The Verge

Illustration by Ana Kova New Jersey police may have used blood samples taken from babies to investigate crimes, according to public defenders in the state.According to a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender (OPD), the practice came to light after a case in which New Jersey State Police successfully subpoenaed a testing lab for a blood sample drawn from a child. Police then performed DNA analysis on the blood sample that reportedly linked the child’s father to a crime committed more than 25 years ago.The suspect then became a client of the OPD, which alerted the office to the techniques used to identify the man. The lawsuit, filed jointly by the OPD and the New Jersey Monitor, now seeks to compel the state of New Jersey to disclose... Continue reading…

Emergency services fight fires on July 19th, 2022, in Wennington, England. A series of grass fires broke out around the British capital amid an intense heatwave. | Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images Climate change made the record-smashing heatwave in the UK last week at least 10 times more likely, new research has found. The analysis was published yesterday by the World Weather Attribution initiative, a collaboration of scientists from universities and research institutes around the globe.“In a climate unaffected by human-induced climate change, it would be virtually impossible for temperatures in the UK to reach 40°C but climate change is already making UK heatwaves more frequent, intense and long-lasting,” Mark McCarthy, science manager of the National Climate Information Centre, said in a Met Office press release.The Met Office declared, for the first time, a “Red” heat warning for “exceptional heat” in parts of England for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Bad news for the (presumably few) people out there who have relied on Amazon Drive for storing their important files in the cloud: Amazon is shutting down the service. On the plus side, you’ve got well over a year to figure out an alternative and get everything moved over.The company says Amazon Drive will no longer be supported as of December 31st, 2023. That’s when access will be completely cut off. Uploads are going away earlier and won’t be accepted as of January 31st. The Amazon Drive apps for Android and iOS will be taken down on October 31st, 2022.“We will continue to provide customers the ability to safely back up, share, and organize photos and videos with Amazon Photos,” Amazon said in an email to customers. But for all... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge In early May, the Meta executive in charge of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, shared some news: the social media app’s main feed would start looking dramatically different to some users.For those in a small test group, the feed they’d been using for a decade would be replaced with an “immersive viewing experience” containing full-screen photos and videos with many posts coming from people they weren’t following. In other words, Instagram would start to look and feel even more like TikTok, the short-form video app that Meta sees as its fiercest competition.“Let me know what you think down in the comments below,” said the ever-earnest Mosseri. And with the patience of a parent showing their child both sides of an argument, he invited Instagram... Continue reading…

Image: Analogue The world’s first video game is coming to an Analogue Pocket near you. Today, Analogue announced that it’s launching Spacewar!, a game originally designed for the PDP-1 minicomputer that predates Pong by a full decade, on the Pocket as a part of its larger strategy to bring pioneering video games into the modern era.The original Spacewar! was created in 1962 by a cadre of engineers led by Steve Russell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Using a PDP-1 minicomputer and a 1024 x 1024 pixel CRT display, Russell and his colleagues programmed a game in which two spacecraft duke it out in the gravitational well of a star. Two controllers were created for the game featuring switches for maneuvering and buttons that were designed to... Continue reading…

Fina Strazza, Riley Lai Nelet, and Camryn Jones in Paper Girls. | Image: Anjali Pinto/Prime Video The live-action adaptation plays things a little too safe Continue reading…

The Analogue Pocket. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge OS v1.1 for Analogue’s Pocket retro handheld will available in beta on Friday, and it adds features like a new reference tool to learn more about your games and save states so that you can more easily pick up a game where you left off.The reference tool, called Library, will read a game’s cartridge and then show you details about that title, including the system, developer, publisher, and even the game revision. Analogue has an even bigger vision for Library down the line: it wants it to become a “scholarly cataloging of the entirety of video game history” that you can search through. This evolved version of the Library is expected to be available in September, according to a timeline from Analogue.The save states, called Memories,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every Wednesday and Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors make sense of the week’s most important technology news. On Fridays, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.The show starts with the biggest news from the week — Instagram and the controversy around the changes to its app. On our Wednesday show, we discussed Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s response to criticism of the changes and overall direction to make the app feel more like its competitor TikTok. The following day, Instagram walked back its changes, with Mosseri saying “we definitely... Continue reading…

