The Verge

You can set up your username right from the games tab in the Android app. | Image: Netflix Netflix is officially introducing gamertag-style handles subscribers can use in its mobile games. The company first began rolling out handles that will be shown in multiplayer games and on online leaderboards in some games last month, but in a blog post published Tuesday, Netflix said that users can now set them up on both iOS and Android devices.The process of actually making your handle differs depending on which operating system you use. On Android, in the games tab in Netflix’s navigation bar, you can tap the banner that says “Create your Netflix game handle” to get started. The iOS version of the Netflix app doesn’t have a dedicated games tab, so you’ll need to download a game like Rival Pirates or Lucky Luna and follow the in-app... Continue reading…

Currently, the wallet only supports Polygon — no relation to Vox Media’s gaming-focused publication. | Image: Robinhood Robinhood has launched the beta for its “Web3 wallet” for 10,000 iOS users who signed up for the waitlist. The company teased this product earlier this year after making an earlier crypto wallet more broadly available. Unlike its existing cryptocurrency wallet, the Web3 wallet isn’t just for storing cryptocurrencies that can be traded on the financial platform — it can also be used to “seamlessly access the decentralized web,” as Robinhood’s press release puts it. The wallet will also let people trade cryptocurrencies without any fees.The Web3 wallet also differs from the company’s other crypto wallet in that it’s self-custody, meaning you’re responsible for keeping the keys for it secure. In practical terms, that gives you a bit more... Continue reading…

Stage Manager is coming to some older iPad Pros. | Photo by Brennan King / The Verge In a major turnaround, Apple is bringing Stage Manager, one of iPadOS’s signature new features, to more iPads. Stage Manager, a new multitasking system, was previously set to be available only on iPads with M1 chips. Now, however, the feature will also be coming to third- and fourth-generation iPad Pros (which have the A12X Bionic and A12Z Bionic chips, respectively), according to a statement shared with Engadget.Unfortunately, Apple is also delaying one aspect of Stage Manager, and it’s one that will remain exclusive to iPads with M1 chips. Support for using Stage Manager with external displays won’t be available until a software update coming later this year.Here’s Apple’s full statement, from Engadget:

Image: Intel Samsung Display and Intel are working on “slidable” PCs. During Intel’s Innovation keynote today, Samsung Display CEO JS Choi appeared onstage to show off a prototype PC that slides from a 13-inch tablet into a 17-inch display.“We’re announcing the world’s first 17-inch slidable display for PCs,” said Choi. “This device will satisfy various needs for a larger screen and portability as well.” Samsung Display has chosen to implement a sliding (rather than foldable) technology for its flexible PC displays, and Choi appeared to indicate that “foldable is gone” on PCs for now. Image: Intel Samsung Display’s concept PC slides into place. Intel has been experimenting with new PC form factors for years and was... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard The launch date of Overwatch 2 slowly approaches, bringing with it a new battle pass, a new hero, and, announced today in a blog post, a new anti-cheat, community protection, and moderation tool called the Defense Matrix. Named after the D.Va ability that allows her to absorb and negate incoming attacks, the Defense Matrix is a suite of features that Blizzard says are “designed to help protect the integrity of gameplay and promote positive behavior in Overwatch 2.”With Defense Matrix, Blizzard is implementing several new account security and moderation tools, the biggest two of which are SMS Protect and voice chat transcriptions. Starting on October 4th, all Overwatch 2 players will be required to add a valid phone number to their... Continue reading…

Image: Nickelodeon Netflix just revealed the full cast for its live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, giving us a look at who will play alongside Aang and the rest of the Avatar gang.On the side of the Fire Nation, we have Arden Cho (Partner Track) playing the bounty hunter June, Momona Tamada (Secret Headquarters) as the whimsical Ty Lee, and Thalia Tran (Raya and the Last Dragon) as the “unflappable” Mai. We’ll also see Utkarsh Ambudkar (Ghosts) as the Earth Kingdom’s ruler Bumi, Amber Midthunder (Prey) as the Northern Water Tribe’s Princess Yue, and Danny Pudi (Mythic Quest) as the Mechanist.Even Star Trek’s George Takei gets a role in the show as the unsettling spirit, Koh. Netflix also confirmed that James Sie (Stillwater), the voice... Continue reading…

