The Verge

Amazon emphasizes that the new navigation options are all “within a thumb’s reach.” | Image: Amazon Amazon Photos on Android has been redesigned to make app navigation and sharing photos and videos easier for its users, bringing the service in line with a similar update that rolled out to iOS devices almost a year ago.Now, Amazon Photo users can search a photo gallery from the home screen singlehandedly — emphasizing navigation options all being “within a thumb’s reach.” Swiping up within the Amazon Photos gallery on your device will open a new control panel where users can find curated features to filter photos by object, place, or year. Image: Amazon The new home screen can be navigated using just your thumb and features a new control panel, accessible by swiping up within the gallery. Tapping the... Continue reading…

These glowing eyes will be your host. | Image: Netflix Netflix’s Triviaverse is a new “quick-hit trivia experience” that will begin rolling out on the streaming service on Tuesday. Games are fast, typically under five minutes, and you can play by yourself or head-to-head with another person. I got to check it out ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, and I think a lot of people will be loading it up for fierce trivia competitions with loved ones over the holidays.Here’s how it works. Guided by your host, a mysterious pair of spooky glowing eyes, you’ll pick if you’re playing solo or against someone else. Each round features an increasingly difficult series of trivia questions, and you’ll have a minute to answer as many as you can correctly. Image: Netflix Triviaverse ... Continue reading…

Image: Nvidia Nvidia paused the launch of its 12GB RTX 4080 graphics card last month, after a backlash over the naming and pricing. Now a well-known leaker says the “unlaunched” GPU will return as the RTX 4070 Ti in January, as Nvidia attempts to fix the confusing naming around two RTX 4080 cards that had totally different specs.Twitter user kopite7kimi says “the original RTX 4080 12GB will become RTX 4070 Ti instead,” and replied to questions on a January 2023 release date with a thumbs up. Kopite7kimi previously correctly predicted the specifications of the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, and that the RTX 4090 would require 450 watts of power.

Photo by Eric Piermont / AFP via Getty Images Google and the Renault Group are expanding their four-year-old partnership to include the development of an advanced software platform for future vehicles. This “software-defined vehicle” will be built on Google’s Android Automotive operating system and send data to the company’s cloud servers for processing, the companies announced.In 2018, Renault struck a deal with Google as part of a broader partnership between the tech giant and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, which collectively is one of the largest auto groups in the world. As part of the deal, the Alliance announced that it would adopt Google’s native car operating system, which offers built-in Assistant, Maps, and Play Store.Renault says it is appointing Google as... Continue reading…

For when your boss really wants to be on the big screen. | Image: The Verge File this one under collaborations we didn’t see coming: AMC is working with Zoom to turn some of its movie theaters into massive videoconferencing spaces for 75 to 150 people for when you really need your meeting to leave an impact. AMC will even provide “food and beverage offerings, possible movie viewings, and concierge-style personalized handling of meeting needs,” though for an additional cost, of course.The theater chain says that when companies are planning a gathering, they can book theaters across the country online, so their employees can have a similar experience on the call. When you book the service, you’ll get a three-hour block at whatever theaters you select, with AMC and Zoom providing “the necessary equipment for a... Continue reading…

Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I can’t change my screen name on Twitter. I can change my bio. But not my screen name. So although I was helpfully trying to describe myself as “Elizabeth Lopatto (parody)” that simply wasn’t possible. TFW Twitter is broken Now I hear Elon Musk fired about 50 percent of Twitter employees (though apparently he’s trying to hire some of them back). I also hear that lots of people have been changing their screen names to “Elon Musk” in order to get excommunicated. According to David Sacks, an investor in Musk’s deal to take Twitter private, “Twitter’s longstanding policy is that the account name must indicate a parody account.” Unfortunately, I can’t comply.Anyway Sacks, who is part of a “war room” of advisors helping... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile is reportedly considering building a multibillion-dollar fiber network that it would use to provide home internet service, according to Bloomberg. While the company started testing fiber internet last year, its main home-focused offering connects with 5G instead of other wired infrastructure like DSL or cable.Bloomberg reports that the carrier has been working with Citigroup to find financial partners for a potential $4 billion joint venture or “commercial partnership.” It seems like early days for the plan, and it’s possible nothing will come of it, but it still feels like a significant step for the wireless carrier, which has traditionally used and managed a very different kind of infrastructure.The same can’t be said for... Continue reading…