Image: Supernatural / Within Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan overruled staff advice to intervene in a Meta virtual reality studio acquisition, Bloomberg reports. Sources reportedly told Bloomberg that staff had been “recommending against” suing to block Meta’s acquisition of Within, which makes the popular VR fitness app Supernatural. The FTC voted 3 to 2 in favor of the suit earlier this week, splitting respectively along Democratic and Republican party lines.Bloomberg’s article doesn’t detail the substance of the disagreement over Meta’s Supernatural acquisition, although it does note that “each of the commissioners had the opportunity to test out Meta’s Oculus product, Within’s Supernatural, and Meta’s Beat Saber.” But the report would emphasize that... Continue reading…

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Oliver Jackson-Cohen in Surface. | Image: Apple While Apple TV Plus is probably best known for its comfort food comedies and big-budget genre swings, the streaming service has also steadily built up a lineup of very intense thrillers. The latest is Surface — not to be confused with Suspicion, Severance, or Servant, also available on the service — which takes the idea of a mystery to its most extreme conclusion. The early episodes are almost entirely made up of questions and misdirection. I can’t even tell if the show is even any good at this point — but I know I need to keep watching to find out.Surface is centered on Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who you might remember from Loki, Doctor Who, and the best episode of Black Mirror), five months removed from an accident that caused... Continue reading…

Our readers can buy a year of PlayStation Plus Essential for just $40 from Eneba today. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’re one of the lucky ones who have managed to nab a PlayStation 5, you’ll be pleased to hear that luck is once again working in your favor. Right now, Verge readers can buy a year of PlayStation Plus Essential service from Eneba for around $40 instead of $59.99 when they use promo code VERGEssentials at checkout. Note that the price might fluctuate by a few dollars and cents on Eneba’s website, but the final sale price at checkout should be under $40.PlayStation Plus Essential grants access to online multiplayer and monthly PS4 and PS5 titles, which you can download at no additional cost. It also comes with PlayStation Store discounts, exclusive add-on content, and 100GB of cloud storage for saved games. Even better, PS5 owners... Continue reading…

The latest music video from K-pop stars Blackpink has the band dropping onto a battle royale island. As part of a recent collaboration with PUBG Mobile — which recently featured its first-ever in-game concert — Blackpink released a new video that takes place inside of the game’s world. It features virtual avatars of the band as they sing in post-apocalyptic landscapes and ride motorcycles across abandoned highways. The song itself, called “Ready For Love,” was teased during the group’s virtual concert appearance.The virtual concert and video follow in the footsteps of other in-game performances, most notably those in Fortnite, which has featured the likes of Travis Scott and Ariana Grande. But it’s also part of a slowly burgeoning... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images We have a schedule for the Delaware Court of Chancery trial over Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk for attempting to exit his agreement to buy the company for $44 billion. Earlier this week, the Musk team proposed an October 17th start date, which Twitter agreed to provided that the trial could be wrapped up in five days. Now, Judge Kathaleen McCormick has issued an official schedule, with the trial taking place from October 17th until October 21st.While lawyers for each side initially fought over potential start dates — Twitter was pursuing a September trial while Musk’s lawyers sought something in 2023 — there’s now one element everyone can agree on, and reporters can start scheduling their fall vacations in Delaware. If only it... Continue reading…

Sony’s PS5 is a console you can accessorize more than most. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5 is becoming more available than it once was, but even with the increased frequency of restocks, Sony’s latest console remains a chore to get a hold of. If you’ve been savvy enough to secure a PS5 of your own, however, getting the right accessories can help ensure you get the most out of your new console.From headsets and spare DualSense controllers to M.2 SSDs that allow you to easily expand your console’s storage capacity — that’s a thing now, after all — these are just a few PS5 accessories we suggest picking up, some of which occasionally go on discount.Extra controllersFirst off, there’s the controller. Every new PS5 includes a white DualSense controller. Unlike the last-gen DualShock controllers, the DualSense... Continue reading…

