The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will allow cannabis ads on the platform starting today, the company announced in a blog (per Axios).The company previously allowed CBD topical ads targeting some US users. The policy change means Twitter — where major ad firms have cautioned clients against buying ads following Elon Musk’s takeover — will allow more cannabis ads than other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.On Meta-owned platforms, advertisers can promote hemp products with restrictions around geographic targeting and content, but THC and CBD products aren’t allowed. TikTok also has strict rules around drugs, even refusing to allow public service announcements from New York state after cannabis was legalized for adults.“Going forward, Twitter is... Continue reading…

Stressed about this choice? We’re here to help. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge I recently published my review of the MacBook Pro 16 with M2 Max, which Apple released at the beginning of 2023. Now I’ve finally gotten my hands on the less powerful (and less expensive) MacBook Pro 16 powered by Apple’s M2 Pro chip. I’ve run the various benchmarks and done the various tasks, and I’ve even (finally) run the battery into the ground. Today, I’m here to talk to you about how these chips stack up to each other to help you decide which MacBook Pro model is right for you.Behold, the benchmarks (scroll to the right to see more):M2 Pro vs. M2 Max: priceSixteen-inch M2 Pro models start at $2,499, while M2 Max models start at $3,099. The base M2 Pro model has 16GB of memory and 512TB of storage, while the base M2 Max has... Continue reading…

Picard and Riker hang out with Seven of Nine. | Image: Trae Patton / Paramount Plus The last season of Picard is truly wild, and while it’s filled with action, it never seems to lose that sense of wonder that makes Star Trek Star Trek. Continue reading…

The WD My Book Duo chonker now has 44TB max of capacity. | Image: Western Digital Western Digital has managed to cram even more space into its My Book external drives, this time with a 22TB version and up to 44TB for the chonkier Duo model (via AnandTech). The company says the new models are available now at retailers, perfect if you’re constantly recording 8K footage on a Samsung phone and need to store about 1,222 hours of footage somewhere.WD’s previous My Book drives maxed out at 18TB / 36TB (Duo). The company is selling the new My Book with a single 22TB drive inside for $599.99. The new behemoth in Western Digital’s lineup, the My Book Duo 44TB, costs $1,499.99.If you need an indicator of how far hard disk capacity has come, Western Digital’s largest My Book in 2017 was a 20TB Duo, and it retailed for $849 — a... Continue reading…

Tensions are already high in the global semiconductor market following restrictions imposed by the US, Japan, and the Netherlands to curb exports to China. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala ASML, one of the largest suppliers to the global semiconductor industry and the only supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography photolithography machines, has revealed that a former employee in China stole information pertaining to its proprietary technology in a data breach. Within its recently published 2022 annual report, the Dutch tech firm said it had discovered “unauthorized misappropriation of data” that was promptly investigated in an internal review.ASML is a significant cornerstone of the global technology supply chain, controlling over 90 percent of the global market for chipmaking lithography equipment as of 2021, according to a study by Gartner (seen via Bloomberg). More crucially for anyone with a fancy phone or... Continue reading…

This dual-camera dash cam can detect break-ins when your car is parked and record every second of your time on the road. If you have a specific need for a device like this, it’s a good option. But integration with other Ring devices and Alexa is lacking. Continue reading…

Halle Bailey as Ariel, the mermaid. | Disney Disney has been very careful about keeping details about its upcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid from director Rob Marshall under wraps ahead of its May 26th debut. Aside from one shadowy trailer and a couple of promotional images, we haven’t really been able to see that much of Halle Bailey’s Ariel and the underwater world she calls home. But a new short teaser spotlights the small mermaid princess in action, and while The Little Mermaid certainly looks magical, it also seems a bit muted in a way that has nothing to do with Ariel’s voice.For people with sense, there’s never been any question about Halle Bailey’s ability to bring to life a new yet very classic version of Disney’s Ariel to life, and she both looks and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images Plus a look inside the upcoming PSVR2. Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony is bringing Horizon Forbidden West to its PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscription service on February 21st. It’s arriving just a year after it was first released on PS4 and PS5.PS5 owners who haven’t played Horizon Forbidden West are in for a treat, both visually and in the storyline of the successor to Horizon Zero Dawn. It was one of Sony’s biggest PlayStation games of the year in 2022, with a PS5-exclusive expansion, Burning Shores, set to debut on April 19th.My colleague Ash Parrish reviewed Horizon Forbidden West and spent more than 60 hours hunting, exploring, crafting, and fighting in a world that’s “easy to get lost in.”PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscribers will also get access to two horror games next... Continue reading…

Characters from Fortnite. | Image: Epic Games Epic Games’ annual State of Unreal presentation will take place on March 22nd, the company announced on Wednesday. The event and many additional sessions about Epic’s hugely popular Unreal Engine are happening alongside the Game Developers Conference, which is scheduled for March 20th through 24th.Epic is keeping the specific announcements close to the vest for now. “Get a glimpse at what’s in store for the future of game development as the Epic Games team takes the stage with our talented partners,” the company writes on its event page. “We’ll take a look at some new projects, dive into the latest Epic tech, and have some fun along the way.”Based on the full event agenda, however, it looks like we’ll be getting details about Unreal... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Park / The Verge This week on The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of home theater remotes, we dedicate an episode to the right to repair the technology you own.We live in a world where our most important gadgets are with us at all times. Because of this, we expect them to last as long as physically possible. Unfortunately, the reality of consumer tech today is that a lot of gadgets are not built with the intention of being easily fixable when they break. On today’s episode, we talk to people who are figuring out how to repair the tech we use every day so we can use it even longer, even after manufacturer support stops.First, we chat with Nic Splattstoesser, a technician who is running his own business repairing Apple’s first-generation HomePods... Continue reading…

