The Verge

Ash Ponders for The Verge It’s unlikely the hikers knew they were being watched. They had tried to blend in: all 11 were wearing camouflage with the intention of vanishing into the desert scrub. They were on a remote mountain trail on the outskirts of Ajo, Arizona, a former mining town of about 3,000 people just a few dozen miles north of the Mexican border. It was a warm November morning, still early enough in the day that the sun must have felt good on their skin — the air is cold up in the mountains, colder still in the dry desert winter, though the heat always finds you eventually. The sky was bright and endless, punctuated by just a few clouds. But even if the migrants looked closely, there’s no way they could have noticed the MQ-9 Predator B drone stalking... Continue reading…

Polaroid’s Hi-Print instant photo printer is selling at a new all-time low today. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Small instant photo printers can offer a unique and fun way to capture memories while traveling. Sure, they may not have the retro charm of an instant camera, but there’s some charm in being able to quickly print credit card-sized pictures while you’re on the go — you’ll just need to capture them using your smartphone. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however. After testing several instant cameras myself, I found that, unless you’ve got some photography skills and experience, it’s often easier to take sharper photos with a camera you’re familiar with (even if it’s a phone). As a result, mobile photo printers might be what you’re looking for if you want to print photos that look even better.That’s especially true of Polaroid’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hackers have targeted the Solana ecosystem, draining crypto funds from thousands of “hot” wallets connected to the internet. Such attacks are common among blockchain platforms, but the news is still significant given the praise Solana has attracted as one of the faster and cheaper ecosystems for trading digital assets.It seems hackers have been able to steal both Solana’s own cryptocurrency (SOL) and some compatible with the Solana blockchain, like the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC). As the attack is ongoing, the value of the assets stolen is not clear, but reports from independent analysts and security firms like PeckShield estimate the losses are worth as much as $8 million.Solana has struggled with security incidents in the past,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge | Photography by Vjeran Pavic Life these days can be very complicated, and many of us — I’d guess that most of us — are constantly looking for the best method to keep our lives in order. What do you need on your grocery list? When is that work project due, and who is working on it with you? A friend wants to do a movie-watching session, but is that the same day you promised your parents to help clean the garage? Which bills are due, and can you afford to pay them all? Where is that article about which masks to wear? And on and on.So we’ve asked the staff of The Verge what they use to keep track of all their appointments, tasks, projects, and workflows. And it turns out that they use a variety of different apps or some fairly old-fashioned paper-and-pen solutions —... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google is adding a label to help searchers easily find businesses that self-identify as Asian-owned. Google’s addition of business attributes that highlight identity popped up first with tags for women-led businesses in 2018. Later that year, Google added labels to distinguish veteran-owned businesses on searches and Maps.In July 2020, Google introduced its label to focus searches seeking Black-owned businesses, in September 2021, Google added a Latino-owned tag, and most recently in June, the company added LGBTQ-led businesses to the list. Asian-owned businesses will be identified by a red and orange flower.Like we’ve seen with the other tags, now searchers can easily find Asian-owned businesses through a Google search and via... Continue reading…

Super Cruise, the “hands-free” advanced driver-assist system (ADAS) from General Motors, will soon be available on a lot more roads in North America. GM announced today that, later this year, the ADAS system will be able to operate on 400,000 miles of roads, including non-divided highways — which would essentially double Super Cruise’s current coverage in the US and Canada.It represents a major expansion of Super Cruise’s capabilities at a time when US regulators are scrutinizing driver-assist features more closely and safety advocates are calling for more transparency, citing research that shows how new technology can create safety risks inadvertently.It represents a major expansion of Super Cruise’s capabilitiesLaunched in 2017... Continue reading…

It’s easy to disable if you want. If you’re an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscriber, you can make use of Apple’s iCloud Music Library. So long as you’re logged into the same iCloud account, the feature allows you to sync your music library on up to 10 Apple devices. But there are reasons you may not want your tunes synced up to the iCloud Music Library. In this article, I discuss why — and explain how you can disable it if you want.While convenient, the iCloud Music Library also has its quirks. That’s because it matches and replaces songs or albums you already have on your device with a high-quality version from the Apple Music streaming library (if available). That process can lead to messed-up metadata, missing album art, and matching to the wrong song. Users have... Continue reading…

