The Verge

Apple will offer streams of every Major League Soccer (MLS) match from early 2023 through 2032 in the Apple TV app, the two organizations announced in a major deal revealed Tuesday. While some games may still air on linear TV networks like ESPN and Fox, this gives Apple the global exclusive on an NFL Sunday Ticket-style offering for the league.To watch the matches, fans will be able to subscribe to a new, currently unnamed MLS streaming service that will be available “exclusively through the Apple TV app,” according to Apple’s press release. A “broad selection” of MLS and Leagues Cup matches will be available to Apple TV Plus subscribers, “with a limited number of matches available for free.” If you’re a full-season ticket holder,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After Instagram announced a new initiative meant to “nudge” teen users away from harmful content last year, the platform says it’s finally rolling out the feature in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. If a teen’s spending too long on Instagram’s Explore page looking at posts with a particular theme, the platform will display a notification suggesting that they look at other types of posts instead.Instagram says the feature “is designed to encourage teens to discover something new and excludes certain topics that may be associated with appearance comparison.” As shown in an image of the feature, users will receive a notification that prompts them to “Choose what to explore next” with a variety of posts they can... Continue reading…

Chevrolet is the latest automaker to jump on the non-fungible token bandwagon, but it’s taking a slightly different approach. Chevy announced plans to auction off a Corvette-themed NFT, but the winner bidder won’t just get recorded on the blockchain, they’ll also get the actual sports car inspired by the artwork.The NFT, which depicts a lime green Corvette Z06 blasting through a cyberpunk landscape, was created by artist Nick Sullo, who goes by xsullo online. The upcoming auction pairs Sullo’s NFT with a custom-painted 2023 Corvette Z06 color-matched to the art.In case you need a refresher, the new Z06 is Chevy’s shot-across-the-bow for all the other supercar manufacturers out there with Italian names. Its the first ‘Vette to feature... Continue reading…

13-inch M2 MacBook Pro. | Image: Apple During its WWDC 2022 event last week, Apple revealed its M2 chip and the redesigned MacBook Air, which got most of the attention, though it won’t be the first laptop with the new CPU that you can buy. Apple will also offer the M2 inside the familiar frame of its still Touch Bar-equipped 13-inch Macbook Pro, which will be available for preorders starting this Friday, June 17th, before the new MacBook Air goes on sale in July.We have a comparison chart ready so that you can reference this laptop’s capabilities versus the new Air as well as the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops that were updated last year to offer M1 Max and M1 Ultra CPU options. Apple suggests active cooling, which the Air doesn’t have, as a reason to choose this model... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Ford issued a recall for over 48,000 Mustang Mach-E electric crossover over concerns that a safety defect may render the vehicle immobile, the automaker said in a notice. The issue was first reported by CNBC.According to the recall, the malfunction involves a potential overheating of the vehicle’s battery high-voltage contactors, which can lead the vehicle to fail to start or lose power while in motion. “An overheated contactor that opens while driving can result in a loss of motive power, which can increase the risk of an accident,” the notice reads.Ford says 48,924 Mustang Mach-E vehicles sold in the US are affected by the problem — nearly half of the estimated 100,000 vehicles produced during that time. It’s the latest hiccup to... Continue reading…

Sonos’ assistant only takes music requests, and that actually works out in its favor Continue reading…

The 8BitDo Lite SE has an anti-slip backing, and all its buttons are on the front for easier access. | 8BitDo 8BitDo is launching a Bluetooth controller for gamers with limited mobility, developed in coordination with a dad and his young son who has spinal muscular atrophy type 2. The Lite SE works with Nintendo Switch and Android and is available for preorder at 8BitDo for $34.99, with a ship date of July 15th.The Lite SE — which looks a lot like the Lite controller 8BitDo launched in 2019 — is designed to be used either handheld or flat on a table. The trigger and bumper buttons are gone, replaced with L1, L2, R1, and R2 buttons on the front of the controller. L3 and R3 have their own buttons rather than relying on an analog stick click, and all of the inputs are more sensitive and easier to press. There’s an anti-slip mat built into the... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Her new book on the long history of fangirls, from the Beatles to One Direction Continue reading…