The Find N2 Flip’s global release means there’s finally a viable alternative to Samsung’s Z Flip devices, at least in certain markets. Oppo’s foldable boasts some impressive hardware and neat software to try and make the most of it. Continue reading…

The phone is available in black (left) and purple. As promised, Oppo is providing international release dates for the Find N2 Flip, first announced in China last December. In the UK, the phone will go on sale for £849 (around $1,025) on March 2nd, and it’ll also be available in other European markets like France, Spain, and Italy (we’ve followed up with Oppo to confirm release dates and pricing in these regions). The phone isn’t getting an official release in North America.The Find N2 Flip is a direct competitor to Samsung’s Z Flip devices in that it’s a smartphone-size device that can fold down when you need it to be more compact. But its unique selling point is that it has a far larger 3.26-inch cover display versus the Z Flip 4’s 1.9-inch secondary display. A larger screen means more... Continue reading…

I spent more time charging than driving the Mazda MX-30 EV. The 2022 Mazda MX-30 gets a 35.5kW battery that will get you an EPA-estimated 92 miles of range combined, making the MX-30 one of the shortest-range EVs on the market. Continue reading…

Image: Jovana Mugosa / The Verge People are burned out on dating apps. In reporting Land of The Giants: Dating Games, we spoke to dozens of daters who are tired of navigating several apps at a time, optimizing their profiles, and facilitating dozens of conversations that go nowhere. So where do singles go from here?The final episode of our series explores the hottest trend in tech — artificial intelligence. We’ll speak with the CEO of a Gen Z dating app that allows users to train avatars to go on dates for them: “You don’t have to get dressed up. You don’t have to go out to a coffee shop or a bar to meet somebody to discover in the first 5 minutes you’re not compatible.” And we’ll speak with people who have fallen in love with the AI chatbot companions they’ve made on... Continue reading…

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty IMages Twitter CEO Elon Musk says he might be ready to step down as head of the social media network by the end of the 2023, by which time it’ll be a year since millions of Twitter users voted for him resign from the role — a poll Musk said he’d honor.“I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place in that the product roadmap is clearly laid out,” Musk said via video link at the World Government Summit in Dubai, as reported by Bloomberg. “I’m guessing probably towards the end of the year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company.”“I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year,” Musk said. He didn’t offer any indication of who could be in line to take the... Continue reading…

Image: Sony The PlayStation VR2 headset can track the accompanying Sense controllers thanks to a bunch of IR LEDs hidden in the orb-shaped controllers, according to new teardown videos Sony posted Tuesday evening.Under the Sense controller cover, the controller itself has a ring of 14 IR LEDs and three placed elsewhere for tracking, as shown in the Sense teardown video. “These infrared lights are used by the VR headset’s tracking camera to detect the controller’s position and orientation,” Sony’s Takeshi Igarashi, who also designed the DualSense controller, explains in the video. “The LEDs have been placed in optimal locations to ensure they are accurately detected no matter what direction the controller is facing.” And the cover on the controllers... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge, photo by Christian Marquardt / Getty Images This story is based on interviews with people familiar with the events involved and supported by documents obtained by Platformer.At 2:36 on Monday morning, James Musk sent an urgent message to Twitter engineers.“We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform,” wrote Musk, a cousin of the Twitter CEO, tagging “@here” in Slack to ensure that anyone online would see it. “Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post.”When bleary-eyed engineers began to log on to their laptops, the nature of the emergency became clear: Elon Musk’s tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than President Joe... Continue reading…

Image: Zoox Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Amazon, said that its toaster-shaped driverless vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals was approved to drive on public roads with passengers in California. The company celebrated the milestone as the “first time in history a purpose-built robotaxi — without any manual controls — drove autonomously with passengers.”Zoox is one of dozens of companies currently testing AVs on public roads in the Golden State. And while it trails behind competitors like Waymo and Cruise in the race to commercialize the technology, it is making advancements by introducing a new kind of vehicle to the road — one that lacks traditional controls and could hardly be described as a “car” in the modern sense of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.I hope you all had a great weekend. Today, we have the final lineup for Hot Pod Summit next week, including a new headliner. Plus, Spotify’s new activist investor and Rihanna’s post-Super Bowl streaming spike. Let’s get into it!Activist investor takes stake in Spotify, and it is all for company cutsThere is even more pressure for Spotify to be lean now. Last week, it was reported that activist investor ValueAct had purchased a stake in the streamer. Mason Morfit, who leads the firm, disclosed the new position at a private conference at Columbia University and indicated that he was on board with the cuts Spotify has been making.“... Continue reading…

The TP-Link Tapo smart plug is one of the first Matter devices. It’s fast and easy to use with Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, or SmartThings thanks to the new smart home standard. But when it comes to sharing, it all falls apart. Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge While there has — rightly — been a great deal written and broadcast about how to deal with attacks and privacy violations online and via social media, there is now increasing attention being paid to helping people stay safe in their homes and out in the world. Two features offered via Apple’s iPhones — one just introduced in iOS 16 — can help people who may need to separate themselves from dangerous people or situations: Safety Check and Emergency SOS.Safety CheckOne of the most significant new features in iOS 16 is Safety Check, which is specifically meant for people who find themselves in a difficult or abusive situation at home.It is very common for friends and partners to share various apps and features such as photos, calendars,... Continue reading…