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Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Authorized Apple service technicians might be able to make Face ID repairs on iPhone XS and newer phones without needing to replace the entire device, MacRumors reports.The tech giant may soon grant Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers access to a new TrueDepth Camera service part that consists of Face ID and front camera modules. As a result, stores and authorized providers would perform same-unit repairs when a phone suffers from Face ID issues instead of replacing the device.As described by Apple in an internal memo provided to MacRumors, the move will reduce the carbon footprint of its products by decreasing the number of whole-unit repairs. If it happens, it also means owners of iPhone XS models and newer won’t... Continue reading…

The battery pack can attach to a phone and dock at the same time | Image: Otterbox When Dieter Bohn reviewed Apple’s MagSafe battery pack, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with its performance. Unfortunately, the relatively small battery pack didn’t have enough juice to top off an iPhone 12 even once. And, like most things from Apple, it came with an unusually high price tag and only worked with a proprietary Lightning cable for charging.Since then, other manufacturers like Anker have produced MagSafe battery packs with friendlier features and better capacity. Now, the case makers at Otterbox have joined that trend with a pair of wireless MagSafe power banks that cost less than Apple’s model but provide better capacity and features. Otterbox’s lineup includes both a 5,000mAh and 3,000mAh model that cost $69.99 and $49.95,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Late Wednesday night, Russian troops invaded Ukrainian territories across the country’s northern, southern, and eastern borders, kicking off the largest troop mobilization in Europe in a generation. As Russian media attempts to cast the invasion as a response to Ukrainian aggression, on-the-ground reporting has played a crucial role in countering the propaganda, with footage coming from both professional journalists and amateurs on social media.But as the conflict intensifies, many civil society groups are increasingly concerned about the possibility of direct attacks on the country’s internet infrastructure. Russia has previously been linked to DDoS attacks against Ukrainian government sites — but a full blackout would mean going... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft is making the Windows 11 taskbar a little more tablet-friendly soon. The software giant has started testing a new taskbar that’s designed for tablet use, with a smaller collapsed state that only shows critical information like the time and date or network and battery status.This tablet taskbar looks a lot less cluttered, thanks to app icons, search, Widgets, and the Start button being hidden. A new setting will automatically hide the taskbar when you’re using a device as a tablet, and it will provide more screen space for Windows 11 tablet users. If you wipe up to reveal the full taskbar, the widgets, Start button, search, and app icons are all a lot larger and easier to touch. Image: Microsoft Windows... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tumblr announced today that users can opt out of ads (on the desktop and in its mobile apps) by paying $4.99 per month or purchasing a year of ad-free browsing at a discount for $39.99. Image: Tumblr That means long-time posters can go back to the way things were before Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion, before Tumblr banned porn and lost a massive chunk of its audience, and before Verizon sold Tumblr to WordPress owner Automattic Inc. for a tiny fraction of its original price.Founder David Karp was opposed to allowing advertising, and once the company bent on that principle, it’s been plagued by tacky, cheap-looking advertisements that seemed to flood the feed and often make little to no sense. But now,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge is allowing plans for a settlement between Activision Blizzard and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to move forward, denying California state regulators’ request for a delay. The decision was filed yesterday in California district court, and it’s the latest setback for the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s (DFEH) attempts to intervene in the deal.The EEOC and Activision Blizzard agreed last year to settle sexual harassment and discrimination claims against the games publisher — which employees have accused of facilitating sexist abuse at the highest levels. The DFEH alleges that the federal settlement would harm its own case by potentially letting Activision Blizzard destroy... Continue reading…

Dbrand’s leather collection of skins. | Image: Dbrand Gadget skin-maker Dbrand is announcing that its line of adhesive leather skins for smartphones and laptops are now available for sale once again, and this time, they will remain as a permanent fixture in its online store. The vegetable-tanned genuine leather skins first launched as a limited-edition run back in December and are now back due to popular demand. The 3M adhesive leather skins sell for around $34.95 for smartphones and $69.95 for laptops and are available in black, brown, and tan colorways for over 100 products, including the new Samsung Galaxy S22, iPhones, MacBooks, Google Pixels, and gaming consoles.Dbrand says that these leather skins are made from full-grain cow leather, and they’re less than 0.5mm thick — though it... Continue reading…

