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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is working on a tool that should let you “archive” certain apps to help free up space on your device. In a blog post, Google explains any app with the feature will let you partially uninstall it, shrinking the app down by about 60 percent without removing it completely.Archived APKs are much smaller and “preserve user data until the app is restored”It does this by creating a new type of APK (Android Package) — otherwise known as the guts that make an app functional on your device — that it calls archived APKs. As Google points out, archived APKs are much smaller and save all your data until you restore it, bringing it back to its original size. The feature will become available to developers with the Bundletool 1.10 release, but... Continue reading…

Find out how the new Mac Studio stacks up Lining up with many of the last-minute rumors, Apple’s Peek Performance event revealed that we’ll have a new compact Mac machine to look forward to. As you might expect, the new Mac Studio can be equipped with either the M1 Max or the new M1 Ultra CPU. In addition to a new processor, the Mac Studio boasts an impressive number of connectivity options.The Mac Studio bears a striking resemblance to the 2020 version of the Mac Mini. According to our review by Chris Welch, this model of the Mac Mini offered an “appealing price for the power it offers.” And thanks in part to the M1 CPU, provided “blazing performance.”On the other end of the spectrum is the Apple Mac Pro, which debuted in 2019 and was reviewed by The Verge’s own Nilay Patel.... Continue reading…

The new iPhone SE for 2022 maintains the longstanding home button with Touch ID. | Image: Apple Now that the dust has settled from Apple’s “Peek Performance” event, we know that the latest entry in the iPhone lineup is the iPhone SE (2022). It’s a new iteration of the budget model from 2020, and it’s set to launch March 18th with preorders opening on March 11th. This new iPhone SE rounds out the entry-level offering from Apple, coming in at a slightly higher price of $429 (an increase of $30) and equipped with the latest A15 Bionic CPU, 5G compatibility, a slightly larger battery, and more durable glass on the front and rear.There’s a lot to like in the 2022 iPhone SE — especially if you love a Touch ID fingerprint sensor and home button — even if it still has a dated design with a smaller 4.7-inch screen and big bezels. So how... Continue reading…

Exhaust rises from a chimney of the Heizkraftwerk Lichterfelde natural gas-fired power and heating plant stands on November 03, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. | Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images The European Union announced new plans today to swiftly shrink its reliance on Russian gas and accelerate its transition to clean energy. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and continued threats to further squeeze Europe’s gas and oil supplies have made clean energy an even more critical priority.“It is time we tackle our vulnerabilities and rapidly become more independent in our energy choices. Let’s dash into renewable energy at lightning speed,” European Commission Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans said in a March 8th statement.Over the next year, the European Commission says it can drastically cut its gas use by changing how it heats homes and powers buildings. Russian gas accounted for nearly half of the bloc’s gas... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is launching a version of its site as a Tor onion service, optimizing it for the privacy-protecting and censorship-evading network. Software engineer Alec Muffett announced the news today on Twitter, describing it as “possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I’ve ever composed.” The Tor network has also been added to Twitter’s supported browsers page.Twitter’s onion service is available at https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion while using Tor Browser or a similar tool. While you could already access Twitter’s ordinary website via Tor, the newly launched version adds more layers of protection to the already anonymized browsing experience and is designed specifically for the network.... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple just introduced the third-generation iPhone SE, and it has some nice improvements, including support for sub-6GHz 5G and an A15 processor. But Apple is also claiming it has longer battery life, and it seems that’s in part because the phone has a physically larger battery — a fact about the new iPhone SE that the company confirmed on background in a group briefing with reporters.Apple hasn’t shared the battery capacity, so we’ll have to wait for teardowns to see exactly how much juice it has. But comparing the new SE’s tech specs page with the old one, Apple is promising some decent improvements.For the third-generation SE, Apple is promising up to 15 hours of video playback, up to 10 hours of streaming video playback, and up to... Continue reading…

