The Verge

What’s new out there? | Image: Nintendo We’re less than a month away from the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and even though we just got a new trailer jam-packed with details, there’s still so much we don’t know about the game.Here are a few concrete things I can point to after watching all of the released footage more times than I care to admit:

Image: Nexon Fans don’t seem interested, but that isn’t stopping some notable brands. Continue reading…

The group chat is “a hallowed thing.” | Image: The Verge Izzy Miller downloaded 500,000 messages from his seven-year group chat, then trained an AI language model to replicate his friends — learning details about their lives and imitating the way they speak. Continue reading…

Image: Crunchyroll Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume is his most exuberant movie yet and a powerful rumination on holding space for the past. Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Screenshots can be really handy. You can use them to show your grandparent how to use a new app. You can use them to send a shot of a strange error message to your company’s IT department. And you can use them to capture tweets before they disappear into the black hole of deletion. So, in case you need to capture a screenshot or two, here’s a quick and simple guide to taking screenshots on your PC.Windows 10 introduced a screenshot tool called Snip & Sketch, but Windows 11 relies on the simpler Snipping Tool. And there are other ways you can take screenshots as well. We’ll start with the simplest.Use the PrintScreen keyUntil recently, if you wanted to take a quick screenshot of your entire screen, you could either just press the Print... Continue reading…

Nintendo At T-minus one day less than a month until Tears of the Kingdom launches, Nintendo has released a final trailer for Breath of the Wild’s potentially life-ruining sequel.The three-minute trailer featured sweeping vistas of Hyrule, some new friendly faces, and one very old not-so-friendly face. It looks like Link will have some friends to help him along the way, like he did in Breath of the Wild, which is neat because exploring all of Hyrule alone can get pretty boring. It also looks like my girl Riju is back and all grown up, along with Prince Sidon, so I am very excited to see my old friends again.During the last presentation on TotK, I was a bit bummed that we didn’t get any story beats. There were so many questions surrounding Link’s... Continue reading…

Apple’s HomePod Mini comes in a variety of fun colors, including orange, yellow, and blue. | Image: Jennifer Tuohy / The Verge Believe it or not, May is now just a few weeks away, which means both Mother’s Day and graduation season are nearly upon us. If you plan on picking up a gift for either occasion, it might be wise to get a head start on your shopping now before your calendar fills with festivities.For Apple aficionados, Apple’s Siri-enabled HomePod Mini makes for a versatile gift, one that’s on sale at Costco for members for $79.99 ($20 off) through April 23rd. Non-members can also buy the smart speaker at a discount when they pay a 5 percent surcharge, which raises the final sale price to $83.99 — a price we still rarely see.If you’re already embedded in Apple’s ecosystem, the HomePod Mini will let you do more than just play music and check the... Continue reading…

LG’s G3 OLED hits new brightness highs. | Image: LG LG’s G3 and Samsung’s S95C promise the brightest, most impressive picture we’ve ever seen from OLED TVs — and that’s on top of other advantages like perfect blacks and excellent gaming performance. Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Fortnite’s push into music continues with its second collaboration with Coachella, and it’s a bit more involved than last year.The music festival will be featured inside of the game in a few different ways. Perhaps most notable is the “Coachella Island” that players can explore, built using the game’s Creative mode, and which features music from Porter Robinson, some mini-games to play, and a virtual merch tent. (The island will be available to check out starting on April 14th at 3PM ET.)Meanwhile, 18 different songs from Coachella artists will be playing on Fortnite’s in-game radio station in the battle royale mode from now until May 12th. There will also be Coachella-themed quests to complete and, since this is Fortnite, a pair of... Continue reading…

Tomohisa Yamashita and Fleur Geffrier in Drops of God. | Image: Apple Everything about Apple’s newest streaming series is extreme — which you can probably tell since it’s a show about wine with the overly dramatic title Drops of God. And yet it works. It takes what may seem like a niche subculture full of snobs and millionaires and turns it into a high-stakes thriller that constantly kept me on edge. I really can’t believe how tense I got watching someone sniff a glass of red wine.Loosely based on a manga of the same name, Drops of God is a story about family and competition. Things really kick off with a death. When world-renowned wine aficionado Alexandre Leger (Stanley Weber) passes away, he leaves behind an incredible inheritance: a cellar packed with 87,000 bottles widely believed to be the most... Continue reading…

A prototype game launcher for Windows. | Image: h0x0d (Twitter) Microsoft is exploring early concepts around a Windows handheld mode for devices like the Steam Deck. A leaked video posted on Twitter by h0x0d shows early concept and prototype work for an optimized Windows 11 UI for handhelds, and a launcher and Windows gaming shell that’s designed for touchscreens and controllers.The video is part of a hackathon project inside Microsoft from September, where employees regularly present ideas or projects that sometimes end up getting support from Microsoft executives and end up shipping.