Intel’s top A770 GPU goes on sale next month. | Image: Intel Intel is officially announcing pricing for its top Arc graphics card today. The top-of-the-line Arc A770 will arrive on October 12th, starting at $329. This price matches that of Nvidia’s RTX 3060, a card that the A770 is expected to comfortably outperform.“We’ve been seeing that for a long time the price of GPUs is right in this $200–$300 range, but what’s happened in the last few years is that they’ve gotten super expensive,” says Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. “You should be frustrated because you are losing out as the gaming community, and today we’re fixing that.”The A770 will include up to 16GB of GDDR6 memory, a 2100MHz clock, and 32 Xe cores. Intel hasn’t released full benchmarks for the A770 yet, but it shared some recent results... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is updating its Play Store to make it easier to discover and download apps across the full range of Android devices — whether that’s Wear OS watches, Android TVs, Android tablets, or vehicles fitted with Android Auto. There are three updates in total: a new device-specific search filter, new sections in the Android app focused on devices that aren’t phones, and new options to remotely install apps from your phone.These updates come as Google is working to improve the Android hardware ecosystem beyond phones — a focus highlighted by the company’s own efforts to release more Android hardware options, including a Google Pixel smartwatch this year and a new Google tablet in 2023. It seems that if Google itself is offering a broader... Continue reading…

The 2023 Nissan Ariya is expected to get 300 miles of range. | Image: Nissan The 2023 Nissan Ariya will start at $44,485 when it goes on sale in the late fall, the automaker announced. That’s about $3,000 cheaper than the starting price announced by Nissan almost a year ago.The base model Ariya, which will have front-wheel drive and a 63 kWh battery pack, will start at $43,190. With a $1,295 destination charge, that price increases to $44,485.The Ariya, which was first announced in summer 2020, was expected to go on sale in Japan in the middle of 2021, followed by the US and Canada later in the year. But that’s been delayed, with North American customers not expected to receive deliveries until later this year.The Ariya is expected to go on sale in late fall 2022Only front-wheel driver versions of the... Continue reading…

Nintendo is continuing support for Splatoon 3 by adding new features to its Nintendo Switch Online mobile app. | Image: Nintendo The words “Nintendo” and “online” usually can’t be uttered in the same sentence without a few chuckles and murmurs. But I’m legitimately impressed with the latest update to its Nintendo Switch Online app for iOS and Android. Paid subscribers can now add Splatoon 3-specific widgets to their phone or tablet homescreen.Version 2.3.0 of the app for either platform adds the ability to use three new widgets: a photo album to see the pictures that you’ve snapped from the game, your battle log to show your recent wins and losses, and finally — my favorite — a stage schedule that fills you in on the upcoming stage rotation for various game modes. That one also shows what gear you have equipped and what abilities that gear has.If you can’t get... Continue reading…

Intel’s new Core i9-13900K. | Image: Intel After weeks of teasers and leaks, Intel is finally making its 13th Gen processors official today. Intel’s 13th Gen desktop CPUs will start arriving on October 20th, led by the flagship Core i9-13900K priced at $589. That’s the same price as Intel’s previous 12900K flagship, despite Intel’s warning of price increases. Intel’s 13th Gen announcement comes just as AMD launches its new Ryzen 7000 processors today in a battle for desktop dominance.Intel’s Core i9-13900K will ship with 24 cores, 32 threads, and clock speeds of up to 5.8GHz. Built on Intel’s 7 process and its x86 performance hybrid architecture, 13th Gen processors include Performance cores (P-cores) and Efficient cores (E-cores) that split workloads intelligently using Intel’s... Continue reading…

The newer, cheaper version has many of the same specs as the pricier QD-OLED. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Alienware has introduced a slightly cheaper version of its 34-inch QD-OLED curved gaming monitor, scheduling it to launch in China first on October 18th, followed by the US and Canada on November 8th, 2022. While similar in many ways to the $1,299.99 AW3423DW it delivered in the spring, there are two key spots where Alienware made changes that help get the sticker price of this AW3423DWF down to $1,099.99 (note: this isn’t replacing the AW3423DW; both models will be sold simultaneously). Namely, it dropped Nvidia’s G-Sync Ultimate variable refresh rate (VRR) support in favor of AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and it lowered the refresh rate from 175Hz to 165Hz.Those changes don’t alter the fact that you’re still getting a fast 3,440 x 1,440... Continue reading…

