The Verge

The fate of Warner Bros. DC Comics movies is looking grim Continue reading…

The Galaxy Watch 5 Pro is meant to appeal to serious outdoors athletes, but relies on a touchscreen. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Earlier this week, Samsung announced the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. It’s Samsung’s most durable smartwatch ever and at Unpacked it was clear that the company intends the watch to appeal to outdoor athletes. Apple also revealed at WWDC that watchOS 9 will feature a ton of new running metrics, adding fuel to rumors that a rugged Apple Watch may be on the way. It’s clear that both companies are looking to lure in users from the Garmin and Polar crowd — but aside from battery life and durability, there’s another obstacle that could derail these efforts. Touchscreens.For better or worse, Apple and Samsung have relied on touchscreen navigation on their smartwatches. That’s fine for casual exercise, or for the average person who isn’t traversing all... Continue reading…

Verge readers can save up to $200 on iRobot’s Roomba j7 and Roomba i3 Plus EVO for a limited time. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Great news, folks! Wellbots is currently taking up to $200 off cat Ubers — err, robot vacuums. OK, it may not be the most exciting news of the week, but most people would agree that there is nothing remotely fun about cleaning. Luckily, robot vacuums like iRobot’s Roomba j7 and Roomba i3 Plus EVO can expedite the entire process and make it a lot less hands-on.Right now, you can buy the Roomba j7 — our favorite robot vacuum — for just $399 ($200 off) at Wellbots when you use promo code THEVERGE200 at checkout, which matches the robovac’s lowest price to date. The vacuum offers a wealth of great features, including scheduling, obstacle avoidance, the ability to map out your home’s layout, and Alexa, Google, and Siri support so you can... Continue reading…

Image: YouTube YouTube is building a system that would allow users to subscribe to streaming services through the YouTube app, The Wall Street Journal reported, and could launch the so-called “channel store” as early as this fall. The Journal’s report didn’t say which services might be part of the store, only that YouTube has been talking with various entertainment companies.A channel store makes perfect sense for YouTube, and it’s been a long time in the works: The Information reported on a similar plan way back in early 2020. More recently, the company has been signaling this is coming: “I think whether content is distributed in a bundle, or where over time we explore other ways of distributing it, I think YouTube can be a great partner there,”... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You may soon have the option to have your Facebook Marketplace purchases picked up and delivered by DoorDash. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is partnering with DoorDash to deliver Marketplace items located up to 15 miles away.Not every item is eligible for delivery, though. Sources tell the WSJ that DoorDash will only deliver items that are small enough to fit in the trunk of a car, and that drivers are expected to make deliveries within 48 hours. Either way, it sounds like a helpful option for anyone who isn’t able to pick up an item themselves.It also fills a gap in Facebook Marketplace’s existing local delivery options, which only lets you get larger items delivered through a... Continue reading…

Part desk clock, part status board, all Nyan Cat Continue reading…

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks during a news conference on climate action outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, November 17th, 2021. | Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images Congress has officially passed the Inflation Reduction Act after a successful House vote on Friday, clearing the way for the biggest clean energy package in US history. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law soon, bringing the US within eyeshot of reaching its climate goals under the Paris accord.The bulk of the bill’s spending — $369 billion — goes toward building up domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles and clean energy technologies plus making homes and buildings more energy-efficient. There’s another $4 billion to promote drought resiliency in the western US. Outside of climate initiatives, the bill also spends $64 billion on healthcare subsidies to prevent insurance premiums from rising for people who buy... Continue reading…

Twitch was all set to hold a giant maskless convention in San Diego this October in the midst of monkeypox and the continued threat of COVID-19 — but after an outcry that included both attendees and some of its own streamer partners, the platform has decided to require masks and proof of vaccination once again.“We’ve been listening to all of your feedback and know that many of you–especially those who are immunocompromised and the people who support them–want stricter health measures in place to help you feel safe attending TwitchCon San Diego in person,” reads the beginning of a major update to the company’s blog post announcing that tickets were on sale.To attend TwitchCon, attendees 5 years and older now need to wear an snug mask... Continue reading…