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has stopped tweeting from its primary Twitter account after it was given a “Government-funded Media” label. As of this writing the @PBS account hasn’t tweeted since April 8th, and the organization has since confirmed that it currently has “no plans” to resume posting to Twitter.“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” PBS spokesman Jason Phelps tells Bloomberg. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.” While PBS isn’t tweeting from its main account, it’s continued to put out content on affiliated accounts like @NewsHour, which have not had the “Government-funded” label applied.“PBS stopped tweeting... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Images The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed the Federal Trade Commission for documents related to its ongoing privacy investigation into Elon Musk’s Twitter, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chair of the committee, authorized the subpoena sent to FTC Chair Lina Khan, accusing the agency of refusing to comply with a handful of other requests the committee has made over the last few months. The demand requires the FTC to hand over all internal communications related to Musk’s October 2022 purchase of Twitter.In his letter to Khan Wednesday, Jordan accused the FTC of making “inappropriate and burdensome demands” of Musk’s Twitter, calling the agency’s responses to past requests for... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge There’s a lot of them Continue reading…

Currents was introduced in 2019. | Image: Google Currents Update April 12th, 2023, 5PM ET: Google announced it will begin winding down Currents on July 5th, with data available for export until August 8th, 2023, when it will no longer be available.Google has announced that it’ll shut down Currents, which was introduced in 2019 as a replacement for Google Plus for G Suite. In a blog post, the company says it’s “planning to wind down” Currents, and that it’ll push the people who were using it to Spaces, which is sort of like Google Chat’s version of a Slack channel or Discord room.Google says that it’s making the change so users won’t have to work in a “separate, siloed destination” — instead, they’ll be using Chat and Spaces, which will soon be prominently integrated into Gmail. The company... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The first beta of Google’s Android 14 OS is available to download today, introducing new features focused on system navigation, privacy, performance, and user customization. We already had a good idea of what to expect thanks to the first two developer-only previews, but the beta release is the first opportunity for the general public to test the changes.Gesture navigation has been updated to include a more conspicuous Material You-themed back arrow that adjusts to complement the device’s theme or wallpaper. Aside from arguably being more aesthetically pleasing, the updated back arrow is designed to help users better understand Android 14’s predictive back gesture experience, which now previews the screen users are navigating to within... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update, April 12th: And here it is — WBD has officially revealed Max, which will launch May 23rd, and we have all the details right here.Warner Bros. Discovery is getting ready to announce its combined HBO Max and Discovery Plus offering it will supposedly call “Max.” The media giant will officially reveal the service during a press event on Wednesday, which will cost up to $16 per month, according to a report from The New York Times.Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had been planning on bringing the two services together ever since WarnerMedia merged with Discovery last year, and now that time is closely approaching. The combined service will dump Discovery Plus’ eclectic range of content, including Deadliest Catch, Property... Continue reading…

Collin Farrell as The Penguin. In Matt Reeves’ The Batman, Oswald Cobblepot was still just a two-bit criminal working for other, bigger crime lords who kept Gotham PD on their toes. But in the first teaser trailer for Max’s upcoming Penguin spinoff series starring Colin Farrell, Cobblepot’s well on his way to making it in the big leagues (of villainy).Though the Batman himself doesn’t make an appearance in The Penguin’s new teaser revealed today during the official unveiling of Max, it’s clear from all the back alley dealings and shootouts that Cobblepot’s getting into that Gotham’s as seedy as ever and still a hotbed for criminal activity. Because of all the chaos, it seems very much like Gotham’s in one of its more lawless phases, where even the city’s worst... Continue reading…