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung’s third One UI 5.0 beta arrived late last week, and users have started noticing that the lock screen customization options look pretty darn similar to those introduced by Apple in iOS 16 earlier this month (via 9to5Mac). While Samsung has been letting users customize their lock screens for years now, whether through its Good Lock app or its One UI system, its most recent update seems to take a lot of inspiration from Apple (although inspiration can flow in both directions).Lock screen customization is one of the biggest changes in iOS 16, as Apple introduced widgets, new wallpaper options, and the ability to tweak everything from font type, colors, wallpaper filters, and more. The latest version of the beta gives Samsung users... Continue reading…

The Freewrite Alpha typewriter | Image: Freewrite If you’ve been intrigued by the high-tech Freewrite typewriter but put off by its price tag, manufacturer Astrohaus’ new design is (maybe) for you. Astrohaus is opening preorders for the Freewrite Alpha, a lower-profile version of its first-generation device. Like the original Freewrite, it’s billed as a distraction-free writing tool that syncs wirelessly with services like Google Drive or Dropbox but for $349 (or $249 for early orders) instead of the original Freewrite’s $649 price tag. An Indiegogo campaign launches today with a shipping date of July 2023.The Alpha looks starkly different from either the gigantic original Freewrite or the $499 portable 2020 Freewrite Traveler, both of which will still be sold after its release. At 1.9... Continue reading…

The QC45 offer some of the best active noise cancellation you can get in a pair of headphones. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Whether you’re working from a noisy cafe or commuting on a train, a comfortable pair of noise-canceling headphones can prove invaluable in the right setting. Thankfully, Bose’s QuietComfort 45 are currently matching their best price to date at Best Buy, where you can pick them up for $249 instead of $329 — a discount we haven’t seen in a while.The lightweight QC45 are some of the most comfortable over-ears we’ve ever tested and can even last 24 hours on a single charge. That means you can don them for hours on end without worrying about running out of battery or ear fatigue. And when you do need to recharge them, you can do so quickly thanks to their support for USB-C. You can even customize their bass response and other EQ settings... Continue reading…

The Nreal Air glasses. | Image: Nreal Augmented reality company Nreal is launching its stripped-down Air glasses in the United States. The Nreal Air glasses, unveiled for Asian markets last year, are available on Amazon starting today for $379. The initially Android-exclusive glasses are also getting iPhone compatibility — but only with a $59 dongle. It’s the Chinese startup’s latest move into the global AR market as it races Apple, Meta, and other tech giants for the growing niche.The Nreal Air glasses are a cheaper alternative to the Nreal Light, which launched for $599 in the US last year. They’re smaller and lighter than the Nreal Light — which look like a bulky pair of sunglasses — but come with significantly pared-back capabilities. Most notably, where the Light use... Continue reading…

The PLYR has a unique (definitely divisive) design. This model, in particular, costs $129.99. | Image: Skullcandy You’d be forgiven for forgetting, or just not knowing, that Skullcandy once had some skin in the game of putting out gaming headsets. The company owned Astro Gaming throughout most of the 2010s, which it later sold to Logitech in 2017. It’s been relatively quiet on the gaming front since then, but Skullcandy’s now back with a new lineup of headsets. There are three, ranging in price and functionality — each accented with a slightly different-looking printer color test page pattern on their sidearms (my interpretation, not Skullcandy’s). There’s the $59.99 wired SLYR, the $99.99 wired but more feature-packed SLYR Pro, and finally, the $129.99 PLYR wireless headset, pictured above, that has the full range of bells and whistles.Skullcandy... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The company is expanding Project Genesis’ coverage, but there are still basic features missing that make it clear the service isn’t for the general public. Continue reading…

LG Display’s ‘Transparent OLED for Subway Trains’ are already in use within some Chinese trains and Japanese subways. | Image: LG Display LG Display is showcasing its “Transparent OLED for Subway Trains” at InnoTrans 2022, the world’s largest trade fair for transport technology, where it will feature as a replacement for windows in a concept train from Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railway company. The OLED window can be transparent or opaque depending on what it’s displaying. LG Display is using the show in Berlin to expand transparent panel sales to North American and European transport companies.LG Display has been supplying transparent OLED displays to transport companies in China and Japan since 2020, so we can already see it in action within a number of subway trains in major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shenzhen and Fuzhou, as well as within some of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing crypto company Nexo, alleging that the company misled customers by saying it was registered to sell securities and commodities and that it wasn’t approved to offer services like its “Earn Interest Product” that promised returns on deposited crypto. It’s the latest legal move in a fight between regulators and crypto companies looking to offer interest-earning accounts, often insisting that they shouldn’t be classified as securities.Seven other states — California, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington, and Vermont — are also filing “administrative actions” against the company, according to a press release from the New York AG. The release also quotes James as saying:... Continue reading…

