The Verge

Thousands of small developers have created useful tools that utilize Twitters free API access, which are now in danger of being shut down. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will no longer provide free access to the Twitter API from February 9th. As announced by the official Twitter Developer account late Wednesday night, Elon Musk’s social media hobby will stop supporting free access to the Twitter API and will instead provide a “paid basic tier.” Twitter hasn’t provided any information regarding pricing, but said that it will provide “more details on what you can expect next week.”“Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week,” said the Twitter Developer account. “Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us.”

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Plus a cool concept car from Nissan Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony wasn’t lying when it said the PlayStation 5 shortage was over earlier this month. Its latest earnings release has revealed that the console just had its strongest quarter yet, with 7.1 million PS5s shipped in the three months leading up to December 31st, 2022. That’s almost double the 3.9 million it sold in the same quarter the previous year.According to Sony’s earnings releases, the company has now shipped 32.1 million units of its latest generation console, which is in line with the 30 million lifetime sales figure it revealed at the beginning of January. It’s a big turnaround after production was hit hard by the global chip shortage, making it difficult for the company to keep up with demand for its new console throughout much... Continue reading…

Amazon’s hexagonal MK27-2 delivery drone. | Image: Amazon It’s been nearly a decade since Amazon’s Jeff Bezos promised us delivery drones, but they aren’t off to a particularly impressive start. Roughly a month after Amazon Prime Air made its first deliveries in California and Texas, it’d served fewer than 10 households — and it’s already laid off more than half the employees at those locations.That’s according to a pair of new reports at The Information and Business Insider, and Amazon isn’t denying it. Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti didn’t contest those numbers in an email to The Verge when we asked. But she also said that Prime Air is actually working to expand drone deliveries in both California and Texas, with the FAA’s approval.And there may be a very good reason why Amazon... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge You can get a great 1080p webcam for under $75. If you want to spend more, you can get 4K recording, AI head tracking, and even a real gimbal. Continue reading…

Pictured: a phone that you can’t contact people with when you’re not near a cell tower. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge When Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon Satellite tech that will let Android phone makers compete with Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite, I was almost certain we’d see the feature on Samsung’s then-upcoming S23 phones.I mean, why wouldn’t we? Qualcomm said the feature would be available this year for phones using its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, and Samsung is launching the first big Android flagship of 2023 with that processor — surely, it’ll build in this potentially life-saving functionality, like analysts have been predicting for months.And then Samsung’s Unpacked event came and went, with no mention of satellite messaging at all, and CNET posted an interview with TM Roh, president and head of Samsung’s mobile experience... Continue reading…

We may have to squint to see some of the differences in this iterative update. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung announced a new batch of Galaxy S flagship phones at its Unpacked event this week, all of which are set to arrive soon. As expected, the new class to choose from this year includes the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, and Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung’s trio of flagships for 2023 offer some refined designs — which look a little iPhone-like, if I’m being candid — with some camera, battery, and processor improvements over last year’s S22 generation. But which one is the right one for you?It may be a no-brainer if you don’t want a phone that’s too big (the S23 is the smallest of the three) or if you want a stylus (the S23 Ultra is your only option for S Pen use). But if you’re in the margins and need to contemplate which phone is the... Continue reading…

Fans who want to attend Beyoncé’s world tour will have to get tickets through Ticketmaster. | Photo by Mason Poole / Parkwood Media / Getty Images for Atlantis The Royal Ticketmaster is about to face its next big test. Just over three months after the Taylor Swift debacle, Ticketmaster will be the place to buy tickets for Beyoncé’s upcoming Renaissance World Tour that was announced on Wednesday.Like with the Taylor Swift presale, people who want to get tickets for Beyoncé’s shows in North America will have to register with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform. Ticketmaster notes in a blog post that registering does not guarantee that you’ll get tickets, and the Verified Fans who actually get a code to buy tickets will be determined by a lottery system.If you want to register as a Verified Fan for the tour, you can do so on this Live Nation site. (Ticketmaster technically lives under Live Nation... Continue reading…

