The Verge

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Facebook was once, believe it or not, cool.But a lot has changed since the early days of News Feed, when it was full of status updates and photos from friends. Facebook has gotten crowded with brands and pages vying for eyeballs. It has become a place where people, especially teenagers and young adults, don’t feel as comfortable sharing their lives.Now, after spending the past four years trying to fix the News Feed by making it more about friends and family, Facebook is going in the other direction: toward showing you more entertaining content from people you don’t know. This new “Discovery Engine” push is all about becoming more like TikTok, which has captured the attention of the young generation Facebook so desperately wants to win... Continue reading…

Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams. | Netflix Though Morticia and Gomez Addams’ daughter is best known for her misanthropy, the first trailer for Netflix’s upcoming comedy Wednesday from director Tim Burton’s a very useful (and promising) reminder that the morose teen’s always been a social butterfly. While the people Wednesday Addams deigns to grace with her presence might not enjoy her idea of a good time, that’s not to say that she isn’t making a good faith effort to, you know, connect with them.Wednesday’s first trailer introduces its take on Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) just as she’s being expelled from yet another one of her “normal” schools for terrorizing her fellow students — something neither her mother (Catherine Zeta-Jones) nor father (Luis Guzman) are especially surprised... Continue reading…

A good midrange phone underneath a whole lot of hype Continue reading…

Coin Crew Games I loved, loved Escape Academy. I think it’s one of the best, most interesting games of the year, an opinion that is definitely not influenced by my brain’s incessant need to “solve a puzzle, any puzzle.”I purposefully abstained from partaking in too many previews and demos in order to keep my full experience unspoiled. Then, when the game launched, I devoured it, pacing myself so I wouldn’t blow through it in one sitting. It’s just a really neat puzzle game set in a fantastical escape room school that trains teens to solve puzzles in increasingly life-threatening situations because... why not?And while I eagerly await the new content updates revealed in the game’s roadmap, I must be content with a new quality-of-life update that is... Continue reading…

These are iPhone 13 Pro phones, not the iPhone 14. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is targeting a September 7th date for its next product launch event, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The company typically hosts a big event in the first part of September, and now we have a very likely date we can circle on the calendar. As with its other events that have taken place during the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan is for this event to be streamed online, Gurman reports.Apple is rumored to announce the iPhone 14 lineup at the show, which is expected to include: the base iPhone 14, a new big-screened iPhone 14, an iPhone 14 Pro, and an iPhone 14 Pro Max. The Pro phones may be getting some of the flashier upgrades, as they’re rumored to lose the notch in favor of a pill-shaped hole-punch cutout, gain an always-on... Continue reading…

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Buy now or buy later? Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images Facebook won’t rush to review its decision to ban Donald Trump even if the former president announces he’s running for office again in the coming weeks, according to a new report from Politico on Tuesday.In an interview with Politico, Nick Clegg, president of global affairs for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said that the company would maintain its January 7th, 2023, date for reaching a decision on whether to reinstate Trump’s accounts. On Wednesday, Meta confirmed to The Verge that the timetable had not changed.The news comes as Trump is expected to run for president once again in 2024 and could reportedly announce his candidacy prior to this year’s November midterm elections. An early announcement could complicate the ongoing... Continue reading…

