The Verge

These two men are the biggest real estate owners in all of Japan who occasionally do light crimes. | Image: Sega KIRYU-CHAN!! Ahead of the Tokyo Game Show starting on September 15th, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio — developers of the gritty gangster series Yakuza, the noir detective series Judgment, and in sharp and hilarious contrast, the Super Monkey Ball series — shared its upcoming release schedule, and it’s a doozy. Yakuza 8 makes its debut along with several other Ryu Ga Gotoku games that’ll have you up to your eyeballs in hostess clubs, batting cages, crane games, and just a smidge of gangster action as a treat.First, RGG fans will be blessed with the samurai-flavored Yakuza spinoff, Like a Dragon: Ishin! Revealed yesterday during Sony’s State of Play event, Ishin trades fists for swords and ditches the neon-lit streets of Kamurocho in favor of Kochi... Continue reading…

Ford dealers who want to sell EVs can opt in to a two-tier certification system. | Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images Ford outlined a series of requirements for its dealers who want to sell the automaker’s electric vehicles, such as setting no-haggle prices and investing upward of $1.2 million in upgrades like charging, according to Automotive News. The company framed the investments as necessary if Ford is to compete with — and perhaps overtake — direct-sale competitors like Tesla.Dealers were given until October 31st to opt in to two EV certification tiers, with varying investment levels into charging and staff training. Dealers in the higher tier, which carries upfront costs of $900,000, will receive “elite” certification and be allocated more EVs, executives said. Those dealers who don’t opt in will be relegated to selling the company’s legacy... Continue reading…

Image: Jess T-R / Flickr Law enforcement officials are investigating an apparent mail-bomb attack on the virtual reality center at Northeastern University after an employee was injured in an explosion Tuesday evening. Authorities say the package was sent in a hard plastic case and triggered to detonate upon opening.The attack appears to be politically motivated by fear of VR technology, as it was accompanied by a rambling note attacking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and broader academic research on augmented reality devices, per CNN.The employee, who works at the VR center, suffered lacerations to his hands but was not seriously injured.Northeastern University hosts a number of VR-oriented facilities, including an Immersive Media Labs Suite that “includes... Continue reading…

The DJI Osmo Action 3 can be used in temperatures below 0 degrees. | Image: DJI DJI has announced the Osmo Action 3, the latest addition to its family of compact action cameras. This new offering from the world’s leading drone manufacturer features a complete redesign, sporting two touchscreens and a focus on portrait-mode shooting.The Osmo Action 3 bears very little resemblance to its predecessor, the DJI Action 2, which featured a modular design supported by a suite of magnetic accessories. Instead, this latest offering from DJI sports a look that more closely resembles the first model in the series, the original DJI Osmo Action.The camera packs a 1/1.7-inch imaging system capable of shooting in 4K resolution at 120fps with a wide 155-degree field of view. It packs DJI’s RockSteady 3.0 image stabilization that... Continue reading…

Verge reporter Victoria Song wearing the PSVR2. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge And it’s pretty good Continue reading…

The Nothing Phone 1. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge It’s only been on sale for less than two months, but Nothing has already revealed some early sales figures for the Phone 1 in India, where it released on July 21st.Speaking with GSMArena, Nothing’s vice president and general manager for India, Manu Sharma, said the company had sold over 100,000 Phone 1s in 20 days of sales in the country via retailer Flipkart (its exclusive sales partner), and that over 10 million users had signed up to be notified when the phone went on sale. Sharma says the phone was the bestselling handset on Flipkart in the ₹30,000-plus (around $378) price category.Not bad for a first effort, but those figures pale in comparison to the total Indian smartphone market, where analysts IDC report that around 35... Continue reading…

Choose your fighter. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding full theme support to its Windows Terminal this week. The customization support allows Windows Terminal users to alter the appearance of tabs, the window, and even background images for the Terminal interface. Microsoft has also tweaked Windows Terminal to always use a dark theme, rather than following the Windows system theme.Creating themes for Windows Terminal isn’t a simple process unless you’re a developer, though. Themes are only editable using a JSON file, and they’ll appear in the theme dropdown in the settings section of Windows Terminal. Microsoft has provided some sample JSON to get people started, and you’re free to get as creative as you want with a combination of colors and background images.Microsoft... Continue reading…

