The Verge

Instagram’s take on BeReal is called “Candid.” | Image: Instagram Instagram is announcing a suite of new features that could be big focuses for the company in 2023, including a BeReal clone called Candid Stories, the ability to post very short text “Notes,” and groups.Candid Stories appear to mirror much of what has made BeReal popular. You’ll be able to share an image that includes a snapshot from both your front and back cameras, and you’ll be able to take a candid from a daily notification reminder. You’ll also be able to snap candids from the Stories camera or a multi-author Story.Instagram confirmed it was testing this feature earlier this year, and Candid Stories will launch first as a test in South Africa beginning Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal. If you just want to take a photo... Continue reading…

The high-powered Nova Laser before it creates nuclear fusion inside its target chamber at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1986. | Photo by Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images On Tuesday, December 13th, scientists with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that they’d achieved “fusion ignition.” The Verge has an updated post on the news here.A “scientific breakthrough” in the development of fusion energy is expected tomorrow from the Biden administration. For more than half a century, people have poured billions of dollars into nuclear fusion research, hoping to create a source of abundant, clean energy.The rough idea is this: if we develop technology that can replicate the way the sun generates energy in a controlled way, we could power the world with energy that’s free of greenhouse gas emissions and long-lived radioactive waste. But scientists have been unable to trigger a fusion reaction... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Qualcomm has new Wi-Fi 7-capable chipsets that are part of its new “Immersive Home Platform” — built for home networking manufacturers that are ready to integrate the upcoming IEEE 802.11BE specification into its devices.The new Qualcomm chips are currently being sampled to companies that make home routers and mesh Wi-Fi devices and are expected to be available in the second half of 2023. Once it is, you can expect to see far more Wi-Fi 7 routers to choose from — at more affordable price points — than the current options of TP-Link’s BE900 or Deco BE-series mesh routers. Image: Qualcomm Lots of routers today already use Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi chips, whether they’re Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E, including models like the Netgear... Continue reading…

The west gate entrance to the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, US, on Monday, December 12th, 2022. | Photo by David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images For the first time, researchers have created a fusion reaction that resulted in a net energy gain. The results, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, mark a significant step on the very long road toward generating clean energy from nuclear fusion.“Last week, lo and behold, indeed, they shot a bunch of lasers at a pellet of fuel, and more energy was released from that fusion ignition than the energy of the lasers going in,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar said at a press conference announcing the achievement in Washington, DC, today. “I just think this is such a tremendous example of what perseverance really can achieve.”“A tremendous example of what perseverance... Continue reading…

Jake Sully and his daughter Kiri floating in the ocean. | Image: Disney James Cameron’s second Avatar movie is a visually stunning but narratively uninspired return to Pandora that drowns some of its best ideas in military morass. Continue reading…

Photo by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Coachella Pedro Eustache’s viral performance at The Game Awards was just one of many such moments he’s had over his decades-long career. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge DoNotPay, the company that bills itself as “the world’s first robot lawyer,” is launching a new AI-powered chatbot that can help you negotiate bills and cancel subscriptions without having to deal with customer service.In a demo of the tool posted by DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder, the chatbot manages to get a discount on a Comcast internet bill through Xfinity’s live chat. Once it connects with a customer service representative, the bot asks for a better rate using account details provided by the customer. The chatbot cites problems with Xfinity’s services and threatens to take legal action, to which the representative responds by offering to take $10 off the customer’s monthly internet bill.

Illustration: The Verge About 12 hours after we learned authorities in the Bahamas have arrested FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the first of multiple sets of charges he’ll face. Those were quickly followed by another civil lawsuit filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and, finally, criminal charges filed by the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.The criminal charges were filed last Friday and unsealed today. They include eight counts that cover allegations of wire fraud against customers and those who lent money to his firms, securities fraud, and money laundering.The SEC complaint accuses Bankman-Fried of executing a “years-long... Continue reading…

The Eve Motion sensor is one of the first smart home devices that will work with Matter. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Christmas has come a little early for the smart home: the first Matter-compatible devices are finally here. Starting today, December 12th, Eve Systems is beginning the roll-out of a firmware update to its Thread-enabled Eve Energy smart plug, Eve Door & Window contact sensor, and Eve Motion motion sensor to upgrade them to Matter.Matter is a new smart home standard that will allow devices such as smart plugs, light bulbs, and door locks to work with any platform you choose. Up until now, Eve’s devices have only been compatible with Apple Home. With this update, they’ll work with the Samsung SmartThings ecosystem, as well as Google Home and Amazon Alexa (once those platforms roll out their Matter updates).While Matter officially... Continue reading…

