The Verge

An Amazon Prime packet at a plastic scrapyard in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India. | Image: Prashanth Vishwanathan / Bloomberg via Getty Images Amazon says it'll eventually quit sending packages in plastic padded bags in an effort to cut down on packaging waste, according to a sustainability report the company released Tuesday.We are phasing out padded bags containing plastics in favor of recyclable alternatives," the report says. But it's missing an important detail: a deadline for when the company plans to make the change.The company didn't answer questions about its plan from The Verge. Our first goal is to eliminate packaging altogether wherever possible, and when additional Amazon packaging is required to ship a product, we strive to optimize that packaging for increased recyclability and reduced carbon emissions," Amazon spokesperson Elizabeth Fine said in an email.... Continue reading...

Oh, goody! Wait, I've ordered nothing. | Screenshot: Umar Shakir / The Verge It's been a long time since I personally ordered from Starbucks, but today, I thought the streak was broken when my iPhone buzzed with a gleeful Your order is ready!" notification.But wait a minute - I didn't order anything!I turned to social media and quickly found that a bunch of other people were getting the same message stemming from their Starbucks app.Starbucks is now sharing that the notification was a glitch. Earlier today, a push notification from the Starbucks app was sent as an error, customers were not charged for an order if one was not placed," reads a company statement sent to Insider. The company says it was due to the app suffering a partial outage.

The Alienware Area-51m. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge In 2021, Dell got sued - because one year after hyping up an Alienware laptop that supposedly let you upgrade its discrete GPU, the company didn't follow through.The story of the Alienware Area-51m is pretty dang relevant today because Framework just opened preorders for another laptop that offers the same.But it turns out Dell never had to meaningfully face that lawsuit. Area-51m buyers never successfully banded together in a class action case. Dell was able to force them into binding arbitration, I found, when I went looking to see what happened to the suit.In July 2022, Judge Vince Chhabria told plaintiffs they had already agreed to binding arbitration when they clicked Accept' on the start-up screen of their computers," and... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Bloomberg reports a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint alleging that DoorDash illegally fired an office employee who tried to organize a union in Arizona. The complaint also says DoorDash threatened to reprimand workers who attempted to assemble and lied to them, saying it's unlawful to discuss worker conditions on days off.The NLRB specifically accuses DoorDash of violating employees' federal rights by interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees," the May 30th filing reads. DoorDash denies making any attempts to block unionization efforts. These allegations are part of a personally motivated attack and entirely without merit," DoorDash representative Liz Jarvis-Shean wrote in a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram isn't liable for copyright infringement when images are embedded on third-party websites, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on Monday (via Torrent Freak). The decision came in response to a class action lawsuit filed by two photographers, Alexis Hunley and Matthew Brauer, who accused Instagram of violating copyright laws by enabling Time and BuzzFeed News to embed their copyrighted photos in online articles.In 2016, Time published an article titled These Photographers Are Covering the Presidential Campaign on Instagram," which included Brauer's embedded Instagram photo of Hillary Clinton. BuzzFeed News similarly posted an embedded photo taken by Hunley in its 2020 article about the Black Lives Matter... Continue reading...

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Federal antitrust enforcers released new draft guidelines for evaluating anti-competitive mergers Wednesday, redoubling their aggressive scrutiny over digital markets.The rules, proposed by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, direct enforcers to examine mergers by online platforms more broadly than ever before. The proposal doesn't explicitly name tech companies like Amazon, Meta, or Google, but many of the rules implicate parts of their merger and business strategies.We are updating our enforcement manual to reflect the realities of how firms do business in the modern economy," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement Wednesday.Specifically, the rules set a new focus on multi-sided" platforms, or online companies... Continue reading...

Photo by Roland Krivec / DeFodi Images via Getty Images Starting tomorrow, my sleep schedule is going to be in complete disarray. The 2023 Women's World Cup kicks off in Australia and New Zealand on July 20th, which means that I'll be getting up very early - and staying up pretty late - in order to catch as much of it as I can. It's an exciting moment because the women's game has never been as popular as it is today, and the field for this year's tournament truly feels wide open. There's just one problem: I have no idea where to post about it.For years, the answer was obvious. Twitter may not have been the global town square it aspired to be, but during live sporting events, it was pretty darn close. World Cups, the Olympics, and the NBA Finals turned into two-screen experiences. While you... Continue reading...