How much do you want to invest in a good night’s sleep? Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In recent weeks, TikTok has started testing offering a small collection of mini-games within its app, TechCrunch reports. There are nine games available as part of this initiative, which can be added to a video before it’s uploaded by using the “Add link” option and selecting “MiniGame.” Viewers can play a linked game by tapping the link that appears underneath the account’s username while a video is playing. When playing a game, there’s the option to record gameplay and subsequently post it as a TikTok.A TikTok spokesperson confirmed the pilot in a statement given to TechCrunch: “We’re always looking at ways to enrich our platform and regularly test new features and integrations that bring value to our community. Currently, we’re... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Why the low-power mesh networking protocol is poised to become the backbone of the connected home Continue reading…

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images I’m sorry for what I’m about to do here, but let’s talk about some divorced men. I think Sergey Brin is attempting to smear his ex-wife, and I think he’s using his history with Elon Musk to do it.Musk allegedly had an affair with Brin’s wife, leading to their divorce. (ALLEGEDLY.) Then, at a party, Musk fell to his knees, begging for Brin’s forgiveness, “according to people with knowledge of the incident,” The Wall Street Journal writes. What a story!I notice that Brin’s still duking it out with his soon-to-be ex-wifeExcept: I find this sourcing weird. How many people? Two sources are different from 10 sources on this, or 30, you know? And what kind of knowledge? Were they there? I understand wanting to protect one’s sources,... Continue reading…

Affleck at the premiere of Batman v Superman. | Photo by Hector Vivas/LatinContent via Getty Images Ben Affleck is reprising his role as Batman in the forthcoming Aquaman sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. His return was announced by the film’s star Jason Momoa in an Instagram post, featuring a selfie of the two actors. “Reunited,” Momoa wrote. “bruce and arthur. love u and miss u Ben WB studio tours just explored the backlot alright. busted on set all great things coming AQUAMAN 2 all my aloha j.”Alongside the two images, Momoa posted a short video of a Warner Bros. backlot tour apparently discovering Affleck’s involvement in the film. “Well it’s not a fucking secret anymore!” Momoa jokes, before showing the Batman actor in his trailer.

The Z Flip 4. | Image: Evan Blass / 91 Mobiles We’re still over a week away from the official launch of Samsung’s latest foldables — the Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 — so naturally it’s time for the devices’ designs to leak in full online.Leaker Evan Blass has published a bevy of apparently official images over at 91Mobiles, showing the two phones from almost every angle, including in both their folded and unfolded orientations. There appears to be three color options for the Z Fold 4 (black, beige, and gray) and four for the Z Flip 4 (black, gold, blue, and purple).If you were hoping for radically different designs for either device compared to last year’s models, though, you’re likely to be disappointed. Both appear to have inherited fundamentally similar looks, right down to camera... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony has cut its annual profit outlook, warning of weaker PlayStation game sales. The forecast comes as Sony revealed it shipped 2.4 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its recent quarter, up only 4 percent from the 2.3 million shipped during the same period last year. PS5 lifetime shipments have now reached 21.7 million.While hardware sales are slightly up year over year, software sales have plummeted 26 percent. In an investor call, Sony blamed the game slump on a lack of big PlayStation titles this year compared to 2021 and less time spent playing games in general — backed up by monthly active PlayStation Network users dropping 3 percent to 102 million. Sony released its exclusive Gran Turismo 7 and Horizon Forbidden West titles... Continue reading…