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge Another day, another company announces it’s laying off 6 percent of employees. Today, that company is Rivian, the EV automaker that had one of the biggest IPOs of 2021 but has since struggled to hit its targets as manufacturing and supply chain problems mount.The layoffs also come amid a looming EV price war, in which Tesla and Ford have lowered prices on their flagships vehicles. Other automakers have said they are not ready to slash prices on their own EVs, but analysts predict that more companies will follow. Rivian currently sells three models: the R1T truck and the R1S SUV, as well as the EDV, which stands for electric delivery van.According to Reuters, the layoffs are expected to effect 840 employees at the Irvine,... Continue reading…

From left to right: the Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. The latest Galaxy trio is available for preorder | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Another year, another round of flagship Samsung phones. This time around, Samsung used its Unpacked event to announce a new line of Galaxy Books, in addition to the Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. The latter probably feels familiar to last year’s S22 generation, as there are once again three models to choose from: a big-ish one, a bigger one, and the biggest one. That last one, the S23 Ultra, features souped-up specs, a stylus, and some big megapixel gains. However, each member of the S23 family is promising faster performance than last year’s model thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors.The S23 flock starts at $799.99 and goes up to $1,199.99 (unless you opt for pricey storage upgrades), and all three models are set... Continue reading…

Only the Ryzen 9s will be coming in February. | Image: AMD AMD has announced the pricing for its flagship 7000X3D chips as well as when you’ll be able to get them. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D will cost $699, with the 7900X3D coming in at $599. Both chips will be available on February 28th. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D, meanwhile, has seemingly been delayed a bit and will be released on April 6th for $449.When AMD announced the chips last month, it was exciting to see that the company was bringing 3D V-Cache technology to even more chips in its lineup. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D was the previous standard-bearer for the tech, and that chip received a lot of praise — what would chips with up to double the number of cores be capable of?

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung just held its first Galaxy Unpacked event of the year, where it took the wraps off its new Galaxy S23 devices and the Galaxy Book3.In case you weren’t able to watch the event live, you can catch up on all the biggest news from Galaxy Unpacked here.Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S23 Ultra gets a small boost Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The Samsung S23 Ultra comes with a 200-megapixel camera sensor. The S-Pen-equipped Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with a slew of small but notable upgrades, including a 200-megapixel camera sensor, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, and a more battery-efficient display. The base Ultra model now also comes with 256GB of storage, which is a nice addition.The S23 Ultra starts at... Continue reading…

Peloton’s Q2 2023 losses were the narrowest they have been since 2021. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge “If you’ve been wondering whether or not Peloton can make an epic comeback, this quarter’s results show the changes we’re making are working,” Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy wrote Wednesday in an investor letter accompanying the company’s Q2 2023 earnings report.McCarthy is no stranger to bold claims, but a year after taking the helm of the troubled company, it seems like the numbers are starting to back him up. In its Q2 2023 earnings report, Peloton reported a loss of $335.4 million compared to $439.4 million this time last year. On the surface, a loss doesn’t seem like a win — especially since it’s Peloton’s eighth consecutive quarter without turning a profit. However, it’s the narrowest loss Peloton’s reported ever since it started... Continue reading…

Photo by Rob Tringali / MLB Photos via Getty Images YouTube TV might be working to refine and improve its user experience, but like every other subscription TV service, its customers are always at risk of losing channels out of the blue. MLB Network is the latest to vanish from the service with little warning. YouTube TV emailed subscribers yesterday, giving them the heads-up that the channel would be going away… by the end of that same day. Now it’s February, and MLB Network is gone.Subscribers are raising the usual complaints, asking the right questions, and threatening to cancel. Shouldn’t the monthly price go down? (Sadly, it never works that way.) Will they get things figured out by the regular season? (Maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.)Any cloud DVR recordings from MLB... Continue reading…

