The Verge - All Posts

Are you ready for the Star Trek metaverse? | Image: Paramount Paramount is launching its NFT marketplace / metaverse / annoying marketing stunt that fans are already angry about with Star Trek non-fungible tokens (or NFTs.) The company partnered with Recur to create a platform called Paramount.xyz, which it says will “bring Paramount’s beloved entertainment entities, brands and characters to the metaverse.”Paramount is aping what’s worked for big NFT projects in the past; the Star Trek NFTs will depict “algorithmically-generated starships” and can be purchased at the low, low price of $250 per pack. Packs, by the way, contain a single ship — which only has around an 11 percent chance of looking like the Enterprise. You can (but absolutely should not) guarantee that you’ll get a cool ship by buying... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Creators making money using Instagram Reels say their payouts have been slashed in recent weeks and target metrics for monetization have ballooned, according to the Financial Times. Payments are down as much as 70 percent per view and videos need millions more views for creators to get paid.The Reels Play Bonus Program, announced in July, offers financial rewards to creators who post on Reels, Instagram’s TikTok-style short-form video clone. Payouts ranged from $600 to as much as $35,000 if videos hit a target view count, but creators expressed confusion over how payments and goals were determined. The bonus program is part of a promise by Meta, which owns Instagram, to pay $1 billion to creators through 2022.Creators say changes in... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple reportedly will soon provide a new Face ID repair option for iPhone X that doesn’t involve replacing the whole device (via MacRumors). The option comes after Apple’s recent shift to soon provide a TrueDepth Camera service option that can fix the face unlock feature of the 2018 iPhone XS and newer models but didn’t previously include the 2017 iPhone X.Repairing just the Face ID component can be difficult since it’s a fairly complex system involving four components: a flood illuminator (a part of the display assembly, more on that later), dot projector, “TrueDepth” front camera, and IR camera. If any of these components malfunction, you could lose the face unlock feature and have to resort to entering a password.Apple’s old method... Continue reading…

Photo By Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images It takes a special kind of asshole to promise a big cash tip to your grocery delivery worker, only to snatch it away at the last minute. But as we reported in 2020, tip-baiting is a real problem for Instacart — and the company has introduced a new policy where it claims it will protect some of those tips.Here’s the policy straight off the company’s press release:

Image: Valve The best thing about the Steam Deck has nothing to do with its specs. Rather, its carrying case is my favorite non-feature feature that vastly improves the Deck’s esteem in ways its technical capabilities haven’t yet.My first delightful surprise was the arrival of the case itself. I did not expect to get a carrying case when my Steam Deck arrived last week. For all that’s been said about the Deck’s technical performance — we wrote two reviews — there hasn’t been much discussion of the case. I therefore thought, like with a Nintendo Switch or 3DS, that cases were available but sold separately.The case is hard-shelled with a soft velvety interior and a molded form for the Deck to sit inside so it’s not bouncing around while zipped up... Continue reading…

Sarah and Helena bonding over their physical similarities. | Image: Temple Street Productions Though the original Orphan Black series seemingly brought the story of Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) and her sprawling family tree of sister clones to a close, AMC’s gearing up to return to their world with an all-new live-action series.Per The Hollywood Reporter, AMC Networks has tapped Fear The Walking Dead supervising producer Anna Fishko to write and showrun Orphan Black: Echoes, a new series set in the near future of the original. The new show, which is set to be executive produced and directed by John Fawcett, will follow the lives of a new group of women who gradually begin to realize how deeply interconnected their origins are — despite the fact that none of them know one another. Given how the original Orphan Black came to a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta won’t be holding its F8 developer conference in 2022, the company announced Wednesday.“Similar to years past, we are taking a brief break in programming and will not hold F8 in 2022 while we gear up on new initiatives that are all tailored towards the next chapter of the internet, and the next chapter of our company too: building the metaverse,” Meta’s Diego Duarte Moreira said in a blog post. “Similar to the early stages of the web, building the metaverse will be a collaborative effort at every stage — with other companies, creators and developers like you.”Connect is still on for “later this year”In lieu of F8, Moreira pointed to Meta’s “inaugural business messaging event,” dubbed Conversations, which will take place on May... Continue reading…