Better.com As if things couldn’t get more ridiculous at the online mortgage lender Better.com, where 900 people were laid off over a Zoom call this past December, the company reportedly issued another wave of layoffs by inadvertently notifying employees via its payroll app, as first reported by TechCrunch.According to TechCrunch, the company was supposed to announce this round of layoffs on March 8th but later pushed it back to March 9th after news of the original date got out. Better apparently forgot to change the date on its accompanying Workday app, though — unsuspecting employees reportedly saw severance checks appear in the app at 12AM on March 8th.Better CEO and co-founder Vishal Garg was criticized for firing hundreds of employees over a... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has just finished its Peek Performance event, where it introduced a new version of the iPhone SE with its latest mobile processor and 5G, a new desktop Mac aimed at creative professionals, and an external monitor that doesn’t have a $5,000 starting price (finally). If you’re looking for a quick round-up, here are the biggest announcements Apple made in its hour-long presentation. Image: Apple Apple now has four chips in its M1 lineup. Apple M1 UltraApple announced a new addition to its Apple Silicon lineup, with the M1 Ultra. The TL;DR is that it’s basically two M1 Max chips put together, supporting up to 128GB of RAM. Apple says it’s eight times faster than the standard M1 chip. The M1 Ultra will be... Continue reading…

Both the Mac Studio and the Mac Studio Display begin shipping on Friday, March 18th. | Image: Apple Following a host of late-breaking rumors, Apple officially announced a new Mac during its “Peek Performance” event today, adding another machine to its expanding desktop lineup. Each configuration of the Mac Studio, as it’s called, will feature either Apple’s M1 Max or its new M1 Ultra processor and will start at $1,999 and $3,999, respectively. Apple also introduced the forthcoming Studio Display, a new monitor designed as a companion to its new desktop machine, one that starts at $1,599. Both devices are available for preorder starting today and will begin shipping on March 18th.If you’re looking to preorder the Mac Studio or the monitor ahead of our reviews, we’ve compiled a list of retailers currently offering the new devices.Where... Continue reading…

The Magic Trackpad, dragonglass edition. | Image: Apple Apple announced a new Mac and monitor at its Peek Performance event, but let’s talk about what we were all really hoping for in our heart of hearts: a black version of the Magic Trackpad. Please hold your applause, and let the darkness consume you.It’s been a second since the company has sold a dark version of the trackpad separately. The space grey (which was decidedly lighter than the version on Apple’s store now) version was discontinued early last year. The black and silver version was available — if you bought a Mac Pro. In fact, the Mac Pro product page still says that the “matching trackpad can only be purchased with your Mac Pro” at time of writing. But nobody would do that just to get a black trackpad. (Please do not tell me... Continue reading…

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Apple has finally discontinued the 27-inch iMac. Minutes after Apple’s Peek Performance event wrapped, the last of the Intel iMacs disappeared from its online store.It’s not as if this news is surprising. Ever since Apple announced it was switching to its own chips, the Intel iMac’s days were numbered. That said, the 27-inch iMac was still available after last spring’s Spring Loaded event, which introduced the 24-inch M1 iMac. It made sense. At the time, there wasn’t really another option for people who wanted a larger desktop screen that wasn’t the ludicrously expensive Pro XDR Display.There’s also less of a reason to keep the 27-inch iMac around now that the Studio Display has arrived. The Studio Display adds 5K on a 27-inch... Continue reading…

Apple’s new Mac Studio has officially arrived on the scene as the most powerful computer powered by its in-house Apple silicon chips yet — including the new M1 Ultra processor the company announced alongside the new desktop computer. But the Mac Studio’s power doesn’t come cheap: while it starts at $1,999 for the entry model (powered by an M1 Max chip) and $3,999 for the cheapest M1 Ultra version, getting a fully specced-out machine will set you back an eye-watering $7,999.You’re getting some serious bang for your buck, at least (which it had better, given that it costs more than a 2011 Honda Accord): an M1 Ultra processor with the full 20-core CPU and 64-core GPU configuration (instead of the 48-core GPU on the “base” M1 Ultra), 128GB... Continue reading…