There’s a new Swift in town. | Image: Acer Acer has announced updates to its Swift consumer line. The big news is that the Swift 5, its consumer flagship, has finally moved from a 16:9 aspect ratio screen to the taller and roomier 16:10. It’s the latest of many premium flagship products to take this jump.Apart from the aspect ratio, the new 14-inch Swift 5 looks fairly similar to previous Swift 5 models we know and love. It’s gotten a bit heavier (2.65 pounds, to the previous 2.31). It now comes with a 2560 x 1600 display, whereas last year’s model was only available in 1920 x 1080.Inside, the Swift has been bumped to Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors. It can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. That’s a high amount for such a small device — last year’s... Continue reading…

Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Matt Murdock taking the subway together. | Netflix/Marvel With the rights to all of Netflix’s Marvel cape shows set to revert back to Disney, the big question looming over them all has been whether they would finally make the jump over to Disney Plus to live alongside the rest of the studios' heroes. Unsurprisingly, the answer is “yes,” but with some important caveats.Following up on Mobile Syrup’s initial report, Engadget has confirmed that Netflix’s Marvel shows will begin streaming on Disney Plus in Canada on March 16th, which gels with previous reports that the series are set to leave Netflix on March 1st. Between Spider-Man: No Way Home and the Hawkeye series, fans of the Defenders have had more than a few reasons to wonder if and when Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and the others... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is no longer requiring its US-based workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to CNBC. The change is one of many the company is reportedly making to its policies as it prepares to have employees return to its offices.The company originally announced in June that it would be requiring vaccinations to return to the office, and reportedly sent a memo in December telling employees they would risk being forced to take leave or even being fired if they did not prove they were vaccinated (or apply for an exemption). But a Google spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that vaccines were no longer required for US employees, so it appears the company has adjusted its policy.Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.CNBC... Continue reading…

Photo by LAURENS BOSCH/ANP/AFP via Getty Images As reported by Bloomberg, a scary situation played out today at Apple’s flagship Amsterdam store as a man in camouflage gear and a balaclava fired a gun and then held someone hostage there for several hours before being apprehended. The hostage was reportedly an Apple Store customer from somewhere outside the Netherlands.Pictures of the scene showed the hostage seated opposite the suspect, with his hands in cuffs behind his back. There were four other people in the store hiding in a closet, but the suspect apparently did not realize they were there. The store is located in Leidseplein, a busy area in the city center with many people around, some of whom live-streamed footage as the hostage situation continues. Dozens of other people... Continue reading…

The Pixel 7 Pro sports a similar-looking camera bar as the Pixel 6. | Image by OnLeaks via SmartPrix Reliable leaker OnLeaks has offered a glimpse at what the Google Pixel 7 Pro might look like in a set of leaked 3D renders, as first reported by SmartPrix (via 9to5Google). So far, the upcoming device appears to share several similarities with its Pixel 6 predecessor, including the same prominent camera bar on the rear of the phone. Image by OnLeaks via SmartPrix The Pixel 7 Pro has a hole-punch selfie camera. The three cameras on the back of the supposed Pixel 7 Pro look oddly large (but just might appear that way in this particular render) and may include a wide-angle camera, periscope telephoto camera, and an ultra-wide camera. On the front of the device, a hole-punch selfie camera sits at the top of its... Continue reading…

Valve hasn’t shared many details about the dock just yet. | Image: Valve The first orders for the Steam Deck, Valve’s handheld gaming PC, will begin on Friday, but the company’s official dock for the device won’t be available at that time.“We are also looking forward to getting the official Dock for Steam Deck into customers’ hands,” Valve said in a post about the Steam Deck’s launch day. “It won’t be happening as early as we wanted, but we’re excited to talk more about it soon and are planning to make them available in late spring.”Valve hasn’t shared many details about the dock just yet, though there is a short description on Valve’s Steam Deck website. “The official dock props up your Steam Deck while connecting to external displays, wired networking, USB peripherals, and power,” Valve says. But you... Continue reading…