Peloton’s Bike Plus will return to its original $2,495 pricing from $1,995. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy had his job cut out for him when he took over the helm in February as the company laid off 2,800 employees. Now, roughly six months later, McCarthy has sent out a memo to staffers warning the company plans to eliminate an additional 784 jobs in a third round of layoffs, reports Bloomberg. Peloton will also increase the prices of the Bike Plus and Tread, while shuttering retail showrooms starting in 2023.Peloton spokesperson Ben Boyd confirmed the news in a statement to The Verge, writing:

Endling - Extinction is Forever title card | Herobeat Studios In a video game climate that bends over backwards to assure you the cute little creatures you play as or with cannot be harmed, it was shocking to hear the mother fox’s neck snap in Endling - Extinction is Forever. I was running with my trio of kits, trying to escape the murderous clutches of a furrier when he caught me. I struggled as he held me down before I heard the crack of the bones as the screen went dark, informing me I had failed as a mother and that my cubs were going to die. And while I thought that was a little too much, that kind of unflinching look at the reality of survival in a world ruined by climate change is exactly what the developers were going for.“We wanted to put everything there,” Javier Romello, CEO of Endling’... Continue reading…

V2V, or vehicle-to-vehicle technology, allows cars to receive messages about road conditions and crashes. Today, the DC circuit court released its decision, siding with the Federal Communications Commission, on its reallocation of part of the 5.9GHz band. It’s a big win for the FCC and a big loss for the auto industry, which has promised to use the airwaves to improve safety through a technology called “vehicle-to-vehicle” (V2V) or “vehicle-to-everything” (V2X) communication.The problem, as hilariously put by Judge Justin Walker in his opinion, is that this technology has never really existed. It was one of those “just around the corner”-type innovations that has always been promised but never actually delivered. It was a fantasy, and today, the court’s basically said as much.The problem, as hilariously put by Judge Justin Walker in his... Continue reading…

Samar Haddad; Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge So you’re the proud owner of one of Samsung’s foldables. Look at you, you early adopter! There are obviously a few more ways to use your phone than a typical slab-style phone, and that’s probably why you bought one.Flex Mode is one of those features. That’s basically just a term for whenever you use the phone’s main screen folded halfway. It’s most useful if you want to set the phone down and use it hands-free, like for video calls, and some apps are optimized by default to take advantage of it.Here’s how to use Flex Mode with the apps that support it natively — and also how to enable it for apps that don’t. I tested these steps on a Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 running One UI 4.1.1.For apps that support Flex ModeTo enter... Continue reading…

Hogwarts Legacy | Warner Bros. Hogwarts Legacy, the Harry Potter prequel game, has been delayed a second time according to a tweet from the game’s official Twitter account.

A wind turbine generates electricity at the Block Island Wind Farm on July 7th, 2022, near Block Island, Rhode Island. | Photo by John Moore/Getty Images California has set a hella ambitious goal to build up its offshore wind industry. The Golden State is aiming to reach 25,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2045, about as much as all of Europe has today.The target set by the California Energy Commission on Wednesday is the biggest commitment any state has made yet to develop wind farms off of their coasts. The goal is even more monumental considering the US’s fledgling offshore wind industry has really only gained a foothold on the East Coast.So far, there are two small projects off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia capable of generating just 42 megawatts of electricity. The first commercial-scale wind farm, to be built off the coast of Massachusetts, just received f... Continue reading…

Apple wanted a cut of boosted posts. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple and Meta may not be the best of friends right now, but at one point, Apple was in discussions with the social media company about how it could make more money from its presence on the App Store, according to The Wall Street Journal.Apple reportedly argued that it deserved a cut of certain portions of Facebook’s ad revenue. The specific ads in question were boosted posts, which let users pay to have their posts reach more people, the WSJ reports. Apple apparently argued boosted posts are in-app purchases, which it famously takes a portion of; Meta argued that they were ads, from which Apple doesn’t get a share. It seems that Meta won out.Apple hasn’t only wanted a share of boost sales from Meta. Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Tumblr... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge In a recent (and very funny) blog post, The Verge’s Liz Lopatto bemoans the ad-ification and TikTok-ification of Instagram and other social media sites. “Can someone just build a simple photo app that isn’t sleazy and let me know where it is so that my friends can join it?” she asks. And she apparently hasn’t been the only one — it’s gotten to the point where Instagram is starting to walk back some of its changes due to user complaints.The comments section of Liz’s post soon became filled with various suggestions for alternative photo sites where you could post your cat pix and other cute / funny / beautiful photos and have your friends and family be able to admire and discuss them. I took a look at some of them (and some that I found... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A proposal to let parents sue over addictive social media features failed in the California legislature this week. The bill, AB 2408, failed to pass out of committee for a full state Senate vote. It at least temporarily ends a controversial push to increase liability for social media in the state — an increasingly common practice among legislators.AB 2408, or the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act, was one of numerous state-level social media proposals. It would have authorized civil penalties against social networks whose designs caused a “child user ... to become addicted to the platform,” either by design or in a way the operators should have known was harmful. It would not have applied to social networks that generate less... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is everywhere: in the doctor’s office, in people’s homes, in their shopping carts, and now — in their therapist’s office, too. Amazon’s virtual healthcare program, Amazon Care, now includes a partnership with mental health company Ginger, according to an Amazon Care webpage. The new offerings were first reported by Insider.The webpage outlines the behavioral health options available through Amazon Care. Primary care providers on the platform can respond to some low-grade issues, like mild anxiety. For more serious concerns, patients can be referred to providers outside of Amazon Care. Ginger, a digital mental health platform that gives people 24/7 access to mental health coaches and therapists, will be available as an optional... Continue reading…

