The Verge

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding a bunch of casual games to Microsoft Teams today, months after The Verge exclusively revealed the company’s plans. Favorites like Solitaire, Minesweeper, Wordament, and IceBreakers are all now part of Teams, allowing co-workers to play against each other during Teams meetings.All four games are interactive and support multiple players and have been developed by Microsoft Casual Games — part of Xbox Game Studios. The games are available in a new Games for Work app in Microsoft Teams and range from supporting two players all the way up to 250. Image: Microsoft Microsoft Minesweeper is 30 years old. Solitaire has a head-to-head competition mode for perhaps challenging your boss during those... Continue reading…

Notion’s AI turns your prompt into blog posts, poems, to-do lists, and brainstorms. | Image: Notion / David Pierce Someday soon, Notion will be able to write your notes for you. The company is starting to test a new feature today called Notion AI, which Notion CEO Ivan Zhao tells me could ultimately change the way people use the app — and do their jobs. With Notion AI, all you have to do is tell the app what you want (a blog post, a recruiting email template, a list of great business books to read), and the app actually creates the content right in front of your eyes.The first thing Notion AI is for, Zhao says, is writing. Lots of work requires writing, some of it repetitive (like creating new job descriptions) and some of it creative (like writing blog posts or brainstorming new ideas). Zhao thinks Notion AI can help in both cases. “For many users... Continue reading…

The Tapo C420S2 smart security camera has AI detection, 2K video resolution, and the option of local storage. | Image: TP-Link Tapo, TP-Link’s other smart home brand, has a new security camera. The Tapo Smart Wire-Free Security Camera System (Tapo C420S2) is an impressively inexpensive setup that includes two indoor/outdoor cameras and a hub for $200. The wireless cameras feature video resolution up to 2K, six months of battery life, full-color night vision, AI detection, and have a spotlight and siren built in.TP-Link’s original smart home brand, Kasa (which is its fewer-frills, more budget range), has even less expensive outdoor cameras, but those work solely over Wi-Fi. The difference here is that the Tapo C420S2 cameras use a proprietary, low-power wireless protocol to communicate with the hub, which helps improve connectivity and lengthen battery life.... Continue reading…

DuckDuckGo’s new App Tracking Protection tool aims to prevent apps from tracking Android users and then selling the collected data. | Image: DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking Protection is now available for public beta testing on all Android devices after launching in a limited beta almost one year ago.App Tracking Protection for Android is a free feature from the privacy-focused company that blocks third-party trackers within apps, even when said apps aren’t actively being used. When enabled in DuckDuckGo’s browser, it detects when apps are about to send data to a list of third-party tracking companies on DuckDuckGo’s publicly available blocklist and then blocks most of those data requests. It all happens on the device without routing your data through DuckDuckGo’s servers. Image: DuckDuckGo With the App Tracking Protection “Activity Report,” you can see... Continue reading…

Arizona is getting a few new fabs within the next two years. | Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple is reportedly planning to start buying chips made in the US and Europe, according to a report from Bloomberg that cites comments made by Tim Cook at an internal meeting. Apple has “already made a decision to be buying out of a plant in Arizona” that’s due to begin production in 2024, meaning that the company could start using those chips in around two years, according to the reported comments from Cook. He also said that Apple hopes to “source from Europe as those plans become more apparent.”Apple’s custom-designed chips, such as the M2 chip that powers its newest MacBooks and the iPhone’s A-series processors, are mainly produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC. As the company’s name implies, most of its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s adjusting its sexual harassment policies in response to findings from ArentFox Schiff, the law firm it hired to evaluate the company’s practices over concerns about sexual misconduct and discrimination in the workplace. The 50-page report lays out a series of recommendations that Microsoft will implement by June 30th, 2023, with some coming into force earlier than that.In a post on the Microsoft blog, the company’s response commits to publishing an annual report on the company’s sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, which will include the number of reported incidents and the actions taken as a result. It also aims to revise its anti-harassment and discrimination policy, as well as revamp the way it conducts... Continue reading…

Mark your calendars? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Elon Musk says the new Twitter Blue, which lets you pay $7.99 per month for a blue verification check mark next to your name, will relaunch on November 29th. In a tweet, he said he would be “punting” the relaunch to the new date “to make sure that it is rock solid.”It’s safe to say that the original Blue launch didn’t go super smoothly. Twitter first started rolling out the new Blue subscription on iOS earlier this month. However, the platform pulled Blue signups a few days later after a wave of fake verified accounts popped up on the platform.

