The Verge

I can’t wait to grow carrops in Harvestella. | Image: Square Enix Nintendo just shared a detailed look at Harvestella, the upcoming farming sim / RPG from Square Enix, in its latest Treehouse Live presentation, and after watching the video, the game is now one of my most anticipated titles of the year.The farming looks like many other farming sims you might have played — and I think that’s a good thing. You’ll have a plot of land where you’ll work with your crops, and you can plant and water things on a tile-based grid. The actual mechanics appear to be fairly streamlined, so hopefully they don’t get tedious; I was particularly happy to see that the “water wand” was generous with where it tossed water. Some crops have clever names, too, meaning you’ll be growing things like “carrops” and “cucumbles”... Continue reading…

It’s hard to tell what it’ll look like at this point. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is trying to make it easier for its users to get support when their accounts or posts are removed, according to a report from Bloomberg. The report quotes Brent Harris, Meta’s vice president of governance, who says that the company is “spending a bunch of time on” customer service. Since Facebook’s inception, people haven’t really had any recourse or way to talk to the company about moderation decisions.At this stage, it doesn’t seem clear what Meta’s customer service division will actually do. Last year, the company piloted a live chat support program that gave some English-speaking users a way to actually talk to a human at Meta if they needed help using a new feature or got locked out of their accounts. At the time, the company... Continue reading…

A real meat-and-potatoes meal. | Photo: Mitchell Clark / The Verge It’s hard to stand out in the world of plant-based meats, but Juicy Marbles is trying to do so by attempting to replicate not just a steak but also one of the higher-end cuts: the filet mignon. When the company reached out to The Verge asking if we wanted to try its steaks, its promises of a tender filet that’s marbled and cooks like a real steak caught my attention, as someone who swore off eating meat for two years (but who still gets a little jealous of the delicious-looking things my wife eats). The price also caught my attention — $40 for a four-pack of four-ounce steaks. For the mathematicians at home, that’s $40 a pound.Having eaten plenty of plant-based meats, though, I know that marketing materials can be very deceiving and... Continue reading…

You gotta love the spin. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton’s numbers don’t look great. In its Q4 2022 earnings release this morning, the company reported a $1.2 billion operating loss, a 28 percent revenue drop, a membership decline, and a monthly subscriber churn exceeding 1 percent for the first time in a long while. (Perhaps ever?) And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In a nutshell, losses were greater than both Peloton and investors had anticipated.And yet, Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy would have you believe the numbers actually paint a picture of “substantial progress” and the true start of Peloton’s comeback story.“The naysayers will look at our Q4 financial performance and see a melting pot of declining revenue, negative gross margin, and deeper operating losses. They will say... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Summer is running out, but I accidentally stumbled upon a weird hack that I might come back to for the warmer months. One day recently, before I headed to the office, I tossed some Pixel Buds A-Series wireless earbuds into my messenger bag, and they somehow settled near my packed lunch and the ice pack keeping it cool. I didn’t expect that those earbuds would catch a chill from being close to them, but when I popped them in my ears, the cool sensation was both unexpected and amazing. I kind of felt like I was in a dramatized breath mint commercial, and I can’t stop doing it.You might be turned off by the idea of inserting earbuds that are anything other than a reflection of the ambient temperature. Perhaps I can win you over by saying... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is officially getting into podcasts. The app will launch a test version of Twitter Spaces today that includes podcasts, letting you listen to full shows through curated playlists based on your interests.The redesigned Spaces tab opens with Stations, topic-based playlists combining podcast episodes pulled from RSS with Twitter’s social audio events and recordings. It functions like a Pandora station but for spoken word and is pretty different from the a la carte listening podcast consumers are used to on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Live and upcoming spaces are still in the tab, further down the page. The test will roll out to a random group of users across the world, initially only in English. Image: Twitter ... Continue reading…

Image: Instacart Instacart customers who know they need sustenance but don’t know what to buy will soon be able to browse suggestions from celebrities. Beginning today, the company is rolling out product collections curated by public figures, influencers, and retailers for customers to shop from.The new feature, called Carts, will display lists of grocery items themed around events (“Game Day” or “Self Care Sunday”) or picked by celebrities that customers can add to their own carts. Musician Lizzo is one of the first celebrities to be featured. In the blog announcing the new feature, Instacart says the curated carts will help inspire customer purchases — helpful, perhaps, if you often find yourself browsing aimlessly while ordering... Continue reading…