The official logo doesn’t actually look like this. | Illustration: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery’s revamped subscription service is just called “Max,” and the company explained why it dropped the HBO branding at a press event on Wednesday. A key reason was to help Warner Bros. Discovery broaden the appeal of the app so that it’s not mostly targeted at content for adults.“We want [Max] to be welcoming to all and easily recognizable, including to a key customer segment, kids and families,” JB Perrette, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery’s global streaming and games, said at the event. “We all love HBO. And it’s a brand that has been built over five decades to be the edgy, groundbreaking trendsetter in entertainment for adults. But it’s not exactly where parents would most eagerly drop off their kids.”W... Continue reading…

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft is getting ready to roll out its new energy-saving features for the Xbox Series X / S consoles this week. This includes an active hours feature that Microsoft initially started testing in January that will let Xbox owners boot their console quickly during certain hours and shut it down fully to save on energy during times when it’s used less.Active hours means an Xbox will only draw 0.5 watts when it’s fully shut down, instead of 10–15 watts during the Standby mode. You can either set active hours times yourself or let your Xbox adjust them automatically depending on when you use the console the most. In other words, if your active hours are set between 12PM and 10PM, that means your console will be ready to boot in seconds... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Redfall, which is set to be one of Microsoft and Bethesda’s biggest Xbox releases of the year, won’t have a 60fps performance mode on consoles at launch, developer Arkane Austin announced on Wednesday. Instead, the game will be limited to a quality mode that enables 30fps at 4K resolution on Xbox Series X and 30fps at 1440p on Xbox Series S.The announcement is disappointing, especially so close to the game’s nearly here May 2nd launch date and when previous footage has been in 60fps. Redfall looks like it will be a decently fast-paced shooter, and I’m worried that the 30fps limitation on Xbox will make the game feel sluggish. (And personally, I always pick a higher frame rate over higher-quality graphics anyway.)Still, the game does... Continue reading…

Image: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images NPR has announced that it will no longer use Twitter to distribute its content after the social media platform began labeling the network as “US state-affiliated media,” putting it in the same category as government mouthpiece publications like RT and China Daily. NPR is the first major news organization to pull from the platform and comes at a time when Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s relationship with the press is at a low point.NPR’s main Twitter account has been silent since getting the label a week ago, but CEO John Lansing made the stance official in a memo sent to staffers Wednesday morning. “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of... Continue reading…

Mario music composer Koji Kondo (right) joins Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (center) and Nintendo camera programmer Takumi Kawagoe at a Super Mario Bros. Movie screening in April. | Image: Kayla Oaddams/WireImage We’re living in a Nintendo renaissance right now, which includes the release of one of the most successful animated movie launches ever, brand-new theme parks, and a bestselling console. But now, the Super Mario Bros. theme — one of the most recognizable tunes ever — is being eternally honored with an entry into the US Library of Congress (via The Guardian).The Super Mario Bros. theme is officially known as “Ground Theme,” as in the aboveground music in Super Mario Bros., and was first included in the game when it was released on the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. It marks the first video game music to be inducted into the Library of Congress. Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Super Mario Bros.... Continue reading…

LinkedIn now has a verification system. | Image: LinkedIn Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is rolling out a free verification system that will allow users to prove their identity and where they work. The verification options include the ability to use CLEAR to prove your identity, verification of your workplace through an email address, and Microsoft’s Entra verified ID platform to obtain digital workplace IDs for free.Unlike Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, you won’t need to pay to get verifications that will show up on your LinkedIn profile. You can verify your workplace just by using a company-issued email address or through Microsoft Entra if your organization already uses Entra.If you want to verify your own identity, then LinkedIn has partnered with CLEAR to allow you to securely confirm your... Continue reading…

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft is bringing Windows 11 to its HoloLens 2 headset. The update will be available free of charge, and Microsoft says it should appear by the end of June as an optional upgrade. HoloLens 2 owners can continue to use Windows 10, but Windows 11 will offer better app performance and some key developer-focused additions.“The free upgrade to Windows 11 promises continuous platform support, meaning our customers can trust in the continued security of their devices,” explains Robin Seiler, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows and devices, in a blog post. “With the upgrade, HoloLens 2 users will continue to receive monthly security servicing updates that reinforce the protection of sensitive information while also improving app... Continue reading…