A souped-up smart button for Apple’s HomeKit smart home Continue reading…

The Galaxy Buds 2 and their wireless charging case have a very compact design. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge We’re just a couple days removed from Samsung’s Unpacked event, where it announced two new foldable phones, two new smartwatches, and one new premium set of earbuds — the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. While there are some trade-in deals if you preorder those buds before their release on August 26th, there’s a better deal happening on the similarly named base model.Right now, you can get the excellent value that is the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 for just $99.99 ($50 off) at Best Buy and Amazon. That matches their lowest price, and unlike some previous occasions, these are USA models that come with a full warranty. They’re also available in nearly all colors, including Best Buy’s exclusive darker phantom black.The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro are sure to offer... Continue reading…

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Every Wednesday and Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors make sense of the week’s most important technology news. On Fridays, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.On today’s show, Nilay, David, and Alex are joined by Verge senior news editor Richard Lawler to discuss the foldable phones announced at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event this week: the Z Fold 4 and the Z Flip 4. Samsung basically owns the foldable category in the US, and the devices are getting better with each generation. But do people actually hold on to them? The crew shares their... Continue reading…

A Nissan Leaf being fed from a pole-mounted EV charger in Melrose, MA | Image: Only In Boston Electric utility poles do a lot for us: they power our homes, take nails for our yard sale and lost cat signs, and shine light for our streets at night. But arguably their greatest contribution yet is helping EV owners juice up their cars. We’re talking about pole-mounted EV chargers, an awesome and apparently feasible public charging solution found in a few places like Melrose, Massachusetts, which recently installed several with the help of the local utility, National Grid.The utility company worked with the city of Melrose to install the elevated chargers around town, helping EV owners who otherwise don’t have access to a garage or private parking space with dedicated charging. And according to the company, these charging stations... Continue reading…

All the ports and all the power Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After a high-profile incident in which subpoenaed Facebook messages led to felony charges for a 17-year-old girl and her mother in a Nebraska abortion case, Meta said Thursday that it would expand testing of end-to-end encryption in Messenger ahead of a planned global rollout.This week, the company will automatically begin to add end-to-end encryption in Messenger chats for more people. In the coming weeks, it will also increase the number of people who can begin using end-to-end encryption on direct messages in Instagram.Meanwhile, the company has begun to test a feature called “secure storage” that will allow users to restore their chat history when they install Messenger on a new device. Backups can be locked by a PIN, and the... Continue reading…

The Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 displayed in a gold finish. | Image: Xiaomi The Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 has launched in China just days after Samsung announced its next generation of foldable handsets, with Xiaomi looking to gain an advantage over its competition with a slimmer design, bigger displays, and a more affordable price.The Mix Fold 2 has several improvements over the original Mi Mix Fold released last year that go beyond dropping the Mi branding. The Fold 2 is powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC flagship chipset, with 12GB of RAM and several storage options ranging from 256GB to 1TB. It also features an improved hinge and comes in either gold or black. Image: Xiaomi Just in case you wanted to know if the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 looks good in black. As a foldable,... Continue reading…

Haeun Jang / The Verge Ship of Harkinian is a labor of love years in the making Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Content warning: I am about to do a close read while violating the principles of New Criticism.I woke up annoying this morning, so we are going to do a close read of this internet artifact: a semi-viral tweet showing Elon Musk discussing Twitter bots in what appears to be a blurred-out conference room of some kind. There is an audience, though — you get to hear them laugh.