Amazon Pharmacy is built on top of PillPack. | Image: Getty Images It was only last year that Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, called Amazon Care one of the most exciting innovations at the company. But on Wednesday, employees learned that Amazon Care would shut down at the end of the year, an abrupt end to a program once central to its plans to reshape healthcare.The abrupt shutdown doesn’t mean Amazon is getting out of healthcare — it might just mean a reframing. It recently bought the subscription-based primary care company One Medical, which offers similar services to Amazon Care. Reports indicate Amazon is also interested in at-home healthcare technology company Signify Health. Amazon still wants to take on healthcare, but it’s clarifying its approach: instead of building from scratch, it’s taking over... Continue reading…

After more than 200 days offline, Dark Souls 3 servers are back up. | Image: FromSoftware According to tweets from FromSoftware Player Support and the official Dark Souls Twitter account, the PC servers for Dark Souls 3 have been restored after being taken offline since early January. The servers were initially disabled by FromSoftware to prevent a malicious remote code execution (RCE) exploit that allowed hackers to take control of players’ computers. FromSoftware has been working to patch its servers and restore service ever since, and it seems that for one game, the time has finally arrived.FromSoftware took action soon after the exploit popped up during a Twitch stream that went viral, drawing attention to the bug. The developer disabled PVP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls Remastered beginning on... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Is that phone charger doing more than you think it is? Continue reading…

Aloy takes on a fearsome enemy in Horizon Zero Dawn. | Image: Sony We may have just learned that The Umbrella Academy’s next season will be its last, but we also now know that showrunner Steve Blackman will be developing Netflix’s series based on the PlayStation game Horizon Zero Dawn. Blackman’s involvement in the upcoming show — and his new multiyear deal with Netflix that also includes developing the sci-fi show Orbital — was reported by Deadline on Thursday.“Horizon Zero Dawn and Orbital are elevated, event-level projects grounded in characters that fans will love and relate to, which are hallmarks of Irish Cowboy productions,” Blackman said in a statement to Deadline. “We’re thrilled to be working with Netflix and all of our partners on developing these ground-breaking stories.”In an interview... Continue reading…

Image: Google Earlier this year, Google unveiled AI Test Kitchen — an Android app that lets users talk to one of its most advanced AI chatbots, LaMDA 2. Today, the company is opening up registrations for early access. You can sign up here, and Google says it will soon be letting people download the app and start chatting. (Though it’s limited to US users right now.)It’s interesting, considering that Meta made an almost identical move just earlier this month, opening up its latest and greatest AI chatbot, BlenderBot 3, for public consumption. Of course, people quickly found that they could get BlenderBot to say creepy or untruthful things (or even criticize the bot’s nominal boss, Mark Zuckerberg), but that’s kind of the whole point of releasing these... Continue reading…

Image: White House (Erin Scott) / Flickr President Joe Biden isn’t wasting any time in rolling out the $280 billion law to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. On Thursday, Biden signed an executive order to get the money flowing out to companies like Intel who want to build fabrication sites in the US.Biden officially signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law two weeks ago, but Thursday’s order sets the sweeping American innovation project into motion. Biden’s swift implementation signals the administration’s urgency to boost US competitiveness against China and alleviate an incessant chip shortage that’s affected a wide variety of industries like automakers and gaming devices.It’s still unclear when the Commerce Department will officially make its $52 billion in... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google-owned navigation service Waze is shutting down its six-year-old carpooling service, citing shifting commuting patterns as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.Starting in September, the company will begin the process of winding down its carpooling service, which had been available in the US, Brazil, and Israel. Waze said it will explore other ways it can help serve the 150 million customers worldwide that use its navigation app.“While Waze was predominantly a commuting app pre-COVID, today the proportion of errands and travel drives have surpassed commutes,” the company said in a statement provided to The Verge. “This means we have an opportunity to find even more impactful ways to bring together a global community to share... Continue reading…