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer. | Image: Universal Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer epic offers a series of visceral glimpses into the life of the father of the atomic bomb but gets too busy to reach its full potential. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is bringing back r/Place - a collaborative project where individual users can edit pixels on a giant canvas - at a time when users are still furious over things like Reddit's API pricing that forced beloved third-party apps to shut down, the company's decision to remove chat history from before 2023 with hardly any warning, and its recent announcement that it would be sunsetting the current system to give Reddit Gold. The 2023 version of r/Place kicks off on Thursday, July 20th.As you might expect, users are already using the announcement post to air their grievances toward the company. The current top comment in reply to the post just says fuck u/spez" (spez" is CEO Steve Huffman's Reddit username), and many of the other... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Apple is creating its own AI-powered chatbot that some engineers are calling Apple GPT," according to a report from Bloomberg. The company reportedly doesn't have any solid plans to release the technology to the public yet.As noted by Bloomberg, the chatbot uses its own large language model (LLM) framework called Ajax," running on Google Cloud and built with Google JAX, a framework created to accelerate machine learning research. Sources close to the situation tell the outlet that Apple has multiple teams working on the project, which includes addressing potential privacy implications.As other tech giants, including Meta, Microsoft, and Google, have moved quickly releasing generative AI products of their own to businesses and the... Continue reading...

I want to be very clear: this is not my car. An Audi E-tron parked across multiple spots in order to access a Tesla Supercharger. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Earlier this year, I purchased my first electric vehicle, a 2023 Volkswagen ID.4 Pro S - moonstone gray, moon roof, all-wheel drive. I knew that the car would start losing value as soon as I drove it off the dealer lot - just like the old saying goes. What I didn't realize was that the whole charging system that my shiny new EV relied on was about to become obsolete.In May, Ford and Tesla announced a surprise deal in which the Blue Oval would adopt Elon Musk's charging connector, named the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Tesla's Supercharger network is widely considered vastly superior to the junky, bug-riddled public charging network in the US. Ford made a strategic decision to throw its lot in with the winners.The dominoes... Continue reading...

WhatsApp is now a Wear OS 3 app. | Image: Meta First teased at Google I/O, Meta just announced that WhatsApp is officially rolling out to Wear OS smartwatches starting today, provided you have a Wear OS 3 smartwatch.The app itself isn't complicated. It'll allow users to start new conversations, reply to messages, and take calls from the wrist. They'll also be able to respond with voice messages, emoji, regular text, and quick replies. And if you have an LTE-capable Wear OS 3 watch, you'll be able to respond to messages without needing your phone nearby.The main thing here is timing and reach. For starters, the Samsung Unpacked event is next week, where we're expecting to see the new Galaxy Watch 6 and, if rumors are to be believed, the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. There's a good... Continue reading...

Samsung is first out of the gate with GDDR7, but it might be a while before we see it installed into market-ready products. | Image: Samsung On Wednesday, Samsung announced that it has completed the development of the industry's first GDDR7 DRAM, the next generation of graphics memory that will feature in future computing, vehicle, and gaming hardware releases. The company's key partners can expect to install the new chips into their next-gen systems later this year for testing. If all goes well, we could see products running Samsung's GDDR7 memory hitting the market sometime next year.Our GDDR7 DRAM will help elevate user experiences in areas that require outstanding graphics performance, such as workstations, PCs and game consoles, and is expected to expand into future applications such as AI, high-performance computing (HPC) and automotive vehicles," said Yongcheol Bae,... Continue reading...

You can order the Studio Pros beginning today. | Image: Beats For the first time since 2017, Beats is announcing a brand-new pair of flagship headphones. Today, the Apple-owned company is introducing the $349.95 Beats Studio Pros. They're available to order beginning today and will be in Apple retail locations (and other stores) on July 20th.As recent leaks have given away, the external design is largely a carryover from the prior Studio 3 headphones. But looks can be deceiving, and Beats has made a number of upgrades to the Studio Pros focusing on sound, noise cancellation, comfort, and more. Technically, these are the first Apple headphones to support lossless USB-C audio playback. And they continue Beats' efforts to appeal to both iPhone and Android users by including support for native... Continue reading...

They look like a lazy refresh from the outside, but the noise-canceling Studio Pros include a ton of new features like transparency mode and lossless USB-C audio. And they solidify Beats' unique appeal as a dual-ecosystem brand. Continue reading...

Nothing CEO Carl Pei knows better than most how hard it is to make a dent in the hardware world. | Image: Nothing Nothing wants to invent the future. But you don't get to invent the future if you can't first make it in the smartphone biz. Continue reading...