Photo by Carlos Suriel Wanting neither a ticking time bomb of a hoverboard nor the hassle of paying for a grimy rental scooter, I worked my ass off at a minimum wage job during the summer of 2017 to afford my first electric skateboard: a Boosted Dual+ V2. Almost every weekend after I forked over my $1,500, I’d take my board out to my local boba cafe. I’d do a couple of laps around my Northern California neighborhood on the way back home, my milk tea in one hand and my remote in the other.As a high school student on an uphill battle to get into one of California’s top universities, electric skateboarding became my go-to form of escapism. It allowed me to take a break from the books — and gave me an excuse to go outside. It offered the effortless freedom of a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A 29-year-old man has been arrested in Amsterdam for his suspected involvement in the development of Tornado Cash — a crypto mixer service that was banned earlier this month by the US Department of the Treasury for its role in laundering money from large-scale hacking operations, including those linked to state-sponsored North Korean cybergangs.News of the arrest was announced by the Netherlands’ Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), which investigates financial crime in the country. FIOD said the individual is “suspected of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering,” and that “multiple arrests are not ruled out” as investigations into Tornado Cash continue. The suspect is due... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google’s mid-range Pixel 6a ships with a 6.1-inch OLED display running at 60Hz, but there’s a method to unlock a 90Hz mode. Twitter user TheLunarixus has created a mod to unlock the 90Hz mode on the Pixel 6a, and they’re working on a custom ROM to make it easy for any Pixel 6a owner to unlock the improved refresh rate.Verge Senior Editor Sean Hollister has tested the mod on his own Pixel 6a, and has confirmed it works. What we don’t know is whether the display panel truly supports 90Hz, or whether this is effectively overclocking it to get to the faster refresh rate. We’ve reached out to Google to comment on whether 90Hz is simply software locked, or if there are indeed display panel constraints. Screenshot by Sean... Continue reading…

Samsung Electronics’ Jay Y. Lee (left) receives presidential pardon. | Image: Getty Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong — known in the West as Jay Y. Lee — has won a presidential pardon by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, allowing the grandson of Samsung’s founder to resume leadership of the powerful conglomerate, Bloomberg reports. The pardon will be formalized on August 15th.The presidential pardon is reminiscent of the two given to Lee’s father, Lee Kun-hee, who was convicted of corruption and tax evasion in 1996 and 2008.“In a bid to overcome the economic crisis by revitalizing the economy, Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, whose suspended prison term ended recently, will be reinstated,” the South Korean government said in a statement reported by the Financial Times.The pardon is the latest turn in a... Continue reading…

Shaggy in MultiVersus. | Image: Warner Bros. Games The first season of MultiVersus, Warner Bros.’ free-to-play take on a Super Smash Bros.-esque crossover fighter, will now begin on August 15th, developer Player First Games tweeted Thursday evening. The season had been scheduled to kick off on August 9th, but the studio announced last week that the launch had been delayed.Alongside the news of the season start date, Player First Games announced that Morty from Rick and Morty will be joining the MultiVersus roster on August 23rd; his arrival had been pushed back last week as well. Player First Games also committed to adding “new modes and content” over the course of the season. Ahead of the season 1 delay, the Rick half of Rick and Morty was planned to be added sometime during the season,... Continue reading…

The new Photo Frame mode on Echo Show smart displays and Fire TVs removes ads and other clutter from your photo slideshow. | Image: Amazon Amazon Echo Show smart displays have never been as good as Google's Nest Hub or a dedicated digital photo frame for doing one thing well: showing your pictures. This is because Amazon clutters up the screen with questionably useful info and alternates your pretty pictures with suggestions for the latest Alexa skill you might like to try, a recipe for egg salad, or a news tidbit about a tomato shaped like a duck.But as of August 5th, you can now command your Echo Show to show you just your pictures and nothing else for a whole three hours.Photo Frame mode hides all ads, calendars, and weather notifications to become a photo-only slideshowAmazon’s digital photo frame feature, previously only available on the Echo Show 15, is now on all... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Ring, the Amazon-owned home security company that’ll sell you a camera just as swiftly as it will give law enforcement access to that same camera’s footage without a warrant, is producing a television show that sounds an invitation to participate in the surveillance state. You know, as a fun family activity.Deadline reports that Wanda Sykes has signed on to host Ring Nation, a new America’s Funniest Home Videos-style clip show from MGM Television, Ring, and Big Fish Entertainment, the production company behind Live P.D. Described as a “daily dose of life’s unpredictable, heartwarming and hilarious viral videos” in a press release, Ring Nation will feature footage captured on people’s Ring cameras presented in a way that’s meant to be... Continue reading…