1Password can now store details attached to your Phantom wallet. | Image: 1Password A 1Password update brings a specific item type dedicated to crypto and digital assets to the password manager’s interface. This could make it easier to store details attached to your cryptocurrency wallet, although it’s usually best to store your wallet’s information offline. Image: 1Password 1Password now has dedicated fields for information related to crypto wallets. The update brings a “Crypto Wallet” item — or a blank, easy-to-fill-in format — to the password manager. It comes with fields specific to the kind of information you’ll need to input, like your wallet address and recovery phrase.While you could previously store crypto-related information in 1Password, the process wasn’t always that... Continue reading…

A bulldozer sits on the side of Grayback Road in the devastation that left scores of structures destroyed and thousands of acres burned by the Slater fire in Happy Camp, Calif., on Tuesday, September 29, 2020. For millennia, the local Karuk tribe has conducted traditional prescribed burns in the area, and put together a climate change adaptation plan, a big piece of which is returning traditional fire to the landscape. They want Cal Fire to allow California tribal leaders to begin a training program in controlled burning techniques used for centuries by Native Americans until Europeans arrived and halted the practice, leading to overgrown forests. | Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Nations need to spend more money learning to live with wildfires rather than burning through cash fighting them, says a new United Nations report. The report predicts a dramatic rise in “extreme” fires and warns that there needs to be a “radical” shift in how governments address them.Globally, extreme wildfires are expected to increase up to 14 percent this decade and 50 percent by the end of the century. Conventional firefighting, which tackles blazes as they happen, won’t be enough to meet the new threats, says the report published today by the United Nations Environment Programme and Norwegian environmental nonprofit GRID-Arendal.To cope, the report says, two-thirds of government spending on wildfires ought to go towards preparing... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro Twitter says the accounts were removed in error Continue reading…

Production on Dragon Age 4 seems to be coming along nicely, according to an update from BioWare.In a blog post, studio general manager Gary McKay says:

Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images After months of speculation, tribulation, and hype, former President Donald Trump launched his long-awaited social media platform — Truth Social — on Monday. The app, a shameless Twitter clone, is available for download on the Apple App Store and sits at the top of Apple’s download charts as of publication on Wednesday.But despite all of this excitement, Truth Social remains totally unusable. Hours after the app’s Presidents’ Day launch, it suffered dozens of technical glitches, from a 13-hour outage to users who were unable to make an account, let alone receive the confirmation email that allows them to start the process of joining. Even if you were able to secure a username, it’s likely you’ve been placed on an over 300,000 person... Continue reading…

Finally. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Following a brief appearance in January, Sony is officially bringing the ability to have your PS5 screenshots and videos auto-uploaded to the PlayStation mobile app to more countries. Sony began testing the feature in Canada and Japan in October.The expanded rollout, which Sony stresses is a gradual one, will start first with the Americas, the company says. On a support page, Sony lists the following as “supported countries”: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the US, and Uruguay. The feature will come to more countries “next month,” the company says in a tweet.If the feature is enabled, media captured from your PS5 will be... Continue reading…

The United States Postal Service authorized the replacement of its mail truck fleet with nearly all gasoline-powered vehicles, rejecting a plea from President Joe Biden to include more electric vehicles in its purchase.The move, which was announced Wednesday, signals the independent agency’s decision to move forward with a controversial plan to purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only 10 percent of which will be battery-electric vehicles (BEV). The USPS determined there was no legal reason to delay its plans.“the process needs to keep moving forward”In a statement, Postmaster Louis DeJoy said the agency would consider adding more EVs to its fleet sometime in the future. “[W]e will continue to pursue the acquisition of... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Today, let’s talk about some of the less obvious ways that conservative social networks keep slipping up — and whether Truth Social, which has the backing of President Trump, can manage to avoid their fate.First, the news: Truth Social is live in the App Store, and hit No. 1 this week on the most-downloaded chart for iOS. Here are Bryan Pietsch and Jeff Stein in the Washington Post:

