The Verge

Image: Apple Apple announced new versions of its 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models in a press release, alongside a new Apple TV 4K with more storage and a redesigned iPad with a higher-than-usual price (and a horizontally oriented selfie cam). The new iPad Pro features the M2 processor that has found its way into just a few of Apple’s other devices (so far, at least), the redesigned MacBook Air and the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro. The 2022 iPad Pro also supports Wi-Fi 6E, which could be all the reason you need to get a 6E-compatible router. Here’s Chris Welch with many more details on the new models.The iPad Pro for 2022 will arrive soon, on Wednesday, October 26th (just two days after iPadOS 16 launches), but you can preorder one now to ensure that... Continue reading…

GIF: DirecTV DirecTV is introducing a new feature today it calls SignalSaver, which is designed to preserve TV reception even during times of satellite interference. Available at no extra cost to residential DirecTV subscribers with an internet-connected set-top box, SignalSaver automatically prompts you to switch from a satellite signal to internet-based TV when an interruption is detected.“After a few seconds of signal calibration, and with the proper high-speed Internet connection, customers can enable SignalSaver to still enjoy up to an HD (720p) quality viewing experience,” the company explains in its press release. DirecTV’s broadcasts at home top out between 720p and 1080i, so you’re not losing much in terms of quality.At launch,... Continue reading…

That looks like a totally normal and fun building to explore. | Image: Epic Games Alan Wake Remastered is launching Thursday on the Nintendo eShop, just in time for any pre-Halloween gaming. Developer Remedy Entertainment and publisher Epic Games had announced that the psychological thriller would be released this fall but, at the time, didn’t say exactly when.Remedy and Epic first released Alan Wake Remastered on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC last year. This Switch port runs natively on Nintendo’s hardware — it’s not a cloud app, like some other big-name ports — and comes with the main game and both story expansions. The game typically costs $29.99, though it’s on sale for 20 percent to celebrate the launch.If you haven’t played Alan Wake yet (like me), Remastered might be a good place to start ahead of the release... Continue reading…

Image: Reincubate Camo’s new version 1.9 update can turn your smartphone into an untethered webcam. The camera utility software, one of the earliest around to convert iOS or Android devices into a computer webcam, can now connect via Wi-Fi in addition to the previous USB plug-in requirement.It’s a great time for Camo to release this update as Apple’s macOS Ventura prepares to launch with its own Continuity Camera feature that can turn iPhones into a webcam. It’s still in demand as a solution for work-from-home setups, as the return to the office has turned into more of a hybrid schedule for many of us. Apple’s implementation involves little setup and can mount to the top of a MacBook with a specialty mount like this Belkin one, enabling special features... Continue reading…

Google is pushing harder than ever to make RCS the norm. | Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Google announced a number of updates to its Messages app on Thursday, including an in-line reply feature for responding to individual messages and the ability to star or set a reminder on a text. Some of the best new features require users to have RCS enabled, which seems to be precisely the point: Google is pushing harder and harder to get carriers and developers to make RCS the standard, even if it means some complicated compatibility issues in the meantime.RCS is a long-in-the-works standard aimed at replacing SMS as the primary infrastructure for mobile messaging. Since it works over the internet and not carrier bandwidth, it can support a huge number of additional features: encryption, multimedia, more interactive features, and... Continue reading…

Intel takes the PC performance crown back from AMD thanks to big multithread performance gains and boosts to gaming and creator apps Continue reading…

Concept artwork of the now-cancelled “Feral Queen” character. | Image: Tony Sart The makers of Fallout: London, an ambitious mod for Fallout 4 set in everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic hellscape, have announced they’re cutting two characters based on the late Queen Elizabeth II and then-Prince Charles. The announcement was initially made on Twitter on September 8th shortly after the Queen’s death, but the team’s project lead Dean Carter officially announced the change during a recent development update.“We have always maintained that if she was to pass away before the mod was complete we would change it,” Carter said. “Do not expect them in there. There’s no point asking in the comments. There’s no point moaning. It’s the official stance of the mod and it will not change.”Concept art of the two characters show... Continue reading…

DaVinci Resolve will be availabe for iPad users by Q4, 2022. | Image: Blackmagic Design Creatives and filmmakers rejoice: the iPad will soon support DaVinci Resolve following an official announcement from Blackmagic Design, the company behind the popular video editing software. Both the free version of DaVinci Resolve and the premium DaVinci Resolve Studio ($295 on desktop) will be available for iPad users by the end of 2022.Apple already said support for DaVinci Resolve was coming during its unveiling of the M2-powered iPad Pro earlier this week, but at the time, screenshots of the DaVinci Resolve app running on a new iPad Pro was all we had to go on, with no pricing or feature information included in Apple’s announcements.