A screenshot from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. | Image: Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard’s 2023 plans for Call of Duty include the “next full premium release in the blockbuster annual series,” according to the company’s third-quarter earnings published Monday (pdf). While that wouldn’t be particularly notable most years given the regular fall release cycle of Call of Duty, Bloomberg reported in February that Activision Blizzard had planned to delay its planned annual entry for 2023.According to Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard was going to delay the 2023 title following the poor response to 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, which failed to meet the company’s projections. And Bloomberg had said in January that the company was considering a change in the annual releases.At the time, Activision Blizzard... Continue reading…

Lille Allen / The Verge Twitter’s daily user growth hit “all-time highs” during the first full week of Elon Musk owning the platform, according to a company document obtained by The Verge.Since Musk’s dramatic takeover, Twitter’s monetizable daily user (mDAU) growth has accelerated to more than 20 percent, while “Twitter’s largest market, the US, is growing even more quickly,” according to an internal FAQ obtained by The Verge that was shared with Twitter’s sales team on Monday to use in conversations with advertisers. Per the FAQ, Twitter has added more than 15 million mDAUs, “crossing the quarter billion mark” since the end of the second quarter, when it stopped reporting financials as a public company.If those numbers are in line with how Twitter reported... Continue reading…

Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images Wordle will now have its own dedicated editor to help make the hit guessing game word puzzles, The New York Times announced on Monday. Tracy Bennett will be the editor, and the game will have a word list curated by the NYT and “be programmed and tested” like its crosswords and the Spelling Bee game.The changes appear to mean that the NYT will be lining up some of its own solutions instead of relying on the long list of answers you could find if you knew where to look. However, it sounds like the game itself won’t be changing.“Wordle’s gameplay will stay the same, and answers will be drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words, with some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that’s fun,... Continue reading…

Insert chainsaw noise here. | Image: Netflix Netflix is planning a slate of Gears of War adaptations, the streaming service announced on Monday. First up is a “live action feature film,” then “an adult animated series,” and after that, there’s the “potential for more stories to follow,” Netflix said. Netflix will be working with The Coalition, the Vancouver-based Xbox Games Studio that manages the Gears of War franchise, to bring the franchise to the streaming service. There are no details about when the adaptations will be released.The announcement arrives on the 16th anniversary of the release of the first Gears of War game, which came out in 2006. Since then, the series has had multiple sequels (the latest being 2019’s Gears 5) and a handful of spinoffs, including one themed... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge You have an opportunity to buy a PlayStation 5 console ahead of the holidays if you jump into the queue at Sony’s online hardware shop. At the time of publication, it’s offering the $499.99 disc-based PS5 console (the more elusive $399.99 digital edition that lacks a disc drive has already sold out). Both consoles have the same 825GB of usable storage space, and they can be opened to install more fast storage via an M.2 SSD slot.Picking up a PS5 is a good idea, as it’s the best (and sometimes, only) way to play PlayStation-exclusive games. God of War Ragnorök, for example, releases this week and offers several high frame rate modes that all look spectacular in their own ways compared to the PS4 version. Check out our review, and if... Continue reading…

iFixit now stocks genuine parts for all sixth-gen Pixel phones | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Thanks to a partnership with Google, the right-to-repair champions at iFixit have begun stocking parts for Google’s midrange phone, the Pixel 6A. While iFixit has stocked genuine parts for just about all of Google’s Pixel phones since June, replacement parts for the Pixel 6A have only recently become available.While you can purchase the parts you need piecemeal through its site, iFixit also offers kits that bundle all of the necessary parts and tools you’ll need to solve a specific issue. The most expensive kit, priced at $99.99, is meant to repair the screen, but other kits are also available to replace the battery ($39.99), wide-angle camera ($56.99), and ultrawide camera ($36.99). The tools and other supplies provided can vary... Continue reading…

Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer. | Image: Netflix Spooky season 2022’s firmly behind us at this point, but Netflix’s choice to renew The Watcher and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story makes it seem like the streamer’s already looking forward to next year’s.Netflix announced today that it’s ordered more seasons of both The Watcher, Murphy’s series about a family being bedeviled by neighbors who are obsessed with their house, and Monster, Murphy’s serial killer anthology that kicked off with the dramatization of Jeffrey Dahmer’s 13-year-long killing spree. The Watcher has been renewed for a second season, while Netflix has ordered two more installments of Monster, which will delve into the lives of other notoriously monstrous figures. In a press release about the renewals,... Continue reading…

A flooded house following Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida, on Thursday, September 29th, 2022. | Image: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images Two new tools debuted today that allow US residents to see what hazards climate change might bring to their doorsteps in the future. Each online tool assesses harsh conditions that could potentially affect a property or neighborhood in the coming years — ranging from heatwaves to wildfires, floods, and more.Nonprofit research organization First Street Foundation announced today that a “Pro” edition of its Risk Factor tool is now available to the public. Before today, users could visit riskfactor.com, type in a specific address, and see ratings on how much risk that property faced from floods, severe heat, and wildfires. Now, users who choose to sign up for a free Risk Factor Pro account can unlock additional perks. These include access... Continue reading…

Vertical video is coming to a TV near you. (Vertical TVs next?) | Image: YouTube YouTube Shorts is working. That much Todd Sherman knows for sure. Sherman, the product manager behind YouTube’s endless-scrolling short-form TikTok competitor, is quick to quote the numbers: 1.5 billion users a month are watching Shorts, and they’re watching 30 billion videos a month. “And those numbers were back in the beginning of the year,” he says. “Things have grown since then.” Creators are monetizing; viewers are watching; everything seems to be trending in the right direction.The question really facing YouTube — now that it’s increasingly clear that the TikTok-style vertical scroll is part of the future of video, and now that Shorts seems likely to be part of that future — is how Shorts actually fits in. YouTube is already so... Continue reading…

Signal is rolling out its new Stories feature to iOS and Android users today, with desktop “coming soon.” | Image: Signal Stories are now available to everyone on Signal, allowing users of the encrypted instant messaging service to create and share images, videos, and texts that automatically expire after 24 hours.The feature was first announced last month on the Signal community forum, where it was initially made available to Signal’s beta testers. Now, the feature is rolling out on the latest version of Signal (v6.0) for all Android and iOS users today, with desktop support “coming soon.” Image: Signal Custom Stories can be created for situations where you only want to share content with a specific group of people. Signal users will have the flexibility to dictate who can see their stories by heading into Settings > Stories.... Continue reading…

Apple has settled its lawsuit against Simon Lancaster. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple has settled its lawsuit against Simon Lancaster, a former design architect, who the company accused of stealing trade secrets and sharing them with a journalist. The company filed its suit in March 2021, and the settlement order was approved by a judge this week.“Despite over a decade of employment at Apple, Lancaster abused his position and trust within the company to systematically disseminate Apple’s sensitive trade secret information in an effort to obtain personal benefits,” Apple wrote in its original complaint. “He used his seniority to gain access to internal meetings and documents outside the scope of his job’s responsibilities containing Apple’s trade secrets, and he provided these trade secrets to his outside media... Continue reading…

Carrie-Anne Moss. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Lucasfilm has outlined the main cast for its upcoming Star Wars thriller The Acolyte, and it includes names involved in iconic projects like Squid Game and The Matrix. In addition to previously announced star Amandla Stenberg, the show will also feature Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Charlie Barnett, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Carrie-Anne Moss.There’s no info on what roles they’ll actually take on, but the show itself will take place during the High Republic era of Star Wars lore. Here’s the synopsis:

Image: Neflix The latest trailer for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery shows off what might be the most extra murder mystery party in history. It involves a tech billionaire inviting his closest “disruptor” friends to an island getaway before things inevitably turn deadly — forcing detective Benoit Blanc into action.Mostly it’s just an excuse to see how much fun the cast is having. Knives Out star Daniel Craig is joined by a group including Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista, and everyone looks like they’re having a blast.Netflix originally announced that it had scooped up the next two Knives Out sequels last year in a very expensive deal and released the first... Continue reading…