Logitech’s new Brio 500. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge Logitech’s Brio 500 is a new webcam with a compact design that features a neatly integrated physical privacy shutter and a “Show Mode” designed to broadcast what’s on your desk. It’s 1080p rather than 4K, the same as Logitech’s classic C920 webcam. It’s going on sale this month for $129 alongside a new Bluetooth headset called the Zone Vibe 100, which will retail for $99.99.The Brio 500 has a cylindrical design, with its 4-megapixel camera flanked by a pair of beamforming microphones that are designed to reduce background noise during calls. The privacy shutter design is pretty slick and can be brought down by turning a dial on the right side of the webcam. Showing off your desk is achieved by “tilting the camera angle towards the... Continue reading…

Sony Today’s just been a day of pleasant, video game flavored surprises. To cap off a neat but ho-hum State of Play, Sony dropped the story trailer for God Of War Ragnarok.Ragnarok sees the return of Kratos and Atreus as the two seemingly fend off (or, perhaps initiate) the arrival of Ragnarok — the end of the world in Norse mythology. Along the way, it seems like the father-son odd couple make new friends and enemies as they beat the shit out of every living creature in their path.The trailer talks of fate, and features Kratos imparting his hard learned lessons about what it means to defy the fate destiny has laid out at their feet. And Atreus, just like his father, seems to have secrets of his own that will require him to build an even... Continue reading…

A Google G logo. | The Verge A federal judge has allowed crucial elements of an antitrust case against Google to proceed, including allegations that Google illegally monopolized the ad-tech market. However, Judge P. Kevin Castel dismissed claims of collusion between Google and Facebook (now Meta) in the “Jedi Blue” program.Castel’s ruling (spotted by Bloomberg reporter Leah Nylen) says states have plausibly alleged Google has a monopoly in ad servers and ad exchanges and that its actions have had anticompetitive effects. It also says Google may have unfairly competed with operations like Project Bernanke, a secret program that allegedly edged out competitors by using Google’s access to data.The suit, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is one of several... Continue reading…

NASA’s Artemis I rocket | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images NASA’s Artemis I rocket is now set to take off on September 27th, with a “potential” backup date planned for October 2nd if things don’t go as planned. The agency originally considered retrying the launch as early as the 23rd but decided on a later date after “careful consideration of multiple logistical topics.”The Artemis I mission will use NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket to catapult an uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon as part of the agency’s push to bring humans back to the lunar surface by 2025. While NASA’s first launch attempt was cut short due to an engine issue, the second attempt on September 3rd ended prematurely after the Artemis I team detected a hydrogen leak that engineers couldn’t fix.To ensure things... Continue reading…

This aerial photograph taken on September 5th, 2022, shows flooded residential areas after heavy monsoon rains in Dera Allah Yar, Balochistan province in Pakistan, following months of record monsoon rains. | Photo by FIDA HUSSAIN / AFP via Getty Images “The science is unequivocal: we are going in the wrong direction” when it comes to addressing climate change, a new report from the World Meteorological Organization says. This year’s planet-heating pollution has risen above pre-pandemic levels.All over the world, people are already facing dire consequences from the 1.2 degrees of global warming human activity has caused since the industrial revolution. “Heatwaves in Europe. Colossal floods in Pakistan. Prolonged and severe droughts in China, the Horn of Africa and the United States. They are the price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a press release and accompanying video today.“There is nothing natural about the new scale of these... Continue reading…

The company says it’s changing direction. | Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Patreon is laying off 80 people, around 17 percent of its workforce, and closing offices in Dublin and Berlin. A post from CEO and co-founder Jack Conte says that the cuts are happening because the company is changing its plans after trying to rapidly grow during the pandemic. It’s reducing the size of its teams in charge of “operations, recruiting, and other internal support functions” as well as its budget for sales and marketing.The layoffs are hitting Patreon’s go-to-market, operations, finance, and people teams. Workers in the US will receive three months’ severance pay as well as two extra weeks per half year of tenure they have beyond their first year at the company. European workers get a similar deal, with three months of... Continue reading…