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo is allowed to keep some of its autonomous vehicle safety data secret after a California court ruled in the Alphabet company’s favor in a lawsuit filed against the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (via TechCrunch).Last month, Waymo sued the DMV to block a public records request from an unidentified party seeking Waymo’s application for a permit to operate driverless cars on public roads. The company argued that the information being sought was a trade secret and that being forced to reveal it would put the company at a competitive disadvantage.The case zeroes in on a tension that’s brewing within the AV industry between a desire to keep information secret from rival companies and the need to earn the public’s trust through... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is implementing a new initiative that could alleviate one of the biggest stressors of content creation: unreliable income.The Ad Incentive Program, or AIP, is a new program that will pay select streamers a guaranteed monthly minimum amount of ad revenue. Qualified affiliate or partner streamers will receive a notification from Twitch offering them different payouts based on the amount of ads run per hour and total hours streamed. In the example Twitch provided, if a creator streamed for at least 40 hours that month, they could receive $100 for running two minutes of ads per hour, $300 for three minutes, or $500 for four minutes. An example of what the AIP payouts could look like. In addition to these tiered... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has announced an ambitious new AI research project to create translation software that works for “everyone in the world.” The project was announced as part of an event focusing on the broad range of benefits Meta believes AI can offer the company’s metaverse plans.“The ability to communicate with anyone in any language — that’s a superpower people have dreamed of forever, and AI is going to deliver that within our lifetimes,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an online presentation.“AI is going to deliver that in our lifetimes”The company says that although commonly spoken languages like English, Mandarin, and Spanish are well catered to by current translation tools, roughly 20... Continue reading…

Image: Visible Visible, Verizon’s app-based affordable mobile carrier alternative, appears to have canceled users’ accounts in lieu of denying them access to a promotion. This news came to light after a number of Visible customers posted complaints on Twitter and Reddit, claiming their service was canceled without explanation, as first reported by Best MVNO (via XDA Developers).Visible will “restore service if warranted”“Visible identified a set of accounts that were established illegitimately and in violation of our promotional terms and conditions,” Visible spokesperson Lindsey Cohen said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “We terminated those accounts, but have heard from some customers who have asked us to review the decision.” ... Continue reading…

Ring is adding the ability to use ONVIF-compatible cameras in the Ring app, with a Ring Protect Pro subscription and a Ring Alarm Pro base station. | Image: Ring Smart home security company Ring is expanding the capabilities of its Ring app to add cameras that support ONVIF. The Open Network Video Interface Forum is an open standard that allows devices to communicate with each other, even if they are from different manufacturers. ONVIF-compatible cameras are generally IP-based cameras and often powered over ethernet; a common form factor is dome-shaped with the ability to pan and tilt, although there are hundreds of options.Sadly, this doesn’t mean you can add your Nest or Arlo cams to the Ring app; most ONVIF-compatible cameras aren’t manufactured by well-known names in the smart home industry. Generally, they are commercial grade or large-residential camera surveillance systems from... Continue reading…

Meta Meta is testing an artificial intelligence system that lets people build parts of virtual worlds by describing them, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off a prototype at a live event today. Proof of the concept, called Builder Bot, could eventually draw more people into Meta’s Horizon “metaverse” virtual reality experiences. It could also advance creative AI tech that powers machine-generated art.In a prerecorded demo video, Zuckerberg walked viewers through the process of making a virtual space with Builder Bot, starting with commands like “let’s go to the beach,” which prompts the bot to create a cartoonish 3D landscape of sand and water around him. (Zuckerberg describes this as “all AI-generated.”) Later commands range from broad... Continue reading…

