The Verge

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images With the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and almost every other cryptocurrency tumbling dramatically, major crypto companies like Coinbase and Crypto.com have laid off hundreds of workers in the past few days alone. But one company is on a hiring spree — just not for employees who will call out racism, transphobia, or label other kinds of workplace behavior toxic.The Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, ranked in the top five globally by trade volume, announced in a blog post Wednesday that it was hiring more than 500 new staff, as long as they fit with the company’s vision of a “crypto-first culture.” Another document linked in the post outlines the fundamentals of that culture divided into sub-sections that summarize a particular vision of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon is tossing a nice upgrade to subscribers of its lower-cost 5G Start unlimited plan: beginning June 16th, the plan will include 5GB of premium mobile hotspot data at no extra cost. Right now, the plan doesn’t offer hotspot data at all, and it’s the only Verizon unlimited plan to not have it. Verizon spokesperson Ashley Colette tells The Verge it will be added automatically, meaning 5G Start subscribers shouldn’t have to make any changes on their end to use the data.You can check out all of Verizon’s unlimited plans on the company’s website. 5G Start is the most affordable at $35 per line for four lines, but you have to also sign up for paper-free billing and auto pay to get that rate. (If you have just one line, the plan costs... Continue reading…

The Callisto Protocol. | Image: Striking Distance Studios Glen Schofield talks about his next terror-filled sci-fi game Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify is reducing its new hiring by 25 percent as recession fears mount, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. It is unclear which parts of the business will be most affected.Spotify is far from the only tech company to reevaluate its staffing as the stock market tumbles. Twitter and Meta each announced some degree of hiring freeze last month, and Netflix made headlines in April for its layoffs, particularly at in-house fan site Tudum.During Spotify’s investor presentation last week, CEO Daniel Ek emphasized the company’s growth not only in subscriptions but in verticals beyond music like podcasting and, soon, audiobooks. But chief financial officer Paul Vogel did hint at the event that staffing could be affected by... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft has patched a Windows vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting. If you own a system that uses Windows 7 and up, you’ll want to update your computer as soon as possible (via Bleeping Computer).The security flaw, called Follina (CVE-2022-30190) by researchers, lets bad actors hijack users’ computers through programs like Microsoft Word. Security researchers have been aware of the threat since late May, but Microsoft reportedly dismissed their initial findings.In an attack documented by security company Proofpoint, hackers associated with the Chinese government sent malicious Word documents to Tibetan recipients. When opened, these documents use the Follina exploit to take control of the Microsoft Support Diagnostic... Continue reading…

Photo by Elizabeth Frantz-Pool/Getty Images As the Supreme Court’s expected decision to overturn Roe v. Wade looms over Washington, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has announced sweeping legislation to ban the sale of location and health data.Warren’s Health and Location Protection Act — cosponsored by a slate of Democratic senators, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) — would bar “data brokers from selling or transferring location data and health data.” There are few limitations, making the bill one of the most strident proposals aimed at regulating data sales.“Data brokers profit from the location data of millions of people, posing serious risks to Americans everywhere by selling their most private information,” Warren said in a statement on Wednesday.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok redefined the idea of a social media feed — can Facebook play catch-up before it’s too late? Continue reading…

Sony has released a cool update for its free Share Factory Studio photo and video editing app on PS5 that lets you easily overlay doodles, visual filters, and more onto your saved gameplay captures called Bits. This update is meant to make it easy for beginners to share a video that has some more personality and context. But it seems to go pretty deep, offering a range of customizable effects, including filters, text, sound effects, music, voiceover, doodles, and other visual effects like stickers and camera effects.Once you save your creation to your console’s storage, you can upload it to Twitter or YouTube straight from the PS5. Or, if you have the PlayStation app on your phone or tablet, these Bits can show up in the Game Captures... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix The Umbrella Academy’s third season is its best yet Continue reading…

