The Verge

AirBell discreetly hides an Apple AirTag tracker to keep tabs on your bicycle. | Image: AirBell Riding a city bike comes with two certainties: thieves will target you and tourists will walk in your path. AirBell addresses both issues by discreetly hiding one of Apple’s AirTag trackers inside a small mechanical bell with a loud and pleasant ding.Bicycle theft is an unfortunate reality in many large cities, especially in Amsterdam where I live with my family of five. We use bikes as our primary means of transportation every day, rain or shine. We can’t afford to be without them. As such, I’ve already fitted a few of our bikes with water- and dust-resistant AirTag trackers that I MacGyvered under the saddles to avoid the tags being spotted. I’m constantly worried that the double-sided velcro tape will loosen now that the wet and cold... Continue reading…

Image: EA The creators of Wild Hearts, an upcoming hunting game from Dynasty Warriors studio Omega Force, really want you to feel threatened while playing. Much like the Monster Hunter series, the goal in Wild Hearts is to take down giant almost mythological creatures by cleverly using a variety of weapons and gadgets. Often when I play these games, I end up feeling guilty as I watch a dinosaur-like creature limp away while I stalk it with a giant sword in hand. But according to Wild Hearts director Kotaro Hirata, one of the key design goals was to avoid that feeling — and that goes for every creature you’ll come up against.“We didn’t want the players to feel bad when they defeated a monster,” he tells The Verge. “We weren’t exactly going for... Continue reading…

New design, new display, new processor, new price Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon will spend €1 billion over five years to electrify its delivery fleet in Europe, the retail giant announced. The money will be used to “double” the number of EVs in Europe to 10,000 vans and 1,500 “electric heavy goods vehicles.” The company has said it aims to be net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.“Our transportation network is one of the most challenging areas of our business to decarbonize, and to achieve net-zero carbon will require a substantial and sustained investment,” Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, said in a statement.Jassy said that Amazon’s investment will hopefully spur the installation of more public EV chargers in Europe, as well as serve as an incentive to the auto industry to make more electric delivery vehicles.“Our... Continue reading…

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Welcome to the aesthetics of space photography Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We’re keeping our heads down to prep for Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale today, but there were some deals that we couldn’t help but tell you about. First off, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless gaming headset is $100 off at Best Buy and Amazon, at just $249.99. That price is still a pretty penny for a gaming headset, but there are some reasons why you might like this one as much as we do. It has active noise cancellation, and you can listen to three sources simultaneously (2.4GHz, Bluetooth, 3.5mm) through its included wireless screen-and-dial-equipped base station. To keep the headset going, you get two swappable batteries, one of which can be holstered in the base station to recharge.It’s worth noting that this is the... Continue reading…

Priced at just $30, the new entry-level Chromecast shows how far Google has come since the original HDMI stick Continue reading…

Image: Oddworld Inhabitants My subconscious must have known that last month was the 25th anniversary of the release of Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee because I suddenly and inexplicably became obsessed. I watched Let’s Plays and speedruns of the game. When I finished, I went immediately to the game’s sequel, Abe’s Exoddus, watching even more longplays and speedruns and scouring the Playstation and Xbox game stores for a port.I couldn’t find one. (Lorne Lanning, if you’re reading this, can we please get Exoddus back out here?) So I settled for the next best thing: Oddworld: Soulstorm, which was released just last year. I had previously played New N’ Tasty, a remaster of Abe’s Oddysee, and more than playing Soulstorm — which is a reimagining of Exoddus — I only wanted to... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s fall Surface event happens on October 12th. | Image: Microsoft When is Microsoft’s Surface event?Microsoft’s fall Surface event is set to happen on Wednesday, October 12th at 10AM ET, 7AM PSTHow to watch the Microsoft Surface event live stream?If you’re planning to tune in live, the best place to watch is from the official Microsoft landing page, which doesn’t offer much in the way of details but gives you the option of adding a convenient reminder to your Outlook calendar.While there aren’t any official details on what Microsoft has planned, there are a handful of product announcements we plan to see at the event.The free space on the bingo card for this event is a new Surface Pro 9 announcement with configurations that flex a combination of Intel and Arm hardware, with perhaps the addition... Continue reading…