I hope everyone had a glorious weekend and a survivable Monday, despite looming economic catastrophe. I am trying not to think too hard about it, so good thing I had a newsletter to write!Today, Spotify gets some advice on content moderation, TED launches a new subscription service, and Acast enables its podcasters to sell NFTs.As Spotify grows its stable of creators, it taps experts to consult on content moderationIf there was one big takeaway from Spotify’s presentation for investors last week, it was that Spotify is going all-in on creator content. The “Spotify machine,” as CEO Daniel Ek deemed his company, will move into new verticals and bring millions of new creators onto the platform. That kind of scale may be good for the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp is adding the ability to transfer your conversation history from Android to iPhone after previously only allowing users to transfer chats the other way (from iPhone to Android). The functionality was announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post. Early signs of the feature, which is rolling out in beta for now, were previously spotted by WABetaInfo.The update helps with a long-standing WhatsApp issue, which is that it’s historically been difficult to transfer chats between the two mobile operating systems. It’s easy to transfer chats from one iOS device to another or from one Android device to another but generally not between the two different operating systems.The transfer process only works on new or... Continue reading…

When Arianna Huhn experienced complications with her first pregnancy, she signed up for a clinical trial, one that required her to submit family DNA samples for research. Her parents, Gail and George Fogelman, agreed. But shortly after, they asked her to jump on a call with them, alone, without her husband.On the phone, Huhn noticed that her dad was choked up and unable to speak. Her mother took the lead. “There’s something that we have been hiding from you,” she said. “Your dad is not your genetic father.”In the late ‘70s, Huhn’s parents had experienced issues when they were trying to conceive. So they opted for artificial insemination, as suggested by their gynecologist and fertility doctor. Dr. Benjamin Fiorica told them that... Continue reading…

If you’re just getting Disney Plus access, Ms. Marvel is a good place to start. | Image: Marvel Studios Disney Plus is continuing its global expansion this week. Variety reports the service is now online in Greece, Turkey, Poland, and a number of other central European countries as part of a broader rollout over the last two weeks including 42 new countries and 11 territories across Europe, Africa, and West Asia. You can see the full list and local pricing here.For viewers in those countries, it means a slew of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and Disney content is coming your way. (Our recommendation? Get into Ms. Marvel as soon as you can... and maybe wait on Moon Knight.) For Disney, it’s another key way to grow its streaming service. Disney Plus has about 87.6 million subscribers — plus another 50.1 million who subscribe to Disney Plus... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Firefox browser, already known for its privacy protections, is about to become even more private thanks to a new cookie-restricting feature announced by Mozilla on Tuesday.The design change, labeled “Total Cookie Protection,” aims to give enhanced protection against online tracking by limiting the ability of websites to read cookies created by third-party services. According to a blog post from Mozilla, access to any given cookie will be restricted to the website that deposited the cookie in a user’s browser, so a cookie created by one website or service will not be readable by other websites that a user visits.Mozilla’s blog post describes the new feature in terms of a separate “cookie jar” for each website, preventing trackers... Continue reading…

You can buy a pair of Anker’s Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro for just $69.99 for the first time. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge It’s not every day when you can buy a pair of decent wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation for less than $100, which is why today’s deal on Anker’s Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro is such a standout. For a limited time, you can buy the excellent, budget-friendly earbuds at Amazon and Best Buy for just $69.99, a new record low, instead of $129.99.The earbuds sound good considering the low price, and they boast solid voice call quality. You can even adjust the balance of the noise cancellation effect. The box also comes with a variety of ear tips, allowing for a more comfortable fit, while the buds themselves offer other niceties, including a wireless charging case, an IPX4 water and sweat resistance rating, and customizable EQ... Continue reading…