Neon White. | Image: Annapurna Interactive Neon White had me straining my neck with every seemingly out of reach jump — and I couldn’t get enough. Developed by Angel Matrix, a small team led by Donut County designer Ben Esposito, Neon White combines thrilling parkour action, a late ‘90s Quake-style aesthetic, and a bonkers story that’s kind of like if The Purge were set in the afterlife. It’s like speedrunning your way through heaven while making detours to learn more about angels and demons. It’s a seemingly odd combo, but it works very, very well.The premise of Neon White is actually somewhat straightforward at its core. Every so often, for a span of 10 days, God invites some of the denizens of hell up to heaven so they can help eradicate the demon population. Whoever racks up... Continue reading…

Illustration by Harry Bhalerao / The Verge Get a gift that the dad in your life will actually enjoy Continue reading…

Image: Krafton Krafton is best-known for games like PUBG and the upcoming Callisto Protocol — but today, it’s showing off something very different. The company is teasing a “virtual human” named Ana, which it says will “help establish” its Web3 ecosystem. The character was built using Unreal Engine — which itself has a tool specifically for realistic digital people — along with what Krafton describes as “hyperrealism, rigging, and deep learning.”It’s not clear exactly how Ana will fit into the loosely defined vision of a metaverse or Web3, though Krafton has flirted with NFTs and the blockchain in the past. In the meantime, it sounds like its realistic virtual human will instead attempt to become something of a celebrity. “We expect her to attract the... Continue reading…

Elden Ring’s Abductor Virgins are slightly less painful when you save money on the game. | Image: Bandai Namco The week is nearly half over, but the deals are already vast. If you have time this summer to sink your teeth into some meaty video games or tabletop games, we’ve got just the right discount for you to check out. Amazon and Target are both running a buy two, get one free sale from now until Saturday, June 18th. It’s another mix and match-style promotion, where you buy two video games, board games, movies, or even some toys and get a third of equal or lesser value for free.The current promo is a great opportunity to stock up on some excellent games that came out this year, like Elden Ring or the recently released Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and you can even throw in a modern classic you might have missed, like Sekiro: Shadows Die... Continue reading…

Tonal’s equipment sells for roughly $3,000 but also requires a $49 monthly membership. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge While hardware is a big part of connected fitness, so are the classes. The highly produced sessions led by engaging instructors can make — or break — a product, especially if there isn’t enough of a library to justify a device’s subscription. On that front, Tonal announced today that it’s opening a New York studio to expand its live class offerings and adding five new coaches to its lineup.Tonal is one of the major players in the connected fitness industry with a valuation of roughly $1.6 billion. Its $3,000 strength training system is backed by several professional athletes, including Maria Sharapova, Mike Tyson, and Drew Brees. But when The Verge initially reviewed the device in 2020, the classes were underwhelming. There was no live... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Chinese augmented reality company Nreal is launching a Steam beta on its Nreal Light and Nreal Air AR glasses, letting users stream games from a PC to a virtual big screen. The company says its beta will go live at the end of June, coinciding loosely with a June 27th hackathon designed to attract AR developers with $100,000 in cash prizes. The move could expand Nreal’s software ecosystem and offer more to do in a pair of surprisingly good — but still limited — early AR glasses.Nreal suggests the Steam beta could be finicky, admitting in a press release that it “requires a bit of setup effort and is not optimized for all Steam games.” It will join the option to stream Xbox Cloud Gaming titles through Nreal’s Nebula platform as well as a... Continue reading…