Hayao Mizayaki | Photo by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images The next release from famed animation house Studio Ghibli is due to hit Japan next year. How Do You Live (still a tentative title), the latest feature directed by Hayao Miyazaki, will be in theaters in the country on July 14th, 2023. There’s no word on the international release yet, but as part of the announcement, Ghibli also put out this new poster for the film:

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge It’s the holiday shopping season, and although people are once again visiting stores in person, most of us are also (or only) shopping online. That means there are a lot of packages being sent and received — and, unfortunately, stolen. Social networks and the media are full of warnings about “porch pirates,” thieves who take packages that are sitting in front of peoples’ doors. According to Security.org, 49 million Americans have had at least one package stolen in the past 12 months.Whether or not there are more packages being stolen these days than before, the fact is that none of us want to have to deal with deliveries that have been mislaid, misdelivered, or misappropriated. While no method is foolproof, here are some ways you can... Continue reading…

High on Life | Image: Squanch Games The latest release from Squanch Games, led by Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, is an absurdist sci-fi adventure. Continue reading…

Photo by ALASTAIR PIKE / AFP via Getty Images WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg says the New York Post’s 2020 story on Hunter Biden forced parent company Automattic to weigh difficult moderation questions for the WordPress VIP hosting service — although the company concluded it shouldn’t take any action on the story.In October 2020, the Post ran a report based on material it said came from an abandoned Biden laptop. Facebook and Twitter temporarily restricted links to the story as questions about the provenance of the laptop’s content swirled: Facebook limited its spread under potential misinformation rules, while Twitter placed a more extreme ban on links to it, citing rules against posting hacked materials. (It had previously enforced those rules against leaked police department... Continue reading…

The feature prompts you to turn in the direction of the satellite. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Emergency SOS via satellite, a new safety feature introduced with the iPhone 14 that lets users contact emergency services when they don’t have regular cellular or Wi-Fi signal, is now available in select European countries. The feature launched in the US and Canada last month, but as of today it’s available in France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK.The feature is aimed at helping iPhone owners in emergency situations by letting them send messages (but not make traditional phone calls) to emergency services if cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity isn’t an option. After you try, and fail, to call emergency services the traditional way, the iPhone 14 will prompt you to “Report Emergency” and will present you with a questionnaire to gather... Continue reading…

Tim Cook being shown an iPhone. | Image: Tim Cook Tim Cook has tweeted an admission that Apple uses Sony image sensors in its iPhones as part of the CEO’s supplier tour of Japan. “We’ve been partnering with Sony for over a decade to create the world’s leading camera sensors for iPhone,” Cook tweeted, and thanked Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida for showing him around the Kumamoto facility. A photo shows Cook being shown his company’s own smartphone, which is objectively very funny.Apple largely keeps tight-lipped about the specifics of the hardware components that go into each iPhone, so outright confirming that it’s used Sony camera sensors for over a decade is notable. Apple’s website tends to just list the specs of each iPhone’s camera — such as resolution, aperture, and field of view —... Continue reading…

Reports also claim that the US has filed criminal charges against. | Photo: Getty Images Just over one month after the crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy, Ryan Pinder, the Attorney General of the Bahamas, announced the arrest of its founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).According to a notice, the arrest came after the US government informed the Bahamas of criminal charges filed against Bankman-Fried and said it’s likely to request his extradition from the nation where he was residing, and which had served as a base of operations for FTX. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, confirmed the arrest, saying in a statement that “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”

Is there going to be any HBO content left for the upcoming Max app? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just over a month after HBO canceled its once-hit original show Westworld, it’s planning on yanking the back catalog from its streaming service, according to Variety, Deadline, IndieWire, and The Wrap.It’s currently not clear when Westworld will be removed from Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streaming service, but it likely won’t be alone. The reports indicate that HBO’s Love Life and The Nevers will also have to find new homes.When we checked on Monday evening, all three shows were still available on the service. IndieWire points out a tweet from Gordita Chronicles creator Claudia Forestieri indicating this past weekend would be the last one for her show (which is also still streaming, for now), so the ax could fall very soon.I... Continue reading…