Apple has just announced its new Studio Display, a 27-inch 5K Retina display with a built-in webcam. While it isn’t quite as high-end as Apple’s Pro Display XDR, the Studio Display has one big advantage over it: for the $1,599 you’ll pay for the monitor, you’ll also get an included stand.The lack of a stand was one of the biggest criticisms of Apple’s $4,999 (starting price) 6K Pro Display XDR when it was announced in 2019 — and perhaps more outrageous was that Apple’s official stand accessory cost an eye-watering $999. Fortunately, Apple isn’t forcing you to pay that kind of premium to be able to stand the Studio Display on your desk.That said, the base-level stand with the Studio Display only lets you tilt its angle. If you want to... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram has introduced new tagging options that can display more detail about a person to help credit collaborators. Enhanced tags will show the roles of collaborators — like photographers, artists, writers and others — who work on content but aren’t always immediately visible unless mentioned by a post’s creator.In announcing the updated tagging options, the company acknowledged that many collaborators’ work goes into creating the content users see on the app.“For many Black and underrepresented creators, crediting is an entryway to building a sustainable career as a creator, while combating cultural appropriation and ensuring the world knows who is driving culture,” Instagram says in its announcement.Instagram suggests the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s rolling out its highly anticipated iOS 15.4 update next week. The update, which has been in beta since January, comes packed with an array of exciting new features offering improvements to the overall user experience.iOS 15.4 introduces a mask-friendly Face IDApple doesn’t pinpoint an exact release date, but it may become available as an update starting on March 18th. This is the same day Apple’s new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro with sleek green finishes become available. As noted on the press release, each phone will ship with iOS 15.4, so it would only make sense to launch the update on the same day.iOS 15.4 brings a mask-friendly Face ID that makes it possible to unlock your phone while wearing a face mask, a feature that... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple just announced a new external display during its “Peek Performance” event. The Studio Display is designed to be the ideal companion for the company’s Mac lineup — including the brand new Mac Studio desktop powered by the M1 Ultra chip. With a starting price of $1,599, this is Apple’s first monitor targeted at prosumers in many years.The Studio Display has a 27-inch, 5K screen encased in an aluminum enclosure. The display can reach up to 600 nits of brightness, supports P3 wide color, and also works with macOS’s TrueTone feature. Its specs are quite similar to the panel from the now-discontinued 27-inch iMac, though brightness topped out at a lower 500 nits on the iMac. Above the Studio Display’s screen is a 12-megapixel ultrawide... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has announced the Mac Studio, a desktop system that looks like the Mac Mini on the outside but packs a lot more power on the inside. The Mac Studio features both Apple’s M1 Max chip and a new, even more powerful processor, the M1 Ultra. It looks a bit similar to the Mac Mini, but Apple claims that the new device will be faster than even its top-of-the-line Mac Pro. Image: Apple Not as huge as the Mac Pro. The chassis is 3.7 inches tall; Apple claims it “fits perfectly under most displays” and will remain quiet under heavy workloads. The rear includes four Thunderbolt 4 ports as well as a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI, and an audio jack. It supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. The front... Continue reading…

An indie developer-led initiative to raise money for charities providing relief in Ukraine has already raised over $1 million in a little over 16 hours. Over 700 creators on itch.io put together the Bundle for Ukraine, a collection of over 900 indie games and more with all proceeds going to charities providing relief assistance in the country.