Image: DJI Mostly known for its drones, Chinese company DJI has been expanding its reach with offerings for filmmakers in recent years. Last year the company introduced its first new cinema camera, the Ronin 4D. Today, it is announcing and releasing two new gimbals and a DJI Transmission wireless system, all of which are borrowing a few neat tricks from the Ronin 4D.The RS 3 can be seen as a successor to the RSC 2 that DJI released in 2020. It is the smaller of the two newly released gimbals focused on getting you up and ready to record as quickly as possible. The new axis locking mechanism releases automatically once the gimbal is powered on, allowing you to get filming sooner. Along with new quick-release mounts, it should save you precious... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Other than running Tesla, SpaceX, and — perhaps at some point if the buyout is complete — Twitter, Elon Musk is staying busy with yet another appeal in his case against the SEC. His beef with the government agency is, as it has been for the last several years, over the 2018 settlement he agreed to after being charged with securities fraud over a tweet about taking Tesla private. In April, US District Judge Lewis Liman was not swayed by Eminem-related arguments from Elon’s lawyers and ruled to let the agreement stand as originally written.Now, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, has filed with the court to take his case to the US Court of Appeals in the hope of a different decision. The world’s richest man has argued that he was coerced into... Continue reading…

Alex Castro/The Verge It’s supposedly live in my city Continue reading…

Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images The federal government released two new reports highlighting — for the first time — crashes and fatalities involving autonomous vehicles (AV) and vehicles equipped with advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS). Tesla reported the most crashes involving driver-assist technology, while Alphabet’s Waymo disclosed the most incidents involving its autonomous vehicles.Car and tech companies insist these technologies save lives, but more people died in auto crashes last year than in the last three decades. More data is needed to accurately determine whether these new systems are making roads safer, or simply making driving more convenient.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a standing general order last year... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A lot of people are watching short-form videos on YouTube after nearly two years of YouTube giving creators lucrative cash bonuses and expanding features to be increasingly like TikTok.1.5 billion monthly users who are logged in to an account are watching short-form videos on YouTube’s TikTok clone, the company announced today. That’s compared to around 2 billion logged-in users who visit the platform monthly as of April, according to TechCrunch.Launched in 2020, YouTube Shorts is the platform’s answer to TikTok’s ascent. Since then, Shorts have gradually made their way across the platform, including in recommendations, and the company has added additional features mimicking TikTok, like sampling. As of April, Shorts were racking up 30... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Internet Explorer is dead. Microsoft is retiring IE today after nearly 27 years. The aging web browser is being sunset in favor of Microsoft Edge, with support being officially withdrawn for IE 11 today. It’s the end of an internet era, after Microsoft initially moved away from the Internet Explorer branding with the release of Windows 10 in 2015.For consumers, not much changes. Usage of Internet Explorer has plummeted in recent years, with StatCounter showing IE has less than half a percent of overall browser market share. Microsoft has been trying to stop people from using Internet Explorer for years now, and the company previously labeled it a “compatibility solution” rather than a browser that businesses should actively be using. ... Continue reading…

Microsoft will start automatically redirecting Internet Explorer users to its Edge browser over the next few months. Internet Explorer is being retired today, and consumers or businesses still using the browser will start to see a prompt soon that will redirect them to Microsoft Edge instead.The prompt and redirect is the first step in fully removing Internet Explorer from existing PCs, and Microsoft plans to issue an update that will disable the aging browser in the future. “Eventually, Internet Explorer will be disabled permanently as part of a future Windows Update, at which point the Internet Explorer icons on their devices will be removed,” explains Sean Lyndersay, general manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise. I... Continue reading…

They play over and over and over and over. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram Stories have been misbehaving for some users on iOS, making it so that they have to re-view all of someone’s stories before they’re able to see new ones. The issue has affected several Verge staff members since Monday, and some Reddit users have reported the same thing is happening to them. ‘On Wednesday morning, Instagram released an update for the app in the iOS App Store that seems to have resolved the issue. If you’re having issues, make sure to check for the update and see if your app is on the latest version, which 239.1. The updates notes merely say “The latest version contains bug fixes and performance improvements,” but Verge staffers and others on social media say it has brought the repeating Stories problem to an... Continue reading…