Fortnite is adding yet another way to get around the battle royale island. As part of the first patch for Chapter 3: Season 3, the game is adding a grappling hook called a grapple glove. And, as we all know, a grappling hook makes everything better.Here’s the basic description:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just four months ago, Coinbase reportedly spent $14 million on a Super Bowl ad that consisted almost entirely of a colorful QR code bouncing around the screen, pointing viewers to a website where they could get $15 in Bitcoin just by signing up. Now, its fortunes have turned so sharply that it will lay off about 1,100 employees, or 18 percent of its workforce, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.In a post on the company blog, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong first blamed changing economic conditions that may lead to a “crypto winter” and waited until his third bullet point to mention that the company has “over-hired,” citing its attempt to take advantage of “new use cases enabled by crypto getting traction... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Adobe has started testing a free-to-use version of Photoshop on the web and plans to open the service up to everyone as a way to introduce more users to the app.The company is now testing the free version in Canada, where users are able to access Photoshop on the web through a free Adobe account. Adobe describes the service as “freemium” and eventually plans to gate off some features that will be exclusive to paying subscribers. Enough tools will be freely available to perform what Adobe considers to be Photoshop’s core functions.“We want to make [Photoshop] more accessible and easier for more people to try it out and experience the product,” says Maria Yap, Adobe’s VP of digital imaging. Image: Adobe Photoshop... Continue reading…

Its debut true wireless earbuds left me wanting more Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk will attend a virtual all-hands meeting with Twitter employees this Thursday, during which he’ll field questions from the company he’s in the process of buying. His attendance was announced in an email from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on Monday seen by Business Insider. Employees will be able to submit questions in advance of the meeting. It will be the first time Musk has addressed Twitter’s nervous employees directly since announcing plans for the $44 billion takeover.The meeting has the chance to be fractious. In Twitter’s internal Slack channels, the Tesla CEO’s attempt to buy the company has reportedly been met with a negative response, and employees are concerned about the effect a privately-owned Twitter could have on... Continue reading…

An icon will appear when a user can’t hear strangers’ voices. | Image: Meta Meta is adding a new “voice mode” to Horizon Worlds that garbles any voice chat coming from non-friends on the VR social platform, the company has announced. By default you’ll still hear all nearby users at the same volume but turning on the “garble voices” toggle will replace them with “unintelligible, friendly sounds.” The feature will roll out in the coming weeks, according to Meta.According to a screenshot of the toggle shared by Meta, the feature can be used to make users “feel more comfortable or safe.” It follows a series of reports about harassment that users have experienced on the social VR platform, which came out of beta late last year. In February, Meta introduced a “personal boundary” system in February that’s on by... Continue reading…

Google Maps’ toll estimates in action. | Image: Google A new Google Maps feature that estimates the amount you’ll have to pay in tolls to drive a given route has started appearing in the Android and iOS apps, according to Google. Android Police reports seeing the new toll pricing in the app, though it’s not yet visible on a pair of devices we’ve tried along the same route. The toll feature was first announced by Google in April.Google says that displayed toll pricing is based on “trusted information from local tolling authorities,” and takes toll passes and time of day into account when calculating the total cost. There’s also still a toggle to “avoid tolls” when calculating routes. Google Maps has previously been able to alert you when a toll is payable overall on a journey, but not... Continue reading…

Image: Viz Media One Punch Man is getting a live-action film adaptation through Sony Pictures that will bring our beloved bald-headed hero, Saitama, and his mechanical sidekick Genos, to life on the big screen, according to a report from Deadline.The production team sounds solid, with Fast & Furious director Justin Lin on deck, along with scriptwriters Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner, who previously worked on Venom and Jumanji: The Next Level. Arad Productions, a studio that has credits in Spider-Man: Homecoming and the live-action Ghost in the Shell will serve as the producers. The One Punch Man adaption could go into production by the end of this year, Deadline reports.Anime fans have been burned by live-action adaptions in the pastThere still... Continue reading…

Image: Capcom Capcom has finally shared details on a new expansion for last year’s excellent Resident Evil Village, including a story campaign, more content for the Mercenaries mode, and a third-person mode. The expansion, called the Winters’ Expansion, will be available on October 28th, the company announced at its Capcom Showcase on Monday.The new story campaign, Shadows of Rose, stars Rose, the daughter of Village protagonist Ethan Winters. “Rosemary Winters, Ethan’s beloved daughter, has grown up and is now struggling with terrifying powers,” Capcom’s Tsuyoshi Kanda wrote in a post on the PlayStation blog. “In search of a way to break free from her curse, Rose enters the consciousness of the Megamycete. Rose’s journey takes her to a mysterious... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Some customers who recently ordered speakers from Sonos’ website received more than what they ordered, which normally wouldn’t be something to complain about — but Sonos charged extra for the devices sent in error and wants them back. While Sonos is providing users with a refund for the additional charges, some are still disappointed they weren’t offered a discount for the inconvenience of dealing with a problem they didn’t cause.Two separate users told The Verge they placed an order for a single Sonos Move and received three. Another user said they’ve been charged over $2,000 after ordering one Move speaker and receiving a total of seven. They say Sonos has given them a timeframe of up to 10 business days until they get their refund.T... Continue reading…