Image: Nintendo If you haven't played a Pikmin game before, you might be surprised to learn that the series can get quite dark. Sure, it stars a bunch of adorable plant-like beings - the titular pikmin - who navigate a huge world full of similarly cute creatures. It's bright and colorful in the way that Nintendo games tend to be. But it's also pretty creepy at times, with unsettling enemies to go up against, dark caverns to explore, and the way the pikmin will throw themselves into battle, with hordes able to overwhelm and kill larger creatures, whose corpses they then cart off to be repurposed. Pikmin is light on the surface but darker the more you think about it - and the latest entry takes things a step further with a survival mode and some ghostly... Continue reading...

Photo by Hakan Nural / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have agreed to extend their merger agreement pending the outcome of negotiations with UK regulators. Both parties will now have until October 18th to finalize the transaction, after missing yesterday's original deal deadline.The recent decision in the US and approvals in 40 countries all validate that the deal is good for competition, players, and the future of gaming," tweeted Lulu Cheng Meservey, Activision Blizzard's CCO and EVP of corporate affairs. Given global regulatory approvals and the companies' confidence that CMA now recognizes there are remedies available to meet their concerns in the UK, the Activision Blizzard and Microsoft boards of directors have authorized the companies not to... Continue reading...

ME GRIMLOCK. How much would fans pay for the ultimate action figure? A company named Robosen seems determined to find out - with Transformers toys that transform themselves like they do in the classic cartoon.First, it was a $750 self-transforming Optimus Prime robot, then a $750 transforming trailer to go with it - $1,500 total to bring the leader of the Autobots to life.Now, Hasbro and Robosen are introducing Grimlock so you can own the king of the Dinobots, too, for a cool $1,700 all by itself.

ByteDance hasn't yet announced when TikTok Music will be launching to US markets. | Image: TikTok / The Verge / Canva TikTok is rolling out its new subscription-based music streaming platform - aptly named TikTok Music - to new markets, almost two weeks after the service first debuted in Indonesia and Brazil. According to a press release shared with The Verge, TikTok is inviting select users from Australia, Mexico, and Singapore to join a closed beta test starting today, providing participants with a three-month free trial for the TikTok Music service.TikTok Music is a new kind of music service that combines the power of music discovery on TikTok with a music streaming service offering millions of tracks from thousands of artists," the company said via its press release. Participating users can join the beta by downloading the TikTok Music app, either... Continue reading...

Image: Intel Intel announced earlier this week that its compact and upgradable NUC computers were being discontinued, but now Asus is stepping in to manufacture and develop future NUC systems instead. While Intel won't be making its cute small form factor PCs anymore, Asus will receive a non-exclusive license to Intel's NUC (Next Unit of Computing) product designs.As we pivot our strategy to enable ecosystem partners to continue NUC systems product innovation and growth, our priority is to ensure a smooth transition for our customers and partners," says Sam Gao, general manager of Intel Client Platform Solutions. I am looking forward to ASUS continuing to deliver exceptional products and supporting our NUC systems customers." P... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge I am not big on blurring out or replacing my office background with premade images, but then again, I'm fortunate enough to have a small environment I'm completely in control of at my disposal, and I want people to see the Doctor Zhivago DVD on the shelf behind me. I could, however, see myself using the new AI-generated backgrounds Google is now testing in its Workspace Labs (via XDA-Developers / 9to5Google).The feature was spotted by Artem Russakovskii, who tweeted about it this afternoon. For those who already have the feature enabled on their account, activating it is as simple as either clicking on the effects icon in the bottom right of your preview video prior to joining a meeting, typing in a prompt describing what you'd like,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Roblox is developing tools that will let developers offer subscriptions within their experiences, according to a blog post published Tuesday, which could prove to be a major new way for developers to make money in their experiences.Roblox already offers developers a lot of ways to monetize their experiences, including the ability to sell virtual items in an experience or on the Roblox marketplace, offering in-experience passes to certain content and gating experiences behind paid access. However, those examples are all one-time fees, and Roblox argues that subscriptions would offer a way for developers to establish a recurring economic relationship with their users and potentially increase the predictability of their earnings." (Other... Continue reading...

Capcom Dinos in crisis. Continue reading...