Airbnb sent out the “test” notification early Wednesday morning. | Photo Illustration by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images Airbnb lit up Android phones around the globe with a notification that reads: “Test dev.” The apparent blunder occurred early Wednesday morning, and judging by how many users are posting about it on Twitter, it seems like a lot of people received the accidental alert (via 9to5Google).While I personally don’t have the Airbnb app installed on my phone, my colleague Cameron Faulkner does, and he got the notification at 3:41AM ET this morning. Tapping into the notification leads to the Airbnb app but doesn’t do anything else. Screenshot: Cameron Faulkner / The Verge You might’ve received this notification if you have Airbnb installed on Android. “A push notification was sent in error to Android users of the Airbnb... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge | Photography by Brent Rose How DeskTube reinvented my home office and solved the YouTube algorithm Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge While protecting your privacy online has been a subject of interest for a while now, events in the news — for example, the chat history Facebook recently turned over to police — have brought it front and center. But how do you protect your privacy while staying in touch with friends and relatives? While there are a number of messaging apps that boast increased privacy features, sometimes you can’t persuade the people you want to keep in touch with to use them. What is your alternative? What, for example, if they insist on chatting with Facebook Messenger?Well, you can start by using end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on Messenger.Basically, end-to-end encryption means that nobody — even Facebook’s company Meta — should be able to read what... Continue reading…

You can binge a lot of Apple original shows in three months. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In addition to inching toward the season of new tech launches, we’re also approaching the release of fall TV show and movie releases. If you’re looking for an extended trial to a streaming service, Best Buy is offering a free three-month membership of Apple TV Plus. The only stipulation here is that you must be a new or returning subscriber, so it won’t automatically add three months to an existing plan.An Apple TV Plus subscription normally costs $4.99 per month, so you’re getting $14.97 of value for free. It’s much better than the usual seven-day free trial that Apple typically offers, and by activating three months now, you’re covered into November. That means you have plenty of time to catch up on shows like For All Mankind and... Continue reading…

Minimalist and productive Continue reading…

Is it a tablet? Or two phones in a trench coat? Continue reading…

Image: Marvel Studios The Hulk’s cousin is here to smash through the fourth wall Continue reading…

Fluid One is an app that lets you point and click at smart home devices to control them. | Image: Fluid The smart home has an interface problem, and six undergrads from Duke think they’ve solved it with a Raspberry Pi and Apple’s U1 chip. They believe most of today’s methods for controlling smart devices — voice control, fiddly apps with multiple menus, motion sensors — are cumbersome and sometimes frustrating. What the smart home needs, they say, is an intuitive control interface and automations that fire off based on where you are in your home. Basically, one app to rule it all. And they’re not wrong.Fluid One is their solution. A smart home app that leverages ultra-wideband technology in Apple’s iPhones, Fluid can control connected lighting, locks, cameras, thermostats, and more in two ways: a point-and-click control interface and... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge A common complaint you hear from electric vehicle owners is about the sorry state of public EV charging: broken chargers, janky software, busted screens. But a lot of this is anecdotal, and it can be hard to find any rigorous studies that capture the current state of EV charging in the US.JD Power surveyed 11,554 electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners from January through June 2022 for its second annual Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study. Despite big growth in the number of public EV chargers in the US, EV owners say the overall experience still sucks.The consumer research firm measured customer satisfaction with EV charging on a 1,000-point scale. According to respondents, charging at a public Level 2... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a few short years, TikTok has grown into one of the fastest-growing social networks in the world — and with the 2022 midterm election cycle heating up, the app is now preparing to take on the maddening problem of election misinformation.In a Wednesday blog post, TikTok’s head of US safety, Eric Han, outlined how the company plans to combat the threat of harmful misinformation. First, TikTok will begin rolling out its Election Center this week in order to provide authoritative voting information in the coming weeks and results from the Associated Press once they are reported. TikTok says it will link out to the Election Center through labels placed on midterm-related content, including videos posted by governments, candidates, and... Continue reading…