A decade before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, a tiny team of renegades attempted to build the modern smartphone. Nearly forgotten by history, a little startup called Handspring tried to make the future before it was ready. In Springboard: the secret history of the first real smartphone, Dieter Bohn talks to the visionaries at Handspring and dives into their early successes and eventual failures.Join us at the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View, California, on Friday, May 6th, at 7PM PT for a screening of Springboard and a panel discussion featuring Dieter Bohn, former Handspring CEO Donna Dubinsky, and former Handspring president and COO Ed Colligan.ATTENDING IN PERSONRegistration for the free event is open now.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is adding a new “step-by-step guided tour” of privacy and security settings in Chrome to sift through the many available controls, the company announced Wednesday. The new guide will include separate pages about some settings, each containing descriptions of what happens when a feature is turned on. There will also be notes on “things to consider,” such as the fact that turning history sync on means that the URLs you visit will be saved to your Google account.You can check out the GIF below to get an idea of what the Privacy Guide will look like. Privacy Guide will “begin gradually rolling out” to all Chrome desktop users on version 100 “in the coming weeks,” according to Google’s blog post about the news. To... Continue reading…

Severance stars Adam Scott as a worker drone who surgically divides his work and home personalities | Apple Severance, the creepy Apple TV Plus drama about workers who find work-life balance by surgically altering their brains, has been renewed for a second season, the streamer announced Wednesday. The show starring Adam Scott as Mark S., a grieving widower who willingly forgets who he is for the entirety of his workday, has found an audience with its portrayal of the horrors of capitalism in a large but claustrophobic office.Mark and his coworkers Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Burt (a spectacularly understated Christopher Walken) are trying to figure out what exactly they’re really doing in the macrodata refinement department at Lumon Industries while avoiding trips to the dreaded Break Room.... Continue reading…

Elizabeth Holmes as Wanda Maximoff in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. | Marvel Studios Though Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ earliest trailer strongly implied that a Stephen Strange variant is going to be the movie’s big bad, the Scarlet Witch’s presence in the story and the way that WandaVision came to a close has also implied that Wanda Maximoff may have something to do with the multiverse shattering into a million pieces. While Multiverse of Madness’ newest ad spot doesn’t explicitly spell out how reality comes undone around Earth’s magical heroes, it may explain why by confirming the return of two interesting characters.Despite Wanda and Strange not having spent the most time on screen together up until this point, the new trailer establishes that the pair have quite a bit in common. For example, they... Continue reading…

A new report highlights the dangers of driving for gig companies. | Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald Isabella Lewis was driving for Lyft on a Sunday in Plano, Texas, last August when she was carjacked and killed by her passenger. As her family tried to piece together what happened, they kept receiving calls from an insurance company they didn’t recognize, but finally realized it was Lyft’s insurer, who wanted to inspect Lewis’ car in order to determine whether it would pay to fix the damaged windshield and clean up her blood.To date, however, her family says it has not had any communication from anyone with Lyft’s corporate office.“The only thing we have heard from Lyft is when they said in the Dallas newspaper that their hearts were with us,” Lewis’ sister Allyssa said in an interview with The Verge. “I wish [Lyft] had handled the... Continue reading…

A sturdy DIY keyboard with a lot of potential Continue reading…

Photo by PATRICK PLEUL / POOL / AFP via Getty Images Depends: What kind of activist investor does Musk want to be? Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Discounts don’t usually arrive quickly for the latest Apple tech, but you can enjoy a steep price cut on Apple’s latest iPad Air, which has the M1 processor and a generous 256GB of storage. It normally costs $749 for that tablet configuration, but Walmart and Amazon are selling it for $679. It’s worth noting that this price cut is limited to the space gray colorway at both retailers.In our recent review of the 2022 iPad Air, the features that make it worth buying include its fast performance, an excellent combo of speakers and display, and its all-day battery life. My colleague Dan Seifert actually recommends spending extra to get this very 256GB model, as the default 64GB just isn’t enough for how much this tablet costs.If you’re... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Biden-affiliated nonprofit group Building Back Together plans to launch its own TikTok account on Wednesday as part of the group’s latest effort to engage young people with the president’s agenda ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.The group’s account, @buildingbacktogether, plans to create content inspired by TikTok trends and features, like the green screen function, to explain President Joe Biden’s agenda to the platform’s predominantly younger user base. The organization’s staff will frequently appear on the account, along with news clips and audio featuring the president.“By launching a TikTok account, we’re building off that work with the goal of reaching the large and growing user base of this platform, including young... Continue reading…