Image: Blizzard World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s prelaunch battery of content, including a new launch cinematic, the pre-expansion release of the new Dracthyr class, and especially the allure of being able to party up with my Horde buddies, is doing a lot to get me to come back to WoW. (To say nothing of the serendipitous brand synergy between this latest expansion and the recent Game of Thrones spinoff.)Like a lot of players, I felt burned by the developments of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. The expansion’s story was wildly unpopular, with a character celebrated for making the best out of a bad situation turning to full-on war crimes. Left with that bad taste in my mouth, that “Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV...”... Continue reading…

Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge Here’s a cheat sheet for the Artemis I mission Continue reading…

If you log out, you should be able to get back in. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has confirmed that two-factor authentication is still up and running on the service, despite concerns that it had inadvertently been shut down or broken. A tweet from Twitter Support says the company is “looking into the few cases where SMS codes aren’t being delivered,” but it doesn’t give much indication of how many people were affected.On Monday, a few tweets went viral on the platform featuring screenshots of error codes about how SMS codes couldn’t be sent, with some users linking the issues to CEO Elon Musk saying that the platform would be shutting down unnecessary parts of Twitter’s infrastructure. However, our tests showed that the service wasn’t completely broken, and when we put out a public call asking people if... Continue reading…

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images Following his recent departure from the studio formerly known as DC Films, Walter Hamada is heading over to Paramount Pictures to head up the studio’s upcoming horror projects.Paramount Pictures announced today that it’s entered an exclusive multiyear deal with Hamada that will see him heading up all of its horror genre films for both theatrical and streaming releases. In a public statement about the deal, Paramount Pictures president and CEO Brian Robbins called Hamada “the ideal partner and visionary” to take point on the company’s horror-focused endeavors. He also pointed to the success of director Parker Finn’s Smile, which was released theatrically after originally being meant for Paramount Plus, as an example of the kind of... Continue reading…

Right now, you can save on Vizio’s M6-Series QLED and other cool tech as part of Target’s ongoing Black Friday sale. | Image: Vizio The holiday shopping season has begun and several retailers, including Target, have already kicked off some spectacular Black Friday deals in the lead-up to the annual shopping event. Some of the best discounts we’re currently seeing extend to wireless earbuds like the Beats Studio Buds ($99.99), as well as TVs like Vizio’s 50-inch M6-Series QLED (now $399.99).Here, we’ve collected some of the best discounts you can find at Target, many of which will be available through the week of Thanksgiving and price matched elsewhere. Target also intends to roll out new deals every Sunday so we’ll be updating this page on a weekly basis as new deals and discounts become available. As usual, we’ll make sure to give you a heads-up as to which deals... Continue reading…

The current version of the iPhone 14 Pro’s always-on display can be a bit... distracting. | Image: Apple iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max owners could be getting more control over their phone’s always-on display. The latest developer beta for the upcoming iOS 16.2 includes toggles that let you hide the wallpaper and notifications while using the feature, according to reports from MacRumors and 9to5Mac.Turning off both with always-on activated will make it so you just see a clock and your lockscreen widgets when your phone is locked, according to an image tweeted by 9to5Mac editor Chance Miller. On the currently shipping version of iOS, it’s all or nothing; you can have the always-on display that’ll show a wallpaper and notifications, or you can turn it off, leaving your phone’s screen blank when it’s locked and asleep, the way iPhones always have... Continue reading…