The iPad Air from 2022 is a great buy unless you really prefer a bigger screen or the Face ID found on the Pro models. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s February, folks. For many of us, that means a month of dreary weather and seasonal depression, but today, we can cheer ourselves up with coverage of Samsung’s impending Unpacked event and some sick tech deals.Starting us off, Apple’s latest iPad Air is on sale in its base 64GB configuration for $499.99 ($100 off) at Best Buy and Amazon — or $649.99 ($100 off) for 256GB at Best Buy and Amazon if you prefer more storage. This return to its lowest prices makes this iPad one of the best values across the whole range of Apple’s tablets, in part because it’s the cheapest way to get the speedy M1 processor. At this price, it’s just $50 more than the 10th-gen “entry-level” iPad, but it’s faster, has a laminated 10.9-inch screen that is... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon The latest Kindle Paperwhite has finally caught up with the new Kindle, which sounds weird, so let me explain: Amazon is making the 16GB Kindle Paperwhite and 32GB Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition available in new soft “denim” blue and “Agave Green” shades in addition to the standard black colorway.That means now you can buy both the 2021 Kindle Paperwhite and the new base Kindle — which Amazon released in October — in multiple colors.Previously, you could only buy the base Kindle in black and blue, while the Paperwhite was only available in black. That was a strange move as the Kindle Paperwhite is supposed to be the more premium e-reader, adding extra features like waterproofing. Naturally, thus, you’d expect it to offer more... Continue reading…

Peacock says the change reflects the company’s increased focus on its Premium membership offerings. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge NBCUniversal will no longer be offering a free membership tier for new customers subscribing to its Peacock streaming service. As of January 30th, new Peacock customers will now need to subscribe to the Premium plan ($4.99 / month) with ads or Premium Plus ($9.99 / month) without ads to access content on the platform, as first reported by The Streamable.A great deal of marketing for Peacock’s streaming debut in 2020 focused on the free membership tier, even introducing the service alongside the tagline “free as a bird.” The free membership was supported by ads and gave users access to a limited selection of Peacock content. Existing users will continue to have access to the free tier of Peacock, as will Premium Peacock subscribers who... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge An early slogan from Bumble encouraged users to “be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry.” Since its founding in 2014, the company has billed its app as the more empowering dating service for women — one where women message matches first, and women are in control. It’s earned Bumble the moniker of “feminist Tinder.” And Bumble has been more than happy to play into that marketing.But almost a decade on, Bumble can still feel as tired and broken as other dating apps. And it often seems like that feminist twist is more marketing fodder than meaningful change to how our apps run our love lives.Episode four of Land of the Giants: Dating Games explores how ex-Tinder co-founder and marketing executive Whitney Wolfe Herd built a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Intel is dropping the price of its RTX 3060 competitor, the Arc A750, to $249 just as it promises big performance improvements across a variety of DirectX 9 games for its Arc GPUs. The new $249 pricing will be available in the US and Canada today, followed by price drops in other regions over the course of the next week.Intel’s Arc A750 was already only $289, less than the $329 retail pricing for an RTX 3060. This aggressive price cut means the A750 Limited Edition (made by Intel) is much more affordable than the average price for an RTX 3060, which Intel estimates at $391. “That’s what we see if you just take a snapshot of what’s on Newegg or Amazon, it’s around $391 on average,” says Intel fellow Tom Petersen in a press briefing with T... Continue reading…

The two new benefits are free and exclusive to those subscribed to Netflix’s premium tier membership, which costs $19.99 / month for 4K HDR and other perks. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is introducing two new benefits exclusively for its premium subscribers: rolling out support for spatial audio across the streaming platform’s top 700 titles and increasing the number of download devices from four to six. Announced via a press release, both new features are available globally today and come at no additional cost to premium-tier Netflix subscribers who pay $19.99 / month for 4K HDR and other perks.Netflix first introduced the feature in July last year across a limited number of the platform’s original titles. Now, spatial audio will be available across 700 titles, including The Watcher, Wednesday, and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and will be added to new titles as they’re released, including You, Your Place... Continue reading…