Modern Warfare II releases October 28th. | Image: Activision Blizzard Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will require players to register with a phone number on Battle.net to play the game, in order to make players responsible for their actions. The game is set for release later this month on October 28th.It’s a repeat of the practice that caused issues for Overwatch 2 players last week, PCGamer reports. A Battle.net support page lists the upcoming CoD shooter as one of its three games that “require that you add a phone number to your Battle.net account” to play, alongside Overwatch 2 and 2019’s Modern Warfare.The phone verification system, which Activision Blizzard calls SMS Protect, is meant to cut down on toxic behavior from players, preventing them from creating endless new accounts to evade bans or... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google’s shutting down Driving Mode, its standalone Assistant-powered dashboard that offers quick access to audio controls, contacts, navigation, and other shortcuts while you’re on the road, according to a report from 9to5Google. The feature, which Google first announced at I / O in 2019, wasn’t officially launched until last year, but now Google’s sunsetting it on November 21st.The standalone version of Driving Mode isn’t to be confused with the Driving Mode feature built into Google Maps, which automatically boots up once you start navigation. As Esper’s Mishaal Rahman points out, Google added Assistant Driving Mode to Maps before it even released the standalone Driving Mode.The only difference between the two is that you can access... Continue reading…

Ye’s Twitter account is locked after he violated that platform’s policies. | Photo by Edward Berthelot/GC Images Twitter confirmed that it locked Kanye West, who now goes by “Ye,” out of his account after he posted an anti-Semitic tweet on Saturday (via BuzzFeed News). “The account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies,” Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough said in a statement to The Verge.Twitter has since removed Ye’s tweet, but several users screenshotted the post before Twitter took it down. “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” Ye wrote. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

The future of PCs looks like the Surface Pro X, and Microsoft had better make it work. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It’s easy to forget now, but Microsoft’s first Surface was a huge risk. By diving into the PC market, Microsoft was competing with its Windows partners. By combining laptop and tablet, it was trying to create an entirely new device category. And by designing new software for Arm-powered Windows computers, it was betting that the mobile era would change the way laptops work and the way people use them.Microsoft didn’t get it all right, and it took a couple of years for the Surface line to really hit its stride. But a decade in, you can’t argue with the results: the Surface worked. Not only did the whole “attach a keyboard to your tablet and now it’s a laptop” idea become commonplace around the industry, but Surface also became a big... Continue reading…

Image: Atlus The Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable re-releases are scheduled to launch on January 19th, 2023, Persona developer Atlus announced on Twitter. The two JRPGs will arrive on the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PS5 (via backward compatibility).While Persona 3 Portable’s making its way to Steam for the first time, Persona 4 Golden has been available on the marketplace since 2020 and became a verified Steam Deck title earlier this year. We first heard that Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 Portable, and Persona 5 Royal were coming to other platforms back in June.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge While everyone is distracted by the recent announcement of the Google Pixel 7 lineup and the Pixel Watch, Wellbots has quietly provided The Verge Deals with an exclusive discount on the charcoal, fog, and lemongrass colorways of the Google Pixel Buds Pro. Normally $199.99, you can grab a pair of the delicious-looking earbuds for just $159.99 when you use the code VERGE40 at checkout — the best price yet. The Pixel Buds Pro are a massive improvement over the standard Pixel Buds, thanks to their enhanced reliability, multipoint Bluetooth support, and improved battery life. While the mic quality could be better and it lacks support for lossless audio, the Pixel Buds Pro remain an excellent choice for noise-canceling earbuds at this price... Continue reading…

The Rivian R1S is just one of the vehicles affected by the recall. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge Rivian’s recalling 12,212 electric vehicles (EVs) over a loose fastener that could affect drivers’ ability to control the car (via CNBC). The recall affects nearly every vehicle Rivian has produced this year, and spans the carmaker’s entire lineup, covering certain 2022 R1T pickup trucks, R1S SUVs, as well as the electric delivery vans (EDVs) it's building for Amazon. Rivian produced a total of 14,317 vehicles in the first three quarters of 2022 and delivered over 12,000.According to a notice filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the fastener connecting the front upper control arm and steering knuckle may not have been “sufficiently torqued.” This could potentially result in separation, “causing a loss... Continue reading…