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge I am firmly in the camp that learning about hacking and, by extension, computers generally should be fun. Much of the modern world purposefully attempts to obfuscate how these things work, functionally turning technology into a huge bummer. And if you want to learn more about networking and Wi-Fi, it can be hard to know where to start.What if technology was fun again? What if it was inviting? What if it had a little kitty cat on it? Enter the HakCat WiFi Nugget.What is it?Like the DSTIKE Deauther watch, the WiFi Nugget is an open-source tool that tries to make the process of learning hacking fun and approachable. Designed by Hak5 hosts Kody Kinzie and Alex Lynd, the device has a tiny OLED screen, some buttons, and the face of a cute... Continue reading…

Airbnb guests can soon filter pricing for accommodations to include all fees before taxes, avoiding any unexpected additional charges on the final price. | Image: Airbnb Prices on Airbnb are set to get more transparent following a planned update to the platform’s search function.Guests will soon be able to filter their search results by the total cost of the stay before taxes, which will include additional compulsory charges such as cleaning fees. The appearance of these fees separate from nightly rates has long been criticized for deceptively making accommodations appear more affordable. Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky shared the announcement on Twitter along with a video demonstrating how the planned “display total price” switch can be enabled to display the total cost of nightly rates and fees, with that price displaying on search results, map, price filter, and individual listing pages.

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is one of the many games that Target has included in its buy two, get one free deal. | Image credit: Ubisoft / Nintendo Target’s promotion that will set you up with three video games for the price of two is something that gamers shouldn’t miss. If you buy two full-price games, you’ll get a third of equal or lesser value for free. The retailer is including several physical copies of games in the deal, including recent ones like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II for PlayStation or Xbox, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope for the Nintendo Switch, Elden Ring for PlayStation and Xbox, and many more. Sadly, God of War Ragnarök isn’t included in the promotion, but other PlayStation hits are, including Gran Turismo 7 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.As we get closer to Black Friday later this month, don’t let too many of these money-saving opportunities escape you. A... Continue reading…

Telegram Premium subscribers now have access to voice-to-text transcription for video messages. | Image: Telegram Telegram has updated its app with new features and visual updates, including the addition of voice-to-text transcription for videos, separate topics in large group chats, and “Collectible Usernames.”Video messaging transcription can be accessed by tapping the “→A” button on the bottom-right of a video, but won’t be available for everyone — much like Telegram’s existing voice message transcription, the feature is restricted to Telegram Premium users. A Telegram Premium subscription costs $4.99 a month and comes with additional benefits such as faster downloads, no ads, and a larger file upload limit of 4GB. Image: Telegram No time to watch videos from your friends? Telegrams' voice-to-text transcription feature... Continue reading…

The deadline to deliver 100,000 electric vans has been pushed to 2030. Amazon’s fleet of Rivian-made electric delivery vans is growing. Since first rolling out earlier this year, the retail giant’s new zero-tailpipe emission vehicles have made more than 5 million deliveries in the US, with its fleet-size exceeding 1,000 EDVs (electric delivery vans).That’s still only a fraction of the company’s overall transportation fleet, which is comprised 30,000 Amazon-branded delivery vehicles and 20,000 branded trailers. But the electric-portion is growing, with Rivian eventually expecting to deliver 100,000 vans to the company.That’s still only a fraction of the company’s overall transportation fleetStarting in July, the EDVs first rolled out in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, San Diego, and Seattle.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s pushing back the launch of its new Blue subscription with verification until after this week’s midterm elections, according to a report from The New York Times. According to an internal memo viewed by the outlet, a manager working on the project said they’ve “made the decision to move the launch of this release to Nov. 9, after the election.”Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, announced the new $7.99 per month Twitter Blue earlier this month with perks like fewer ads, search priority, the ability to post longer videos, and the ability to pay your way to verification. Under Musk’s new rules, anyone can get a verified checkmark if they pay for Blue, sparking concern over whether users will be able to tell real accounts from fake... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After Apple issued several copyright claims, YouTube took down an archival channel containing hundreds of decades-old videos from past Apple Worldwide Developer Conferences (WWDC). Brendan Shanks, the owner of the Apple WWDC Videos channel, says his account’s been permanently disabled after receiving well over three copyright strikes — the maximum number of violations you can incur before YouTube removes your account.In screenshots of emails shared by Shanks, Apple issued a number of takedown requests against his videos, some of which dated back to the early 2000s. Shanks says he still has all the original video files and descriptions, and is currently trying to get the content over to the Internet Archive. Apple didn’t immediately... Continue reading…