If you're not a fan of the new pixelated Reddit icon on your iPhone, I have some bad news: unless you want to switch to an icon themed around the Dogecoin dog or WallStreetBets, you'll have to subscribe to Reddit Premium to be able to use an icon that just features the regular Reddit logo, as spotted by 9to5Mac's Benjamin Mayo.Below are the current options. (I put them together side by side so that you won't have to scroll through a giant vertical image.) The free ones are OrangeRed" (the pixelated one), Doge," and Wall Street," while the icons with regular Reddit logos are at the bottom of the list. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Reddit acquired Alien Blue, a third-party app, in 2014. If I paid... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Threads is getting a follows" tab, but it's not the following-only feed that users have been asking for. As outlined in this post from Threads developer Cameron Roth, the new tab lives on the app's activity page and only lets you see a list of users who recently followed you.Threads previously listed your recent followers in its all" tab on the activity page, so this isn't that big of a change - it just makes your new followers easier to find. There are also two other filters for quotes" and reposts," letting you filter recent activity by who reposted or quoted your thread.Additionally, Threads is rolling out translations, which should come in handy if you follow people from different countries. While I'm not seeing the option... Continue reading...

It's a basic-looking Xbox controller with a basic-ass name, but what's on the inside makes it unique. | Image: GameSir Stick drift can plague any controller still using wear-and-tear-prone potentiometers, and unfortunately for us, that includes all current first-party gamepads from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. However, after years of notoriously drift-prone Joy-Cons, third-party accessory makers like 8BitDo and GuliKit have been slowly stepping up to offer alternatives that utilize drift-free Hall effect sensors. The latest is the GameSir G7 SE, the first licensed Xbox controller with Hall effect sticks.GameSir's G7 SE is a new model based on the G7 it released earlier this year, which is a solid gamepad I gave a small nod in our Xbox controller buying guide. Like the standard G7, the SE is a wired-only controller for Xbox Series X / S and PC with a... Continue reading...

The OnePlus 11 5G. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Specs for the OnePlus 12 have leaked, showing some key incremental changes including faster charging and a bigger battery but with a design that's not a lot different from the OnePlus 11 5G, reported Smartprix in collaboration with prominent leaker OnLeaks.According to Smartprix, the phone is getting a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, a 5,400mAh battery, and a 64-megapixel telephoto camera, all upgrades from the OnePlus 11 5G. The battery capacity is a slight boost over the OnePlus 11's 5,000mAh battery, as is the faster 100-watt wired charging. Smartprix says OnePlus is reintroducing 50-watt wireless charging, too, which fans of the phones will likely welcome back after the company dropped wireless charging entirely with the 11 5G.... Continue reading...

The NYPD conducted its test on Sunday following weeks of heavy rain and flooding across the city. | Photo by James Carbone / Newsday RM via Getty Images The New York City Police Department is testing new drones that are designed to transmit audio messages to the public, such as announcements warning of dangerous weather or nearby emergencies. On Sunday, NYC's emergency notification system announced on Twitter that the NYPD would be conducting a test of remote-piloted public messaging capabilities" that day, following several weeks of heavy rain and rare flash flood warnings impacting the city.A police spokesperson later confirmed to AM New York that these tests took place at Hook Creek Park in Queens, ahead of further downpours expected to hit the city this week, but refused to share the results of its test with the publication. One example of how these audio drones may be utilized is... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is working on a feature that will let you publish articles on the platform, according to owner Elon Musk. The feature will allow users to post very long, complex articles with mixed media," Musk said in a reply to a user tweeting about the in-development tool, which is apparently now called Articles" instead of Notes." You could publish a book if you want."The feature will further expand the ways you can write on the platform, which, under Musk's ownership, is starting to move beyond its microblogging roots. Twitter Blue subscribers can already publish tweets with 10,000 characters, which is far above the 280-character limit imposed on non-Blue subscribers. Whenever the articles feature launches, it sounds like it will let... Continue reading...

Mobileye's system can detect illustrated signs as well as regular speed limit signs. | Image: Mobileye Driverless car tech developer Mobileye has a new vision-only system designed for one job: figure out the proper speed limit. The company's new product is a type of Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) solution that not only automatically reads numbers on speed signs but can also decipher illustrated signs like ones that show children at play - communicating proper speed adjustments to vehicles accordingly.Mobileye's new ISA system is certified by 27 EU countries, plus Israel, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey. It comes as the EU is launching new General Safety Regulation (GSR) standards that call for all new vehicles to include live speed limit sensors.Many cars on the road today can tell you the current speed limit on your instrument cluster... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge This is Platformer, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer. Sign up here.I.On July 5th, Meta released Threads into the world. Its arrival came after months of anticipation, but ultimately a bit earlier than Meta had planned. Elon Musk's characteristically self-defeating move to limit free users to viewing a small number of tweets each day had given Meta an unusually opportune moment to strike, and it seized the moment.The outsized success that followed - Threads was the fastest app to hit 100 million downloads, and later blew past 150 million - came as a surprise to almost everyone involved. That includes the app's makers at Meta, who hadn't built a homegrown hit this big... Continue reading...