The next generation of Apple Silicon chips has arrived with the announcement of the company’s new M1 Ultra SoC (system on a chip), the latest entry to Apple’s M1 chipset lineup that’s even more powerful than the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips its released so far.The key to the M1 Ultra is the Apple’s UltraFusion architecture — effectively, Apple is fusing together two separate M1 Max chips into a single, massive SoC, thanks to the 2.5TB/s inter-processor connection that the M1 Max offers. That design lets Apple double virtually all the specs from its M1 Max chip on the M1 Ultra: 20 CPU cores (16 performance and four efficiency), 64 GPU cores, a 32-core Neural Engine for AI processing, and up to 128GB of RAM. All told, Apple says that the... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has announced an update to the iPad Air a year and a half after it gave the tablet an iPad Pro-style redesign. Much of that redesign is still intact, but the new iPad Air model has been updated with a faster M1 processor, first seen in Apple’s Macs. It also supports 5G, and the USB-C port is up to twice as fast with 10Gbps of data transfer speeds.It’ll be available starting at $599 for the Wi-Fi only model, rising to $749 for the Wi-Fi and Cellular version. It’ll come with 64GB or 256GB of storage, and available colors include gray, pink, purple, blue, and a silver/gold cross Apple is calling “starlight.” Pre-orders open this Friday, and the tablet will be on sale from March 18th.Apple says the iPad Air’s M1 processor, which was... Continue reading…

Instagram’s label for Russian state media. | Meta Instagram has started hiding follower information for private accounts in Russia and Ukraine, the latest response by the social app to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops.In a corporate blog post on Tuesday, Instagram parent company Meta said it was “hiding information about people’s followers, who they’re following, and people who are following each other for private accounts based in these two countries.” It also confirmed the rollout of labels people will see when sharing links to Russian state media, and that Instagram was demoting such media in its main feed and Stories tray. In addition, media under the control of the Russian government isn’t being recommended in Instagram’s Explore section or in Reels, its TikTok... Continue reading…

Image: Rockstar Games The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S versions of Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online will be released on March 15th, and from now until June 14th, you can snag them at a big discount. It seems like the next-gen versions will offer some nice upgrades, including graphical improvements and better loading times, so they could be a good buy if you have wanted to jump back in or experience the games for the first time.Here’s how the pricing shakes out, and if you preorder the games, they’ll begin preloading on your console. If you’re lucky enough to have snagged a hard-to-find PS5, that platform has the better deals.

Image: Apple Peek inside Continue reading…

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images Tesla CEO Elon Musk is asking a federal judge to toss a consent decree with the Securities and Exchange Commission that requires his tweets to be approved by a lawyer before he can post them.The decree, which was signed in 2018 after Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet, is being used “to trample on Mr. Musk’s First Amendment rights and to impose prior restraints on his speech,” his lawyers said in a court filing Tuesday. Musk is also seeking to block an SEC subpoena related to his tweets about selling 10 percent of his stake in Tesla.Musk sent the notorious tweet on August 7th, 2018, in which he claimed to have the funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share. (Tesla has been a publicly traded company since 2010.)“trample on... Continue reading…

8BitDo has announced its first controller with an Xbox-style layout. There’s already an Xbox-specific version of 8BitDo’s excellent Pro 2 controller, but that has the symmetrical stick layout more commonly associated with PlayStation consoles. The “Ultimate Wired Controller for Xbox,” on the other hand, is more in line with Microsoft’s official options.The Ultimate Wired Controller has the Xbox-specific buttons you’d expect, as well as pro controller-style back paddle buttons that can be customized through software on Xbox, Windows, Android, and iOS. It also features a headphone jack and trigger vibration, in line with the regular Xbox One and Xbox Series controllers. There are black and white models available. I’ve been... Continue reading…

Apple MacBook Air | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Laptops and smartphones made by Apple, Microsoft, and Google are considerably less repair-friendly than those made by competitors Asus, Dell, and Motorola, according to a new report. These findings may be unsurprising to people who like to fix gadgets, but the data to back them up comes from an unusual source: the companies themselves.The report, released today by the US Public Research Interest Group’s Education Fund, draws on data companies are now releasing in France to comply with the government’s world-first “repairability index” law, which went into effect last year. The law requires manufacturers of certain electronic devices, including cell phones and laptops, to score each of their products based on how easily repairable it is... Continue reading…