Image: Airbnb Airbnb is testing new “anti-party technology” in the US and Canada as it attempts to enforce a global ban on house parties it made permanent earlier this year, the company has announced. The technology is designed to automatically catch the kinds of bookings that are likely to result in unauthorized parties, by looking at factors like a guests’ review history, the age of their account, the length of the stay they’re requesting, and whether they’re booking for a weekday or weekend.The company says it’s been trialing similar technology in select areas of Australia since October 2021, where it saw a 35 percent drop in unauthorized parties. It’s also previously used a similar system in the US since July 2020 that has a more limited focus on... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft is rolling out a taskbar notification system to its Windows 11 widgets this week. While the weather widget returned to Windows 11 earlier this year, it’s largely been a static experience that displays a sunny icon when the weather is good and an umbrella icon when it’s raining and sucks to be outside. That’s all changing this week, as Microsoft is now adding live animations to this taskbar widget.All Windows 11 users will start to see these new widget notifications in the coming days and weeks, thanks to an update to the Windows Web Experience Pack that powers Microsoft’s widgets feature. The notifications appear as live animations on the taskbar weather widget, and include alerts for thunderstorms and even ticker alerts when... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Most popular period and pregnancy tracking apps don’t have strong privacy protections, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Leaky privacy policies in health apps are always a problem, but issues that fall into this particular category are especially concerning now that abortion is illegal in many places in the United States.Period and pregnancy tracking apps collect data that could theoretically be used to prosecute people getting abortions in places where it’s illegal. Data from period tracking apps isn’t the biggest thing used to tie people to abortions right now — most often, the digital data used in those cases comes from texts, Google searches, or Facebook messages. But they’re still potential risks.“Companies... Continue reading…

The Chorus can be swiveled to find the right position for your ears. | Image: Logitech Logitech has announced the Chorus, a $99 audio accessory that aims to bolster sound quality coming out of the Meta Quest 2 VR headset. The appeal of the Chorus, as opposed to using over-ear or in-ear headphones you may already own, is that it lets you remain more present in reality with its open-back, off-ear speakers a la Valve Index.It slides onto each side of the VR headset (compatible with the stock strap or Meta’s Elite straps), and the speakers can swivel to find the right positioning for your ears. Their volume is controlled through the Quest 2’s volume rocker. It’s powered via the Quest 2’s USB-C port, though it supports USB-C passthrough, so you can keep your headset charged or connect other devices to it. L... Continue reading…

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk’s lawyers notched a partial win this week in their Delaware Court of Chancery standoff against Twitter with a motion requesting information from 22 Twitter employees, or “custodians,” in addition to 41 others that both sides already agreed on for sharing data. Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled on the issue Monday afternoon, deciding Twitter has to “collect, review, and produce documents” from just one of the people listed: Kayvon Beykpour, the former head of consumer product at Twitter.With the October 17th trial date for Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk for trying to break up their $44 billion deal drawing closer — and Musk selling billions of dollars worth of his stock in Tesla — his lawyers are trying to find something to shore... Continue reading…

Photo by Jay Peters / The Verge If you spent Tuesday wondering why your Fitbit Charge 5 won’t sync, you’re not alone. Frustrated Charge 5 owners have taken to Reddit and Twitter to report their fitness trackers simply won’t sync in what appears to be a widespread outage. It’s the latest in a series of complaints this summer following slow Ionic recalls and messed-up blood oxygen graphs for Android users.The Verge was able to confirm that at least two of our Charge 5 devices are unable to sync on both Android and iOS despite multiple efforts. We were last able to sync a device at 10:39PM ET on Monday night. Unpairing and repairing the Charge 5 as well as force quitting the Fitbit app were unsuccessful in fixing the issue.Around 4:45PM ET, the Fitbit Support account t... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp’s new app on Windows no longer requires you to link your phone to send, receive, and sync messages. An update on WhatsApp’s site reveals the refreshed Windows app is out of beta and available to download on the Microsoft Store.Previously, users on Windows had to download WhatsApp’s web-based desktop app or access the messaging service from their web browsers. The new app is native to Windows, which, as WhatsApp explains, should make the app faster and more responsive.The redesigned WhatsApp has a slightly cleaner interface when compared to the previous version of the app but otherwise doesn’t look all that different. The biggest change is that you no longer need to keep your phone online to sync messages between your phone and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon warehouse staff that work at a fulfillment center outside of Albany, New York have filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the NLRB told The Verge on Tuesday. The employees, who work at Amazon’s ALB1 warehouse, have filed for a unit that would encompass around 400 workers at the facility.To file for a union petition, more than 30 percent of the proposed unit would have signed union authorization cards. The NLRB is currently ensuring that this step has been taken and expects to verify the petition in a matter of days and proceed to arranging a formal election.The Albany workers are organized with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which successfully voted to unionize at the company’s JFK8... Continue reading…