MyFitnessPal’s planned change comes after new ownership in late 2020 and a recent app redesign. | Image: MyFitnessPal The popular nutrition and weight loss app MyFitnessPal is moving its free barcode scanning feature behind the paywall. For years, users with free accounts have been able to use this tool to scan food barcodes for easy logging and tracking of daily calorie intake, but the company recently announced that beginning October 1st, a premium account will be required.MyFitnessPal’s daily calorie counting is a key component of the app, with the barcode scanner offering a shortcut to finding nutritional value for a specific food item in the app’s vast database of food. Much of that database is user-generated, with both free and premium users able to add any food by entering the nutrition facts and barcode off a label. Once October 1st rolls... Continue reading…

Ritu Arya as Lila Pitts, David Castañeda as Diego Hargreeves, Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves, and Aidan Gallagher as Number Five. | Image: Netflix Though Netflix has picked up The Umbrella Academy for a fourth season that will continue the story of the Hargreeves family, the next chapter will be the series’ last.Netflix announced today that its live-action adaptation of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s The Umbrella Academy will come to an end with its upcoming fourth season that will see all of the series’ core cast returning to reprise their roles.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is demanding that an advocacy group remove videos of its vehicles running over child-sized mannequins, escalating the debate over the safety of the company’s Full Self-Driving software.Tesla sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Dawn Project, an anti-Tesla group fronted by software developer Dan O’Dowd. In it, the company alleges the videos are defamatory and misrepresents the capabilities of its driver-assist technology. (The letter was first reported by The Washington Post.)

The Z32K G3 has slim bezels all around. | Image: HP HP isn’t the first company to debut a monitor with an IPS Black panel, a technology that doubles the contrast ratio of IPS to provide richer contrast and darker blacks. Dell has that distinction. However, HP’s 31.5-inch Z32K G3 4K 60Hz monitor stands out with its Thunderbolt 4 support, allowing 100W charging and speedy 40Gbps data passthrough, as well as the unique ability to be daisy-chained with another 4K display — all through just a single cable connected to your PC.It can also act as a bonafide hub, supporting accessories like webcams and mice with its four USB-A 3.2 ports, and you can plug an Ethernet cable into it. It’s flush with video inputs, including the aforementioned Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port, one HDMI 2.0 port, and two... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images In a fight between rich tech guys who like to move fast and break things, there isn’t always a “good” side. This was underscored on Tuesday when Twitter’s former security head Peiter “Mudge” Zatko accused the company of hiding a wealth of risky behavior — and, in the process, put himself in the middle of Twitter’s legal battle with Elon Musk. The report isn’t great for Twitter, but you’re probably already asking the obvious question: is it bad for Twitter in the courtroom?The best answer I’ve found is: probably, yes. But on Twitter’s fancy leaked threat matrix scale, the company’s odds are more “impaired” than “physically destroyed”... with a healthy dose of “known unknown we really should know.” The Twitter threat... Continue reading…

iHeartLand is a virtual event center for concerts, created by... well, iHeartMedia, funnily enough. | Image: iHeartMedia Radio juggernaut iHeartMedia is launching its own dedicated space in Fortnite to host events and concerts. The virtual park, which has been given the rather obnoxious name of iHeartLand, is being developed using the game’s creative mode and will feature several different areas.The park includes a main stage called State Farm Park (in collaboration with, you guessed it, insurance company State Farm), mini-games, and a digital “headquarters” for iHeartMedia. The mini-games could change as the park evolves, but the handful that will be featured on launch day include car racing, an obstacle course, and a building game.The State Farm Park virtual stage features a massive screen for watching performancesThe headquarters itself includes a... Continue reading…

Helicopters in Microsoft Flight Simulator. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding helicopters and gliders to Microsoft Flight Simulator on November 11th. The 40th Anniversary Edition of the game will be available free to existing owners or Xbox Game Pass members and includes helicopters and gliders for the first time since 2006.“In addition to the helicopters and gliders, we will introduce another highly-requested community feature: a true-to-life airliner, the sophisticated Airbus A-310 where nearly every single button works just as expected,” explains Jorg Neumann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Image: Microsoft An Airbus A310 in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The 40th Anniversary Edition is a rather big update for Microsoft Flight Simulator, as it also includes... Continue reading…