An example of the blank box that’s now shown. | Screenshot: Twitter Twitter has made a small but significant change to how deleted tweets are shown when they’re embedded in third-party websites. Since at least the end of March the social media network has started showing a blank box on external sites when an embedded tweet has been deleted. The change was detailed in a blog post from Kevin Marks.It’s a big change from how Twitter used to handle deleted-yet-embedded tweets, when it would preserve the original unformatted text. With this recent change, that text is now gone, leaving a hole inside any story that embedded it. Screenshot: Web Archive How deleted embedded tweets used to display. Screenshot: The Verge How they display now. According to T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is increasing the price of its music streaming service, the company has announced in a new FAQ. From May 5th, Amazon Prime subscribers will have to pay $8.99 (£8.99) a month or $89 (£89) a year for access to Music Unlimited, up from $7.99 (£7.99) and $79 (£79) respectively. The price of the single-device plan — which lets you listen to the full library but only from a single Echo or Fire TV device — is also increasing from $3.99 (£3.99) to $4.99 (£4.99) a month. If you’re not a Prime member, the price of Amazon Music Unlimited is unchanged at $9.99 (£9.99).As Engadget notes, the price change all but eliminates the discount that Amazon Prime subscribers get when paying for Amazon Music on top of their regular monthly subscription... Continue reading…

Emoji reactions appear as a third option when highlighting text. | Image: Google Google Docs is getting support for emoji reactions, allowing you to respond to text with a simple symbol rather than a fully written comment. In an announcement post, the company says the feature supports all the emoji available in the latest release, which includes gender-neutral options and sillier symbols like melting face and biting lip.A gif released by Google shows how the emoji reaction feature will appear as a third option alongside “Add Comment” and “Suggest Edits” when you highlight text. You can also type to search the emoji catalog. Google says these responses provide “a less formal alternative to comments.” Image: Google Emoji reactions in action. Emoji reactions have become a staple of modern... Continue reading…

3D printing can be a time-consuming and expensive hobby — even if you try to do it on the cheap. It feels like I’ve adjusted, replaced, or upgraded half the parts on my Ender 3 Pro. It’s been fun, but never easy.But what if a truly consumer-ready 3D printer changed that? We may be about to find out. Trusted phone charger company Anker is officially expanding beyond its Eufy smart home devices, Soundcore audio, Nebula projectors and Roav car accessories into 3D printing this year — and not in a small way. The just-revealed AnkerMake M5 looks like it could give leading brands a serious run for their money. Image: Anker Vases are a relatively fast thing to print on any FDM printer, but the M5 could make them even... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Tuesday morning, YouTube channels for some of the world’s biggest stars showered fans with strange music videos. Vevo channels for artists like Lil Nas X, Eminem, Drake, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Michael Jackson, Kanye West, and many others were affected. The channels in question have subscriber counts that add up to hundreds of millions. Before the videos disappeared, viewers saw bizarre clips of Paco Sanz, a Spanish conman sentenced to two years in jail after being convicted of fraud for lying about having terminal cancer, and rapper Lil Tjay.YouTube did not respond to requests for comment from The Verge; however, Vevo — which bills itself as “the world’s leading music video network” — did acknowledge... Continue reading…

Image: Plex Plex’s latest beta features are a modern solution to a modern problem — having to search through HBO Max, Netflix, Disney Plus, and like, three other services to find something to watch. The company announced a new “Discover” feature, which aggregates and recommends content from various streaming services and a universal watchlist that gathers everything you want to watch all in one place.The Discover screen acts like most streaming services’ homepages, giving you recommendations on what to watch next, but with the ability to show content from many different catalogs. It shouldn’t overwhelm you with selections you don’t have access to, though. There’s a setting that lets you choose only the services you have. Plex has been working for... Continue reading…