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge Rivian, the buzzy electric vehicle company backed by Ford and Amazon, reported a net loss of $1.71 billion in the second quarter of 2022 based on $364 million in revenue. It’s a sign that Rivian’s nascent EV business is picking up speed, albeit slowly compared to the previous quarter in which Rivian reported a net loss of $1.59 billion based on $95 million in revenue. Still, the company beat Wall Street expectations for revenue by about $26 million.The earnings report was also an indication that Rivian still has a ways to go before it can deliver on its promise to upend the auto industry with beautifully designed, emissions-free, adventure-themed trucks and SUVs. The automaker said it expects to burn through $700 million in additional... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta’s AI thinks CEO Mark Zuckerberg is as sketchy as you might — at least, if you ask the right questions at the right time. The BBC and other outlets like Insider have reported on their adventures stress-testing BlenderBot 3, the artificial intelligence chat tool Meta released last week. As they note, it’s easy to make BlenderBot turn against its creator, calling him “creepy” or untrustworthy or even saying he “exploits people for money.” But that’s not precisely an indictment of BlenderBot or Zuckerberg. It’s a funny reminder that most chatbots don’t have straightforward, coherent opinions — instead, they’re an interface for tapping into a vast library of online human thought.BlenderBot is a Meta AI experiment that’s currently used... Continue reading…

TikTok logo | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hundreds of employees at TikTok’s parent company ByteDance used to work for Chinese state media outlets — and more than a dozen apparently still do, Forbes reports.Forbes surveyed LinkedIn profiles of ByteDance and TikTok employees and found that 300 people had previously worked for state media entities, with current roles at the tech firm including content partnerships, strategy, policy, monetization, and “media cooperation.”Of the profiles Forbes reviewed, 15 suggested that the ByteDance employees work at the tech firm and state media outlets simultaneously. It’s possible these employees simply neglected to update their profiles — employees contacted by Forbes didn’t respond. But the overlap between state media and ByteDance... Continue reading…

Pavel Durov had some sharp words about app stores. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An upcoming Telegram update has been stuck in Apple’s app review for two weeks “without explanation,” according to a Telegram post from CEO and founder Pavel Durov (via MacRumors). He claims that the update is “about to revolutionize how people express themselves in messaging” but it hasn’t yet been approved.Durov discussed the unexplained holdup as part of a broader critique of app store business models. He says that Telegram is discouraged by the “obscure” app review process that’s “imposed on all mobile apps by the tech monopolies.” He goes on to say that “If Telegram, one of the top 10 most popular apps globally, is receiving this treatment, one can only imagine the difficulties experienced by smaller app developers.” ... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Friction is the mind-killer when it comes to cloud gaming. You can’t just click a game trailer to instantly be playing a game quite yet. But this week, Google appears to be rolling out a feature that could reduce that friction: if you simply search for the name of a game in Google search, you might be presented with a “Play” button that can instantly launch the title.

Flip phones are so hot right now. | Image: Motorola Motorola is finally updating its Razr foldable — but only in China. The 2022 Razr offers a larger main screen, an extra camera, and Qualcomm’s latest and greatest chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1. There’s also a new Flex View mode so you can open the screen halfway and use the phone hands-free. Kind of reminds us of another folding phone...The 2022 Razr includes an upgraded main camera with 50 megapixels and optical stabilization plus a new 13-megapixel ultrawide. The main screen is a 6.7-inch OLED with a 144Hz refresh rate. It outdoes the Galaxy Z Flip 4 with a bigger 2.7-inch cover screen — while the Flip’s is a much smaller 1.9 inches, making it more of an at-a-glance display. With 2.7 inches, the Razr’s screen can offer a lot... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Pandemic-era rules around telemedicine have been a huge boost to efforts to prevent opioid overdoses in the US. But those rules are also how controversial startup companies like Cerebral were able to prescribe Adderall and Xanax to huge numbers of people — and efforts to stem that flood of prescriptions could sweep away overdose prevention efforts in the process.Since 2020, doctors have been able to prescribe controlled substances after a telehealth visit without needing to see patients in person. But that’s a big umbrella: Adderall and Xanax are controlled substances. So are buprenorphine and methadone, which are used to treat people dependent on opioids. Opioid overdoses have reached epidemic proportions in the US, with tens of... Continue reading…