You can save up to $150 when you buy Google’s latest mesh router system. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Tired of your Wi-Fi slowing down depending on where you are in your house? It might be a good idea to extend your Wi-Fi coverage, especially now that we’re currently seeing some excellent deals on Google’s Wi-Fi 5-capable Nest Wifi routers and Points. Right now, for instance, you can buy the Nest Wifi router and two Points for $199 instead of $349 from Amazon, Best Buy, and Wellbots.The router claims to cover up to 2,200 square feet on its own, while the two additional Points should be able to provide a speedy, reliable Wi-Fi signal that’s good for up to 5,400 square feet and 300 devices. That makes it perfect for larger spaces or homes with thick walls. Moreover, each included Point doubles as a Google Assistant-equipped smart... Continue reading…

Walmart can deliver your groceries to your garage. | Image: Walmart Walmart is expanding its Walmart Plus InHome program, adding Chamberlain’s myQ smart garage door controller technology to its list of in-home / in-garage delivery partners. Starting in September, Walmart Plus InHome delivery customers can have their groceries securely delivered into their garage if they have a myQ smart garage door controller. And if they don’t have one, the company will install one for free.Walmart’s in-home delivery service currently works with the Level Lock smart lock and the Aladdin Connect Genie smart garage door opener, as well as any keypad-controlled lock or garage door. Even without the free offer, partnering with Chamberlain will greatly expand the number of customers who are equipped to use the service; The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge MoviePass is back, kind of. Starting today, you can sign up to be on a waitlist to become a MoviePass subscriber, and if you want to, you should move quickly since the waitlist will only be open for five days. The new MoviePass is scheduled to launch around Labor Day, and its first users will be those at the top of the waitlist.If you’re wondering what, exactly, this new MoviePass is going to be... join the club. This is the company that once promised all the in-theater movies you could watch for $10 a month, only to quickly discover that business plan both infuriated theaters and effectively set millions of dollars on fire. It got so bad so fast that Helios and Matheson Analytics, the parent company of MoviePass, went bankrupt last... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge I wish it had a beginner price to match Continue reading…

Yep, another one of these. Listen. Is a $2,379 folio-style laptop an impractical and illogical purchase for most people? Yes. But is it a heck of a lot of fun to use while coveting a more luxurious life? Also yes.I’m currently typing this on a prototype unit of the HP Dragonfly Folio G3, announced today. HP is following in the footsteps of some other laptop manufacturers this year and replacing the traditional 2-in-1 form factor of its high-end convertible line with something a bit more (I guess, in theory) versatile. Just another clamshell? Guess again! Haha, I love this thing. For those who don’t obsessively follow the convertible laptop space (and first of all, how could you be so ignorant? Go stand in the corner), the folio design puts a... Continue reading…

DuckDuckGo’s Email Protection dashboard. | Image: DuckDuckGo After rolling out its Email Protection service in private beta last year, DuckDuckGo has announced that it’s finally available to all users. Email Protection is a forwarding service that assigns you a free “@duck.com” email address and intercepts email trackers before they hit your personal inbox.If you need a refresher on exactly what DuckDuckGo’s Email Protection service does, it lets you use either a personal or private “duck” address to shield your real email address from companies. Before the email hits your inbox, DuckDuckGo strips it of the trackers that snoop on your location when opening an email, when you opened it, and the device you used. It also breaks down how many trackers it removed, as well as which companies they were... Continue reading…

Can’t decide between buying a flat or curved monitor? Corsair thinks it might have the solution to your (admittedly, niche) woes with the Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240: a flexible OLED gaming monitor that you can literally bend by hand to switch form factors.The transforming display is possible thanks to a W-OLED panel from LG Display, which Corsair worked closely with to develop the Xeneon Flex. Interestingly, in contrast to a prototype LG Display showed off at CES last year which used motors to transform between flat and curved modes, Corsair has you manually bend its monitor into shape with a pair of handles that extend from the left and right sides of the display, as this video from YouTuber Bitwit explains. You can even adjust the... Continue reading…

Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former security chief-turned-whistleblower. | Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images Twitter’s former security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko will testify in Congress next month after he went public with damning allegations about the social media company’s security practices and attempts to mislead regulators, the Washington Post reports. Zatko is scheduled to speak at a hearing on September 13th and is expected to address the privacy and national security concerns raised in his complaint.“Mr. Zatko’s allegations of widespread security failures and foreign state actor interference at Twitter raise serious concerns,” said the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill) and the committee top Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) in a joint statement. “If these claims are accurate, they... Continue reading…