The company’s really pushing Shorts right now. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is trying to make it even easier for creators to turn their longer videos into Shorts formatted for the platform's TikTok competitor, by adding a new “Edit into a Short” tool to its iOS and Android app. It’ll let creators select up to 60 seconds from one of their videos and bring the clip into the Shorts editor, right from the YouTube app on iOS or Android. From there, they can add things like text, filters, as well as additional videos shot with the Shorts camera or pulled from their photo library.In an announcement post for the feature, YouTube says that the finished Short will link to the full video it was clipped from, which could help make Shorts an ideal promotional tool for the creator’s longer content — a key incentive... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge People frequently express their amazement that Twitter is free, but for some people, it isn’t — Twitter Blue launched last year in several countries, tacking on a few extra features for anyone willing to pay $2.99 per month. Today the service told subscribers it’s increasing the price (via Matt Navara), and in the US, it’s jumping up to $4.99 per month. That probably won’t break the pockets of information addicts who are choosing to pay for a service that still includes advertisements in their feed, but it might be enough to make people ask themselves if it’s worthwhile.The add-ons in the Twitter Blue package range from extremely useful (an undo tweet window to fix typos, a customizable navigation bar, a list of Top Articles shared by... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge 160-plus hours into Elden Ring, I’m sure of one thing: the single most annoying thing about my Steam Deck is its whiny fan. And now, I’m so happy to report there’s a way to fix it. It takes roughly 15 minutes and $30 — depending on where you live — to install a replacement fan from iFixit.Recently, the repair company finally got a large shipment of those fans, and I bought one right away. Now, my Steam Deck’s tiny screech is gone.Here’s how I did it:

Facebook News tab (2019) | Image: Facebook As you’ve probably heard, Facebook and Instagram will lean heavily into AI-curated creator content going forward, and the News Tab project Facebook launched a few years ago doesn’t seem to be a big part of that. As reported by Axios and confirming earlier rumors, Facebook’s parent company Meta is telling publishers it no longer plans to pay for the content it has been aggregating in the news tab.According to the report, Meta spent about $105 million in three-year content deals for news (plus another $90 million for news videos), including $10 million for the Wall Street Journal, $20 million for the New York Times, and $3 million for CNN in arrangements that sometimes included unlocked access to paywalled content. The Wall Street... Continue reading…

Valve’s new rules will prohibit text like this on an image. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Valve is making a big change to the way developers can market their games on Steam. Beginning September 1st, graphical assets developers use in their store listings will only be able to include game artwork, the game’s name, and any official subtitle. Images won’t be able to include review scores, award names or logos, text that markets discounts, or text promoting a different product.The new rules could prove to be a drastic shift for some developers, as they may rely on reviews or awards on their images in an effort to stand out from the humongous number of games available on Steam. Even some developers of well-known games will have to make changes — while writing this article, I saw promotional images of Hades and It Takes Two on... Continue reading…

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard is facing another walkout of sorts; this time, it’s players in the regional Overwatch Contenders tournament. After a competitive ruling ended a match prematurely, players in the European Overwatch Contenders Summer Series tournament refused to play.In the off-week of the Overwatch League as teams rest up from the beautiful chaos of the Midseason Madness tournament last week, Blizzard ran an Overwatch Contenders tournament to fill the time. Just like Midseason Madness, the Overwatch Contenders Summer Series is a double-elimination tournament with a winner’s bracket and a loser’s bracket. Today’s European winner’s bracket final — the game that would determine which team would go on to the grand final and which team would fall to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple narrowly outperformed Wall Street expectations with its Q3 earnings on Thursday afternoon, reporting a slight year-over-year increase in iPhone revenue and a 12 percent jump for its services division. But elsewhere, the company’s numbers sagged: Mac revenues were down by 10 percent — a drop that CEO Tim Cook attributed to supply chain constraints and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. But it also matches an industry-wide trend of PC sales being on the decline.Earlier this month, Apple released a redesigned MacBook Air powered by the company’s M2 chip — but that didn’t factor into this quarter’s results. The new Air followed the launch of the upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro in June. The Mac Studio desktop, Studio Display, M1-powered... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The COVID-19 pandemic made personal computers more important than ever, and sales exploded two years in a row. But the good times for PC and chipmakers now seem to be fading fast. Last quarter’s slump in Chromebook sales has made way for an even bigger decline that’s hitting Windows manufacturers as well, and today, chipmaker Intel has revealed a 25 percent decline in consumer chip sales. It says that a “near-term cyclical slowdown” is shrinking the total market for PCs by approximately 10 percent this year.“Some of our largest customers are reducing inventory levels at a rate not seen in the last decade,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said on today’s earnings call.Earlier this month, Gartner reported that the global PC market had already... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon’s growth has slowed down in recent quarters after surging during the pandemic, but the company is expecting things to pick up soon. In its second quarter earnings release on Thursday, Amazon said that its net sales grew just 7 percent year over year but that they’ll go up by an estimated 13 to 17 percent in the third quarter — which will account for sales from the company’s massive Prime Day shopping extravaganza.Sales growth has been on a steady decline for more than a year at Amazon:

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge After two straight days of afternoon public restocks for the PlayStation 5, Sony is going for the three-peat. The console maker has opened up another public queue to buy PS5 consoles, and you can join in right now. Pending availability after you get through the queue, you may have the chance to buy a standard PS5 for $499.99, a Digital Edition for $399.99, or a bundle of either with a digital voucher for a download of Horizon Forbidden West for an additional $50 (which is a discount, by the way). I’d wager on the bundles having the most availability.We have seen the last two restocks from Sony remain open for a few hours, with many people having easy success buying consoles. You’ll just need to sign in with your PlayStation Network... Continue reading…

Image: Outerloop Games The Annapurna Interactive Showcase 2022 took a somewhat different approach to the video game publisher summer showcase format. Instead of a fire hose of trailers, sizzle reels, and gameplay videos, Annapurna slowed it down a bit, doing all of the above while also taking time to show off the people who are making some of the best indie games in the industry.Here are the highlights of this year’s show.Thirsty SuitorsThirsty Suitors from Outerloop Games features a skateboard-loving South Asian woman named Jala, who, after leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, must now duel the owners of those hearts while trying and failing to live up to her parents’ expectations. We get our first in-depth glimpse of gameplay, highlighting all the... Continue reading…

It’s making several changes to the Play Store. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is trying to cut down on annoying, unskippable ads in Android apps and overall bad behavior in the Play Store (via TechCrunch). The company announced wide-ranging policy changes on Wednesday that update rules across several categories to be more specific, clamping down on loopholes developers may have used to skirt existing rules.One of the changes that will impact your everyday phone usage the most is for ads. Google says its updated guidelines, which will go into effect on September 30th, help ensure “high quality experiences for users when they are using Google Play apps.” The new policy tells developers that apps can’t pop up a full-screen ad that won’t let you close it after 15 seconds. There are some exceptions — if you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It might get cheaper and easier to buy popular tech products, like gaming consoles and graphics cards, after Congress approved $52 billion in funding for domestic semiconductor manufacturing.In a 243-187 vote on Thursday, the House passed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act to strengthen US science and technology innovation. The bill, a Biden administration priority, includes $52 billion in subsidies to encourage chip manufacturers to build out semiconductor fabrications plants, or “fabs,” in the US.After months of negotiations between the House and Senate, Thursday’s approval resolves the looming threat of chipmakers reconsidering plans to build US plants. Earlier this month, the groundbreaking ceremony for a $20 billion Intel... Continue reading…

Kristen Radtke / The Verge Say goodbye to the TikTok-style feed and at least some of those recommendations Continue reading…

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images It’s been a long road for the “Build Back Better” plan — but Wednesday night, after over a year of both public and private negotiations, we finally saw a proposal that could actually clear Congress. Renamed the “Inflation Reduction Act,” the new Sen. Manchin-endorsed proposal would raise roughly $740 billion in revenue through a combination of tax increases and price negotiation — and divert $370 billion of that money to fighting climate change. If it makes it through Congress, the bill would be the largest climate spending package in US history — and with alarming heatwaves in progress all around the world, it couldn’t come at a better time.But while the sheer volume of the package is striking, it’s even more interesting where the... Continue reading…