Block’s logo. | Image: Block Block, the parent company of products like Cash App and Tidal, said in an SEC filing that a former employee downloaded “certain reports” that “contained some US customer information” without permission from Cash App Investing (via Protocol).Data in the reports, which Block said were downloaded on December 10th, included “full name and brokerage account number” and for “some customers” included “brokerage portfolio value, brokerage portfolio holdings and/or stock trading activity for one trading day.” The employee, who downloaded the data after they left the company, had access to the reports “as part of their past job responsibilities,” according to Block.“The reports did not include usernames or passwords, Social Security numbers,... Continue reading…

Photo by Christian Marquardt - Pool/Getty Images Within the news of Elon Musk taking a significant ownership stake in Twitter — and the revelation that it really is working on an edit button for tweets — many people noticed a wrinkle that seemed small at first but could cause problems later.On Monday, Musk filed beneficial ownership report paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to note his ownership of 73,486,938 shares of Twitter (about 9.2 percent of its outstanding common stock and enough to make him the company’s largest individual shareholder), and the box checked on the form (pdf) indicated it was a Schedule 13G, which allows for a simple disclosure for investors who intend to remain “passive” in the company’s affairs.We don’t usually get into stock... Continue reading…

Photo by Emanuele Cremaschi / Getty Images Helbiz, a shared electric scooter and bike provider that operates in the US and Europe, failed to pay its US-based employees this past week, The Verge has learned. In an email to employees, the company’s CEO blamed “an error in our payroll system” and promised each employee a $100 bonus to make up for the snafu.“I personally apologize for this mistake and hope you know it does not reflect my knowledge of the value you all provide to the success of this company,” Helbiz CEO Salvatore Palella said in the email, which was obtained by The Verge.In an email, head of communications Matt Rosenberg confirmed the missed payroll, adding that it only affected the company’s US-based employees. Helbiz employees in other offices were paid on time,... Continue reading…

German authorities shut down the server infrastructure for the Russian darknet marketplace Hydra, seizing €23 million (~$25.2 million USD) worth of Bitcoin in the process, Germany’s Federal Crime Police Office (BKA) announced on Tuesday (via Bleeping Computer).Hydra is a large marketplace on the dark web that serves as a hub for drugs, stolen credit card information, counterfeit bills, fake documents, and other illegal goods or services. The market primarily caters to criminals in Russia and surrounding nations. “Treasuremen,” or dealers connected with the site, push drugs throughout the region by hiding them in geo-tagged pickup locations.Hydra has the highest turnover rate out of any illegal market in the worldWith the shutdown of... Continue reading…

Photo by ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images SNK Corporation, the developer of games like Metal Slug and Fatal Fury, is now nearly entirely owned by a subsidiary of the Saudi crown prince’s foundation. Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC), which is owned by the Mohammed bin Salman Foundation (MiSK Foundation), holds 96.18 percent of SNK’s shares, according to a February 15th filing on SNK’s website (PDF).This follows “a strategic investment” announced in November 2020, where the MiSK Foundation acquired an “initial” 33.3 percent stake in SNK. At the time, MiSK Foundation indicated it planned to eventually take a 51 percent stake in SNK, but it seems MiSK Foundation decided to buy a much larger stake.“The Mohammed bin Salman Foundation’s (MiSK Foundation) investment in... Continue reading…

The Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s flagship console that’s remained a challenge to get until recently. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Xbox Series X has been one of the most challenging-to-find gaming gadgets since its late 2020 release. While always a little easier to get a hold of than Sony’s PlayStation 5, getting one has all but required keeping track of restocks from multiple retailers on a day-to-day basis — lest you turned to purchasing one from price gougers.But now, we can say (with fingers crossed) that those days may be behind us. The Xbox Series X is readily available at a few retailers — and has been for the past handful of days. What’s more, you don’t need any paid memberships or pricey bundles to be able to get one. This, coupled with the lowering costs and better availability of some desktop GPUs, is great news for gamers who want to upgrade to new... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox Series S is on sale for $249.99 for a limited time. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’d prefer a more affordable console to the Xbox Series X — or one that’s more readily available than the PlayStation 5 and PS5 Digital Edition — you can once again buy Microsoft’s Xbox Series S at its lowest price to date. Regularly $299.99, Adorama is currently selling the entry-level Xbox for $249.99 when you use the promo code XBOXS2250 at checkout.While the Xbox Series S lacks a disc drive, it can play the same games as the Series X and is backward compatible with original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games. It also targets a 1440p resolution and up to 120fps in supported games (with 4K upscaling), though many games still run at 1080p right now. The console also only offers 512GB of internal storage. However, unlike the... Continue reading…

Not a bad router for $14 a month. | Image: Comcast Comcast announced on Tuesday that it’s starting to send out the xFi Advanced Gateway, a Wi-Fi 6E router the company announced at CES 2022, to customers that subscribe to Xfinity Internet Gigabit and Ultrafast plans. Until this point, many routers that support the new, higher bandwidth Wi-Fi standard have been far too expensive for most budgets (think $500 to $1,500, though there are now some in the $300 price range) — but Comcast’s is $14 per month, the company’s standard fee for equipment rental.The xFi Advanced Gateway also has some smart home tricks up its sleeve. It includes built-in support for Zigbee, and Comcast has also said it will support Matter, a smart home standard slated to come out later this year.ISP-provided routers... Continue reading…

TORONTO, ON - AUGUST, 30 Diana Carradine with Ecobee smart thermostat in her home in the Eglinton and Avenue road area. The province is launching the Green Ontario Fund, bankrolled with $377 milion in cap-and-trade revenues, to help homeowners and businesses with programs to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The first move is offering free smart thermostats to eligible homeowners, so they can more easily turn down the heat or air conditioning when they’re not home — saving on natural gas and electricity. | Richard Lautens/Toronto Star via Getty Images Smart devices have a role to play in the move from dirty to clean energy, according to a major new climate report released this week. People need tools that help them better understand where their energy comes from, see how much they’re using, and pitch in to make a more resilient power grid.“Digital technologies can contribute” to the fight to stop climate change, the report released yesterday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says. That contribution can include smart appliances that make homes more energy-efficient or rooftop solar panels that work in tandem as “virtual power plants.” Those technologies have the power to cut down greenhouse gas emissions and transform the electric grid.Smart... Continue reading…

CBS To answer the question of why we should care about Paramount Plus, the service is going back to the well of nostalgia and snagging some of our favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation characters to be featured in season 3 of Star Trek: Picard.A brief trailer for the news shows just Patrick Stewart in his role as Jean-Luc Picard but uses voiceovers to tease the upcoming appearances of LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner.Without showing them, it’s unclear if we’ll see the use of often-controversial de-aging technology applied to the stars or if there’s any other plan to deal with the impact of time and plot circumstances. Guinan’s return in season 2 has included both Whoopi... Continue reading…

Photo by PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Ahahahahahaha fine. Longtime shitposter Elon Musk, who has a side gig as the CEO of Tesla, is on the board of Twitter, a newly minted meme stonk, after filing the wrong form with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tremendous content.A different style of billionaire might elect to buy a national newspaper with a storied past and re-invest in it, just like he might secretly test his dick-shaped rocket for many years before publicly taking a ride on it. But despite owning Amazon, Jeff Bezos is somehow less internet-poisoned than the meme lord of Dogecoin. The true platform for brain worms isn’t The Washington Post, despite its op-ed writers’ best efforts. It’s Twitter.The platform’s top shitposter already has the keys to the castleN... Continue reading…

Photo by Ryan Loughlin The rumored DJI Mini 3 Pro may come with some substantial upgrades over its non-Pro predecessor, including obstacle avoidance sensors and a larger battery, as indicated by leaked images and a video of the new drone (via TechRadar).Self-described DJI investigator Jasper Ellens posted the leaked pictures and video to Twitter. There are two large sensors on the front of the device to help avoid obstacles, as well as two downward-facing sensors to prevent ground collisions. If true, this is a welcome addition to the beginner-friendly drone series — the DJI Mini 2 only has ground detection sensors.