Photo by Brennan King / The Verge Google has announced it will soon remove a feature of Chrome for Android that for years helped people cut down on their mobile data usage. Per 9to5Google, Chrome’s “Lite mode” will go away with the release of Chrome version M100 in late March. Lite mode was originally known as Data Saver when Google first introduced it on Android back in 2014.In those days, many smartphone owners were on tiered data plans and risked extra charges if they went over their monthly allotment. And in some regions, mobile speeds were limited — so Lite mode helped pages load faster by compressing them. In 2015, Google added the option to block images entirely to use even less data.But Google no longer sees much reason to keep the option around. Unlimited data... Continue reading…

Adult Swim In the spirit of knowing their worth, the production workers behind Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty and Hulu’s Solar Opposites are moving to unionize.On Tuesday, The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839 (TAG) announced that the production staffs for both Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites have filed a petition to the National Labor Relations Board requesting the body to oversee a vote deciding whether or not the shows’ workers will unionize. Deadline reports that the petition to TAG came after Adult Swim and Hulu’s legal representatives made clear that the studious were not interested in voluntarily recognizing the bargaining unit — which consists of storyboard coordinators, production supervisors, and a variety of assistants — in its current... Continue reading…

Photo by Friso Gentsch/picture alliance via Getty Images The controversial proctoring platform Proctorio has filed a broad subpoena against the prominent digital rights nonprofit Fight for the Future as part of its legal battle with Miami University student Erik Johnson, in what the group describes as an effort to silence critics through legal maneuvering.The fight between Johnson and the company began in September of 2020 when the student published a lengthy Twitter thread criticizing Proctorio’s practices, including excerpts of the platform’s source code that he’d posted on PasteBin. Proctorio filed a copyright takedown notice. Three of the tweets were removed but later reinstated. The Electronic Frontier Foundation then sued Proctorio on Johnson’s behalf, arguing that the takedown had... Continue reading…

Intel launched the first wave of its 12th Gen Alder Lake chips at CES 2022 — but only for its H-series lineup of chips, destined for the most powerful and power-hungry laptops. And now, it’s rolling out the rest of its Alder Lake laptop lineup: the P-series and U-series models it briefly showed off in January, which are set to power the thinner, lighter, and cheaper laptops of 2022.In total, there are a whopping 20 chips fit for a wide range of hardware across the P-series, U-series (15W), and U-series (9W) categories, with the first laptops powered by the new processors set to arrive in March.Like their more powerful H-series cousins (and the Alder Lake desktop chips that Intel launched in late 2021 and at CES 2022), the new... Continue reading…

Images: Valve If you’re getting a Steam Deck, or someday plan to, the question of “how many games in my backlog will be compatible?” has probably echoed in your mind. Valve is answering it ahead of the Deck’s February 25th release date with a new Steam feature that makes it easy to see in your library which games will run great — and which might not fare so well. You can check it out by visiting this page and signing in with your Steam credentials.Beyond informing you that a game is merely able to run on the Deck, highlighting individual titles on the page and clicking “Steam Deck Compatibility” will surface more useful details, like whether in-game text is legible on the device’s small screen, and if a game’s default graphics settings will run well.... Continue reading…

Microsoft is bringing Twitch streaming back to the Xbox dashboard today. The Xbox maker first started testing the integration in October, and Twitch will now integrate into the Xbox Guide interface, complete with webcam support. Twitch first appeared integrated into the Xbox One dashboard in 2014, using a Snap interface to let players stream gameplay on Twitch.Twitch streaming will now appear in the Capture and Share tab of the Xbox Guide, and you’ll need to just link your Twitch account to access the streaming features. Headsets and webcams are supported, and you can manage game or mic audio levels, include friend audio from party chat, or manually set the Twitch resolution and bitrate.Twitch has had Xbox streaming support inside its... Continue reading…

GM General Motors is shutting down its in-car shopping app, Marketplace, which allowed customers to buy coffee, pay for gas, or make restaurant reservations from the infotainment screen of their vehicles. The service will be discontinued March 2022. (The news was first reported by CNBC.)The app, which was first introduced in 2017, was part of GM’s mission to redesign the driving experience to include more smartphone-style features, as well as create new revenue streams through partnerships with third-party companies. When it was announcedhat, GM described Marketplace as “the automotive industry’s first commerce platform for on-demand reservations and purchases of goods and services.”GM said its plans to discontinue Marketplace were the... Continue reading…