Image: Voicemod Voicemod, a popular real-time voice changer, is starting to use artificial intelligence to transform your voice into Morgan Freeman and other characters. A new Voicemod AI Voices beta is launching today, offering up eight options to transform your voice into fantasy characters, pilots, astronauts, and the actor Morgan Freeman.Voicemod has been transforming voices for years thanks to classic sound design techniques, but these new voice effects combine AI, too. The “Morgan” voice, as Voicemod calls it, is particularly impressive, allowing you to pretend to be the famous movie star or simply a polished voice actor. The new pilot voice is also a lot of fun, with sound effects that really make it sound like you’re piloting an aircraft. ... Continue reading…

Lenovo’s new Chromebook Duet 3 doesn’t work with older USI styluses. | Image: Lenovo A new report has uncovered compatibility issues with version 2.0 of the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) standard that means older USI 1.0 styluses won’t work with some newer USI 2.0 devices. ChromeUnboxed came across the problem while using Lenovo’s new Chromebook Duet 3, when it noticed that existing styluses weren’t working with the device.It seems the problem with the Chromebook Duet 3 is that its screen uses an in-cell design that combines elements of the display with a digitizer that handles stylus input. ChromeUnboxed reports that this is a more compact and cost-effective way to offer stylus input. But because support for the technology was only introduced with USI version 2.0, the Duet 3 doesn’t work with styluses made to work... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Europe’s second-highest court, the General Court, has sided with Qualcomm after it appealed a €997 million (around $1,045 million) fine from European Union regulators over payments made to Apple to use Qualcomm chips, Reuters reports. The EU issued the fine in 2018, and said payments Qualcomm had made to Apple between 2011 and 2016 to exclusively use its chips were illegal under EU antitrust rules.“This meant that no rival could effectively challenge Qualcomm in this market, no matter how good their products were,” said EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager in a statement accompanying the fine. Qualcomm was accused of shutting rival chipmaker Intel out of the market, by making it too expensive for Apple to switch suppliers.T... Continue reading…

Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for TIME Tech billionaire Bill Gates has dismissed NFTs as “100 percent based on greater fool theory” — the financial concept that even overpriced assets can make money as long as you find a bigger idiot to sell them to.Speaking at an event on climate change hosted by TechCrunch, Gates said he preferred investing in assets with tangible outputs, like farms or factories, “or a company where they make products,” and that he held no position in cryptocurrencies or NFTs. “I’m not involved in that. I’m not long or short in any of those things,” said Gates, suggesting that he was also suspicious of assets designed to “avoid taxation or any sort of government rules.”“Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world... Continue reading…

The Keychron Q5 in gray. | Image: Keychron Keychron’s latest wired mechanical keyboard is the Q5. It uses a similar construction to the excellent Q1 and Q2 keyboards that have proceeded it, but with a larger layout that includes a numpad. It’s not a traditional full-size keyboard, but the idea with its 1800 layout (aka a 96-percent layout) is that it offers almost all of the keys a user might need while still being relatively compact.“There’s currently no stock full-metal custom 1800 layout mechanical keyboard on the market,” said Keychron COO Paul Tan. “1800 layout saves about an inch of space from a full-size keyboard, without having to remove many keys. It’s the smallest you can go, without getting rid of the number pad.” The Keychron Q5 is available as a fully-assembled... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Everyone makes mistakes, but if you mess up a fact or flub a line in a YouTube video it can be hard to correct the error. You can edit and re-upload the video, but that means losing all your comments and engagement metrics. You can add a note to the video’s description or pin a comment with the correction, but that might go unnoticed by most viewers.That’s why YouTube is introducing a new feature named “corrections” that lets creators easily add more obvious corrections. After a video has been uploaded, creators can add corrections that will appear as infocards in the top right-hand corner of a video at the relevant timestamp (but only, it seems, for the first correction in any given video). Viewers can then click on the card to expand... Continue reading…