Sony’s PS5 came out more than a year and a half ago, but remains challenging to get. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Today might be Apple event day, but for those still trying to procure Sony’s next-gen gaming console, each and every day is one to wait with bated breath. Thankfully, we’re happy to report that GameStop is scheduled to restock the PlayStation 5 twice this week. The retailer will have the PS5 Digital Edition available for sale on its site beginning today, March 8th, at 11AM EST / 8AM PST. This is a rare drop just for the entry-level model of the PS5, which lacks the disc drive. But if you are hoping to snag the standard, disc-equipped PS5, there’s more hope for you later this week. According to The Shortcut, select GameStop stores will have the standard model on Friday, March 11th, for in-person sales.Both of these PS5 restocks will be... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Gender Pay Gap Bot As just about every large company turns to Twitter to shout out its female workers during International Women’s Day (IWD), the clever Gender Pay Gap Bot is quote tweeting their posts with data about the pay disparity between men and women at each organization.The bot’s data is limited only to organizations in the UK, as companies that employ 250 or more people are required to report data about their gender pay gap by law — any companies that fail to publish this information could face court orders and fines. All that data gets posted on the UK government’s gender pay gap database, where you’re free to search for companies and find out how much lower women get paid when compared to men (or vice versa).

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A technically advanced hacking group backed by the Chinese government has compromised the computer systems of at least six US state governments, according to a newly published threat report from cybersecurity firm Mandiant.The group, which Mandiant refers to as APT41, targeted state governments in the US between May 2021 and February 2022, according to the report. Where networks were breached, Mandiant found evidence of the exfiltration of personally identifying information “consistent with an espionage operation,” although the company said that it could not make a definitive assessment of intent at this time.All in all, Mandiant’s research paints a picture of a formidable, constantly adapting adversary.“APT41’s recent activity... Continue reading…

Eben Upton is the CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. | Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Plus, how to make a chip in a chip shortage Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Hi again, everyone. With today’s issue, I’ve officially completed my first week as guest writer for Hot Pod. I want to thank everyone who’s been emailing me news and responses already — it’s made this newsletter a blast to write. Aria will be back for this week’s Insiders, but you’ll be hearing more from me soon enough. Now, for today’s news…Amazon launches its Clubhouse competitorAmazon finally announced its entrance into the live audio space this morning, with the launch of a new app called Amp.Amp is a lot like Clubhouse — live broadcasts, a bunch of speakers hanging out in a room together — but it has one key difference: Amazon negotiated music licensing deals with the major labels and a bunch of indies, unlocking the ability for... Continue reading…

Hisense’s U7G Series TV offers a 120Hz refresh rate and support for Dolby Vision. If you missed out on taking advantage of Super Bowl TV sales last month, fret not because March Madness is giving you a second chance to save big. Deal hunters on the market for a 4K TV may want to check out today’s deal on Hisense’s 65-inch U7G TV, which is currently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $799.99, its best price to date. A good deal for gamers who have an Xbox Series X, PS5, or a high-end gaming PC, the 4K TV offers HDMI 2.1 ports, along with a fast 120Hz refresh rate and support for auto-low latency mode that brings a smoother gaming experience.It also supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10 Plus, and Google Assistant. With this TV, you don’t need extra streaming hardware, as it brings instant access to YouTube, Disney Plus,... Continue reading…

A screenshot of Amazon’s Amp showing a host with several guest callers. Everyone is muted while a song is playing. | Image: Amazon Amazon is launching its long-rumored Clubhouse competitor today: a new app called Amp that’s more about listening to music than sitting around and chatting.Anyone who signs up will be able to host their own live show, complete with the ability to stream “tens of millions of licensed songs” from the big three record labels and “a long list” of indies, Amazon says. The goal is to turn any user into a radio DJ, able to program a playlist, talk to listeners, and chat with call-in guests.Critically, hosts and listeners won’t need to subscribe to any particular service to tune in — anyone can listen in to full-length songs as long as they sign up for Amp, which is free. Image: Amazon A screenshot of Amp displaying a... Continue reading…