Image: Riot Games This year’s edition of the League of Legends World Championship featured Lil Nas X, Jackson Wang, and some impressive technology. Continue reading…

The best deal on the best earbuds is a hard combo to beat. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge There’s no telling what another day might bring — especially if you too are glued to our coverage of a certain social media hellscape — but you can rest assured that The Verge’s deals team is always on the lookout for ways to help you save, both in the form of early Black Friday deals or whatever we can scrounge up for you on a random Saturday.And we’ve got some bangers for you this week because Sony’s WF-1000XM4 earbuds are on sale for an all-time low of around $178 at Amazon and Target until tomorrow. That’s around $100 off their regular price of $278, and much better than the typical $30 discount we see.The WF-1000XM4 frequently come up when we’re talking earbuds, namely because they’re just that good. The excellent all-rounders... Continue reading…

Image: Nissan The Specialty Equipment Market Association, or SEMA, held its annual conference in Las Vegas this week. Billed as one of the biggest car shows in the world, the event typically brings together more than 135,000 attendees in the automotive aftermarket industry to see the newest trends in vehicle repairs and modifications.And this year, EVs were a particular focus. The event featured a dedicated space for EVs, labeled “SEMA Electrified,” and according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, it was 740 percent larger compared to 2019, when it was first debuted. Several major automakers showed up with a bunch of unique EV concepts in tow. Here are some of the ones that stood out the most.Ford Image: Ford I... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard In the perfect prelude to the Overwatch League 2022 grand finals, Blizzard has revealed Overwatch 2’s newest character. Ramattra is the game’s 36th hero, and his abilities and story seem like they’ll make for the most interesting addition to the roster yet.Ramattra is the leader of Null Sector, a group of sentient robots called omnics committed to the liberation of their people by any means necessary. In Overwatch’s overarching story (yes, there is one) Null Sector is one of the biggest baddies, responsible for touching off the war between robots and humans that became the instigating event for the creation of the Overwatch task force.Ramattra is a tank like you’ve never seen before. Rather than being the kind of tank that shields... Continue reading…

Imagine: mounting your phone with magnets, and charging it at 15W at the same time. | Image: Apple A mere two years after Apple introduced MagSafe for iPhones, we're finally getting the accessory that probably should've launched with it: a magnetic car mount that's also capable of actually charging your phone. As 9to5Mac spotted, Belkin has announced its Boost Charge Pro Wireless Car Charger With MagSafe, which is available for pre-order on the Apple store.I know what some of you may be thinking: “wait, Amazon is flooded with MagSafe car chargers, and they’re nowhere even close to $100. What makes this one special?” The answer is that this one is actually MagSafe, where the rest are MagSafe compatible. That means that they use a ring of magnets to hold your phone, and standard Qi charging that can’t pump as much power into your... Continue reading…

I guess we’ll see. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter just laid off about half of its workforce, but the company’s “core moderation capabilities” are still in place, the company’s head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth said in a tweet thread Friday evening.The layoffs affected “approximately” 15 percent of Twitter’s Trust and Safety group, “with our frontline moderation staff experiencing the least impact,” according to Roth. The company restricted access to some internal tools last week for “security reasons” — Roth didn’t say exactly when, but that would put the timing around when Elon Musk took over the company — but “most” content moderators who did frontline reviews weren’t impacted, and access to those tools will be “fully restored in the coming days.”Daily volume of... Continue reading…