Image: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency announced new emissions standards to slash tailpipe pollution, fight climate change, and accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.The proposal, which was first reported over the weekend and released Wednesday, represents the most aggressive plan to reduce carbon emissions by an administration to date. Depending on how the auto industry responds, the EPA projects that the new standards could result in electric vehicles accounting for 67 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales and 46 percent of new medium-duty vehicle sales by 2032 — a dramatic increase over the current EV sales numbers of around 6 percent.The Biden administration is portraying the proposal as a critical effort to reverse the... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge What’s the best streaming service? It feels like a big and important question to answer. It’s also a completely impossible, completely subjective question that depends on everything from your budget to your favorite Mission: Impossible movie. The streaming market is a teeming mass of stuff, with various platforms rising and falling, and nothing ever stays the same for very long.But here at The Verge, we like answers. So, for this episode of The Vergecast, we decided to answer that big question the only way we know how: chaotically and at great length. So we held the first annual Vergecast Streaming Services Draft, in which our three co-hosts each drafted their top five streaming services. There were surprises from the very beginning,... Continue reading…

Image: Nvidia Nvidia is making its new RTX 4070 graphics card official today after weeks of leaks. The RTX 4070 will be available on April 13th priced starting at $599 for Nvidia’s own Founders Edition model. Nvidia is pitching the RTX 4070 for 1440p gaming at more than 100fps with ray tracing and the company’s latest DLSS 3 upscaling tech enabled.The RTX 4070 is Nvidia’s first 40-series Founders Edition card that’s reasonably sized, so it can fit inside most cases — even those with small form factors. The RTX 4070 is actually shorter than an RTX 3080 and is designed to match its performance at 1440p at least. Built on Nvidia’s latest Ada Lovelace architecture, the RTX 4070 includes 12GB of GDDR6X instead of the 8GB found on both the prior RTX 3070... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft is getting ready to change how the Print Screen (Prt Scr) key works in Windows 11. For the first time in decades the default behavior will now open Microsoft’s own Snipping Tool instead of capturing an image of your entire screen and copying it to the Clipboard. Microsoft has started testing this change in recent beta builds of Windows 11.While Windows 11 already has a setting to allow you to change Print Screen to open the Snipping Tool, Microsoft will set this as the default behavior in the upcoming KB5025310 update. If you have previously modified the option in Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard then Windows 11 will keep the setting you chose, but for many this will be switched over.Print Screen has always been in need of... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge WhatsApp users in Brazil can now officially pay small businesses for goods and services from within the Meta-owned messaging app, the company has announced. The payments-to-merchant feature is available now for a “small number of businesses” but will be rolling out more widely in the coming months, allowing customers to make purchases using Mastercard or Visa credit, debit, or prepaid cards “without having to go to a website, open another app or pay in person.”The rollout of WhatsApp payment services in Brazil has been a multi-year process, and is complicated by the fact that the messaging app has been trying to offer both peer-to-peer transfers and payments-to-merchant services within its app. On the peer-to-peer side, WhatsApp... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI has launched a bug bounty, encouraging members of the public to find and disclose vulnerabilities in its AI services including ChatGPT. Rewards range from $200 for “low-severity findings” to $20,000 for “exceptional discoveries,” and reports are submittable via crowdsourcing cybersecurity platform Bugcrowd.Notably, the bounty excludes rewards for jailbreaking ChatGPT or causing it to generate malicious code or text. “Issues related to the content of model prompts and responses are strictly out of scope, and will not be rewarded,” says OpenAI’s Bugcrowd page.Jailbreaking ChatGPT usually involves inputting elaborate scenarios in the system that allow it to bypass its own safety filters. These might include encouraging the chatbot... Continue reading…

You don’t need a Spotify or Strava subscription to use the new in-app widget. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Strava has been around since 2009, but today, the popular fitness app is finally, finally adding an in-app Spotify integration. Instead of having to switch between apps, you can now access your Spotify favorites from the workout record screen. And, perhaps the best part is you don’t need a Spotify or Strava subscription to use it.“It’s just one of those things we know people have been asking for a long time, and finally, the stars aligned,” says Mateo Ortega, Strava’s vice president of connected partnerships. When asked about the possibility of adding other platforms, Ortega didn’t rule out the possibility but noted that Spotify was a clear first step.It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why Strava and Spotify partnering matters.... Continue reading…