV. | Image: Lexus Lexus gave us a glimpse at the 2023 RZ 450e today: an all-electric SUV with an estimated 225-mile range and a 71.4kWh battery. The company’s first-ever electric vehicle (EV) will also come with Direct4. That’s its new all-wheel-drive system that automatically calibrates weight distribution on all four wheels, leading to “improved start-up acceleration, handling stability and low power consumption.”On the inside of the vehicle is a sleek interior with a 14-inch touchscreen and a panoramic sunroof that extends from the front seats to the back. As for a steering yoke, which my colleague Andrew Hawkins lamented about in a previous post, that’s optional. Image: Lexus The steering yoke will be optional. Lexus... Continue reading…

Image: Coinbase Coinbase announced on Wednesday that its NFT marketplace is now in beta and accessible to “a small set of beta testers who’ll be invited based on their position” on its waitlist. The company is looking to take on established players in the space by adding social features, like a comment system (with upvotes and downvotes) and an algorithmic feed.Visually speaking, the screenshots Coinbase includes in its blog post look like a cross between Instagram and OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces. There are profiles where users can show off their collections (and which other people can follow) as well as a discover feed that Coinbase says will recommend NFTs to you “based on what you buy, what’s trending, who you follow, and more.” The... Continue reading…

The Google Play Store was a big reason why Samsung made the switch to Wear OS. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge There was one notable omission when the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 lineup launched last year: Google Assistant. As for when it would arrive, Google and Samsung have avoided giving firm dates, but there was reason to hope the digital assistant might arrive sooner than expected. Earlier today, Verizon update logs for both the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic indicated Google had arrived in an update. However, Google has told The Verge that this is not the case.“To confirm, Assistant is not rolling out to Galaxy Watch 4 and we don’t have an update on timing,” Google spokesperson Ivy Hunt told The Verge in an email.The Verizon update logs, which were first spotted by 9to5Google, refer to a software update released today. As for... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram is making a few new creator-focused changes to its platform, which Instagram head Adam Mosseri said are meant to “make sure that credit is going to those who deserve it.”The new stuff is made up of three changes: product tags are now available to everyone, so you can tag a product in your post; you can assign yourself to a category like “Photographer” or “Rapper” and have that category show up every time you’re tagged in a post; and Instagram is going to start more heavily promoting original content on the platform.“If you create something from scratch,” Mosseri said in a video explaining the new features, “you should get more credit than if you are re-sharing something that you found from someone else. We’re going to try... Continue reading…

Photo by Suzanne Cordeiro / AFP via Getty Images Amid supply chain constraints and production delays in China, Tesla reported that it earned a $3.3 billion profit in the first quarter of 2022. Tesla turned that profit on just over $18.7 billion in revenue, the company announced. That represents an 81 percent increase year over year, compared to $10.4 billion in revenue in Q1 2021.The company logged $679 million in emission credit sales to other automakers, compared to $314 million in credit sales in Q4 2021. The company generates this revenue by selling these credits to automakers that make fewer “clean” vehicles than are required by the US government and the European Union.The credit sales have come in handy in past years, helping Tesla eke out a profit while its car-making... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Three months after authentication platform Okta was breached by hacking group Lapsus$, the company has concluded its internal investigation after finding that the impact was less serious than initially believed.In a blog post published Tuesday, Okta’s chief security officer David Bradbury noted that the company had been transparent by sharing details of the hack soon after it was discovered but that further analysis had downgraded early assessments of the potential scope.“As a result of the thorough investigation of our internal security experts, as well as a globally recognized cybersecurity firm whom we engaged to produce a forensic report, we are now able to conclude that the impact of the incident was significantly less than the... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo is the latest video game developer hit with allegations of union busting. In a report from Axios, a former employee alleges that Nintendo and its staffing and recruiting partner Aston Carter fired them after engaging in protected organizing activities.In a filing with the National Labor Relations Board, a summary of the charges against Nintendo include:

Brave’s “Discussions” shows results from Reddit and StackExchange with more forums to come in the future. | Image: Brave Brave Search has rolled out a new feature that makes it easier to find conversations from forums like Reddit in your search results. This means you’ll no longer have to add “Reddit” to your searches when you’re looking for thoughts from actual humans, not empty answers from websites just trying to get clicks.You don’t have to do anything in order to start getting these results. If your inquiry has sparked conversation on the web, you’ll see results underneath a new, more prominent “Discussions” section. Brave says it chooses posts to display based on their recency, popularity, relevancy, and how many likes or upvotes posts receive. Right now, Brave only displays results from Reddit and StackExchange but says it will add more sites “in... Continue reading…

Astrobotic CEO John Thornton unveiling the Peregrine lander | Image: Astrobotic This afternoon, commercial space company Astrobotic unveiled its nearly complete robotic lunar lander, designed to take payloads for paying customers like NASA to the surface of the Moon. It marks the first time the company has shown the mostly finished flight hardware for the lander ahead of its launch, tentatively scheduled for late this year.Called the Peregrine Lunar Lander, the spacecraft is roughly the size of a squat refrigerator, standing just over six feet tall. Five main engines mounted on the lander’s base will help navigate the vehicle through space and eventually allow the vehicle to touch down on the surface of the Moon. The vehicle has various locations it can store mounted payloads for experiments designed to take... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge An ebook subscription platform used by thousands of public libraries in the US and elsewhere is offering Holocaust denial, COVID disinformation, LGBTQ conversion therapy, and other conspiracy theory books, according to a report by Motherboard.Hoopla — a Netflix-like subscription service that libraries use for audiobooks, ebooks, and movies — serves more than 8,500 public libraries in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Titles on Hoopla included antisemitic books like Debating The Holocaust and A New Nobility of Blood and Soil. Unlike physical books, which libraries can order individually, Hoopla sells libraries a subscription to its service, meaning librarians don’t always have control over what is being offered. OverDrive,... Continue reading…

Smart home company Insteon appears to have closed up shop with no warning to its customers. | Image: Insteon Revolv, Iris, Insignia, Staples Connect, Wink, and now Insteon and iHome: the graveyard of dead or dying smart home ecosystems that promised so much yet failed to deliver is getting crowded. Smart home company Insteon has turned off its cloud servers, as first reported by Stacey on IoT, and device maker iHome has also shut down its servers, confirming to The Verge that its iHome cloud services were terminated on April 2nd.This feels like a good time for a reflection on the state of the smart home. Is it all over? Or is this cloud carnage simply necessary to clear the way for a brave new world, one where the smart home is no longer a curiosity but something that actually matters?What those companies mentioned above have in common is a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is trying to make it easier for Chrome users to install useful extensions without having to scrutinize where they come from. The company says it has begun applying two new badges to extensions. The first, Featured, looks like a prize ribbon and will be displayed on extensions that “follow our technical best practices and meet a high standard of user experience and design.”Google says this is a manual process that involves evaluating extensions for an “enjoyable and intuitive experience,” making sure developers use the latest APIs, and keeping an eye on each extension’s privacy practices and requested permissions. To receive the Featured label, extensions must also have a detailed store page that clearly outlines their purpose.... Continue reading…

Apple retail workers in Atlanta have voted to unionize. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An Apple retail store in Atlanta has filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The workers at the Cumberland Mall store, which includes salespeople, technicians, creatives, and operations specialists, would be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). More than 70 percent of the group of about 100 eligible workers signed the union authorization cards, according to a news release — the minimum required is 30 percent.If a majority of the workers vote to unionize, the store would be the first unionized Apple store in the US. Their petition now goes for formal review by the NLRB.“Apple is a profoundly positive place to work, but we know that the company can better live up to their ideals... Continue reading…

Nintendo’s Switch OLED model in white with its updated dock and accompanying Joy-Cons. | Image: Nintendo The Nintendo Switch OLED model is on a special one-day deal from Woot today — the site has dropped the device’s price to the lowest you can find. Woot is selling the white version of the Switch OLED for $324.99 as opposed to its usual $349.99 price point. The deal is set to expire at 1AM ET / 10PM PT. While Nintendo Switch consoles have been readily available for a while now, it’s safe to wager this deal might sell out before time runs out.If you’re familiar with Nintendo prices, you’ll know that these kinds of discounts don’t come frequently, especially on the premium Switch. This sale puts it within $25 of the standard model, and if you haven’t already jumped into Nintendo’s popular console, the improvements on the OLED model are... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In an all-hands meeting with employees on Tuesday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy addressed the mounting efforts to unionize the company’s fulfillment centers. The discussion was sparked by an employee who asked about the company’s position on unions, per a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge.Jassy argued that unionization would make employees of the company feel less empowered. “One of the things that’s unique about Amazon is that we have unusual empowerment for our employees,” he said. “If they see something they can do better for customers — or just for themselves — to get together, get in a room, decide to change it, and change it, and do it quickly. We encourage that type of speed. You know, you’re part of the union it’s much... Continue reading…