An illustration of DART headed towards Dimorphos | NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben Update 9/26 8:08PM ET: The DART spacecraft smashed into an asteroid! Original post continues below.When NASA smashes a spacecraft into an asteroid on Monday, people on Earth will get an extremely close look at the action.NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is headed for its final destination, the surface of an asteroid called Dimorphos, which it will crash into at speeds of over 14,000 miles per hour. Researchers are hoping that the collision will change the asteroid’s orbit, speeding it up just a tiny bit.Neither Dimorphos, nor its larger companion, Didymos, pose any danger to Earth, but the experiment is designed to test whether or not a similar impact could make a difference if scientists ever discovered an asteroid... Continue reading…

Sony is once again selling a PlayStation 5 bundle today. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Still on the hunt for a next-gen PlayStation 5? Right now, Sony is selling the disc-based PlayStation 5 with a digital copy of Guerrilla Games’ excellent Horizon Forbidden West for $549.99, which is $10 less than the cost if you were to buy the two individually. The best part? You don’t even have to wait in line in order to pick one up.While we’ve been seeing Sony and other retailers offer stock for longer than usual recently, speed is still the name of the game here. We can’t suggest any hacks that will guarantee you’ll land the console today, but as detailed in our guide on how to buy a PS5, there are a few things you can do to improve your chance of securing one. For one, remember that you must log in with your PlayStation Network ID... Continue reading…

Kwon co-founded Terraform Labs whose stablecoin, TerraUSD, collapsed earlier this year. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Do Kwon, a co-founder of Terraform Labs, has insisted that he’s not on the run after the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, but Interpol is apparently under the impression he’s a fugitive. According to South Korean publication Yonhap and The New York Times, South Korean prosecutors said that Interpol has issued a “red notice” asking for help from worldwide law enforcement to find and arrest Kwon.Interpol:

Just because you can bring a waterproof phone into the shower doesn’t mean you should. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge There’s one last place in my life where the alerts, texts, pings, and emails, emails, emails! can’t find me: the shower. It is a sacred space where I process information, brainstorm, and sometimes, as a treat, anxiety-spiral over something dumb I said 15 years ago. But it has come to my attention that some of you are violating the sanctity of Shower Thought Time by actually inviting your phones into the shower. When this came to my attention, I did some digging and discovered dozens — dozens! — of waterproof phone mounts designed for the shower. Truly, I am shocked. You guys are bringing your phones into the shower?I did a little research and polled my Verge colleagues: do you bring your phone into the shower? While it seems that most... Continue reading…

iFixit’s video details the inner workings of Apple’s new premium watch. | Image: iFixit The right-to-repair enthusiasts at iFixit have published a video providing a screw-by-screw breakdown of the Apple Watch Ultra. The entire video serves less as a review of the capabilities of the Ultra and more of an intimate examination of the tech and engineering that goes into Apple’s powerful timepiece.iFixit’s breakdown exposed some vulnerabilities in the Apple Watch Ultra, not only in terms of its repairability but also its durability. The raised lip of the Ultra, which is intended to protect the screen, only really works against side-on impacts. As the video points out, any kind of head-on collision with the screen still risks a screen replacement. Getting to the battery on the Ultra requires you to remove the screen rather than... Continue reading…

Image: Meta Meta is testing a new way to add and switch between your accounts on Instagram and Facebook by integrating its Accounts Center into the apps. The features should help make things easier for anyone who constantly bounces between various accounts on the two apps or people who have a lot of Instagram profiles to separate their Online Brand, personal life, and business.The new account switcher for Facebook and Instagram will show you all the accounts and profiles you’ve added to the Accounts Center. While Instagram has let you switch between different profiles for years, the new system lets you throw Facebook accounts in the mix, making it easier to jump over to Facebook if you need to do something on that app. It’ll also show you some... Continue reading…

Even for the midrange 256GB model, the time to wait after placing a reservation is pretty short. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I was one of the people who rushed to put down a deposit for Valve’s Steam Deck the first moment that I could. However, I pulled out of the queue after seeing how long others were having to wait near its launch. Now, after seeing time and time again that Valve has increased production of the Deck to shorten wait times, it eventually made me rejoin the queue, if only as an experiment to see how quickly I could get to the front of the line.As it turns out, I only had to wait a month. I placed a deposit for the $529 256GB model on August 25th, and I just received my email confirmation that it was available for purchase. That wasn’t so bad. With a wait this short, there’s no reason to pay higher-than-retail costs for a Deck through sites... Continue reading…