A list of Linked Roles on a server, along with icons for the connections they’ll require. | Image: Discord Discord is making the accounts you have linked to your profile a key part of the chatting experience. It’s introducing a system called Linked Roles, where admins and moderators can grant people access to certain channels and even entire servers based on which third-party apps and websites those people have connected to their Discord account.In an extremely detailed blog post on Monday, the company says the feature, which will be rolling out over the next few weeks, will support connecting accounts from sites like Steam, Twitter, Reddit, DeviantArt, and more (there are “over twenty official Connections,” according to Discord’s blog post). Server administrators will then be able to set up certain filters based on those connections — for... Continue reading…

Would you pay for Twitter? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Elon Musk’s $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription with verification is officially available, and you’ll need a verified phone number to sign up.In a thread on Twitter, the platform notes that Blue will cost $11 per month if you sign up on iOS and will grant you access to the ability to edit tweets, upload 1080p videos, reader mode, and, of course, the coveted blue checkmark. If you paid for the old $4.99 / $2.99 Blue package, then you’ll need to subscribe again to keep its benefits, while anyone who signed up on Apple at the old $7.99 per month price will be automatically renewed at $11 per month unless they cancel.

I wonder how many hours of entertainment I’ve gotten from Content forged on this Throne. | Image: dril Dril, the account behind a frankly unbelievable number of viral tweets, is packaging his magnificent archive into a book and selling it for those of us who want to show off just how Online we are. According to Amazon, the Dril Archives paperback is around 240 pages and contains “10,000 of His finest Posts.”Like Taylor Swift, Dril is selling several “Flavors” of the archive — the “refined” edition lays out his posts in alphabetical order, “beloved” ranks them by the number of favorites they got, “eternal” sorts them in chronological order, and “chaotic,” obviously, is completely random. While many of us here at The Verge are big fans of the reverse chronological timeline (and it would be very interesting to see the evolution of the Dril... Continue reading…

Lyft drivers can get cash for driving an EV. Lyft, which has said it wants “100 percent” of the vehicles operating on its platform to be electric by 2030, is offering a new slate of incentives to drivers to get them to ditch their polluting, gas-powered vehicles for ones with zero tailpipe emissions.Starting today, Lyft drivers in California who use an EV are eligible to receive a bonus of $150 if they complete 50 trips in a week — which translates to an extra $3 per trip. Drivers will need to register their EVs on Lyft’s app before the end of 2023 in order to qualify for the bonus. And they can keep raking in $150 per week until they hit the bonus maximum of $8,100.Only drivers in California are eligible for the Lyft EV challenge, the company says. As the largest market for... Continue reading…

Image: Mercedes-Benz / Rivian Rivian and Mercedes-Benz halted plans to co-develop multiple new electric delivery vans based on both companies’ commercial EV platforms. Rivian put the agreement on pause reportedly because it was concerned about spending a lot of money on an expensive new vehicle development project amid a slowing economy.“At this point in time, we believe focusing on our consumer business, as well as our existing commercial business, represent the most attractive near-term opportunities to maximize value,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe stated in a press release. Both Mercedes-Benz and Rivian had signed a memorandum of understanding in September for a joint venture to build large commercial electric vans.The companies were going to build the vehicles... Continue reading…

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Yes, it was too expensive. Yes, it looked dated and clunky. Yes, there were weird things going on with the hinge. But the world needed it. Please, Microsoft, bring back the Surface Book.I’ve been using a Surface Book 2 as my primary personal laptop since 2018. When I was shopping for a computer back then, I had a particular constellation of needs that I was finding it very difficult to fill. I wanted a convertible device to watch TV and read piano music. (You laugh, but balancing a full-sized laptop atop an electric piano is a task I would not advise anyone here to attempt. Ask me how I know.) I wanted something that wasn’t too heavy because I am whatever the opposite of buff is. I also wanted to play games — not daily, but every so... Continue reading…

The Witcher 3 running on the PS5. | Image: CD Projekt Red The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has always been a beautiful game. One of my favorite things to do when I played for the first time in 2015 was just wander around on horseback soaking in the incredible atmosphere, from the crumbling ancient ruins to the bustling towns. Seven years later and I found myself awed once again while playing it on the PlayStation 5.A free next-gen patch for The Witcher 3 launches on December 14th, giving the aging open-world a boost if you’re playing on a PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or high-end PC. I’ve managed to play through the first few hours of the new version — for those who’ve already played, I’m right in the thick of the haunting “Bloody Baron” quest — and while it’s still fundamentally the same game, some of the... Continue reading…