The number of Latinos who listen to podcasts on a monthly basis has declined, according to a new study. | Getty Surprise! I had a bit of a vacation detour, so I am back for a two-day stint before taking off again Thursday. The TL;DR of my trip is that Sweden is great — let’s all move there and take our four weeks of summer vacation and eat princess cake.It is a slow week in the podcast world, but Jake has kindly helped me compile some news (just kidding, he did like 75 percent of it).Also, I will be at Podcast Movement next week! Give me a shout if you’ll be there, too.Report: the number of Latino monthly podcast listeners has decreasedAfter growing substantially in 2021, the number of Latino Americans that listen to podcasts has stalled, according to a new report from Edison Research and Libsyn. However, the findings also demonstrated a... Continue reading…

American Airlines American Airlines announced Tuesday that it has placed an order for up to 20 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with an option for an additional 40 jets. American is the second major airline to bet on the return of ultra-fast air travel in just two years.The amount of money exchanging hands was not disclosed, but American said the deposit on the 20 initial aircraft was nonrefundable. That agreement, though, is still subject to change depending on the outcome of American’s safety testing and also Boom’s ability to deliver on its promises despite never having built or flown a full-scale supersonic jet before.According to American, “Boom must meet industry-standard operating, performance and safety requirements as well as... Continue reading…

The slide-out headset stand might leave an indent in the padding but is very practical. | Image: Dell Alienware is releasing a pair of new gaming monitors, including a 25-incher with a 360Hz variable refresh rate and a 27-inch Quad HD option that can overclock to 280Hz. Both monitors sport leaner designs than the brand’s other recent offerings, with smaller bases and slide-out headset stands, giving users more desk real estate for massive desk pads and full-sized keyboards.The smaller model (AW2523HF) aesthetically does not scream gaming gear: it’s all matte black plastic with a glossy Alienware head logo and the number “25” on the back, which doesn’t light up like the 27-inch (AW2723DF) model does. The 25-inch model is equipped with a Full HD 1080p IPS screen with Vesa AdaptiveSync certification, HDR10 support, and 99 percent of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed a recent filing from Amazon (you can read it in full below), showing the internet retail giant’s requests for limits on the agency’s investigation of its business practices.According to lawyers representing Amazon, CEO Andy Jassy, former CEO Jeff Bezos, and several other employees, the overly “burdensome” investigation included serving civil investigative demands (CIDs), which Bloomberg describes as similar to subpoenas, to 20 Amazon employees at their homes. However, like Elon Musk’s ongoing squabble with the SEC, the 49-page document hits its stride while claiming FTC individual CIDs requesting testimony from Bezos and Jassy specifically served only to harass them:

Google’s Pixel 6 Pro. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Google announced on August 15th, 2022, that it would begin rolling out the Android 13 update to its portfolio of Pixel devices. As is usual with Android updates, however, this doesn’t mean that even if you have a qualifying Pixel device (a Pixel 4 or newer, basically), you’ll immediately see the update available. Google often takes a number of weeks to deliver the update to all devices out there.While there’s always the solution of using Android’s developer tools, a Mac or PC, and a USB cable to sideload the update immediately, an easier, computer-free option exists as well. If you’ve got a qualifying Pixel device and are tired of seeing the software update screen say there’s nothing new, here’s a trick to force the update to show up.S... Continue reading…