Nick Barclay / The Verge The Ethereum Foundation has announced that September 6th will be the starting date for the system-wide transition known as the Merge. The first domino will be toppled on the 6th with the activation of the Bellatrix upgrade, which will then set the rest of the Merge process in action, with a completion date expected between September 10th and 20th.The Merge refers to the switchover of Ethereum from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake — two different methods of validating transactions on the blockchain. If you’re not particularly interested in world of crypto, then the technical differences between the two approaches are a little arcane (The Guardian has a good explainer here). But the big upshot is that the new proof-of-stake method will... Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Nvidia is getting ready to announce its next-gen GPU architecture, codenamed Lovelace. Ampere is the current GPU architecture that powers Nvidia’s RTX 30-series GPUs, after Turing debuted with the first RTX cards in 2018. Nvidia is now expected to detail its Lovelace GPU architecture at GTC 2022 in September, with CEO Jensen Huang hinting at an announce during the company’s recent earnings call.“We’ll get through this over the next few months and go into next year with our new architecture,” said Huang, while discussing a slowdown in gaming GPU demand. “I look forward to telling you more about it at GTC next month.”A new GPU architecture announce doesn’t mean we’ll see RTX 40-series GPUs immediately, though. Nvidia first unveiled its... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is increasing its PS5 prices in the UK, Europe, Japan, China, Australia, Mexico, and Canada. Prices are jumping by 10 percent in Europe, 21 percent in Japan, and by around 6 percent in the UK as inflation rates impact Sony and many other companies. While Sony is increasing PS5 prices in many parts of the world, it says there won’t be a price increase in the US.“We’re seeing high global inflation rates, as well as adverse currency trends, impacting consumers and creating pressure on many industries,” explains Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. “Based on these challenging economic conditions, SIE has made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price (RRP) of PlayStation 5 in select... Continue reading…

Starlink is getting a little cheaper for some. | Image: Starlink Starlink, Elon Musk’s internet-from-space service provided by SpaceX, is notifying customers with some good news: their monthly subscriptions have been reduced in response to “local market conditions.”I received one of these notifications for my Starlink RV service that normally costs me €124 each month in the Netherlands. It says, “Effective 8/24/2022, Starlink is reducing your monthly service fee to €105.” Well, ok.The price cut is welcome at a time when everything else is getting more expensive due to inflation. “The price reduction factors in your local market conditions and is meant to reflect parity in purchasing power across our customers,” reads the announcement.The situation in the US is less clearOthers are reporting... Continue reading…

Sing me the new song of your people. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s upcoming iOS 16 update brings with it a lot of new features — things like the ability to customize your Lock Screen, edit iMessages, or copy written text from a video. But Apple’s also made an under-the-radar change to some of the iPhone’s sounds, which some of us here at The Verge noticed while using the betas.When you go to the Find My app and choose the “play sound” option for an iOS / iPadOS 16 device, you’ll now be greeted with what sounds like an electronic xylophone, instead of the pinging sound that played on iOS 15 and before. The change also applies to when you ask your Apple Watch to ping your phone for you, except the sound plays once instead of over and over. One of my co-workers described the new sound as higher... Continue reading…

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of games like Kirby and Super Smash Bros., has revealed his next big project: a YouTube channel. The gaming folk hero teased that he was working on something new earlier this week, and now you can super smash that like button and subscribe to his new channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.As of this writing, there are three videos: one that’s all about the channel, one covering what games Sakurai has worked on (like one of the DS greats, Meteos), and one diving deep about how to use in-game pauses for certain effects (like “hit stop” moments you might see in Smash when landing a punch).Sakurai, of course, is no stranger to appearing on video; he’s been Nintendo’s primary Super Smash Bros. presenter... Continue reading…

Photo by Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images Wordle is now available in The New York Times Crossword app for both iOS and Android users. The addictive guessing game joins both The New York Times Crossword variants, Spelling Bee, and more. Users can also continue to play the game on their desktop and through the mobile website.The word-guessing game became an immediate phenomenon after it was released in October 2021. The Times then acquired Wordle from its creator Josh Wardle in January. That decision was not without complaints, as users began speculating that the game had become harder and some of their streaks were ruined. Despite complaints after its acquisition, The Times said that the game allowed The Times to see a jump in new subscribers at its earnings meeting in May and... Continue reading…