Another awesome discount on the LG C1 OLED TV. | Image: LG If you’re still struggling to find a gift for Father’s Day, you’re in luck. The 48-inch model of the LG C1 OLED is currently on sale for its lowest price ever at BuyDig. Normally $1,299.99, this model is currently discounted to $896.99. The C1 remains one of our favorite OLED TVs for gaming and is heartily endorsed by several members of The Verge staff. Oh, and if you purchase through BuyDig, you’ll even get a $50 Visa gift card to sweeten the deal.The display of the C1 not only has a 120Hz refresh rate but also is equipped with FreeSync and G-Sync adaptive sync technologies support that provides a much smoother image while gaming at higher frame rates on PC. In addition to helpful usability features like Apple AirPlay 2 and built-in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The June 2022 edition of Valve’s Steam Next Fest kicked off Monday, and during the weeklong event, you’ll be able to check out hundreds of free demos, according to the company.There are seriously a lot of demos — as if there weren’t already a ton of games to play right now — but fortunately, Valve has a few tools to help you sort through what’s available. On the Next Fest page, you can look at different genre pages, and the company also highlights popular upcoming games, most wishlisted upcoming games, and games ranked by daily active demo players. One topping the charts that I have my eye on is Metal: Hellsinger, which is apparently a “rhythm FPS” that’s “brimming with diabolical enemies, powerful weapons, and metal music.” That... Continue reading…

A small but nice change in your inbox. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The next time a Google Calendar invitation lands in your inbox, you may notice that it looks a little different. Google announced on Monday that it is making updates to the emails it sends out for calendar events, tweaking them to look more modern and to surface important information quickly.Google says if an organizer updates an event, the new design will also show you the old information. For example, if an event changes from 1PM to 2PM, you’ll see the 1PM start time crossed out below the new information to give you a better idea of what exactly is happening to your schedule. Google will also tell you what’s changed about an event right up at the top, so you can immediately know what to look for.Google says this change should roll... Continue reading…

The Galaxy Watch 5 lineup can’t afford to have lackluster battery life without fast charging. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge While we still don’t know all the nitty-gritty details about Samsung’s next-gen smartwatches, recent FCC filings hint that you can expect at least one big update: faster charging.FCC filings don’t reveal too much in terms of features, but they are a good indicator that a product is getting close to launch. The filings were first spotted by 9to5Google and indicate there’ll be three models dubbed the SM-R900, the SM-R910, and the SM-R920. They also confirm basic connectivity specs, like the fact that the watches will support Bluetooth, 2.4 and 5Ghz Wi-Fi, and contactless payments. But as far as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 lineup goes, the most eye-catching thing is that the watches can charge at 10W speeds. For context, the Galaxy Watch 4... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is shutting down Talk (also known as GChat) for good — its instant-messaging service you probably haven’t used much since 2007 (via Android Police). Although Google migrated Talk users over to Google Hangouts in 2017 — another one of its now-sidelined messaging platforms — it was still accessible by third-party XMPP clients like Pidgin and Gajim.But Google will cut these last lines of life support on June 16th — three days from now. In a message on Talk’s support page, Google says it’s “winding down Google Talk” and will no longer support third-party apps, citing its initial announcement in 2017. Users who try to sign into GChat after the 16th will see a sign-in error. If you still want to use Pidgin through Google services, P... Continue reading…