The new interface offers more at-a-glance information about where your package is. | Screenshot by Jon Porter / The Verge Gmail’s iOS and Android apps have been updated with a new interface that makes it easier to see where your packages are in transit, and when they might arrive. The feature was announced last November, when Google said it would be arriving “in the coming weeks,” but it’s only been spotted in the wild by the likes of 9to5Google and XDA-Developers over the past couple of days. It’s unclear exactly when it went live, but the feature appears to be available now if you know where to look.The feature is currently opt-in, making it easy to miss it if you don’t know where to look. Google’s original blog post announcing the feature had a screenshot of a prompt in the Gmail app asking if you want to turn the feature on, but for now most people... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google has notified customers using its Google Fi cell service that their personal data may have been stolen in a recent cyberattack, which is believed to be in connection with a T-Mobile data breach earlier this month. In an email sent to Google Fi customers on Monday, obtained by Android Police, Google said that the cell network’s primary network provider had become aware of suspicious activity in a system containing Google Fi customer data.Google Fi is an MVNO that uses T-Mobile’s network for the majority of its connections alongside US Cellular, but Google doesn’t explicitly name T-Mobile as its primary service provider within the email. We have reached out to Google for clarification and will update this story should we hear back.... Continue reading…

The new Red Nose for 2023. | Image: Comic Relief Former head Apple designer Jony Ive has taken on an unusual brief: designing the iconic Red Nose that symbolizes the British charity Comic Relief. The new Red Nose is made mostly from plant-based materials and transforms from a small flat crescent into a honeycomb-paper sphere. Comic Relief says Ive’s redesigned Red Nose is the “most dramatic makeover since its debut in 1988.”The product is being sold as part of Red Nose Day, an annual charity fundraising event from Comic Relief that’s broadcast across a variety of British BBC TV channels.“We’ve grown up with Comic Relief and are proud to support their remarkable work,” says Jony Ive. “This new and seemingly simple Red Nose has been a fabulously complex little object to design and make... Continue reading…

Photo by PAU BARRENA/AFP via Getty Images We know Google is currently freaking out about AI chatbot ChatGPT, but a report from CNBC offers new details about how the search giant is apparently marshaling its response.According to CNBC, Googlers are currently testing an AI chatbot of their own called “Apprentice Bard,” which offers responses to questions posed using natural language just like ChatGPT. Bard is built using Google’s LaMDA technology, which is itself similar to the GPT-series of AI language models that ChatGPT itself relies on. (Google has used LaMDA in the past to power similar chatbot demos at I/O, like its conversation with Pluto.)One big advantage Bard reportedly has over ChatGPT is its ability to talk about recent events. As OpenAI warns, ChatGPT has “Limited... Continue reading…

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Tesla has revealed that its bitcoin holdings lost $204 million of value last year In a new regulatory filing, which was partially offset by gains of $64 million from converting the digital currency into fiat. Overall, it suggests the company’s bitcoin investment resulted in a net loss of $140 million throughout the course of 2022, TechCrunch reports.That’s a lot of money, but it’s small in comparison to Tesla’s initial bitcoin investment announced in February 2021, when it said it had bought $1.5 billion of the digital currency and planned to start accepting it as payment for its vehicles. But it didn’t hold on to the bulk of this investment for long. Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed in June 2021 that it had already sold 10 percent of its... Continue reading…