NASA’s Space Launch System at its launchpad in July 2022 ahead of a rehearsal. | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images The Space Launch System is finally ready for its big debut. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New shopping features are coming to YouTube Shorts, including affiliate marketing and the ability to purchase items through Shorts, as first reported by the Financial Times (via TechCrunch).The long-form video giant is testing shopping features with US-based creators and audiences in the US, India, Brazil, Canada, and Australia, allowing influencers to tag their own products in Shorts that viewers can then purchase, according to the report. An affiliate marketing program, open to select US influencers, adds yet another way for creators to monetize their Shorts, with YouTube, the creator, and the merchant all taking a cut of sales, according to the Financial Times.YouTube didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.S... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has revealed why the company delayed its plans to introduce an Xbox streaming console, speaking to Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel on The Verge’s Decoder podcast this week.“It was more expensive than we wanted it to be when we actually built it out with the hardware that we had inside,” said Spencer, discussing the Keystone prototype device that recently appeared on his office shelves. “We decided to focus that team’s effort on delivering the smart TV streaming app.”Microsoft delivered an Xbox TV app in partnership with Samsung instead, but it doesn’t mean the idea for a streaming-only Xbox console is fully over. “With Keystone, we’re still focused on it and watching when we can get the right... Continue reading…

Image: @TheBlueMister (Twitter) Apple’s first-party lineup of MagSafe charging accessories for the iPhone is fairly limited: you’ve got the standard MagSafe puck, the MagSafe Duo, the underwhelming MagSafe Battery Pack, and well... that’s it. But new images indicate that Apple at some point considered releasing a metal stand with an integrated MagSafe charger.The photos and related details were shared by Twitter user @TheBlueMister and subsequently covered by MacRumors. @TheBlueMister is among a hobbyist group of collectors on Twitter that share details about prototype and prerelease Apple devices and accessories. More than one person has gotten ahold of the “Apple Magic Charger” (that’s what it’s identified as when plugged into a Mac), which helps lend some credence... Continue reading…

Tough day for Taylor Swift fans. | Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic The massive demand for presale tickets for Taylor Swift’s latest concert tour has already crashed Ticketmaster. The company’s support account tweeted that fans “may be experiencing intermittent issues” and that it’s “urgently” working to resolve problems.On Tuesday afternoon, Ticketmaster said that the presale has led to “historically unprecedented demand” for tickets with “millions” showing up to the presale. Despite the issues, the company says it has sold “hundreds of thousands” of tickets already, but when the sales are for the giant stadiums that Swift will be playing at, that may not be as impressive as it sounds. Ticketmaster will also be delaying the onsale times for the Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Santa Clara, and Seattle shows to... Continue reading…

Sam Bankman-Fried testifies on Capitol Hill, before his fall from grace | Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images He had friends in high places — and they are probably embarrassed right now. Continue reading…

This massive Lego set is deserving of its own living room. | Image: Lego Who needs to travel the globe when you can bring the world’s biggest landmarks to your own home in plastic brick form? Lego has announced its tallest set to date with the new 10,001-piece Eiffel Tower, soaring 149cm / 59 inches tall when fully built. It’s the latest in Lego’s Icons line, joining the ranks of other legendary hallmarks of human history such as the Titanic, the Roman Colosseum, and the Atari 2600 — naturally. The Lego Eiffel Tower will be sold in Lego stores and on its site beginning November 25th for $629.99.The Eiffel Tower may be the tallest of all Lego sets so far, but it’s the second-biggest in terms of brick count — trailing the Lego World Map by about 1,700 pieces. Though if you’re anxious about its massive height... Continue reading…

The Orion capsule and Space Launch System on November 13th, 2022. | Photo by Red Huber/Getty Images NASA’s Artemis I mission is still set to launch this week after its Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft were buffeted by high winds during Hurricane Nicole. The rocket and spacecraft suffered only “very minor damage,” according to NASA officials. The aim of the Artemis I mission is to launch the spacecraft on an uncrewed mission around the Moon to test out the technology before a series of crewed missions visit the Moon.The decision to leave the rocket on the launchpad during a hurricane was controversial, as experts were concerned that high winds could cause it to rock. Previously, when Hurricane Ian threatened the Florida coast last month, the rocket was returned to a building called the Vehicle Assembly Building for... Continue reading…