SoulCycle woke up and chose violence with this campaign. | Image: SoulCycle, Equinox SoulCycle isn’t pulling any punches with its latest campaign that offers Peloton users free in-person classes... if they trade in their bikes. The move comes while Peloton is still dealing with excess inventory after misjudging post-quarantine demand.“We’re dead set on seeing you back with your pack, so we’re giving you the opportunity to trade in your bike for the equivalent value of in-studio classes at SoulCycle,” reads SoulCycle’s Souls Reunited campaign site.According to SoulCycle, that translates to 47 classes added directly to the user’s SoulCycle account. The offer is open to the first 100 people to trade in their bikes so long as they live in the contiguous United States. That said, there are a few other caveats. Users must... Continue reading…

John Allen, the host of hit podcast MrBallen. In each episode of MrBallen, series host John Allen appears in the center of the frame, usually wearing a plaid shirt with a couple of buttons undone and a baseball cap turned backward, and slowly talks viewers through the events of a “strange, dark, and mysterious” true crime story. Episodes with titles like “What I saw in my room still haunts me” and “Real-life ‘ghost ship’ has a SECRET,” bring in more than 40 million monthly views — a massive volume that still is not enough to put Allen in the upper echelon of YouTube influencers. But in podcasting? He’s a star.Steven Cohen, a longtime audio industry sales executive, was shocked when he dug into the stats for the podcast version of MrBallen, which launched in February. The show was... Continue reading…

Google’s premium buds have more features — without deal-breaking flaws Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images JetBlue and Spirit announced a $3.8 billion merger agreement after a previous deal between Spirit and Frontier Airlines fell apart Wednesday. The newly merged airline will be the fifth-largest in the US in a potential challenge to the dominance of the “Big Four” carriers.Spirit’s shareholders rejected the deal in favor of the more generous offer from JetBlue. The two airlines, JetBlue and Frontier, have been courting Spirit for months in the hopes of creating a bigger budget airline that could have the effect of bringing down airline ticket prices.But it’s been a rocky road to today’s announcement. In February, Frontier announced its plans to buy Spirit in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.9 billion. But JetBlue had its own designs... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram will begin asking some US users for race and ethnicity data in order to study how different groups experience the platform, the company says in a blog post published today.A random assortment of Instagram users will get a pop-up in the app that leads to a survey asking for their race and ethnicity, hosted by the research group YouGov. Answering the questions is optional, and Instagram says responses “will not limit the experiences that you have on Instagram, including impacting your reach or how people engage with your content in any way.”In a video message posted today, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said collecting the data will help the platform look for ways to improve Instagram for users.“If we’re going to make sure that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify has announced another new way to mix and match music on its service with your friends. Its new Friends Mix playlist type aims to get you out of your comfort zone with tracks that your friends have been listening to. Unlike Blend, one of its other personalized playlist types that merges a few of your recent faves with some from a pal, Friends Mix is meant to be like getting a big mixtape full of recommendations that all of your friends would give you.This new playlist type is available globally to premium Spotify subscribers and to those who use its free offering, though it’s currently limited to the iOS and desktop apps (I guess Spotify decided that Android users are friend-less). In order to actually see a Friends Mix within... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From Elon Musk Twitter impersonators to dubious Discord chats, cryptocurrency and non-fungible token (NFT) scammers have stolen billions of dollars from investors over the last few years. But now, politicians and law enforcement are turning their attention to Apple and Google — companies that operate huge app stores — and how they review fraudulent crypto apps.In letters to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) asked that the companies explain their processes in reviewing and approving crypto trading and wallet apps for download on their app stores. Brown’s inquiry follows a recently released FBI report warning that 244 investors have been scammed out of $42.7 million from fraudulent... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Senator Joe Manchin has had a change of heart about electric vehicles.The West Virginia Democrat, who previously described federal tax credits for EVs as “ludicrous,” announced a surprise deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a reconciliation package that includes $369 billion for climate and energy measures aimed at slashing carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030.The bill would allow car buyers to continue to claim the current $7,500 federal tax credit for the purchase of “clean vehicles” — the new preferred phrase describing plug-in hybrid, battery-electric, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, replacing the old phrase “new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle.”It would also remove the current 200,000 vehicle cap... Continue reading…