Google Play Games will allow users to play natively on their PCs | Image: Google Starting today, users in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Australia will be able to register for the open beta for Google Play Games on their PCs. Normally, this catalog of games would be restricted to Chromebooks or other Android-enabled devices, but it will soon be available able to run natively on PCs for users in those select countries.The open beta isn’t currently available to users in other markets, even though Windows 11 users have had access to Android apps from the Amazon app store for some time. Google originally announced that it would be bringing its catalog of Android games to Windows PCs back in December of last year. Image: Google You’ll be able to sync your saves across multiple devices... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I’ve been using the Steam iOS app quite a bit since getting a Steam Deck, but every time I opened the app, I had to deal with an interface that just felt old — the overall design hadn’t been updated in a very long time. It seems Valve felt that way, too, because it’s now beta testing a new version of the app that looks dramatically different and, if you ask me, dramatically better.In a blog post, Valve mentioned the new design as one of the key new features of the app, and the improvements, at least in my brief testing on iOS, are immediately obvious. For example, the app now has a navigation bar on the bottom of the screen where you can navigate to things like the store, your news feed, and the Steam Guard section. S... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon plans to shut down Amazon Care, the virtual health service it first launched in 2019, by the end of the year. The company announced the decision to Amazon Care employees on Wednesday, The Washington Post reported.“Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term,” Amazon senior vice president of health Neil Lindsay in an email to staff shared with Fierce Healthcare. We’ve obtained the full memo and have included it at the end of this story.Amazon Care started as a service for Amazon employees based in Seattle. It paired virtual health care services with the option for an in-home... Continue reading…

The RTX 3080 Ti, one of Nvidia’s top-shelf current generation cards. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge PC sales abruptly tanked this quarter, so Nvidia, like Intel, is suddenly under the gun. What are you going to do about the billions of dollars of growth that just went up in smoke, investors tend to ask! But while that’s an annoying situation for Nvidia during today’s Q2 earnings, it’s an intriguing one for gamers like you and me — because Nvidia tried to placate those investors by revealing that exciting things may be on the way.First: discounts! Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed what we’ve suspected for months: Nvidia actually built too many gaming GPUs and is now being forced to sell them for less money. “We found ourselves with excess inventory,” says Huang. “Our strategy is to sell-in well below the current sell-through levels in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re used to getting your fill of Saturday Night Live and Law & Order on Hulu, all that’s going to change on September 19th. From then on, next-day premieres from NBC land on Peacock as part of the streaming service’s plan to consolidate NBC-branded content on its home platform.Peacock terminated its content-sharing deal with Hulu back in March to prepare for its plans to exclusively secure more of its own content. This includes shows like One Chicago, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Voice.The platform already streams next-day episodes from the NBC-owned Bravo, including The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Below Deck, Top Chef, and Southern Charm. NBC has also made one of its l... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Not only are you getting your Steam Deck by the end of the year, but you might also see your long-awaited handheld gaming PC even sooner than that — Valve has just announced that “a bunch of folks” should see their reservations moved up to Q3 instead of Q4, meaning they’ll get emailed an opportunity to purchase the $400-plus portable by the end of September, if not sooner.It shouldn’t be much longer to wait after you get that email, either: Valve doesn’t send the emails until the systems are in-hand and ready to ship. If you log into Steam, you can check your reservation here.

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Listening to the lawyers representing Elon Musk and Twitter argue over which documents need to be provided as part of legal discovery today, I began to wonder if it is possible to measure anything at all.The arguments centered on a wonky count of user numbers: mDAUs, or “monetizable daily active users.” It’s a nonstandard measure — most social media companies use daily or monthly active users — that focuses on which users can see ads. But Twitter is a nonstandard social media company!“We are allowed to question their process.”Twitter is suing Musk for abandoning a deal to buy the company for $44 billion. Part of Musk’s argument is that he was misled about the amount of spam and bots on the platform and that, therefore, the deal can’t... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you live in the US, chances are you’ve at least heard of WhatsApp, the messaging app that Meta acquired in 2014.But if you live in other parts of the world, like India, the service is more than just an app for communicating with friends and family.“WhatsApp in India is a way of life,” said Rajeev Khera, founder of food tech business Chakki Peesing, which operates outside of New Delhi.Khera is one of the millions of Indians who run businesses mainly through WhatsApp. And it’s not just businesses: roughly 400 million people in India use WhatsApp to keep in touch with relatives overseas, send money, access critical medical information, and more.