The downtime will begin at about 9PM ET. | Image: Blizzard Blizzard will be taking the Overwatch 2 servers offline once again to fix more of the issues that have cropped up during the game’s rocky launch. The company plans to shut the game down at about 9PM ET (6PM PT), and expects the downtime to last for an hour. This downtime will be the third in two days, as Blizzard had to take the game offline twice on Thursday.Blizzard detailed the fixes in the works and some updates on a few of the bigger issues in a post on its forums. In Friday evening’s downtime, Blizzard plans to fix Watchpoint Packs not appearing as available for players who preordered them, and to address the LC-208 error that is preventing some players from logging in.In Friday’s post, Blizzard confirmed that the change to its... Continue reading…

Blizzard Though Kiriko launched along with Overwatch 2 earlier this week, today, at the Twitch Con opening ceremonies, Blizzard debuted a nine-minute cinematic to introduce her properly.Overwatch animated shorts are experiences unto themselves. The game’s cinematics team is uniquely skilled, knowing exactly what levers to pull and buttons to hit for maximum emotional devastation. I remember sobbing watching Bastion experience PTSD in his cinematic and cheering for Mei as she slogged through the snow in “Rise and Shine.” To celebrate the launch of Overwatch 2, Blizzard released an “Unleash Hope” video, splicing hype Overwatch moments between clips of human achievement and art over a message of hope and love. Exploiting emotion like that is... Continue reading…

Brown bear (Ursus arctos) or grizzly at Brooks Lake with people on an observation platform in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA. | Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket via Getty Images Christy NaMee Eriksen discovered Fat Bear Week during her “Summer of Bears.”There were bear sightings in her neighborhood in Juneau, Alaska, that summer of 2020, including one that took some chocolate from her garage. She didn’t mind. In March, she had lost her father, “who was a very larger-than-life kind of guy,” she says. The bear, in a way, reminded her of her dad. “So I start calling him Pop because he was just always around,” Eriksen tells The Verge. Later that year, she adopted a dog who happened to be named Bear.“It felt like a poetic invitation”“And then I came across Fat Bear Week, and I was like, ‘It is my summer of bears’ … it felt like a poetic invitation,” says Eriksen, a writer. Currently, she’s also a “Fat Bear Week... Continue reading…

A previous generation of the Surface Laptop. The newest one could look very similar. | Image: Microsoft The Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5, and an update to its all-in-one computer could be unveiled at Microsoft’s big October 12th event Continue reading…

Just a boy and his chainsaw dog. | Image: Crunchyroll For weeks, my social media feeds have been filled with folks who are very excited about an anime series featuring a man with a chainsaw for a face. It’s called Chainsaw Man. Not being familiar with the original manga, written by Tatsuki Fujimoto, I didn’t quite get what the excitement was about, but I was certainly intrigued, especially with anime studio MAPPA involved (that’s the team behind, among other things, Yuri!!! on Ice). And now that I’ve watched one single episode, I totally get it — the adrenaline has me feeling like I just downed a six-pack of Red Bull.Chainsaw Man is a story about Denji, a poor kid saddled with his father’s inherited debt, who is forced to extreme measures to earn some cash. Sometimes he sells organs —... Continue reading…

Photo by AMER HILABI / AFP via Getty Images Tattoos are an integral part of many athletes’ images, from singular designs like Mike Tyson’s face tattoo to Kenyon Martin’s or David Beckham’s extensive collections. But as those images get translated into video game form, some artists aren’t happy.Over the past several years, the creators of two major sports titles have fought protracted lawsuits over their right to use tattoos on avatars of players without paying a fee to the person behind the tattoo. Late last week, one of those suits went to a jury, ending with a payout to the artist. It’s not a clean win for either side, but it does offer a fascinating case of how complicated tattoos and copyright really are.The athlete here is pro wrestler Randy Orton, a long-running character... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube historically hasn’t been a good place to turn for information about health. Inaccurate or misleading videos are everywhere, research has shown, and the algorithm can push those videos to more people.To shift that trajectory and give people more reliable health information, the platform launched a team last year to build relationships with medical groups, with the ultimate goal of adding videos with reliable health info to the platform. The team is led by Garth Graham, a cardiologist and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health. He’s the director and global head of healthcare and public health partnerships at YouTube.As another arm of those efforts, the YouTube health team last month launched a Personal Stories shelf,... Continue reading…