More firms are making cuts. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge BlockFi, a platform for trading and lending cryptocurrency, announced via a blog post on Monday that it’s laying off 20 percent of its 850 employees — around 170 to 200 people. CEO Zac Prince said in a Twitter thread that the layoffs can be traced to a “dramatic shift in macroeconomic conditions” and BlockFi’s push to become profitable.It’s not the only crypto company letting workers go. On Friday, Crypto.com (the company with the Super Bowl ad featuring LeBron James) announced that it’s laying off around 260 workers, or around 5 percent of its workforce, according to a Twitter thread from its CEO, Kris Marszalek.It could be a “crypto winter”

New File Explorer tabs are coming soon. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has started beta testing its new File Explorer tabs for Windows 11. The tabs feature for File Explorer is now rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel and appears to be very close to release for everyone running Windows 11.The tabs feature includes a refreshed design that makes it easier to quickly access folders or find favorite files. The updated File Explorer design includes tabs to navigate multiple folders in a single window and the ability to move tabs around freely. Microsoft originally tested tabs in Windows 10 apps four years ago in a feature named Sets. This included support for tabs inside File Explorer, but Microsoft eventually canceled the project and never shipped it to Windows 10 users.Microsoft... Continue reading…

Patients can use the Apple Watch to track symptoms. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Software that helps people with Parkinson’s disease track symptoms through their Apple Watch received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, the company behind the tool announced today. It automatically tracks things like tremors, and it lets patients report symptoms and medication usage.Neurology company Rune Labs built the software, called StrivePD. It lets clinicians track their patients’ progress and any changes in symptoms from the neurological disorder, which causes involuntary movements and difficulty with coordination. The passive data collection means patients’ don’t have to try and remember those fluctuations. It’s also a rich source of data on how Parkinson’s disease patients respond to various medications.“With... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony’s revamped PlayStation Plus tiers are now live in the US, offering benefits like access to select PS4 and PS5 games, cloud-streamed games, and a collection of retro titles, depending on which tier you subscribe to.

Image: Amazon.com For one reason or another, the internet’s biggest retailer has a website that’s not working correctly for some people. Many Amazon.com pages are either not loading at all, displaying error messages, or loading slowly with missing information. Checking with other Verge staffers, some people are getting error messages or partially loading pages, while others report no issues, and sometimes different pages have different results. Reports about the issue started at around 1:40PM ET, and some people have been experiencing the problem ever since.While it’s not ideal to get a message saying “We’re sorry, an error has occurred. Please reload this page and try again.” when you’re trying to order some cat food or a Fire HD tablet, the good news... Continue reading…

SpaceX’s Starship prototypes at the company’s Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas. | Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has determined that SpaceX’s plans for the company’s massive Starbase launch site in South Texas will have some environmental impact on the surrounding land and area — but not enough to require a full environmental impact statement. Now, SpaceX will need to make more than 75 changes to its proposal for the Starbase facility if the company wants to avoid additional review and eventually receive a license from the FAA to launch its new Starship rocket to orbit from the site.SpaceX’s Starbase facility is located in a small town called Boca Chica, Texas, right on the southern tip of Texas along the Rio Grande river and the US-Mexico border. For the last few years, SpaceX has used the site to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Sunday night, the Celsius Network, one of the largest crypto lending platforms, abruptly announced a “pause” on withdrawals and transfers, citing “extreme market conditions.” Celsius announced its halt as markets in Asia opened on Monday morning, and the price of its CEL token — worth nearly $7 a year ago — lost a third of its remaining value, falling to just 21 cents.In the hours that followed the pause, prices of other cryptocurrencies have also tumbled. CoinMarketCap’s global cryptocurrency tracker showed the total market cap of crypto assets (including stablecoins and tokens) below $1 trillion as of 8:53AM ET, falling from its peak of $3 trillion last November. Image: Coinbase The price of Bitcoin on... Continue reading…

The 2024 Chevy Blazer EV will get a proper reveal on July 18th, General Motors announced Monday. The all-electric mid-sized SUV is expected to go on sale next year, along with the electric version of the Chevy Equinox compact SUV.GM first teased electric versions of its Blazer and Equinox SUVs last year. But while the automaker has said it aims for the Equinox EV to start at $30,000, it has yet to set similar pricing expectations for the Blazer.The Equinox and Blazer are Chevy’s compact and mid-sized SUVs, respectively. The Blazer EV is also expected to make its official debut later this year, along with an SS performance model. Both vehicles will be built on GM’s Ultium battery and powertrain platform, which will serve as the... Continue reading…

The new movie will be out later this year. | Image: Lionsgate Netflix’s Knives Out sequel now has an official title and release window: you’ll be able to watch Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery this holiday season, the company announced Monday.The upcoming Knives Out installment will be directed by Rian Johnson, who helmed the first movie, and will again star Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc. The rest of the cast is shaping up to be truly awesome — it includes Dave Bautista, Madelyn Cline, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Jessica Henwick, Kate Hudson, Edward Norton, and Leslie Odom Jr., according to a short trailer released by Netflix.