Cherry’s new MX Ergo Clear switch. | Image: Cherry For its latest mechanical keyboard switch, German manufacturer Cherry has taken inspiration from a popular modification of one of its existing switches. The new MX Ergo Clear was announced by the company in a press release this week, but the design dates back to a DIY mod posted to the mechanical keyboard forum GeekHack way back in 2011.The original, community-made Ergo Clear is what’s known as a “frankenswitch,” where users mix and match components of different switches to create new and interesting typing feels. The original Ergo Clear mod combined the stem of a Cherry MX Clear with the spring of a Cherry MX Black switch. It meant that it inherited the satisfying tactile bump of the MX Clear (which is far more pronounced than the... Continue reading…

Netflix has signaled that it has bold ambitions beyond mobile gaming. | Image: Netflix Netflix just announced that it’s ‘seriously exploring’ cloud gaming. Could it succeed where Stadia failed and beat Microsoft in cloud gaming? Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is making Discord voice calls way better on Xbox soon by removing a big annoyance. You won’t have to use a phone to connect to Discord voice chats anymore in an upcoming update, allowing Xbox owners to connect directly to calls in servers. This will make it a lot easier to just connect to Discord servers and start chatting with friends.Xbox Insiders on the Alpha and Skip-Ahead Alpha rings can start testing these changes today, and they allow you to browse all voice channels across all the Discord servers you’re in. Connecting no longer requires you to transfer the call with the Xbox or Discord mobile apps, and once your account is linked for the first time, you can freely join straight from your Xbox.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amid ongoing supply chain constraints, production delays in China, and increasing competition from the legacy auto industry, Tesla just reported its third-quarter earnings (PDF), in which the company said it earned $3.3 billion in net income on $21.4 billion in revenue. That represents a 56 percent increase year over year compared to $13.7 billion in revenue in Q3 2021. The company said it had a free cash flow of $8.9 billion.The earnings report comes on the heels of a somewhat disappointing production and delivery report in which Tesla said it delivered 343,830 vehicles to customers over the past three months. That was about 20,000 less than the 364,660 vehicles that Wall Street analysts had been expecting for the quarter.Tesla... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Ever since a system update released over two months ago, some owners of the Sonos Arc and Sub have complained about reduced performance from their pricey home theater devices. This thread on the company’s forum is a good chronicle of the frustrations. Customers noticed that the Arc had lost some oomph at lower volumes, and for those who had run Trueplay tuning on their setup, the Sub had been robbed of its bottom-end growl.Now, Sonos says it has resolved both issues as of the latest update. Version 14.18 was rolled out yesterday. And while the official changelog only mentions “bug fixes and performance enhancements,” a Sonos employee went into much greater detail in the forum thread:

Sofia Wylie as Agatha, Michelle Yeoh as Professor Anemone, and Kerry Washington as Professor Dovey. | Image: Gilles Mingasson / Netflix So long as there are literate young people trudging their way to school every morning, there’s always going to be an appetite for stories asking “what if the educational system, but magical?” That’s exactly the question author Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil and Netflix’s new adaptation of the novel pose. Like all of the books in Chainani’s fairy tale-inspired YA series, Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil both pulls deep from and pokes fun at the magical storybook canon with a tale about the many different forms love can take.Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil from director Paul Feig tells the story of Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso), two best friends who, despite being slightly different... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Forget your peaceful Uber ride — the ride-hailing service just announced it’s testing in-car tablets dedicated to displaying ads during your trip. The company’s, thankfully, not rolling out the program widely yet; it’s only piloting it in San Francisco and Los Angeles to start.So far, Uber says it has partnered with over 40 brands, including NBCUniversal, Heineken, and United Artists Releasing for its new “Journey Ads.” It also created an advertising division to help build out this offering and plans on sticking more ads in the Uber Eats app, in emails, on digital storefronts, and through car-top ads — a sort of digital billboard drivers can place on the roof of their vehicles.Lyft launched a similar advertising arm in August and has... Continue reading…

Quiet, console. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft has released software updates for the Xbox Series S and X and the Xbox app for iOS and Android that bring some quality-of-life improvements and small tweaks that you may notice the next time you go to play a game.If you have your console output audio via HDMI, you may now be able to control the volume of your speakers from the Xbox itself, using new options in the Audio and Music section of the Xbox menu. If you don’t see the volume down, up, and mute buttons, it’s likely because your audio setup isn’t CEC all the way through — my Xbox outputs audio to the TV, but because it’s shuffled off to a pair of speakers via an optical cable, I can’t control volume from my Xbox. Image: Microsoft No need to find... Continue reading…

Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images The US Department of Energy is awarding $2.8 billion in grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to shore up domestic battery manufacturing and mineral production, the White House announced Wednesday. The Biden administration is also launching a new government-wide initiative to strengthen supply chains to support electric vehicle manufacturing.It was the latest move by President Biden to support the shift from polluting gas-powered cars to emissions-free electric vehicles, with the goal of making 50 percent of all new cars sold in 2030 electric. And it comes as automakers, mining officials, and environmentalists have sounded a warning about the US supply of key minerals needed to fuel the EV boom.The DOE grants will go to 20... Continue reading…

GIF: Adobe I’ve never been a Photoshop person. Some of my Verge colleagues — particularly on our excellent photo and art team — have often used Photoshop in combination with Lightroom when working on images for the site. But I’ve always done my best to stick with Lightroom all by itself among Adobe’s apps. Other software has become essential to my workflow as part of this effort to avoid the all-powerful Photoshop.There are a few reasons for this. For one, Photoshop can feel like overkill when all I’m really ever doing is touching up review shots or concert photos. But Lightroom is also cleaner. It’s available directly from the Mac App Store and an easy install that comes without extra cruft. And it’s just as simple to remove if I want to. (The... Continue reading…

Solar panels are seen on houses in Gaj, Poland on April 4th, 2022. | Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images Since war broke out early this year, roughly a quarter of the European Union’s electricity has came from wind and solar, a new report finds. That’s a record-setting number, and the growth in wind and solar has saved the EU €11 billion in avoided gas costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made purchasing Russian gas politically untenable.Within the bloc of 27 nations, 19 countries broke their own records for solar and wind electricity generation, according to the new report published by energy think tank Ember and climate think tank E3G. Poland, which has historically relied heavily on coal, saw the biggest bump with a 48.5 percent increase in solar and wind generation. Spain also led the pack with the biggest increase in terms of... Continue reading…

While designed for the Ultra, these new compass features work on the Series 6 or later. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple did a lot of work prepping new features for the Apple Watch Ultra. That includes redesigning the Compass app in watchOS 9 to include waypoints — points of interest — and Backtrack, the ability to retrace your steps using your watch’s GPS.Waypoints and Backtrack aren’t limited to the Ultra, either. Anyone with an Apple Watch Series 6 or later can benefit. (That includes both generations of the Apple Watch SE.) That said, Ultra owners get some extra perks. For instance, there’s an exclusive Wayfinder watchface for the Ultra that puts the Compass app front and center. You can also use the Action button as a shortcut to drop waypoints while on the go.But regardless of which Apple Watch model you have, Compass Waypoints and... Continue reading…

The new Tesla J1772 wall charger requires an adapter to charge its own companies vehicles but can be used to power other EV makes and models. | Image: Tesla Tesla has launched a new J1772 wall charger that can be installed into homes and used with other brands of electric vehicles (via Electrek). The charger is capable of adding up to 44 miles of range per hour and features a 24-foot cable and can power-share to maximize electrical capacity, allowing you to charge multiple vehicles at once.Tesla owners can also use this new charger, but it will require the adapter that comes bundled with their vehicles. Still, this is a decent compromise for households that may have several different models of EV; otherwise, Tesla owners are better off purchasing Tesla’s original Wall Connector for $400, which comes already equipped with Tesla’s proprietary plug. Image: Tesla A full... Continue reading…

BMW will spend $1 billion on EV production and $700 million for a new battery facility. | Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge BMW says it will make batteries for its electric vehicles at a factory in South Carolina in the latest move by a major automaker to localize EV production in the United States.The German company plans to invest $1.7 billion in the US, including $1 billion for EV production at BMW’s Spartanburg plant and $700 million for a new battery-assembly facility in nearby Woodruff.By 2030, BMW says it will have at least six electric models in production in the US. Establishing a US-based EV plant will allow BMW’s upcoming line of plug-in vehicles to qualify for the federal EV tax credit.BMW said it is partnering with Envision AESC on its plans for a dedicated battery plant in South CarolinaBMW said it is partnering with Envision AESC on its... Continue reading…

The M1 MacBook Air may be approaching its second birthday, but it’s still a worthwhile laptop — especially with a good deal. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Look, it’s understandable to be a little thrown off by Apple’s latest announcements. The new Apple TV 4K seems interesting, the 2022 iPad Pro seems a little humdrum (save for the addition of the M2 chip), and the redesigned base iPad looks great, though it might cause some confusion with some accessories. But you know what’s still great and is down to its lowest price ever? The M1 MacBook Air from late 2020.You can get the base model of the M1-equipped MacBook Air for just $799 at Amazon with a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM in any of its three available colors. This $200 discount matches its all-time low that started during Prime Day last week. While this laptop has been with us for a little while now (it’s turning two years old next month)... Continue reading…