The Sonos Roam launched last year is now available in refurbished condition for $139.99. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Most would agree that Sonos offers some of the best speakers and soundbars currently available. That’s because Sonos makes speakers that — more often than not — boast great sound quality, support for all the major streaming platforms, and simple multi-room functionality. Unfortunately, however, those perks often come at a high price. Sonos products aren’t cheap, and, outside of the occasional rogue discount, they rarely go on sale. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t ways to save at least a few dollars on Sonos gear.If you’re comfortable buying refurbished, for example, you could save a decent amount. We also occasionally see sales on Sonos’ collaborative series with Ikea and discounted bundles that include Sonos... Continue reading…

Image: White House / Flickr In an official presidential statement on Thursday, President Joe Biden pardoned all federal offenses of simple marijuana possession and said that his administration plans to review whether marijuana should still be classified as a Schedule I drug like heroin, LSD, and ecstasy.More than 6,500 people in the District of Columbia with prior convictions of simple marijuana possession will be affected, according to CNBC. Biden also said that his administration would request that all US governors pardon all similar statewide offenses.Additionally, Biden urged Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra to launch a review into how marijuana is classified under federal law.

Logitech’s budget-friendly G435 boasts color and comfort, as well as a host of solid features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A good gaming headset is practically a necessity these days. Clean and precise audio is essential for competitive gaming, allowing you to pinpoint your enemies and communicate effectively with your teammates. Moreover, recent developments in spatial audio and virtual surround sound have allowed headsets to meet — and occasionally surpass — more expensive audio setups, allowing even the most budget-conscious gamer to obtain a competitive edge at a fraction of the price.While you could always invest in a massive pair of speakers, they’re likely to earn you the dubious distinction of the worst roommate of the decade. Thankfully, the right headset will allow you to keep the running and gunning to yourself, which is why we’ve rounded up a... Continue reading…

It hasn’t been a good day for the company. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This morning’s news that Peloton is cutting 12 percent of its workforce doesn’t immediately read as a promising sign for the beleaguered smart fitness company.But in a memo sent to employees on Thursday afternoon, CEO Barry McCarthy explains that he thought a background discussion with The Wall Street Journal ahead of announcing the cuts would lead to a headline about Peloton’s potential growth. He’s apparently surprised to learn that the report accentuated the negative and said the CEO “is giving the unprofitable company about another six months to significantly turn itself around and, if that fails, Peloton likely isn’t viable as a stand-alone company.”Now, McCarthy is refuting the idea that the company only has six months to... Continue reading…

Reservations could come back if there are too many orders. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge You no longer need a reservation to buy a Steam Deck, according to Valve, the company behind the gaming handheld that launched earlier this year. Each model should be available to buy now, and at the time of writing, Valve’s estimating one- to two-week delivery on all of them (though there has been some wonkiness with the page like there was for the just-released dock for the console).The company says that it’s worked through its queue of reservations and that the Deck is now in stock. It does warn that if there are enough orders, the estimated delivery times will get longer and that “at a certain point we’ll flip back into reservation mode until we’re able to catch up.” Valve also notes that it’s expanding the global availability of... Continue reading…

Google’s first-party cases for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro didn’t go over so well. In the year since those phones were released, the cases have earned an unfavorable reputation for staining and warping out of shape. This 9to5Google article is a good summary of what was so bad about the $29.99 accessory.Some Pixel fans have called for Google to return to the fabric-coated cases that were available for previous generations of its phones. But the company hasn’t gone that route. Instead, the new Pixel 7 and 7 Pro cases are similar in material to the Pixel 6 cases — but they’re now solid colors instead of being semitransparent. That should at least address the staining and yellowing issue. Google has chosen colors that match the hues of the new... Continue reading…

Puff Bar is the most popular e-cigarette brand with teenagers. | Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Kids are still finding ways to use flavored e-cigarettes despite the Food and Drug Administration’s crackdowns, according to new data from federal agencies. And even though youth vaping rates appear to be falling, 2.5 million kids still said they use the products.The most popular brand of e-cigarettes with middle and high school-age kids is Puff Bar, according to the data, which was collected through the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey and published by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Puff Bar makes disposable vapes that come in a variety of flavors, and it was able to skirt FDA regulation by switching to synthetic nicotine — which the agency didn’t regulate until this year.In April, Congress passed a law... Continue reading…