Photo by Joel Kowsky / NASA via Getty Images NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) is almost ready for liftoff after facing multiple setbacks, including two scrubbed launch attempts and two hurricane-caused delays. This highly anticipated rocket launch has been over a decade in the making and marks NASA’s return to crewed missions to the Moon. This mission is called Artemis I, and while there won’t be any astronauts on board during this launch, it will serve as a test for the future goal of putting the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon.During its first launch, the SLS will catapult NASA’s Orion capsule into space, where it will embark on a voyage around the Moon that is expected to last until December 11th, when it will splash back down into the ocean. On... Continue reading…

Looks Cyberpunk-y. | Image: Epic Games Over half of all announced games for next-gen game consoles are being developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine suite of developer tools, Epic VP of engineering Nick Penwarden said in an interview with The Verge.While that’s a small improvement from the previous 48 percent figure CEO Tim Sweeney shared in April at the launch of Unreal Engine 5, both numbers demonstrate the growing popularity of Unreal Engine for developing PS5 and Xbox Series X / S games. And it’s perhaps not too surprising that the number is trending up given that both the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S are now two years old and much easier to buy.Penwarden didn’t specify how many developers are using which versions of Unreal Engine but noted he’s been “pleasantly... Continue reading…

The auction listing says the shoes retain “the imprint of Steve Jobs’ feet, which had been shaped after years of use.” | Image: Julien’s Auctions One (lucky?) bidder just paid $218,750 to get their hands on a pair of raggedy old sandals worn by Steve Jobs (via CNN). Oh, and the 360-degree non-fungible token (NFT) that goes with it.The sandals, a pair of Birkenstock Arizonas, were apparently worn by Jobs back in the 1970s and ’80s when he first started Apple. They were recovered from the trash (as you might’ve guessed) by Jobs’ estate manager, Mark Sheff, and then put up for sale at Julien’s Auctions on Friday. Image: Julien’s Auctions The old Birkenstocks were recovered from the trash by Jobs’ house manager. When talking about how he acquired the sandals in a 2016 article from Business Insider, Sheff explains that Jobs “kept very few things,” so he... Continue reading…

The Xbox Series S is on sale for $249.99 at Adorama. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Black Friday is next week, which means we’re about to see a lot of great deals drop and inevitably disappear within seconds. That’s why it’s not the worst idea to start your holiday shopping before the madness begins. If you want to do so while saving, you can’t go wrong gifting a gamer a discounted Xbox Series S. Right now, you can buy Microsoft’s miniature console for just $249.99 ($50 off) at Adorama, which is one of its better prices to date.If your loved one lives in a small apartment or home, the Xbox Series S is a particularly ideal console to consider purchasing, one that’s much smaller than the more expensive Series X. Though it lacks a disc drive, you can use it to play the same digital games as the Series X, albeit at 2560 x... Continue reading…

A screenshot of the new Storyboard UI. | Image: Descript Descript started life as an audio editing app but has slowly added more video editing tools over the years. Now, the app has launched one of its biggest updates yet and is putting video editing front and center with a new mode named Storyboard. The company has been testing Storyboard in beta for months, but it’s now available to all users.As ever, Descript’s key differentiator compared to traditional apps is its take on the standard editing timeline. Instead of presenting content and effects as a series of blocks in a visual timeline (which can get hellishly busy), the app uses AI to transcribe speech from audio and video and lets users edit this content just like they would a Word document. You just delete sentences from the... Continue reading…