Mining units at the Cormint Data Systems Bitcoin mining facility while under construction in Fort Stockton, Texas, U.S., on Friday, April 29, 2022. | Bloomberg via Getty Images Bitcoin’s value has nosedived enough to curb the cryptocurrency’s enormous energy use — and associated greenhouse gas emissions — but only if prices stay low. The price of a single Bitcoin plummeted below $24,000 today, about half of what it was worth in March. While it’s been steadily losing value for months, the sudden tumble in value over the past 24 hours brings the price below a key threshold when it comes to Bitcoin’s impact on the environment.Since Bitcoin’s price peaked at around $69,000 in November, the network’s annual electricity consumption has been estimated to be between roughly 180 and 200 terawatt-hours (TWh). That’s about the same amount of electricity used by all the data centers in the world every year.Higher prices... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Years ago, John Oliver galvanized his Last Week Tonight viewers to join in the fight for net neutrality — instigating a flood of comments that broke down the Federal Communications Commission’s website in 2014. Last night, he turned his attention to a pair of upcoming tech antitrust bills.During his Sunday night show, Oliver explained the ways large tech companies rule the internet. From Apple and Google taking huge cuts from app store sales to Amazon’s stranglehold on the online sellers’ market, Oliver outlined how the power these companies hold could stifle innovation and how lawmakers could shake up the industry.“The problem with letting a few companies control whole sectors of our economy is that it limits what is possible by... Continue reading…

Exhibition And Experience Zones at The Paris NFT Day Conference The Celsius Network, which is one of the largest crypto lenders, announced Sunday night that it was “pausing all withdrawals, Swap, and transfers between accounts.” It has 1.7 million customers.The company’s token, CEL, is trading at 23 cents as of this writing, according to CoinMarketCap. That’s a 92 percent decrease from April 8th, when CEL was worth $3. The token was worth nearly $7 a year ago.There have been questions about Celsius Networks’ high yields, its connections to failed stablecoin Terra, and its reserves. The value of assets on its platform dropped by half to $12 billion in May, from $24 billion in December 2021. Between March and May, a billion dollars flowed out of the system, The Financial Times reported.In a June... Continue reading…

The 4K Apple TV gives you more ways to enjoy Apple services in your living room. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Even though Apple completely overlooked tvOS during its WWDC announcements last week, there’s a very good reason why you should think about getting an Apple TV 4K today. The 32 and 64GB configurations of the Apple TV 4K are discounted to $129.99 and $149.99, respectively — their best price ever at Amazon and Best Buy.In addition to providing access to Apple services like Apple Arcade and Apple Music on your TV, this compact streaming box also provides you with a way to enjoy other streaming services, like Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and more. The 4K model of the Apple TV is also equipped with an HDMI 2.1 port, along with features like HDR, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos for an improved audio / visual experience. The included... Continue reading…

Over the month of June, the Congressional committee tasked with investigating the Capitol riot will hold a series of public hearings meant to bring public attention to the committee’s findings. The first hearing, held on the evening of June 9th, focused on police officers and participants present inside the Capitol. Subsequent hearings are expected to bring out more evidence of former President Donald Trump’s role in inciting and extending the violence.Initially organized as a protest and rally for President Trump, the “Save America” rally on January 6th, 2021, escalated into a full-scale attack on the Capitol building over the course of hours. More than 130 US Capitol police were injured in the ensuing chaos, and four responding... Continue reading…