Corin Faife and Alex Castro / The Verge The USB Rubber Ducky is back with a vengeance.The much-loved hacking tool has a new incarnation, released to coincide with the Def Con hacking conference this year, and creator Darren Kitchen was on hand to explain it to The Verge. We tested out some of the new features and found that the latest edition is more dangerous than ever.What is it?To the human eye, the USB Rubber Ducky looks like an unremarkable USB flash drive. Plug it into a computer, though, and the machine sees it as a USB keyboard — which means it accepts keystroke commands from the device just as if a person was typing them in.“Everything it types is trusted to the same degree as the user is trusted,” Kitchen told me, “so it takes advantage of the trust model built... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard Entertainment Ahead of Overwatch 2’s launch on October 4th, the developers are letting us know how to take advantage of the game’s progression system.If you play Overwatch across multiple platforms, starting today, you’ll have the option to merge the separate accounts, allowing you to share all the in-game cosmetics you’ve earned as well as progression for the forthcoming battle pass-like system. You can check out the step-by-step instructions and FAQ here.Be warned: if you have multiple accounts on the same console (y’know, for all those Roadhog bf / Junkrat gf households), you can only merge one account, so be sure you choose the correct one. According to the FAQ, you will be able to unlink a console account from your battle.net account but will... Continue reading…

NASA’s SLS rocket during its first roll out to the launch pad for a dress rehearsal in March 2022 | Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge NASA’s giant Space Launch System will start its first journey into space with a slow crawl along the ground. The first window for the rocket’s highly anticipated launch will open on August 29th, and for once in its extremely long development history, everything is running ahead of schedule.The original plan was to roll out the Space Launch System (SLS) this Thursday, but earlier this week, NASA decided to accelerate that schedule and announced it would start moving on August 16th. Tonight, the SLS will begin its trip by leaving the massive building where it has been carefully assembled and examined and head out to its launchpad. It’s roughly a four-mile trip but could take about 11 hours to complete.SLS is NASA’s next big rocket,... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Hearing aids will soon be able to be sold over the counter and without a prescription, the Biden administration announced Tuesday. A new final rule from the Food and Drug Administration created a new category for over-the-counter hearing aids — which wouldn’t need an exam or an expensive fitting. The devices could be in stores as soon as mid-October.The rule could be a relief for the tens of millions of people in the United States with some level of hearing loss. The new landscape could also offer headphone makers and other tech companies an easier way to start selling headphone-like devices that function as hearing aids — a market that many big companies have been eyeing for years.Over-the-counter hearing aids have been in the works... Continue reading…

I’ll never be able to charge up energy like this in real life, but I can in Fortnite. | Image: Epic Games When we were kids, my friends and I used to play a game we called “Be Whoever You Want,” where we’d pretend to be our heroes from video games, TV shows, and movies. Goku, Vegeta, or other Dragon Ball characters were a popular choice — we’d imagine that we could fly great distances and launch powerful Kamehameha beams to “fight” each other. Many years later, thanks to Fortnite’s new Dragon Ball-themed event that kicked off on Tuesday, I’ve been able to live out those childhood dreams of feeling like an actual Super Saiyan.In my first match after installing the new update, I beelined to Kame House, an iconic location from the franchise that has been added to the Fortnite map. Dressed as Goku, I floated down to the house and watched as... Continue reading…

Image: AMD Maybe don’t build a new PC right now? AMD just announced it’ll unwrap its next-gen Ryzen 7000 processors on August 29th — where it’ll hopefully stop teasing us with vague but promising Zen 4 improvements and announce some actual chips for our devices.What we already know: the Ryzen 7000 processors are the first PC chips based on a 5nm process, the first AMD desktop chips to boost past 5GHz, and their AM5 motherboard platform is the first from AMD to support DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 out of the box — depending on which motherboard you buy.So long, AM4Oh, and you’ll have to buy a new motherboard because AMD is finally, understandably, breaking compatibility with the long-lived AM4 platform and switching away from pins on the CPU. (Your AM4... Continue reading…