Russia says it will end cooperation with other nations on the International Space Station until the sanctions put on the country are lifted. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, announced in a thread on Twitter that the “restoration of normal relations between partners” on the ISS and other projects is only possible with the “complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions.”In translated versions of his tweets, Rogozin says he appealed the sanctions in letters to NASA, the European Space Agency, as well as the Canadian Space Agency. Rogozin also posted images of what appears to be each country’s response — The Verge reached out to NASA, the ESA, and the CSA to confirm their authenticity but didn’t... Continue reading…

Note that the white-colored model is $699.99, while the other three are $729.99. | Samsung One of the best deals of the week is on a product that isn’t even out yet. If you preorder Samsung’s 32-inch M8 4K smart monitor, starting at $699.99, before April 17th, you’ll get a $100 Samsung credit to use on future purchases. Just a heads-up, though, that the white-colored model that costs $699.99 is currently set to deliver in early May. Other colors, like green and pink (which cost $30 more) will ship by April 18th. There’s a blue option, but it’s not available for preorder yet.The M8 monitor has some features that many others don’t. I wrote about them all here, but if you want the skinny, here goes: it can run smart TV apps, like Apple TV Plus, Netflix, and more, even if you don’t have a computer or streaming device to connect... Continue reading…

Oops. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch has paused its Boost Train feature, which launched last month and let people pay to promote streams, after porn ended up on users’ homepages with the label “promoted by the streamer’s community” slapped onto the NSFW thumbnails (via Kotaku).Several Twitter and Reddit users (NSFW links, by the way) shared screenshots of pornographic thumbnails that showed up at the front of their “Live channels we think you’ll like” sections. The thumbnails indicate that the streams showed up there thanks to an experimental feature that Twitch first announced last year. The feature has changed since it was first introduced, but the basic concept remains the same — users can spend money to get a stream in front of people’s eyes. In this case, it... Continue reading…

Apple’s Magic Mouse doesn’t deserve the name. | Photo by Nick Statt / The Verge And it hasn’t changed since 2017 Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Activision Blizzard is officially lifting its vaccine mandate for US corporate employees, and workers have announced they plan to walk out in protest. The company confirmed to The Verge that it has already ended the mandate, and A Better ABK, an organization of Activision Blizzard employees advocating for better working conditions, announced Friday that employees will walk out of work on April 4th at 1PM ET in protest.Jessica Gonzalez, a former Activision Blizzard employee and a founder of A Better ABK, originally revealed that the company was changing its vaccine policy on Twitter Thursday evening. In a series of screenshots, she shared the text of an email sent by Brian Bulatao, the company’s chief administrative officer. “Effective... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Starting next week, users of Barnes & Noble’s Android app will no longer be able to buy digital books in the app, and it seems to be due to a Google Play policy deadline that’s been more than a year and a half in the works. And it’s not just Barnes & Noble that’s affected; you aren’t able to buy Amazon’s Audible titles with a debit or credit card in the latest version of its Android app, either.The changes appear to stem from Google’s insistence that apps use Google Play’s billing systems. Developers have long criticized Apple and Google for requiring the use of their own billing systems, in large part because of the so-called “app store tax” on many transactions.Google updated its policies in September 2020 to clarify which types of... Continue reading…

The Oversight Committee is demanding answers. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The House Committee on Oversight and Reform has launched an investigation into Amazon’s labor practices around severe weather events, focusing on the company’s Illinois warehouse where six people died in a tornado strike last winter.The committee is seeking documents and communication records from Amazon within the next two weeks, according to a letter signed by Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Cori Bush (D-MO) and sent Thursday to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.The letter cites reports that Amazon threatened to fire employees if they left work as the tornado bore down on the area and that delivery dispatchers weren’t allowed to call drivers back without Amazon’s approval, even when there was an active... Continue reading…