On November 12, 2022, The Verge will join the Chicago Humanities Festival for a full day of exploring how big tech impacts the public in a series of conversations called “The Social Mind.” The day will end with an interactive afterparty with video games provided by Bit Bash.The series begins with David Pierce (editor-at-large at The Verge) sitting down with New York Times investigative reporter and author of The Chaos Machine Max Fisher to talk about how Social Media has rewired our brains. Next up, The Verge deputy editor Alex Heath will host a discussion about the future of the feed and how the algorithms that control what we see online impact our real world. The final conversation will explore how social media is affecting the... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge The Verge is pleased to announce that Hot Pod Summit — our invite-only event for creators and leaders in the audio industry — is returning on November 3rd, 2022, at KCRW in Los Angeles. The day-long event will be hosted by Hot Pod lead writer Ariel Shapiro and will feature a rich lineup of programming on the most essential topics of the day in audio, including the booming relationship between podcasts and Hollywood.If you’re not a subscriber of Hot Pod, what are you waiting for? Sign up now to stay ahead of the curve on the future of audio with industry-leading analysis, exclusive reporting, and more.We’re proud to partner once again with the amazing team at work x work to produce the event. Hot Pod Summit is part of work x work’s On... Continue reading…

Goldeneye 007 is coming to the Switch. | Image: Rare As expected, Nintendo pulled out all the stops for its fall Direct showcase with several Twitter-shattering announcements stuffed between smaller but no less exciting news. As is usually the case, it didn’t announce everything that fans might have been expecting (ahem, any sign of life for Metroid Prime 4 or a remastered Prime trilogy), but it was a decent showing. Here are the best announcements and trailers from Direct.The sequel to Breath of the Wild has a nameThe latest game in The Legend of Zelda franchise will be subtitled Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo continues to deliver the briefest yet tantalizing trailers for this game. My colleague Jay Peters covered the news, trying to figure out what to make of what little was shown of T... Continue reading…

The Twitter logo. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s shareholders have voted to approve a proposed $44 billion acquisition by Elon Musk.Reports yesterday suggested that a wide margin of approval was expected for the vote, with the required majority reportedly locked before the Tuesday meeting. On a call, Twitter confirmed that a preliminary count shows it has enough votes to approve the deal.Musk proposed a buyout of Twitter in April. Twitter has encouraged investors to accept it since then, even as Musk has filed numerous requests to terminate the agreement. Today’s vote lets Twitter continue with a lawsuit intended to make Musk close the acquisition.The approval means that Musk and Twitter will proceed to an October trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Musk is set to... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Jackson - WPA Pool / Getty Images We’ve got a lot on the docket, so I’ll keep it brief. Today: Meghan Markle takes a break from her hit podcast during the royal mourning period, Brookings breaks down the political podcast ecosystem, and some exciting announcements about our upcoming Hot Pod Summit in LA.Hot Pod Summit LA will feature guests from Spotify, Crooked Media, Team Coco, and moreHot Pod Summit in LA is less than two months away, and we’ve been putting together a killer lineup. I am really excited about who we have so far, and I hope you will be, too! Summit headliners include:

Illustration by Emmett Mottl We’re excited to announce that The Verge is partnering with the Chicago Humanities Festival for a series of live conversations about the future of social media and how it affects human life. The Verge sessions will take place Saturday, November 12th, at the Steppenwolf theater in Chicago, starting at 2:30PM CT. Then, after the sessions, we’re gathering with attendees to party as the Steppenwolf is transformed by indie gaming collective Bit Bash. It’s going to be a blast.Our three sessions will include a variety of talks between Verge hosts and experts on some of the most pressing issues in the tech industry. Max Fisher, New York Times investigative reporter and author of The Chaos Machine, will join Verge editor-at-large David Pierce to... Continue reading…

iOS 16 brings lots of features to new and old devices — some more obvious than others. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge If you update your iPhone to iOS 16 this week, you’re going to want to spend a few minutes tweaking your settings. You definitely want to turn on haptic feedback for the keyboard, you might want the battery percentage back in your status bar, and it’s a good idea to spend some time playing around with your Focus modes.But there’s one setting that’s so useful, and so hidden, that I missed it entirely in my review of iOS 16. (Thanks to everyone who let me know!) It’s called Filter Unknown Senders. If you toggle Filter Unknown Senders on — go to Settings, Messages, and scroll down almost to the bottom to find it — you can now filter your Messages app to show you only the unread threads.The feature’s been around for a couple of years, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s lack of internal security controls was such that the company was simply unable to detect agents of foreign intelligence services who had infiltrated the company, former security chief Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko says.Zatko made the claims in testimony given to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, in a hearing on Twitter’s data security practices.Opening questions from Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) quickly homed in on claims that Twitter faced numerous insider threats, including from employees of the Indian government. Zatko said that the Indian government was not the only national government to embed agents within the company. At least one Chinese spy was employed by Twitter, Zatko said, but the full... Continue reading…