It doesn’t have a name yet. | Image: Intel Intel is showing off a preview of the next generation of Thunderbolt, which it says can “deliver up to three times the capability of Thunderbolt 4.” According to the company, its upcoming standard will be capable of:

Waymo will launch its next robotaxi service in Los Angeles, but it won’t say when. | Waymo Waymo is bringing its Waymo One robotaxi service to Los Angeles, a city of endless freeways, legendary traffic jams, and many pressing transportation needs that are unlikely to be addressed by adding more cars.Waymo currently operates robotaxis in two cities: Phoenix and San Francisco. The company is one of a handful trying to launch a widescale commercial service built around autonomous vehicles, like Amazon’s Zoox, Argo AI (which is backed by Ford and Volkswagen), and Cruise (which is backed by General Motors and Honda).LA isn’t uncharted territory for Waymo; the company has been mapping the city’s various neighborhoods, including downtown LA and the Miracle Mile, since 2019 — though it says it has yet to drive autonomously in the... Continue reading…

Some hours before he was abducted by a squad of feds in camouflage tactical gear, Mark Pettibone was playing a pickup game of Frisbee.It was what had become a normal night for the summer of 2020 in Portland, Oregon. The city was now four months into the pandemic and two months into the ongoing protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death.At this point, Mark and his friend Connor O’Shea — whom he knew from his job at Trader Joe’s — had made a habit of going regularly after work to protest at the Multnomah County Justice Center, a downtown building that houses a jail and the local district attorney’s office. It had been weeks — almost two months — of tear gas and flash-bangs. That was the new normal.This... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If Thanksgiving Day football isn’t enough, Amazon and the NFL want to create a new tradition by airing a Black Friday football game starting next year (via Deadline). The game will take place on November 24th, 2023, at 3PM ET, but it’s too soon to know which teams will be playing.Airing the game on Prime Video on Black Friday isn’t a coincidence, either. Hans Schroeder, the chief operating officer for NFL Media, says “Amazon’s uniquely positioned” to partner with the NFL on Black Friday because it’s “one of the most important days of the year for their business.”

The AT Protocol logo aims for a foundational image of the internet. | Image: AT Protocol Bluesky, the project started within Twitter to create a decentralized social network, announced it’s getting closer to actually shipping an app. “Closer” is the operative word here, though. Bluesky only announced that it is building an app, that it’ll be called Bluesky, and that it will “be a portal to the world of possibility on top of the AT Protocol.” We still don’t have a release date, a feature list, or much of anything else.The AT Protocol is the real news for Bluesky. The whole idea behind the project was to separate social apps and social networks — to let people use the same back end and data but build and use their own apps on top of it. “It will allow [Twitter] to access and contribute to a much larger corpus of public... Continue reading…

Internet is provided via the Aero Terminal, seen on top of the aircraft. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink will soon be available on select airplanes with the official launch of Starlink Aviation next year, the company has announced. It claims the service will offer internet speeds of up to 350Mbps to each plane equipped with its Aero Terminal, which it says is fast enough for video calls, online gaming, “and other high data rate activities.”It’s certainly a big leap up from the typical speeds offered by most in-flight Wi-Fi. OneZero reports that most flights either use air-to-ground systems which top out at around 10Mbps per flight (and only work while flying over land), while current satellite systems typically offer between 30Mbps and 100Mbps. Since these speeds are per plane, actual speeds... Continue reading…

The new Lyft parking feature allows users to search for and reserve parking spaces directly within the app. | Image: Lyft Lyft users can now search, reserve, and pay for parking spaces from the app in cities across the US, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Drivers can access the new Lyft Parking feature by tapping the steering wheel icon located on the bottom-right corner of the Lyft app, according to Lyft’s website.The parking reservation feature is made possible by a partnership between Lyft and SpotHero, a Chicago-based parking company, and is available through both the iOS and Android versions of the Lyft app. Image: Lyft The Lyft parking feature will show available spaces with pricing, much like a hotel reservation. The SpotHero service is available in over 300 cities across the US and Canada but it’s unclear which... Continue reading…

The Logitech Crayon, complete with USB-C charging port. | Image: Logitech Logitech has released an updated version of its Crayon stylus to coincide with the announcement of Apple’s new iPads. The new stylus costs the same as the old model, $69.95, but now features a USB-C charging port rather than Lightning — a helpful change given the 10th-generation iPad’s switch from Lightning to USB-C.The change means that the Logitech Crayon arguably has a much more elegant charging mechanism than Apple’s first-party $99 Pencil when used with the base-level iPad. Logitech’s new stylus can charge using just the USB-C cable that comes with the tablet — no fiddly USB-C-to-Lightning adapter required. The wirelessly-charging second-generation Apple Pencil isn’t compatible with Apple’s new entry-level iPad.Apple’s product... Continue reading…