The Nothing Phone 1. | Image: Nothing Nothing, the consumer tech startup led by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, has shown off the rear design of its debut Phone 1 smartphone. “Leaks are harder to contain nowadays and many of you have been waiting for a long time,” Pei wrote in a tweet. “So here it is.” The phone is due to be properly announced on July 12th at Nothing’s next event.The image confirms some of the design rumors that have been swirling around the phone. As Pei previously confirmed to The Verge in an interview, the phone has illuminating light strips on the rear of the phone, which appears to be made from transparent material. The arrangement of these light strips was teased by Nothing at a previous event. Interestingly, a logo can be seen on the center of the rear... Continue reading…

T-Mobile is getting creative. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile is certainly not afraid to tout its own 5G achievements, and true to form, it’s announcing another milestone today: by combining three channels of mid-band spectrum on its 5G network, the company achieved 3Gbps network speeds. This seems to be more than a stunt, too — T-Mobile says this technology will become available to customers on its network “later this year.”Those 3Gbps (or 3000Mbps) speeds are approaching mmWave territory — that’s the high-band, limited range kind of 5G that lets you download a movie in seconds. Mid-band 5G typically reaches around 200Mbps, and that’s considered very good compared to LTE — but T-Mobile is doing a little tinkering behind the scenes to boost those speeds significantly.this most recent... Continue reading…

You’ll be able to see the movie in August 2023. | Image: Sony Sony’s upcoming Gran Turismo film is apparently hitting theaters sooner than we might have expected — its scheduled for release on August 11th, 2023, according to a new report from Deadline. Neill Blomkamp is set to direct the movie, which is supposed to be based on a true story.Seriously. Here’s the official logline (aka short summary) of the movie, per Deadline: “Based on a true story, the film is the ultimate wish fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won a series of Nissan competitions to become an actual professional race car driver.” That means the film likely pulls from the story of someone from the GT Academy, which let Gran Turismo pros compete to join a real-life racing team sponsored by Nissan... Continue reading…

Image: Universal Pictures Peacock is bringing Downton Abbey: A New Era to its streaming service on June 24th. The film, which was released on May 20th, will exclusively stream on the platform following its departure from theaters.New Era is the sequel to the 2019 Downton Abbey film (which Peacock currently owns the rights to stream as well) and the original series. It centers around the Crawleys and staff as part of the family embarks on a journey to a villa in France, while the others greet a movie crew that arrives at the estate. If you’re a fan of Singing in the Rain, you’ll probably have a good time.To celebrate the film’s arrival (and to help fans catch up before the film’s arrival), Peacock also added a 24/7 channel that will just air seasons 1 through 6... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is expanding its ad incentive program to include more creators and pay them more money. Earlier this year, Twitch began offering select streamers a flat, guaranteed payment in exchange for running a fixed amount of ads during a fixed number of hours. Now, Twitch is opening up the program to include more partners and is changing the way it structures payouts to pay creators more.Originally, payouts earned with the ad incentive program were calculated using a CPM model. Basically, streamers would get a flat rate for every 1,000 ads watched on their channel.“We found that a fixed CPM model wasn’t the most straightforward way to share revenue with creators,” said Mike Minton, vice president of monetization at Twitch, in an email to... Continue reading…

This is from Fallout 4, not Fallout 5. | Image: Bethesda Bethesda, which recently delayed Starfield into next year and hasn’t shown anything substantial about The Elder Scrolls 6 since announcing it in 2018, is already thinking about what comes after. In an interview with IGN, Bethesda’s Todd Howard said Bethesda Game Studios is planning on making Fallout 5... eventually.“Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so our slate’s pretty full going forward for a while,” Howard said. There’s no indication about when we can expect Fallout 5 to be released. Given how long we’ve been waiting for Starfield and the fact that we know basically nothing about The Elder Scrolls 6 — note that Howard said the game is still in pre-production... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a judgment on Tuesday, an appeals tribunal in the United Kingdom largely upheld a previous ruling ordering Meta (parent company to Facebook) to unwind its acquisition of Giphy, as first reported by the Financial Times. The judgment comes more than six months after the initial ruling by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and more than two years after Meta first announced its intention to acquire the company.The ruling was not a total defeat for Meta, however. While the appeals tribunal found in favor of the CMA in five of the six claims, the tribunal did rule that the CMA had failed to properly inform Meta of Snapchat’s acquisition of Gfycat for nearly a year after it became aware of the ruling, thus undermining the... Continue reading…