Fermata Energy’s FE-15 bi-directional charger in a commercial use case. | Image: Nissan Nissan has approved the first bidirectional charging system for use with its all-electric Leaf vehicle in the US. The FE-15 charger by Fermata Energy, which can power buildings using the EV’s battery, charge it, and send stored energy back to the grid, is the first system of its kind to earn UL 9741 certification for bidirectional charging solutions.Back in 2012, Nissan promised its maybe soon-to-be-discontinued EV would eventually share its stored battery power back to your home or the grid during peak hours or even in emergencies. This technology is broadly known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), Vehicle-to-Home (V2H), and Vehicle-to-Load (V2L), which all can be used interchangeably to describe a system that converts EVs to a backup power... Continue reading…

Lee Jung-jae (left) and Squid Game director Hwang Dong-hyuk (right) posing with their Emmys. | FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Despite HBO being in a chaotic state of flux as of late, the premium cable channel dominated at this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards — an evening packed with wins that were expected and a handful of speeches that were truly moving.Mike White’s The White Lotus paved HBO’s way to dominance with a total of 10 wins at this year’s Emmys, including awards to White specifically for directing and limited-series supporting acting awards to Jennifer Coolidge and Murray Bartlett. While The White Lotus brought the statue for Outstanding Limited Series home for HBO and Succession won best drama, Euphoria’s second season emerged as a heavy hitter for the network with six wins, including a best actress in a drama award for Zendaya. Hacks also cleaned up... Continue reading…

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has yet to call a vote on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. | Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images More than a dozen smaller tech companies, including Proton and DuckDuckGo are urging lawmakers to pass comprehensive antitrust legislation “as soon as possible.” For them, passing the bill would kill two birds with one stone, allowing lawmakers to address anti-competitive conduct and privacy failures in one go.In a letter to top congressional leaders on Tuesday, executives from a dozen smaller tech companies called on lawmakers to pass the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, or AICO, a sweeping competition bill that would restrict dominant platforms like Google and Amazon from favoring their own services over those of their competitors. The bill would also provide new funding for antitrust regulators at the Justice Department... Continue reading…

Honda wants its motorcycle business to be carbon neutral by 2040. | Image: Honda Honda, one of the biggest names in motorcycles, announced that it will release at least 10 new electric models globally within the next three years as part of a larger strategy to become carbon neutral by 2040.The manufacturer didn’t release any details about specific models but said the aim was to reach annual sales of 1 million units within the next five years and 3.5 million units (approximately 15 percent of total sales) as of 2030.Honda is considered to be the biggest motorcycle company in the world, having sold over 300 million motorcycles since its inception. That said, shifting to electric powertrains will be no small task.Honda is considered to be the biggest motorcycle company in the worldThe move to electric may mean... Continue reading…

A line of Steam Deck prototypes displaying the evolutionary journey of the Valve handheld gaming PC. | Image: Pierre-Loup Griffais A collection of playable Steam Deck prototypes surface as part of a launch event for the gaming handheld in Asia, documenting how the design has evolved since mid-2019. Snaps of various models documenting the evolution of the handheld were shared on Twitter by Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais, a member of the Steam Deck team, following the portable PCs appearance at the Tokyo Game Show (alongside an additional not-so-portable replica).While most of the units are visually similar, all featuring dual thumbsticks and sloping front edges, for example, there are some notable differences between them. One model seen in the middle of the lineup has attracted attention thanks to its clean design and circular trackpads, reminiscent of those featured... Continue reading…