Normally these Joy-Cons would be about $40 a piece at their full price of $79.99. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge While Nintendo’s Joy-Cons may be the bane of some people’s existence due to their small size and notorious reputation for developing stick drift, they remain the de facto controller for the Nintendo Switch. They also remain a bit expensive, normally costing $79.99 for a pair of them. Yes, you get more value out of them since you can split them up and use them individually for two-player games, but it’s usually at the cost of comfort and limited game compatibility. Thankfully, today, you can pick up a set of the classic neon red and neon blue Joy-Cons for a steeply discounted price of $54.99 at Adorama.This is one of Adorama’s deals of the day, so it’s set to expire tomorrow at 10:00AM ET — or possibly sooner if the New York-based... Continue reading…

It shares the same “looming cockpit” vibes as the Samsung Odyssey Ark display. | Image: Mobile Pixels Mobile Pixels is running a crowdfunding campaign for this Geminos range of folding dual-screen clamshell displays, which offers an interesting alternative for folks looking to replace a side-by-side monitor setup. It claims those “take up too much space” and are “not ergonomically designed” — or maybe you just need something that resembles Samsung’s aggressively quirky Odyssey Ark gaming monitor without the $3,500 price.Having two monitors stacked on top of each other is something you can replicate easily with monitor stands, but the Geminos line has a bit more to offer than just a folding design gimmick and a starting price of $499. Image: Mobile Pixels Geminos folding monitor setup. Both the Geminos and... Continue reading…

The Elvish version comes with green and off-white keycaps. A little under a year after Drop released a pair of keycap sets themed around the Elvish and Dwarvish languages from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the mechanical keyboard retailer is following it up with two full-on keyboards. There’s a gray Dwarvish board and a green Elvish counterpart, both of which are available fully assembled and ready to go out of the box. Both retail for $169, with preorders opening today, and Drop hopes to ship both by early October. I’ve been testing out the Elvish version over the last couple of days.Aside from the keycaps themselves, which feature regular Latin characters alongside their fantasy equivalents, both keyboards also include small Tolkien-esque illustrations above their arrow clusters.... Continue reading…

Image: Beats Kim Kardashian’s special edition Beats Fit Pro collection, first announced a week ago, is now available at Apple stores. The earbuds come in three neutral colors that were designed by Kardashian, matching her signature palette. “Since you’re wearing something every day, I wanted them to be able to blend in. And I’ve never seen any tech products, especially headphones, be in neutral colors,” Kardashian said in a design video.These are the first custom Beats Fit Pros since the widely praised earbuds were released last November. But if Beats’ past product cycles are anything to go by, there will be more coming in the future.The three new shades of earbuds are available to purchase online beginning today — complete with a custom a... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is planning to release its next big Windows 11 update, version 22H2, on September 20th. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge Microsoft will roll out Windows 11 22H2 through Windows Update on September 20th, a week after the company’s regular Patch Tuesday fixes.Windows Central first reported the 22H2 release date earlier today, after I teased the September 20th plans a week ago.Microsoft has been testing Windows 11 22H2 for months, and it will include a number of new improvements, like app folders in the Start menu, drag and drop on the taskbar, and new touch gestures and animations. Microsoft is also adding a new Live Captions accessibility feature with 22H2, which is ideal for people who are deaf, hard of... Continue reading…

Supergiant Games If you have a Game Pass subscription and have somehow, inexplicably, never gotten around to playing what was arguably the best game of 2020, your time is running out. Xbox has announced that Hades, along with a treasure trove of games — some of the best on the service — are leaving on August 31st. Here’s the full list:

The starlight version of the M2-powered MacBook Air is $100 off at B&H Photo and Amazon. | Image: Apple Heading back to school soon? If you’re in the market for a new laptop, you can save $100 on Apple’s new M2-powered MacBook Air, which is our top pick for most people when it comes to laptops. It’s a relatively small discount, yet it’s also the first we’ve seen on the new MacBook, which launched only last month. Right now, you can buy the “starlight” model at Amazon and B&H Photo with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, an eight-core CPU, and a 30W power brick for $1,099.Although the new model starts at $200 more than Apple’s last-gen Air, it’s a terrific laptop that makes for a good investment. It does a good job of handling everything a general user needs and even some light gaming. It’s also faster than its predecessor thanks to Apple’s... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge Selena Gomez’s beauty brand has grown beyond her own social reach Continue reading…

People stand in the bank of the Chilama River at La Libertad Port, one of the hardest affected areas by tropical storm Amanda, in La Libertad, El Salvador, on June 1st, 2020. | Photo by MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images Hurricane season in the Atlantic is arriving ahead of schedule as the oceans warm, a new study finds. Big storms in the North Atlantic are forming earlier in the year than they used to, and forecasters say this means coastal communities need to be on the alert sooner, too.Tropical storms that reach a certain strength are named by the World Meteorological Organization. And the first named storms to develop each year have come about five days earlier each decade since 1979, according to the study published today in the journal Nature Communications. Named storms that make landfall in the US, meanwhile, have shown up about two days earlier every decade since 1900.That means communities that frequently find themselves in the path of those... Continue reading…

Image: PlayStation Sony could be working on its own PlayStation PC launcher. References to a PlayStation PC launcher have been discovered in the recent release of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC, and VGC has verified the references are legitimate.A potential PC launcher for PlayStation games would compliment Sony’s PC push. Sony wants around half of its games to be on PC and mobile by 2025, and the company has been vocal about its plans to bring more PlayStation games to PC over the past year. We’ve seen Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, God of War, and Spider-Man Remastered all launch on PC in recent years, and Sony even started using a PlayStation PC label last year alongside acquiring a PC port developer.A PC launcher might include cross-buy support... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Maps continues to show results for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) when users search for a nearby abortion clinic. A new analysis from Bloomberg shows that CPCs make up about a fourth of the top 10 search results on average in all 50 states and Washington, DC.Unlike legitimate abortion clinics, CPCs don’t actually provide abortions. They instead attempt to dissuade people from going through with the procedure and often use misinformation to make their case. For example, CPCs may falsely claim that receiving an abortion will put someone at a higher risk for breast cancer or may say it makes it harder to get pregnant in the future.CPCs accounted for five or more of Google’s top 10 search results in 13 statesA s... Continue reading…

Alphabet has been testing its Everyday Robots prototypes cleaning up in the company’s offices. | Image: Google Google’s parent company Alphabet is bringing together two of its most ambitious research projects — robotics and AI language understanding — in an attempt to make a “helper robot” that can understand natural language commands.Since 2019, Alphabet been developing robots that can carry out simple tasks like fetching drinks and cleaning surfaces. This Everyday Robots project is still in its infancy — the robots are slow and hesitant — but the bots have now been given an upgrade: improved language understanding courtesy of Google’s large language model (LLM) PaLM.Most robots only respond to short and simple instructions, like “bring me a bottle of water.” But LLMs like GPT-3 and Google’s MuM are able to better parse the intent behind more... Continue reading…

A sitting / standing desk in the midst of chaos. It took me over two years to recognize that I needed a standing desk.When I started working here at The Verge, one of the first tech toys I got to play with was a desk that you could raise and lower to a standing or sitting position. It was the first time I’d actually tried one, and until then, I had always been a little skeptical about the idea of standing desks. How could you do your work while you’re standing there shifting from foot to foot?However, I soon lost my skepticism. I found that spending some time on my feet kept me from getting restless and helped keep me alert in the later hours of the afternoon. I not only got used to it but also truly liked having it.Then, of course, came the pandemic. And I was back in my home... Continue reading…