A 3D product rendering of the upcoming Sonos speaker codenamed Optimo 2, as created by The Verge | Product render by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge After spending 2022 focused on midrange products like the Ray and the rollout of its own voice service, Sonos is about to shift its attention back to upscale devices. Aside from the upcoming, delayed Sub Mini, the company is also at work on a completely new high-end speaker codenamed Optimo 2.The Verge has viewed early, work-in-progress images of Optimo 2, and it marks a substantial evolution in design compared to Sonos’ existing products, such as the Sonos One, Five, Arc, Beam, and Roam. Encased in a funky, dual-angled shell, the new device will be positioned as the best-sounding speaker that Sonos has ever produced. It includes an arsenal of drivers, including several that fire in different directions from beneath the shell between... Continue reading…

I know people are hyped for a subscription-based future of video games. But if it’s anything like a streaming service, the actual experience of having a big library is scrolling around your options and going, Hmm, I sort of remember hearing about this thing five years ago. And because the stakes are low, you try it, and more often than not, you realize why you never bothered paying to see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in theaters.Sometimes, though, a mediocre product can be gratifying, especially if you go into it with some pals.I stumbled upon Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands on Xbox Game Pass, which, from the title, I assumed was a game about doing recon, in the wildlands, in search of Tom Clancy’s ghost. Turns out I was wrong.... Continue reading…

This screen is just not meant for full-sized apps. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a great little foldable held back by a too-tiny front display. It’s just hard doing much on a 1.9-inch screen. Even though Samsung tried making it a little more useful in this year’s iteration, it’s still just a little window from which you can view notifications and certain widgets, but not much more. Developer IJP addresses just this pain point with its Cover Screen OS, a free app on the Google Play Store. It’s been available for the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and got a recent update to support the Flip 4. And it works — but it’s also kind of awful for reasons outside of the developers’ control.To IJP’s credit, the app does a nice job of walking you through a somewhat involved setup process — you have to give it a lot of... Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge Wi-Fi is essential in most homes these days. From streaming your entertainment and music to making it possible to work from home, we rely on Wi-Fi for many of today’s modern conveniences. But sometimes, you just need it to stop. This is particularly true for parents. I recently wrote about how I use my smart home — which runs on Wi-Fi — to help keep my family on track. A key component of that is turning off internet access to my kids’ devices.Thankfully, today’s modern Wi-Fi routers give you the power to pause using your internet service provider or router manufacturer’s smartphone app — no more need to unplug the router just to get your kid off their Xbox or type an IP address into a browser to fiddle with your daughter’s iPad... Continue reading…

California is about to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles. | Getty California is poised to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles — a far-reaching policy that is likely to reverberate throughout the rest of the country and the world.On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board will issue the new rules that were first rolled out by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020, which would require 100 percent of new cars sold in the state to be free of carbon emissions, according to The New York Times.The rule would phase in over timeThe rule would phase in over time, with 35 percent of new passenger vehicles sold by 2026 and 68 percent by 2030. California says that over 16 percent of new car sales were “zero-emission vehicles” in 2022 — up from 12.41 percent last year and 7.78 percent in 2020.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images The government’s financial aid website is crashing after President Joe Biden’s announcement of a federal student loan forgiveness program that cancels up to $20,000 of student loan debt for some people. According to several user reports on Twitter, Downdetector.com, and testing done by Verge staffers, people are having issues logging into StudentAid.gov or even getting the site to load at all.The plan announced on Wednesday doesn’t provide blanket loan cancellation — those with a personal income over $125,000 (or double that if they’re married and file taxes jointly) aren’t eligible for forgiveness, and people who received Pell Grants will have more debt canceled than those who didn’t. The complexity has wound up leaving a lot of people... Continue reading…