Image: Substack Substack’s the latest company trying to resurrect Google Reader from the dead — well, in spirit at least.Nearly a decade after Google’s popular RSS feed aggregator shut down, Substack has launched a desktop RSS client alternative: Substack Reader for the web.Now, users can organize all of their Substack subscriptions in one webpage that they can view from their laptop or PC. The app also integrates with third-party RSS feeds so users can check out posts from other publications, too.The new desktop client keeps old Google Reader users in mind with familiar keyboard shortcuts, for example, yet also sports new settings like dark mode. Image: Substack Substack’s new desktop RSS client supports dark mode. S... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is testing home feeds without a shopping tab, marking a shift in how the platform treats e-commerce.Some Instagram users (including some of us here at The Verge) have noted in recent days that the shopping tab, previously on the bottom navigation bar, has been replaced with a notifications tab. Shopping, meanwhile, has been moved to a second menu, buried among options like settings and saved posts.Meta spokesperson Anne Yeh confirmed the changes as part of a limited test.“As part of our continued work to simplify your Instagram experience, we are testing a few changes to the main navigation bar at the bottom of the app with a small number of people,” Yeh says.Moving the tab is a conscious decision on the part of Instagram... Continue reading…

Thunderstorms move over Artemis I at launch pad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 27th, 2022. | Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Threatening weather will force NASA to send the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from its currently precarious position on the launchpad back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for safekeeping. The move will delay the agency’s highly anticipated launch of its Artemis I mission around the Moon.

WhatsApp users will soon be able to invite up to 32 people to a group call. | Image: WhatsApp WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature that allows users to share a direct link to a call, making it easier to stay in contact with your loved ones. The Call Links feature will start to appear on WhatsApp this week and can be accessed through a banner located at the top of the Calls tab. WhatsApp users who want to try the Call Link feature will need the latest version of the app.Mark Zuckerberg announced the feature on Facebook, saying that WhatsApp users will be able to share a link to a call with “a single tap.” The ability to share a call link with up to 32 users was teased back in April during the announcement of another upcoming feature, WhatsApp Communities.The Call Links feature will support both audio and video calls, and... Continue reading…

E3 2019 attendees check out a game at the show. | Photo by Getty Images for E3 After a year off, E3, the big gaming industry convention, is set to take place from June 13th through June 16th, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and event organizer ReedPop announced on Monday. The event will be back as an in-person show at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and there will be dedicated days for industry attendees and gaming fans to hit the show floor. E3 also plans to support digital gaming events that will take place beginning June 11th.The “E3 Business Days” will be happening from June 13th through June 15th. These days of the show will be exclusively for games industry attendees for them to network, meet up, and go hands-on with upcoming games. The “E3 Gamer Days” are set for the last two days of the... Continue reading…

The LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 7 is currently on sale for its best price yet. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge You can have it in any color you want, as long as it’s green, red, or cream. Best Buy and Walmart are currently offering the green, red, or cream colorways of the 41mm Apple Watch Series 7 for its best price ever. The GPS and cellular-equipped configuration of the Series 7 is typically priced at $499 but is available for just $329. While Apple has everyone focused on the new Series 8, the Series 7 is still every bit the excellent Apple wearable we’ve come to expect. The Series 7 offers a larger screen than its predecessor, and it can charge faster than generations that came before it.Unless you can’t live without some of the newer features rolled out with the Series 8, like its temperature sensors for menstrual tracking, or you’re more... Continue reading…

Airlines would have to provide more transparency about all the fees you pay to fly under new proposed rules. | Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Airlines would have to refund passengers for services they paid for that aren’t actually provided, like broken Wi-Fi, under new rules proposed by the Biden administration. Also, airlines and travel search websites would have to disclose upfront any added fees for changing or canceling your flight and for checked or carry-on baggage.The new rules are part of a slate of changes the US Department of Transportation is proposing to make flying more transparent and consumer-friendly after a particularly rocky summer travel season, in which flight cancellations spiked. The administration has previously sought stricter rules for passenger refunds, arguing that it wants to make air travel more competitive.Airlines have moved in recent years to... Continue reading…