After 40 hours, I’m just getting started with FromSoftware’s latest release Continue reading…

Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images Rapper, actor, and serial celebrity endorser Ja Rule has attached his name to many things. There was that random Greek restaurant, a tax prep company, and, of course, his ill-fated ventures with fraudster Billy McFarland as a co-founder of the infamous Fyre Festival. And last year, long before the wave of recent celebrities jumped in on the craze, Ja Rule added an NFT project to his portfolio — without much fanfare or media coverage.The project, called Club Cards, is basically a series of NFT trading cards of other NFT projects’ characters. Each “wave” of releases is in partnership with another NFT series. Ja Rule is listed as a co-founder on the Club Cards website, and he frequently tweets about the project and its releases. Members... Continue reading…

You can save $80 today on a pair of UE Fits when you buy them direct from Ultimate Ears. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Presidents’ Day weekend may be over, but thankfully, there are still some sales you can take advantage of. If you’ve been on the hunt for a pair of good (and very unique) earbuds, Ultimate Ears’ Presidents’ Day sale involved a solid deal on the UE Fits that’s definitely worth a look.Normally $249, right now, you can buy the Fits for $199. That’s a sizeable discount on a pair of true wireless buds that are capable of permanently molding to the shape of your ear in 60 seconds, thus ensuring the best fit possible. (Note: a pop-up should display when you click the link that will offer you another $30 off on top of this discount if you sign up for marketing emails and agree to receive text messages from Ultimate Ears — not bad!)What’s... Continue reading…

Cutting through games like a hot Blade Continue reading…

In summer of 2010, I was broke and needed a job. Walking the sunbaked streets of Montreal’s downtown, I called up old friends hoping for a lead. I was in luck: a buddy told me a “porn company” was hiring customer service reps. “They pay 15 bucks an hour, and it’s super chill,” he said.Long before it was called MindGeek, the company was Manwin Canada, a name that, at the time, didn’t ring a bell. From an internet cafe, I sent in my CV. I had only ever held low-level service jobs. But I had edited a friend’s indie zine and put that at the top of my work experience.A couple days later, I got a call from an enthusiastic woman at Manwin who told me they were impressed by my résumé and asked if I would be interested in a more senior... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The latest beta of iOS 15.4 adds a fifth American voice for its Siri voice assistant. Apple’s user-facing interface simply calls it “Voice 5,” but iOS developer Steve Moser reports that its filename refers to the new voice as “Quinn.” The voice has arrived a little under a year after Apple added its last two American Siri voices, and stopped defaulting to using a female-sounding voice.Axios notes that the new voice sounds more gender-neutral than earlier Siri voices. Apple confirmed to the publication that it was recorded by a member of the LGBTQ+ community, though the company didn’t offer any further details on the voice actor’s identity. Last year’s voices were recorded by Black actors as part of the company’s “long-standing... Continue reading…

Google Hangouts’ logo. | Image: Google If you’re a Google Workspace user, the classic Hangouts messaging service will start to disappear next month as part of the transition to Google Chat. Google has announced that it’ll make Google Chat its default chat application beginning March 22nd, meaning users will be redirected to Chat when they try to visit Hangouts in Gmail on the web, or try to use the old Hangouts mobile apps.The shift from Google Hangouts to Google Chat is the latest step in Google’s constantly evolving messaging strategy, which generally gets more confusing the more you read about it. This particular migration kicked into gear in June 2020, and focusses on the messaging service integrated with Gmail. Google Chat should not be confused with GChat, the... Continue reading…

Apple’s AirTag trackers. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The latest beta for iOS 15.4 includes new features designed to prevent Apple’s AirTags from being used to stalk people, 9to5Mac reports. Most notably, there’s a new privacy notice during their setup which warns that using AirTags to track someone without their consent could be a crime, and that law enforcement can request details on an unknown AirTags’ owner. “AirTag is Linked To Your Apple ID,” the notice reads.Apple announced a collection of new safety features for its AirTags earlier this month, after a spate of news reports found they’d been used to track individuals without their consent. At the time, Apple didn’t provide an exact release date for the new safety features, noting only that they’d arrive “later this year.” ... Continue reading…