Today, The Verge’s co-founder and editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and publisher Helen Havlak unveiled an ambitious new site and design for the 10-year-old technology brand. The Verge is a destination that has sustained a loyal and robust community since its founding, and with its new site, the brand will build for the next 10 years by investing in a direct relationship with its audience. Building on a homepage that’s one of the most-visited daily destinations in technology coverage, The Verge’s new homepage will introduce the Storystream news feed, a new Twitter-like feature that will offer readers a comprehensive, curated rundown of the most important tech stories of the day — featuring expert commentary by Verge journalists; links to the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge A ruling from the FDA that allows over-the-counter sales of hearing aids is widely expected to make the devices easier to obtain and (hopefully) more affordable for consumers. And now, one of tech’s most influential companies, Sony, has confirmed plans to enter the OTC hearing aid market in the United States. Its first such product is already in development.According to a press release issued this morning, Sony has formed a partnership with Denmark’s WS Audiology to co-develop hearing aid devices. “Sony and WSA will combine their respective technological and medical expertise to create solutions that will shape this new field,” the companies said. WS Audiology’s website says the company sells 5.5 million hearing aids annually.“Toward... Continue reading…

Samsung’s fourth-generation foldables are already getting a discount. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Following Apple’s “Far Out” event, where it had an impressive showing with the iPhone 14 Pro and a bunch of other gadgets, Samsung is countering with a strong right hook, offering the first-ever (and best) discounts on its fourth-generation foldable phones. Available for $999.99 at launch, the 128GB configuration of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is currently discounted to $899.99 at Amazon.The larger Z Fold 4 has also received a significant discount, lowering the $1,799.99 launch price of the 256GB model to $1,599.99. You can also find the 512GB configuration discounted to $1,719.99, down from its usual $1,919.99.It may still be a little gimmicky, but the fourth iteration of the Galaxy Z Flip is actually a pretty decent phone with solid... Continue reading…

GoldeEye 007 is back. | Image: Rare GoldenEye 007 is finally coming to Nintendo Switch and Xbox. Nintendo announced today that Rare is releasing GoldenEye 007 HD on Nintendo Switch and Xbox soon as a remaster of the legendary Nintendo 64 title that first launched in 1997.The remastered game includes 4K resolution, smoother frame rates, and even split-screen local multiplayer. Rare says it will even arrive on Xbox Game Pass and Nintendo Switch Online. Nintendo is also adding Pokémon Stadium, Mario Party, Pilotwings 64, 1080° Snowboarding, and Excitebike 64 to Nintendo Switch Online. There is no announced date for the GoldenEye 007 release just yet.It’s been a long time coming after an HD remaster was supposed to launch on Xbox 360 in 2008, but licensing and rights issues... Continue reading…

Voice could be a way to detect disease. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Researchers are building a database of human voices that they’ll use to develop AI-based tools that could eventually diagnose serious diseases; they’re targeting everything from Alzheimer’s to cancer. The National Institutes of Health-funded project, announced Tuesday, is an effort to turn the human voice into something that could be used as a biomarker for disease, like blood or temperature.“What’s beautiful about voice data is that it’s probably one of the cheapest types of data that you can collect from people,” says Olivier Elemento, a professor at the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and one of the lead investigators on the project. “It’s a very accessible type of information you could access from... Continue reading…

The Biden administration launched a new website — CleanEnergy.gov — aimed at helping Americans navigate the new green energy tax credits contained in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). That could especially be useful for people looking to buy a new electric vehicle but finding themselves confused by the litany of new requirements about assembly and battery materials.The $739 billion measure carries a host of tax credits and discounts on everything from EVs to solar energy to regular appliances like refrigerators, stoves, and washing machines. The new website is designed to help Americans save money on home upgrades or new purchases while also steering them toward cleaner, more efficient products.The website serves as a hub... Continue reading…

Play as this adorable fox on new platforms soon. | Image: Finji Tunic, the indie hit where you explore a mysterious world as an adorable fox adventurer, launches on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on September 27th. The news was announced during Nintendo’s September 2022 Direct.Tunic is a delightful game that I played through earlier this year. The game drops you in its world with little explanation of what’s going on — much of the world is even presented in its own made-up language. And enemies are tough, so you’ll always be on your toes while exploring the world. But over time, you’ll start to get a grasp on everything, helped by finding pieces of a wonderfully illustrated in-game instruction manual along the way.Previously, Tunic was available on Xbox, PC, and Mac, and I... Continue reading…