Lots of storage space and Bloodborne fan art Continue reading…

General Motors and utility Pacific Gas and Electric are teaming up to determine how electric vehicles can be used to power people’s homes during a blackout — or even feed power back into the grid during times of peak demand. The pilot will take place in PG&E’s home state of California, where wildfires are putting strain on the state’s energy infrastructure.GM is the latest automaker to team up with a utility around the idea of “vehicle-to-grid” technology. (PG&E has also partnered with BMW around a similar idea.) The idea is to use bi-directional charging equipment to push and pull energy from electric vehicles at any given time. In essence, it treats high-capacity batteries as not only tools to power EVs but backup storage cells for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge The DIY ethos can be applied to just about anything. Doing it yourself could mean creating the perfect tool for designing more personal video games, or communing with nature to make strange new music. Or maybe it means handcrafting a terrifyingly realistic doll that looks like a vampire baby. This collection of stories seeks to explore the myriad ways that people are using that DIY mentality to make the world a little more interesting — and a lot weirder. Continue reading…

Pitch perfect plants Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New reports have emerged of hacking campaigns linked directly and indirectly to Russia’s war in Ukraine, with the stories shedding more light on an opaque element of the invasion: cyberwarfare. Many experts predicted that Russia would launch significant cyber attacks in Ukraine, shutting down the country’s electrical grid for example. But while large-scale operations have not materialized, reports of smaller forays are beginning to emerge.On Monday, Google said it had uncovered widespread phishing attacks targeting Ukrainian officials and Polish military. Security outfit Resecurity Inc also shared evidence of a coordinated hacking campaign targeting US firms that supply natural gas (a commodity that has become critical as Western... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is buying cybersecurity company Mandiant in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion.Mandiant’s operations, which draw on the work of more than 600 security consultants and more than 300 intelligence analysts, will be folded into Google Cloud to create an “end-to-end security operations suite.” A range of services will be offered, from consulting on cybersecurity to detecting upcoming threats and testing company’s digital defenses.“Organizations around the world are facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry,” Google Cloud’s CEO Thomas Kurian said in... Continue reading…

After much anticipation and rumors, Apple officially announced that it is holding its first event of 2022 on Tuesday, March 8th. The presented tagline for the upcoming event is “Peek Performance,” a supposed play on words for a sneak peek. We’ll likely get a peek (sorry) at a new iPhone SE with 5G and possibly a new iPad Air or Mac Mini.What time does the Peek Performance Apple event start?The event will be streamed live on Tuesday, March 8th, 2022 at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. As with Apple’s prior streamed events, it will likely be a pre-recorded presentation, with a flashy introduction and various set dressings for the executives hyping up the new products.Where can I watch the Apple event?You can tune in to the event on Apple’s website,... Continue reading…

Apple’s current 30W charger. | Image: Apple Apple could release a new 30W charger this year that uses gallium nitride (GaN) in its construction, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Gallium nitride is a material that allows chargers to produce less heat, which means they can be smaller while still offering high wattages. Kuo notes that the new charger could have “a new form factor design” which would presumably make it smaller than Apple’s current 30W charger.The company’s first GaN charger was the 140W brick that shipped with the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro. But the much lower wattage of the new 30W charger would likely make it a better fit for one of Apple’s iPhones, iPads, or lower-powered laptops like the MacBook Air. As it happens, last year’s iPhone 13 Pro Max reportedly... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s Jigsaw unit is releasing the code for an open source anti-harassment tool called Harassment Manager. The tool, intended for journalists and other public figures, employs Jigsaw’s Perspective API to let users sort through potentially abusive comments on social media platforms starting with Twitter. It’s debuting as source code for developers to build on, then being launched as a functional application for Thomson Reuters Foundation journalists in June.Harassment Manager can currently work with Twitter’s API to combine moderation options — like hiding tweet replies and muting or blocking accounts — with a bulk filtering and reporting system. Perspective checks messages’ language for levels of “toxicity” based on elements like... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple is poised for its first livestream event of 2022 on Tuesday, March 8th at 1PM ET. The company sent out press invitation emails for the event titled “Peek Performance,” with rumors strongly suggesting Apple will announce a new third-generation iPhone SE with 5G.The iPad Air might also get a new spec bump update at the event, with upgrades to both 5G and an A15 Bionic processor, similar to last year’s iPad Mini. Another rumor suggests an Apple Silicon “M2” upgrade alongside a redesigned MacBook Air might be coming. New Macs, including a more powerful Mac Mini / less powerful Mac Pro (possibly named the “Mac Studio”) with an M1 Pro / M1 Max processor update, could also be announced alongside a last-minute rumor that suggests the... Continue reading…