O-RAN appears to have arrived. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today’s the day: Dish Network needs to offer 5G service to at least 20 percent of the US population or face some steep fines from the US government. And lo and behold, Dish appears to be lighting up its 5G service in the nick of time — but there’s an awful lot still up in the air.The company’s website for Project Genesis (that’s what it’s calling this whole endeavor) has been updated to state that it’s “live in 120 cities” with a link to “order now.” Until very recently, the website only listed the 120 initial cities that the service would cover outside of its first test market in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it looked uncertain that Dish would make its deadline.It’s still not entirely clear that Dish has met the requirements. Dish has yet... Continue reading…

You’ve got to hand it to Lime — they really lean into the whole fruit thing. Case in point: the shared scooter company is trialing a new electric motorbike in Long Beach, California, called, wait for it, the Citra.It’s the latest lightweight electric vehicle to join the company’s fleet, which has been diversifying beyond the electric kick scooters that have defined Lime for the last five years. The Citra motorbike, which has a large padded seat and can reach a top speed of 20mph, is designed and built in-house by Lime’s existing manufacturing partners. And the company is hoping that, with soaring gas prices, customers will flock to a new vehicle that can help replace some of their car trips. The news comes after Lime q... Continue reading…

Nike’s Adapt technology is specifically cited in the lawsuit. | Photo by Felicia Shivakumar / The Verge Although Adidas and Nike have been in and out of court several times over the years, Adidas has taken it to a new level. On Friday, the company filed its first federal lawsuit against Nike, alleging that its rival infringed on nine of its patents relating to smartphone apps and adjustable shoe tech.Initially reported by Reuters and Complex, the lawsuit pertains to a number of Nike’s digital products. Adidas claims that the Nike Run Club, Training Club, and SNKRS apps infringe its patents related to features like audio feedback during workouts, GPS tracking, training plans, integration with third-party accessories like heart rate monitors, and the ability to reserve and buy limited-edition sneakers. These are basic features on several... Continue reading…

Largest floating solar power plant in the Southeast at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. | Image: Ameresco Floating solar had a moment in the spotlight over the weekend when the US Army unveiled a new solar plant sitting atop the Big Muddy Lake at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. It’s the first floating solar array deployed by the Department of Defense, and it’s part of a growing current of support in the US for “floatovoltaics.”The army says its goal is to boost clean energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and give the nearby training facility a source of backup energy during power outages. The panels will be able to generate about one megawatt of electricity, which can typically power about 190 homes.The installation, the largest in the US Southeast, is a big win for floatovoltaics, which have yet to make a big splash in the US. They only... Continue reading…

The long-awaited game launches in early access in October. | Image: Blizzard It’s launching soon after years of development Continue reading…

iPadOS enthusiasts could have a choice to make. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The rumors swirling around a 14.1-inch iPad have shifted. Last week, supply chain analyst Ross Young predicted that the potential device would be branded as an iPad Pro and would be equipped with the Mini LED / ProMotion display, like the one found on the current 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Now, however, Young predicts that the 14.1-inch tablet won’t have Mini LED or a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate display, according to a report from MacRumors.On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are also rumors that the entry-level iPad, which currently sells for $329 and features a 10.2-inch screen, will get a big upgrade with modern connectivity and specs. Image: Apple iPad users will soon be wanting for more screen space to go... Continue reading…

Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun. | Netflix Netflix’s Squid Game, a series about people risking their lives and sometimes killing one another on television in order to pay off their crippling debts, is becoming an actual game show.Though Netflix only just announced that Squid Game will return for a second season, today the streamer shared its plans to expand the Battle Royale-esque franchise with a real-world game show inspired by the fictional competition at the center of the original series. Like Squid Game, Squid Game: The Challenge (not to be confused with MTV’s The Challenge) will pit 456 players from across the globe against one another as they fight for a $4.56 million prize that only one participant can ultimately claim.Though Netflix has released a promotional video... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Switches, bulbs, plugs, remotes, bridges, and hubs — smart lighting can be complicated. We’ll help you get it sorted Continue reading…

Overwatch 2. | Image: Blizzard Blizzard is hosting another Overwatch 2 beta later this month ahead of the game’s newly announced October early access release date. The new beta begins June 28th, and it will be available on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.You’ll be able to sign up for the beta beginning June 16th, and that same day, Blizzard plans to share more details about what you can expect in it. The company has already teased two tidbits: you’ll be able to play as the new hero Junker Queen, and there will be a new map to try out. An earlier closed beta kicked off in April, but it was limited to PCs.

The Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. | Image: Qualcomm Qualcomm, the company that produces Snapdragon processors, wanted to go big for the launch of its first smartphone, slapping a $1,500 price tag on an Asus-designed device that supposedly caters to the geekiest of Snapdragon fans. But, almost a year after its release, the dream phone for superfans is still running Android 11 and hasn’t received a security patch past January’s update, as first reported by XDA Developers (via Android Police).In a Reddit thread pointed out by XDA, users question whether the device, dubbed the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders, has been abandoned by Qualcomm. The last software update for the device occurred in March (18.1055.2201.203), and while it mentions “updated Android security patch,” it reportedly... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge For decades, lawmakers have pushed for a comprehensive federal law protecting user data — but it has never survived the chaos of a deeply divided Congress. But on Tuesday, the Energy and Commerce Committee held its first hearing to discuss a new proposal lawmakers believe could actually cross the finish line.Called the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, the proposal marks a major step forward in congressional data privacy negotiations. For years now, any measure that would set a national standard for user data protections has fallen short of final approval due to partisan disagreements. From Republicans withholding their support for bills allowing states — like California — to roll out their own rules to Democrats demanding a... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has started working on bringing casual games to its Microsoft Teams service. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the software maker has started testing games like Solitaire, Connect 4, and Wordament inside Microsoft Teams. The casual games are designed to allow colleagues to play against each other during meetings.While you won’t be playing Halo or Forza inside Teams anytime soon, Microsoft is clearly looking at games as another way to improve the meetings experience as businesses continue to balance the needs of hybrid and remote work.Microsoft has a bigger vision for games inside TeamsMicrosoft is only testing casual games internally from its Casual Games offering right now, and the company could... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge OpenSea is announcing that users buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its platform could see fees drop by around 35 percent. This is thanks to the fact that the company is upgrading the protocol that underpins its marketplace, migrating to a platform called Seaport to handle its transactions. Offering lower gas fees may be a way for OpenSea to differentiate itself from the other NFT marketplaces that are competing with it (though not always successfully). The change does, however, come at a rough time in the crypto market overall.Seaport is an open-source project OpenSea announced last month, and the company says it’s significantly more efficient than its old system when it comes to dealing with the blockchain. (The Seaport... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is adding parental controls to all Quest virtual reality headsets, letting guardians check underage users’ screen time and receive alerts or approval requests for purchases. The news comes alongside an expansion of parental control options on Instagram as well as new safety features in its Horizon Worlds VR social platform, which is expanding to the UK this week.As outlined in a blog post and first introduced in March, Meta’s new options are similar to those found on phones. Using them requires linking a teen’s Facebook account — which is required to use the headset — with that of a parent or guardian. (Children under 13 aren’t supposed to use the Quest, and people under 18 can’t access Horizon Worlds, so these features are meant... Continue reading…