Square Enix If you’re like me and still recovering from the emotional devastation of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, take heart; it’s time for a Newfound Adventure. Patch 6.1 Newfound Adventure is the first major content patch for Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. In a Live Letter developer presentation, game director Naoki Yoshida revealed details about the patch, including new mounts, new hairstyles, new PvP battles and, of course, a new story.Newfound Adventure picks up where Endwalker left off. Your friends, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, have scattered across Eorzea doing their own thing now that they’ve prevented the end of all life in the galaxy. Events conspire to reunite the gang for some good old-fashioned low-stakes adventuring.While I’m... Continue reading…

NASA’s Space Launch System on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center | Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge For the next three days, NASA is staging an elaborate dress rehearsal with its massive new rocket, the Space Launch System — practicing all of the major steps the agency will have to perform when the vehicle launches for the very first time. It’s a major milestone for the rocket’s development and one of the last major tests it must undergo before the vehicle can be cleared to fly sometime this summer.The Space Launch System, or SLS, is the agency’s new flagship rocket, designed to carry people and cargo into deep space. It’s meant to play a lead role in NASA’s Artemis program, the agency’s initiative to send the first woman and the first person of color to the Moon by the mid-2020s. Capable of lifting nearly 60,000 pounds of cargo to... Continue reading…

Workers at Amazon’s Staten Island fulfillment center voted whether to unionize | Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York City have voted to unionize, an historic first for workers at the e-commerce company. The final tally was 2,654 yes votes, and 2,131, with 67 challenges. The workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island will join the Amazon Labor Union, as the number of challenges is not sufficient to affect the outcome.The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined in January that unionization efforts at the facility had “reached a sufficient showing of interest” to hold an election. The facility employs roughly 5,000 people.In a statement posted to its website Friday, Amazon said it was “disappointed with the outcome of the election because we believe having a direct relationship with the... Continue reading…

Cannabis bill to decriminalize gets a vote in the House | Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images The US House of Representatives voted Friday to approve a bill that would decriminalize cannabis at the federal level. It’s a first step toward making the drug legal and attempting to undo some of the damage caused by punitive drug laws, particularly among communities of color. The voting happened along party lines, with 220 votes in favor and 204 opposed. The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, but advocates say with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, they’re more hopeful that the legislation will finally become law.The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (or MORE Act) would remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances and add a federal tax on cannabis products. It would also... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In the past few years, the phrase “HIPAA violation” has been thrown around a lot, often incorrectly. People have cited the law, which protects patient health information, as a reason they can’t be asked if they’re vaccinated or get a doctor’s note for an employer.But asking someone if they’re vaccinated isn’t actually a HIPAA violation. That’s a fine and not-illegal thing for one non-doctor to ask another non-doctor. What is a HIPAA violation is what U. Phillip Igbinadolor, a dentist in North Carolina, did in September 2015, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. After a patient left an anonymous, negative Google review, he logged on and responded with his own post on the Google page, saying that the patient missed... Continue reading…

Save $100 on the Samsung Galaxy S22 at Best Buy for today only | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge We’re kicking off April Fools’ Day with a deal that’s dead serious. For today only, Best Buy is knocking $100 off the price of the unlocked Samsung Galaxy S22. The 128GB and 256GB models of the S22 are currently discounted to $699.99 and $749.99, respectively. Just note that this discount only applies to the standard model of the S22, not the S22 Plus or Ultra. You don’t have to activate this phone when you purchase it either, just make sure to select “activate later” before adding it to your cart. This is the first discount we’ve seen on the latest model of Samsung’s smartphone since its release, making this a prime opportunity to upgrade.The S22 features an impressive array of specs, including a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, a 50MP main... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg unveiled stricter fuel economy standards today that he said would save Americans money at the pump, as well as help reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change.“When these standards take effect, Americans buying a new vehicle will spend less on gas than they would have if we hadn’t taken this step,” Buttigieg said at a Friday news conference in Washington, DC. “We estimate that today’s rule will prevent 5.5 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide from going into our atmosphere between now and 2050.”By 2026, the average new vehicle in the US will get 49 miles of travel per gallon of gasoline (mpg) under the revised Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, Buttigieg said. The new standards will... Continue reading…