The Mac Studio’s design is said to be inspired by Apple’s Power Mac G4 Cube from 2000. | Photo by Oleksandr Rupeta/NurPhoto via Getty Images Today’s Apple event could see the announcement of an all-new “Mac Studio” as well as a new standalone monitor, possibly called the “Studio Display,” according to a variety of last-minute rumors and tweets from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.The new Mac is said to be smaller than a Mac Pro, but more powerful than a Mac mini, which could position it as a compact standalone computer targeted at professionals. The name “Mac Studio” first appeared in a report last week from 9to5Mac. Meanwhile, the new monitor (which could be the “Studio Display” model that 9to5Mac has reported on) will reportedly run iOS and be powered by one of Apple’s A-series chips, which are normally found in its iPhones and iPads. The exact specs of the monitor are unclear,... Continue reading…

Amazon Prime Video is reportedly in talks with Sony to develop a live-action series based on the God of War games, according to a report from Deadline.The series is expected to be led by Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby, the executive producers behind The Expanse, as well as Rafe Judkins, the executive producer of The Wheel of Time. Sony Pictures Television and PlayStation Productions will also be involved, Deadline says.A live-action Twisted Metal is also in the worksDetails about the show’s premise are still sparse, but if the television adaption does come to fruition, producers will have a lot of ground to cover. God of War’s elaborate Greek-inspired history — where you play as the demigod Kratos — starts back in 2005 with the release of... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge OLED screens are glorious, gorgeous, vibrant — but they don’t last forever. Eventually, their organically lit pixels can wear, and some have understandably been worried that the OLED-equipped Nintendo Switch, released last October, might eventually succumb to burn-in. The good news? According to one test, it might take 3,600 hours of constant play on a static screen to even begin to see the first signs of that dreaded screen malady.YouTuber Wulff Den reports that after five months leaving a Nintendo Switch OLED turned on, plugged into a charger, leaving a static shot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Link effectively staring into the sun, he’s only now finally seeing some ghosting. And it’s not a lot, as you’ll see for... Continue reading…

The event is scheduled for 1PM ET / 10AM PT on March 8th Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is allegedly employing suppliers in China with links to forced labor, according to a report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research group owned by the nonprofit watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability (via NBC News). The report accuses Amazon of continuing to work with these suppliers, despite evidence of their association with Uyghur labor camps.China’s population of Uyghurs, the country’s Muslim ethnic minority, is largely concentrated in the Xinjiang region of China. Over several years, the group has been subject to a number of human rights abuses within the country, including internment camps, constant surveillance, mass sterilization, and forced labor. As the TTP notes, China uses what it calls “labor... Continue reading…

If you’re in the first group, you Pocket should be coming soon. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Analogue has announced that it’ll be shipping out a new wave of Pocket handhelds at the end of March to people who got in early during its December presale. The company tweeted that Group A preorders will start to ship out the last week of March and would all be shipped by the end of the month.That date means that Analogue is just making its first deadline on time — before the Game Boy throwback handheld officially went on sale in December, the company said that the people who ordered first would be getting their Pockets in “Q1 2022.” While that means the wait is close to over for those in Group A (I’ll admit I’ve been starting to check the calendar, muttering to myself, “You know, there’s not a lot of time left in Q1...”), some... Continue reading…