PS-specific buttons, Xbox analog stick arrangement. Sony has enlisted accessory company Backbone to make a PlayStation-ified version of the excellent Backbone One mobile controller for iPhone that’s available now from Backbone and Best Buy. It gives off PS Vita vibes, except somehow, Sony was okay with Backbone keeping its Xbox-like analog stick arrangement. The $99.99 controller, which can be pulled open to fit iPhones as small as the 13 Mini and as big as the 13 Pro Max, comes in a new mix of white and black, just like the PS5’s DualSense controller. Sure, this is a pricier workaround than strapping one of Sony’s controllers to your phone, but it’s a more elegant-looking way to play PlayStation games via Remote Play, Sony’s mobile app that streams games from your PS4 or PS5 console.I... Continue reading…

Image: Findaway Spotify’s purchase of Findaway, a platform that allows users to create, distribute, and monetize their own audiobooks, cost it €117 million, or around $123 million USD, the company revealed today. Findaway will provide the infrastructure for what will become the third pillar of Spotify’s business. The streaming service first announced the acquisition last November.“We believe that audiobooks, in their many different forms, will be a massive opportunity,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told investors at a presentation last month. “And just as we’ve done in podcasting, expect us to play to win.”Audiobook features are coming “quite imminently”Spotify’s acquisition of Findaway is reminiscent of when it bought Anchor in 2019. Like Anchor, Findaway... Continue reading…

China’s Long March 5B rocket ahead of launch | Photo credit should read CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images Sometime this weekend, a massive booster from a Chinese rocket will begin an uncontrolled fall back to Earth from space — and because of its considerable size and weight, parts of it may survive the descent through our planet’s atmosphere and hit the ground. The chances of the rocket hitting anyone and killing them are exceedingly rare, but a similar falling Chinese rocket last year sparked major concern worldwide, which means this rocket will probably do the same.The booster is part of a Long March 5B rocket, which launched on July 24th, sending a new module into orbit for China’s growing Tiangong space station. After the giant rocket reaches space, it sheds a fairly massive part of itself: its core booster. This booster sticks around... Continue reading…

The first solid discount we’ve seen on the latest MacBook Pro | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Summer solstice has come and gone, which means that a new scholastic year is just around the corner. Thankfully, several of our top picks for laptops suited for students are currently on sale. In addition to those deals, the M2-equipped MacBook Pro just got its first significant discount at Best Buy. Normally priced at $1,499.99, the 512GB configuration of Apple’s latest model of the MacBook Pro is discounted to $1,299.99 at Best Buy, its lowest price yet. Also, the 256GB model that typically sells for $1,299.99 is down to just $1,099.99 at Best Buy.It may look the same as the older versions of the MacBook Pro — Touch Bar and all — but it houses the faster M2 processor. While the tired design and lackluster webcam may not be what every... Continue reading…

Nintendo has announced a release date — August 4th — for the next DLC courses coming to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This second wave includes eight courses, the same as what we saw when the first wave launched in March. They’re mostly based around tracks found in previous Mario Kart games, but there’s one that’s brand new: an ice cream-themed course called Sky-High Sundae.Running down the returning tracks from previous games, there’s Kalimari Desert from the N64 version of Mario Kart, Mario Circuit 3 from the SNES, Mushroom Gorge from the Wii, Waluigi Pinball from the DS, Snow Land from the GBA, and New York Minute and Sydney Sprint, which both previously appeared in the mobile-focused title Mario Kart Tour. Nintendo’s announcement notes that... Continue reading…

Just a wee phone with massive cameras. The Zenfone 9, like last year’s 8, is that rare Android phone that prioritizes compact size rather than maximizing screen or battery size. Be still my heart! But the new story this year is the phone’s camera and stabilization system: rather than just moving a single lens element to compensate for camera shake, the entire main camera — lens, sensor, all of it — moves. It’s a unique approach to fighting some of mobile photography’s biggest enemies: low light and shaky video footage.The Zenfone 9 is small but mighty and continues the 8’s tradition of including top-tier specs in a compact phone. The screen is a 5.9-inch 1080p OLED with smooth 120Hz refresh rate, and the phone uses a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset — Qualcomm’s very latest... Continue reading…