Image: Peter Kramer/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images In the endless cavalcade of Fortnite crossovers comes a new one that I’m actually surprised hasn’t happened sooner. Goku’s potentially coming, meaning a handful of beloved Dragon Ball characters are also about to get dropped off at Tilted Towers strapped with an AK and some slurp juice. Sweet lord Jesus, that’s a sentence.

It’s got a smart display, too. | Image: Anker Anker launched a new $149.99 portable PowerCore 24K GaN charger housing a big 24,000mAh battery for you to carry around, which is capable of being fast charged at 140W but can also dish out power at the same rate (via 9to5Toys). That’s powerful enough to charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro to 50 percent in 40 minutes, assuming you’re using the MagSafe to USB-C cable.The PowerCore is equipped with the new Power Delivery 3.1 specification that can pump more than the previous maximum of 100W from a single USB-C port. Anker’s new battery bank can pump 140W of power out of either of the two USB-C ports, and there’s also one USB-A port capable of 18W charging.PowerCore also includes features from Anker’s set of new “GaNPrime” chargers introduced... Continue reading…

A heat pump installed outside a house on February 8th, 2018, in Cardiff, Wales. | Image: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images The humble heat pump has finally found its moment in the spotlight. The appliance can potentially save you money on your energy bills, fight climate change, and reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas, proponents say. One day, heat pumps might even replace air conditioning and heating systems across the world.Sure, that sounds super ambitious, but lawmakers are scrambling to deploy heat pumps everywhere they can. President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act earlier this year to boost domestic manufacturing of the technology, and Congress crafted major climate legislation that makes it easier for Americans to afford them. Across the pond in Europe, heat pumps are part of efforts to pivot away from Russian fuels.Lawmakers... Continue reading…

WiZ’s Mobile Portable Light can go with you to the bathroom. | Image: WiZ WiZ, the more budget-friendly, hubless sibling to Philips Hue (both companies are owned by Signify), beefed up its range of Wi-Fi-powered smart lighting products with new releases this week.The $89.99 WiZ Mobile Portable Light is coming in October, and the $24.99 WiZ Smart Button, which acts as a switch or remote control for all WiZ lighting, arrives in September. The company also added WiZ bar and floor lights as options for indirect lighting and wall-washing, which are available now.The current WiZ range starts at under $11 a bulb and includes the standard shapes for white and colored bulbs, light strips, and downlights. There are also smart plugs, a wired dimmer, and a motion sensor — most of the building blocks for a smart... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Kirby’s Dream Buffet, the Kirby-flavored Mario Party-like game that will undoubtedly cure our collective depression, has a release date. On August 17th — less than a week away — you and three other friends can roll, eat, and puyo your way to becoming the fattest, happiest Kirby on the block.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Ethereum network has been on a years-long path to switch its energy-hungry proof-of-work blockchain to a more efficient proof-of-stake system, and now its developers are suggesting a date to make the switch. It’s not final yet, but on a call streamed via the Ethereum Foundation’s YouTube page, they decided to submit this pull request proposing to make the change when the network reaches a specific difficulty mark, which should occur on September 15th or 16th.Dubbed Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD), it specifies the mining of a particular block where the old network ends and the new one begins at 58750000000000000000000.

Acura teased its first electric vehicle Thursday, and the grille alone is worth taking note of. The Acura Precision concept, which will make its public debut on August 18th during Monterey Car Week, has one of the most outlandishly bright LED grilles that I’ve ever seen on an EV (and I’ve seen a few).The front end appears to carry over a lot of the design language from the Integra and MDX, including the five-point diamond shape and the angular headlights. But the embedded LED lights are far and away the most ostentatious grille that has been released to date.The concept may or may not inform the actual production version of Acura’s first EVFull caveat: the concept may or may not inform the actual production version of Acura’s first... Continue reading…