The Sapphire Pulse RX 6400 is one of the first low-profile RDNA2 GPUs. If you’re looking for a serious gaming graphics card, look elsewhere — reviewers absolutely dragged the $199 AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT in January, and today’s GPU entry is even weaker. But if you absolutely, positively need to fit a miniature graphics card in a very small PC, the new RX 6400 might be worth a look.Today, AMD has quietly launched the Radeon RX 6400 with an array of partners including ASRock, Biostar, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, Sapphire, and XFX, and we’re actually seeing a few of them retail for that price or close to it, GPU shortage be damned. There’s a $159.99 ASRock Challenger and a $169.99 XFX Speedster SWFT105 in stock at Newegg right now — with a $159.99 Sapphire Pulse card also on the way.Intriguingly, every one of... Continue reading…

Samsung was well-positioned to scoop up a big chunk of the market share LG left behind with its affordable A-series phones. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The Galaxy got even bigger Continue reading…

Meta hosted its 2022 games showcase, which was filled with games that you can expect to play on your Quest 2 virtual reality headset at some point this year. Last year’s surprise announcement was the VR port of Resident Evil 4 (which turned out to be far better than expected), but several standout titles seem like they’ll be must-play experiences when they launch. In case you missed out on the showcase, we’ve rounded up the biggest announcements below.Ghostbusters is coming to VRThe showcase ended with Mark Zuckerberg revealing that a Ghostbusters VR game is in the works for the Quest 2. There aren’t many details (and it’s still in development under a working title) but the game will have players running their own Ghostbusters... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge First, a necessary disclaimer: don’t use artificial intelligence language generators to solve your ethical quandaries. Second: definitely go tell those quandaries to this AI-powered simulation of Reddit because the results are fascinating.Are You The Asshole (AYTA) is, as its name suggests, built to mimic Reddit’s r/AmITheAsshole (AITA) crowdsourced advice forum. Created by internet artists Morris Kolman and Alex Petros with funding from Digital Void, the site lets you enter a scenario and ask for advice about it — and then generates a series of feedback posts responding to your situation. The feedback does a remarkably good job of capturing the style of real human-generated responses, but with the weird, slightly alien skew that many... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge; Getty Images Benny Johnson berated staff, who were often paid late Continue reading…

Two people were killed in an Easter weekend shooting at this Pittsburgh Airbnb rental. | Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images After a shooting at an Easter weekend house party at an Airbnb in Pittsburgh left two teenagers dead and another eight people with gunshot wounds, Airbnb says it plans to pursue legal action against the person who booked the party.“Airbnb strictly bans parties, and we condemn the behavior that is alleged to have prompted this criminal gun violence and the tragic loss of life,” spokesperson Ben Breit said in a statement emailed to The Verge. The booking guest has been permanently banned from the platform, he said. The party was “unauthorized,” Breit added, and was held without the knowledge or consent of the property host.The shooting happened on Easter Sunday just after 12:30AM, according to Pittsburgh police. Some 200 people were at... Continue reading…

The Xbox Series X console is available to buy for its usual price of $499.99. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’ve been trying to land an Xbox Series X for a while now, today may be your lucky day. Right now, Best Buy is selling the elusive next-gen console for its usual price of $499.99. Even better, anybody can queue up for the Xbox Series X – not just Totaltech subscribers. However, supply is limited to what your local stores have on hand, so results may vary.To enter the digital line, make sure you click the “Add to Cart” and be prepared for Best Buy’s site to ask you to verify your details. To give yourself the best chance possible, sign in to your account while in the queue and double-check your shipping and payment details are accurate. Also, keep in mind that if it looks like the console appears to be sold out, don’t give up. Best... Continue reading…