The iQOO 9 Pro. iQOO, Vivo’s gaming-focused sub-brand, has announced its latest flagship phones for launch in India, the iQOO 9 and 9 Pro. Like previous iQOO devices, they don’t really look like conspicuously gamer-style phones but are focused on performance nonetheless. iQOO is pushing that in its marketing through a tie-in partnership with BMW M Motorsport and a white model with three rally stripes.The iQOO 9 Pro has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, up to 12GB of RAM, and a 4,700mAh battery. The screen is a 6.78-inch 1440p 120Hz OLED panel, while the camera system includes a 50-megapixel ultrawide, a 16-megapixel portrait camera, and a 50-megapixel main sensor that uses gimbal-style stabilization, like other Vivo flagships. It can be charged at 120W... Continue reading…

Apple store employees will still have to wear masks, however. | Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images Apple will no longer require customers to wear masks in a number of Apple stores across the US, including in Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, and other states that have recently dropped local mask mandates, according to a report by Bloomberg. Employees at Apple stores will still be required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status, however.Apple is also resuming in-store classesBloomberg says Apple has since updated its website to indicate which stores require masks. When searching for a store using Apple’s retail store locator, the site will tell you if masks are “required,” “recommended,” or “optional” for vaccinated customers at specific locations. Masks are still required in states with more rigid guidelines,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Users are beginning to see Google’s new pitch-black dark mode, 9to5Google reported. The previous dark mode was a gray that was soothing on the eyes, but Google switched to a true black (#000000) that should really pop on OLED and AMOLED displays.Google announced the wider availability of dark mode earlier this month, but thus far, the release has been slow. Few people seem to have it, and 9to5Google reports that some users have received the new theme only to lose it. Google said it was testing a new dark mode in February of last year, and later announced that the new dark theme was available on desktop and mobile in a tweet earlier this month.

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge Frontier Communications is rolling out 2-gig speeds across its existing fiber-optic network, which currently spans six states, including Texas, Florida, California, Indiana, West Virginia, and Connecticut (via Light Reading). The plan comes with symmetrical 2-gig downloads and uploads for $149.99 / month, along with the free installation of a Wi-Fi 6E-compatible router and extender.The first 1,000 who sign up get a free Amazon Fire TVFrontier is offering a free 43-inch Amazon Fire TV and Logitech webcam for the first 1,000 customers who sign up — but it’s not clear if you’ll be getting the Omni or 4-Series Fire TV, and it’s just as vague about the Logitech webcam. The company is holding a promotion for its $79.99 / month single gig... Continue reading…

Image: Daft Punk on Twitter Daft Punk may have announced their split exactly one year ago today, but the famous electronic music duo made a surprise reappearance on the internet Tuesday and streamed footage from a 1997 concert on Twitch. However, if you missed the show, which features the duo before they wore their iconic metal helmets, it seems you won’t be able to catch it after the fact; Pitchfork reported the concert would only air once, and it’s currently not available on-demand on Twitch.The stream featured footage from a concert Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, the two people behind Daft Punk, played at a Los Angeles nightclub near the release of the band’s debut Homework album, according to Pitchfork. Daft Punk also announced a 25th... Continue reading…

Amazon’s new home robot Astro has been spotted in the wild. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Photos and videos of Amazon’s home robot Astro in the real world have begun to emerge as early adopters of the invite-only smart home gadget start to play around with their new bot.Surprisingly, despite the device starting to ship last November, only a couple of videos have emerged so far. Bob Rekieta uploaded this video of his Astro trundling off after being commanded to go to the den with a beer onboard (presumably that someone put there, as this thing does not have hands). Screenshot from YouTube video by Bob Rekieta Astro brings Celeste a beer. Then Astro is told to “find Celeste,” and the robot tilts its screen disarmingly while looking around with its circular “eyes.” It executes the command, finding... Continue reading…