Clippy is back to make or break your holidays. | Image: Microsoft Clippy has returned this year to appear on Microsoft’s latest ugly sweater. The Microsoft Office assistant that was both hated and loved is the latest in a series of Windows-themed ugly sweaters from Microsoft and will be available from the company’s Xbox Gear Shop today, priced at $74.99.That’s quite the price to pay to spread some holiday cheer, but all proceeds will be donated to the College Success Foundation this year, alongside a $100,000 donation from Microsoft. Image: Microsoft Nobody can see Clippy from behind. This is Microsoft’s fifth year of Windows-themed ugly sweaters and the third year the company has been selling them to the general public. “It started back in 2017, we had posted three made-up... Continue reading…

You can also send your location via satellite in the Find My app. You don’t have to hold your arm up to get a signal, though there is a lot of turning around and waiting when trying to connect to satellites. Continue reading…

Image: Activision Bored of hearing about whether Microsoft will keep Call of Duty on PlayStation or not? Good, because so is Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. In an interview on Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Spencer has settled the debate over the future of Call of Duty on PlayStation once and for all.“It’s not about at some point I pull the rug underneath PlayStation 7’s legs and it’s ‘ahaha you just didn’t write the contract long enough,’” says Spencer. “There’s no contract that could be written that says forever.”Spencer has spent weeks responding to questions over whether Microsoft would make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox if the company’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through.The Verge... Continue reading…

Aqara’s new automatic pet feeder works with smart home automations and voice commands. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Smart home company Aqara is bringing some connected fun to your pets. The new $99.99 Aqara Smart Pet Feeder C1 can feed your cat or dog on a schedule, remotely using its app, by a voice command with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri, or based on motion when connected with an Aqara motion sensor.There are plenty of automatic pet feeders out there, but very few can integrate with smart home devices to create useful automations for feeding your pet. The C1 uses Zigbee 3.0 and requires an Aqara smart home hub (starting at $30) to connect to the internet and Aqara’s app to set up those automations.For example, you can have an Aqara indoor camera start recording when the food is dispensed so you can check and see if your... Continue reading…

The Garmin Bounce is the company’s first LTE watch for kids. | Image: Garmin Garmin already has a ton of colorful fitness trackers for kids, but today, it’s launching the $149.99 Bounce — its first LTE smartwatch for kids. The device is meant to help parents keep an eye on their kids without having to shell out for a smartphone or manage what their kids are doing with it.Bounce includes both built-in GPS and LTE. On top of tracking their child’s whereabouts, Bounce allows parents to set alerts for whenever their child leaves a designated area. Children can also send their current location to their parents via a notification in the Garmin Jr. app. Like Apple’s Family Setup on the Apple Watch, parents can activate a do-not-disturb mode during school hours.Aside from location tracking, Bounce also supports... Continue reading…

Amazon Clinic is a new message-based virtual healthcare service that offers accessible treatments for a variety of common health concerns. | Image: Amazon Amazon has launched Amazon Clinic, a message-based online healthcare service that offers treatments for over 20 “common health conditions” such as allergies, dandruff, hair loss, birth control, erectile dysfunction, and acne.Amazon Clinic requires customers to select the condition they require treatment for and then choose a preferred provider from an available list of licensed telehealth providers. After completing an intake questionnaire, customers can connect with clinicians for a consultation via a secure message-based portal. A personalized treatment plan will then be provided via the portal alongside any necessary prescriptions, which can be filled at any pharmacy of the customer’s choosing — including Amazon Pharmacy. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter may be in big trouble when it comes to generating advertising revenue: GroupM, part of WPP, the world’s biggest ad company — and Twitter’s biggest spender — is reportedly telling its clients that buying ads on the platform is “high-risk,” according to Platformer and Digiday. That makes it the third advertising juggernaut telling massive corporations that they might want to take their money elsewhere, after IPG and Omnicom Media Group both recommended pausing advertisements on the platform.GroupM works with companies like Google, L’Oréal, Bayer, Nestle, Unilever, Coke, and Mars. If you’ve ever seen that graphic about how a few brands make pretty much everything you buy at the grocery store, you’ll notice a lot of Venn diagram... Continue reading…