A screenshot from Half-Life 2, which is included in The Orange Box. | Image: Valve Microsoft will be removing a bunch of beloved games from the Xbox 360 Marketplace on February 7th, according to a support page on the Xbox website (via Wario64), meaning you won’t be able to buy them after that date.It’s not all bad news. If you’ve already bought a game that’s getting pulled, you can still download it after February 7th. Games being removed that are available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S stores will remain purchasable on those platforms.But that does mean digital games only available on the Xbox 360 Marketplace will be unavailable for purchase in just a week. Users on Resetera have figured out which games fall into that category and will be going away for good, and the list includes some well-known titles like Jet... Continue reading…

Frontier joins AT&T as another 5-gig capable ISP available in the United States | Graphic by William Joel / The Verge Frontier, an internet service provider (ISP) that services 25 US states, has just launched 5 Gig fiber internet service across its entire network. Frontier launched 2 Gig fiber internet service less than a year ago, and the 5 Gig plan is currently available in all of Frontier’s fiber-connected markets, with no phased rollouts.Compared to the cable-bound internet that most of us are familiar with, Frontier’s 5 Gig internet is reported to have upload speeds that are up to 125 times faster and up to five times faster downloads, all delivered with less latency.The new 5 Gig network is one of the fastest internet options currently available in the US, with other fiber-enabled ISPs like Verizon Fios and Google Fiber still capped at around... Continue reading…

A photo from E3 2019, the year before the pandemic. | Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Plus GM’s Hummer EV SUV goes into production, and Paramount’s streaming service gets a rebrand. Continue reading…

We’ve called it a cross between the Battle School from Ender’s Game and ultimate frisbee. We’ve called it Final Fantasy X blitzball meets VR. It made two of our Best VR Games lists — three, if you count the one I did for CNET before returning to The Verge. It convincingly sticks you into a robot body inhabiting a zero-G arena, where you have to use your wrist jets, obstacles, teammates, and even foes to catapult yourself to victory. It even became its own esport.But now, Echo VR (née Echo Arena) is getting killed off by Meta (née Facebook). Facebook purchased its developer Ready At Dawn in 2020, after making Echo VR one of the flagship games for the Meta Quest (née Oculus Quest) and Rift S launch. Meta will not be offering any refunds... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A judge for the National Labor Relations Board has determined that Amazon broke labor laws in the run-up to union elections at its JFK8 and LDJ5 facilities in Staten Island, New York. According to the judge, the company threatened workers by saying they wouldn’t get raises or additional benefits during a potential collective bargaining period and discriminated against union organizers while enforcing its solicitation policies.According to the decision, posted in full by Bloomberg Law, Amazon removed a post from an internal forum that called for workers to sign an Amazon Labor Union petition to get holiday pay for Juneteenth. Amazon allegedly cited its solicitation rules, but the judge says the company didn’t take the same action against... Continue reading…

Passenger aircraft as seen flying over the Netherlands. | Image: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images With business continuing as usual, climate pollution from aviation could nearly triple by 2050 as demand for air travel grows, according to a new study published yesterday in the journal Nature Sustainability. It would cost up to $1 trillion to try to remove enough of that pollution from the atmosphere to meet global climate goals — an untenable situation.To put that enormous cost into context, the global airline industry only netted $26.4 billion in profits in 2019 before the covid pandemic curbed travel. And even if airlines can pay to remove all their emissions from the atmosphere, that’s still not guaranteed to slow climate change. While carbon offsets — paying to cancel out your climate pollution through green projects like... Continue reading…

Open for business. | Image: DIY Perks The Framework Laptop has been a godsend for DIYers. Not only does the modular design allow for quick and easy repair, but the swappable mainboard is a robust platform for all sorts of bizarre builds. Tons of tinkerers have used the modular mainboard design to create their own cyberdeck designs. You don’t even need to buy the whole laptop to do it!DIY Perks has taken that to the next level with this triple-screen laptop build. Unsatisfied with the lack of screen real estate and poor ergonomics in most laptops, they used their skills to cobble together a portable cyberdeck workstation. Photo: DIY Perks The Framework mainboard, some elbow grease, 3D Printing, and a tiny bit of soldering. The bill of materials... Continue reading…