A palm tree stands above agricultural fields amid ongoing drought on August 26th, 2022, near Bakersfield, California | Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images Severe drought limited crops, cut power supplies, and fueled out-of-control blazes throughout the summer in North America, Europe, and Asia. Those disastrous summer drought across the Northern Hemisphere were made 20 times more likely because of human-induced climate change, according to a sweeping new study from an international group of researchers with the World Weather Attribution initiative.In August, officials noted that Europe was likely in the thick of its worst drought in 500 years. The same month, Southern China officially entered its longest drought in 60 years of record keeping. Perennially parched California has just had its three driest years on record.What might have seemed outrageous in the past is quickly becoming the... Continue reading…

A close-up shot of the Google Pixel 7 Pro, revealing its three rear-facing camera lenses. | Image: Allison Johnson We now know pretty much everything about Google’s Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, the first flagship phone competition for Apple’s iPhone 14 lineup for late 2022. And though comparing iOS and Android devices is an exercise that’s not exactly straightforward (I’m trying to avoid the apples versus oranges phrase for once in my life), lining up the specs should at least tell you which phone might deliver the right kind of performance or camera quality for your budget.Each of these phones is built on custom processors from their respective creators. And as is usually the case, Apple is being quiet about the usual specs that it doesn’t disclose about its phones, like RAM count and the exact size of the battery, so keep that in mind. All that said,... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Your burning questions about the new smart home standard, answered Continue reading…

The 2016 Google Pixel next to the 2017 Google Pixel 2. This is the midpoint in Google’s journey of delivering phones by Google. | Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge Several years ago, if someone told you they had an Android phone, then it would have been safe to assume they were not talking about Google’s Pixel. Until recently, “Android” had a much stronger association with hardware from Samsung, OnePlus, Huawei, or even LG when it was still making phones. But that mindset may finally be shifting as the Google Pixel slowly gains more name recognition among the Galaxies of the world.The goal of the Pixel is to bring out the best of Android and invite manufacturers and consumers to see what Google’s operating system could — and perhaps even should — look like. After all, the iPhone’s always been known for its consistent interface and cohesive ecosystem across Apple’s devices, while Android phones... Continue reading…

It’s (almost) here. | Image: Valve Valve is now selling the official Steam Deck Docking Station for $89. When we first published this story, there was a button to make a reservation, though changed to a “Buy now!” button soon after. Currently, it’s back to a reservation button.Valve’s official dock is intended to make it easier to hook up the handheld gaming PC to a monitor or television. The dock has three USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a gigabit ethernet port, a DisplayPort 1.4 port, and an HDMI 2.0 port. It connects to your Steam Deck via a USB-C cable that plugs into the USB-C port on the top of the device. Unlike the Nintendo Switch, using the dock won’t increase the power of your Steam Deck; it only lets you charge the device and connect it to an external display.It’s... Continue reading…

The Pixel 7 Pro gets a slight face-lift but no major exterior changes for 2022. This has been a refrain over the past couple of months, so you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro look and feel a lot like the devices that came before them: the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. Their price tags — $599 and $899, respectively — remain unchanged, too, which is a welcome sight in this Year of Price Hikes and Relentless Inflation. But aside from a slight design tweak and more subdued color options, the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro don’t have much to show on the surface that’s new.Google’s official listed dimensions for the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro suggest that they’re ever so slightly smaller than their predecessors, just by a millimeter here and there. In reality, they both still very much look and feel... Continue reading…

It’s finally arriving. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s edit button is finally arriving in the US. The company will begin gradually rolling out the long-awaited feature to Twitter Blue subscribers in the US on Thursday afternoon, Twitter spokesperson Joseph Nuñez said in an email to The Verge. Lucky subscribers in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have had the ability to edit their typos since Monday, and now it’s coming to the US.I’ve already seen a bunch of edited tweets on my timeline. The key has been to look for a little pencil icon on tweets in your feed or in tweets themselves. If you want to see an edit history, click on a tweet and then on the pencil. Tweets can be edited up to five times and only 30 minutes after someone has posted the tweet. See it for yourself in this... Continue reading…