Amazon is taking steps to get its long-delayed drone delivery project off the ground. The company announced that it would launch its inaugural drone delivery service in the town of Lockeford, California, later this year after it receives the green light from the Federal Aviation Administration.If the regulatory approval goes through, it will be a major milestone for Amazon, which has been promising some version of aerial package delivery for almost a decade. The company has had some major setbacks, including a handful of crashes, reports of alleged safety lapses, and high turnover. But today’s announcement indicates that Amazon is confident that it’s ready for primetime (no pun intended).Amazon says that later this year, Lockeford... Continue reading…

A rocket belonging to the up-and-coming Astra space company failed to deliver two of NASA’s weather-tracking satellites to space after its second stage engine shut down prematurely. Both satellites were lost as a result of the failure.Astra’s Launch Vehicle 0010 (LV0010) successfully took off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:43PM ET, but suffered an upper stage failure about 10 minutes into its flight. The launch was part of NASA’s mission to send six TROPICS satellites into space — these small, foot-long CubeSats are supposed to help NASA keep better track of developing tropical storms. CubeSats are low-cost satellites frequently built by researchers at colleges and universities.

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has spent the past two years adding flashy new productivity features to Teams, and now the company is overhauling how the fundamentals work thanks to AI. We’ve all been on a call where someone has poor room acoustics making it hard to hear them, or seen two people try to talk at the same time creating an awkward “no, you go ahead” moment. Microsoft’s new AI-powered voice quality improvements should improve or even eliminate these day-to-day annoyances.Microsoft is now using a machine learning models to improve room acoustics so you’ll no longer sound like you’re hiding in a cave. “While we have been trying our best with digital signal processing to do a really good job in Teams, we have now started using machine learning for... Continue reading…

TP-Link’s Kasa mini smart plug just got better. TP-Link has finally added HomeKit to one of its products, and it's a serious bargain. The new version of its very good mini smart plug has Apple HomeKit support and energy monitoring all for just $12.50 per plug. The Kasa Smart WiFi Plug Mini with Energy Monitoring and Apple HomeKit, EP25 is available on Amazon for $49.99 for a four-pack (a two-pack at $29.99 is coming in Q4).There are a lot of smart plugs out there but very few with energy monitoring and HomeKit compatibility, and none as cheap as $12.50 that offer both. TP-Link’s Kasa line also works with Amazon Alexa and Google Home, but this is the first device with HomeKit. The company had originally promised the mini plug would get HomeKit in January 2019 but then changed its... Continue reading…

For All Mankind’s third season just started. | Image: Apple The first season of For All Mankind, the science fiction alternate history show from Battlestar Galactica creator Ron D. Moore, is now available to stream free of charge — no Apple TV Plus subscription required. The limited time promotion coincides with the release of the show’s third season, which premiered on June 10th on Apple’s video streaming service.While Ted Lasso and Severance have arguably been the biggest breakout TV show hits from Apple TV Plus, my colleague Alex Cranz would have everyone believe that For All Mankind is better than both. Here’s how she recently described it:[Warning: Season 1 spoilers ahead]

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Wikimedia Foundation is challenging a Russian court’s ruling that it violated disinformation laws in articles about the invasion of Ukraine. The organization filed its appeal last week, arguing that the articles contained “well-sourced, verified knowledge” and that Russia did not have jurisdiction over the globally operating Wikimedia Foundation.The Moscow court fined Wikimedia 5 million rubles (around $65,000) after an April ruling that covered seven Russian-language articles, including Russian Invasions of Ukraine (2022), War Crimes during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Shelling of Hospital in Mariupol, and Massacre in Bucha. The decision followed an order from Russia’s tech and communications agency Roskomnadzor, as well as the... Continue reading…

Its LaMDA system is built to make AI more conversational. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google has placed one of its engineers on paid administrative leave for allegedly breaking its confidentiality policies after he grew concerned that an AI chatbot system had achieved sentience, the Washington Post reports. The engineer, Blake Lemoine, works for Google’s Responsible AI organization, and was testing whether its LaMDA model generates discriminatory language or hate speech.The engineer’s concerns reportedly grew out of convincing responses he saw the AI system generating about its rights and the ethics of robotics. In April he shared a document with executives titled “Is LaMDA Sentient?” containing a transcript of his conversations with the AI (after being placed on leave, Lemoine published the transcript via his Medium... Continue reading…