The second-gen AirPods Pro look just like the originals, but there are improvements within. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The second-generation AirPods Pro earbuds have returned to their lowest price, first seen during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can get the latest top-tier wireless earbuds from Apple on sale for $199.99 at Verizon (normally $249.99). That $50 savings is as good as it gets on these earbuds, which significantly improve on the noise cancellation of the previous model and now support a handy new volume control — allowing you to slide your finger on the stem to easily increase or decrease the volume.The pricier Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II may have better noise cancellation prowess, but those $300 earbuds are much pricier than this sale price on the second-gen AirPods Pro. Plus, if you use Apple devices, you get a much tighter software... Continue reading…

MrBeast in Fortnite. | Image: Epic Games MrBeast, who recently became the most-subscribed-to creator on YouTube, is the next person to join Fortnite’s Icon Series. The creator made a brief appearance in a trailer for Fortnite’s newest season, and Epic Games is now confirming that not only will MrBeast be getting his own Fortnite skins, but also a MrBeast-themed in-game competition with a $1 million prize.If you’ve watched any of MrBeast’s outrageous challenges on his YouTube channel (recent examples: “Last To Take Hand Off Jet, Keeps It!” or “Survive 100 Days In Circle, Win $500,000”), then you might not be surprised that the in-game event is called an “extreme survival challenge.” Players will have to try and get the highest score they can on a custom-built island and the... Continue reading…

The Xiaomi 13 Pro features three 50 megapixel cameras. | Image: Xiaomi Vivo may have been the first manufacturer to announce new smartphones with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, but Xiaomi isn’t far behind with the Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro. Both include Qualcomm’s new flagship processor, but only the 13 Pro gets top features like a large 1-inch-type camera sensor and support for 120W wired charging.Among the more functional differences between the two phones are their cameras. The Xiaomi 13 Pro features a total of three 50-megapixel rear cameras. The main camera uses the same 1-inch-type Sony IMX989 sensor found in the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, and its joined by a 50-megapixel telephoto, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide with support for macro photographs taken from as little as 5cm away. Meanwhile, the... Continue reading…

Returnal demands more RAM than even Microsoft Flight Simulator. | Image: Sony Sony’s Returnal is the latest PlayStation exclusive to make the jump to PC, but it comes with a hefty RAM recommendation (via WccfTech). While you’ll need a minimum of 16GB of RAM in your rig just to get it in a playable state, Returnal’s Steam listing recommends at least 32GB to get the most out of its gameplay and graphics.To get an idea of how unusual this is, not even Microsoft Flight Simulator recommends this amount of RAM; it has a minimum requirement of 8GB of RAM and recommends 16GB. Meanwhile, other graphically-demanding PC games, like Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dying Light 2, and A Plague Tale: Requiem, don’t suggest more than 16GB of RAM.Returnal is a third-person roguelike shooter that features undeniably... Continue reading…

NASA’s Orion capsule splashed down into the Pacific Ocean at around 12:40PM ET. | Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images NASA’s Orion spacecraft has returned to Earth. The uncrewed capsule safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico’s Baja California around 12:40PM ET on Sunday, marking the end of the landmark Artemis I mission.The capsule reached speeds of about 24,500mph as it returned to Earth, while its heat shield sustained scorching temperatures of around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Orion traveled a total of 1.4 million miles through space over the span of 25.5 days.As it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, the Orion capsule successfully performed a skip entry maneuver, in which Orion dipped into Earth’s upper atmosphere and lifted out before reentering again. The move is supposed to help the spacecraft land in the designated splashdown... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Remember that Pixel 6A mod that unlocks a 90Hz refresh rate? Well, the developer behind it, Nathan Brooke (aka Lunarixus), just made the changes public in hopes that other developers can finish off the tweak.In a post on Twitter, Brooke includes a link to the project on GitHub and says that he just doesn’t have enough time to work on it. The mod activates a seemingly untapped 90Hz refresh rate on the budget-friendly Pixel 6A, which would otherwise ship with a 6.1-inch OLED display running at 60Hz. While The Verge’s senior editor, Sean Hollister, confirmed that the mod does work, there are a few caveats.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s relaunching its Blue subscription on Monday, one month after abandoning a chaotic first attempt that spurred hoax accounts and general mayhem.As reported previously, the subscription will cost $8 per month to purchase on the web or $11 per month via the iOS App Store to make up for the up to 30 percent commission Apple takes off of in-app purchases. This time, anyone paying for Blue who wants to display a “verified” checkmark on their profile will need to register a phone number first, and changing your “handle, display name or profile photo” will remove the label until your account is reviewed again.