“What is dead may never die.” Much like a White Walker in Game of Thrones, Internet Explorer joins the ranks of the undead that are determined to wreak havoc on humanity. Microsoft tamed the Internet Explorer beast in Windows 11, preventing anyone from summoning it and running its ancient code, but now one dastardly Twitter user has broken Internet Explorer’s chains and set it free to run freely on Windows 11.Internet Explorer was never supposed to work on Windows 11. Microsoft disabled IE in Windows 11, making it the first version of Windows without IE for more than 20 years. In fact, if you even try to launch Internet Explorer in Windows 11, the OS simply forces you into Microsoft Edge.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amidst a disappointing set of earnings for the last quarter, Match Group has announced it’s scaling back Tinder’s metaverse dating ambitions and scrapping plans to offer an in-app Tinder Coins currency. Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg, who became the dating app’s first female CEO just last September, is also leaving the position, parent company Match Group’s CEO Bernard Kim announced. Kim himself was named as CEO just two months ago.Nyborg previously set out ambitious plans for Tinder’s take on the metaverse (or “Tinderverse” as she called it). Tinder acquired a company called Hyperconnect last year, which focuses on video, AI, and augmented reality technology, and Nyborg later cited its avatar-based “Single Town” experience as a way Tinder’s... Continue reading…

“The Lightning is the best thing I have ever purchased,” said Chris Ashley, a resident of Maryland and a first-time electric vehicle buyer. | Image: Ford Ford says it has delivered F-150 Lightning electric truck — which is totally sold out in the US for 2022 — to customers in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii.It’s a nice, if not exactly important, milestone and a feather in Ford’s cap as it seeks to ramp up production and deliveries of its flagship electric vehicle. And it all happened in the span of two months, which Ford deems “lightning quick.”“lightning quick”Ford is counting on its 119 years of production and delivery expertise as well as its vast network of dealerships as it seeks to vault over its rivals in the race to get electric trucks to the most people. Trucks are among the top-selling vehicles in the country, and the F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo continues to struggle to hit its Switch production targets as a result of the global chip shortage, which contributed to a near 23 percent decline in console sales to 3.43 million in the three months ending June 30th, the company reported today.Sales of the standard Nintendo Switch were down 60 percent to 1.32 million units in the quarter, while sales of the Switch Lite were down nearly 50 percent to 0.59 million. The Switch OLED, which only went on sale last October, made up some of the shortfall with 1.52 million units sold. Software sales were also down by 8.6 percent to a little under 41.5 million units. The company still expects to sell 21 million consoles throughout the course of its year ending March 2023.“Production... Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images Blake Masters, protege to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, has won the Arizona’s Republican nomination for US Senate late Tuesday night, the Associated Press and New York Times are reporting.Masters’ triumph over solar power executive Jim Lamon installs the Trump-endorsed candidate as the GOP’s choice to take on former NASA astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D) this fall. Arizona is one of a handful of toss-up races that could decide which party controls the Senate come November.Prior to Masters’ campaign announcement last summer, Politico reported that controversial tech investor Thiel funneled millions into the new Saving Arizona PAC in anticipation of his pupil’s Senate race. Thiel has donated at least $15 million to the PAC as of... Continue reading…

Some Michigan counties can’t immediately report Tuesday night’s election results due to a confusing mix of federal vote reporting guidance and AT&T’s decision to retire its 3G networks this past February.In a website alert, the Wayne County clerk’s office confirmed that 65 of Michigan’s 83 total counties “are no longer modeming unofficial election results.” Wayne County is where Detroit is located, and it’s the state’s biggest county by population, with about 1.8 million residents. It’s unclear how many are due to county officials that did not upgrade their own modems, or if this is due to U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) guidelines advising against using modems.In section 14.2-E, the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG)... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A jury has found Argishti Khudaverdyan, a former owner of a T-Mobile store, guilty of using stolen credentials to unlock “hundreds of thousands of cellphones” from August 2014 to June 2019 (via PCMag). According to a press release from the Department of Justice and an indictment filed earlier this year, Khudaverdyan made around $25 million from the scheme, which also involved bypassing carrier blocks put on lost or stolen cell phones.For years, he reportedly used several tactics to acquire the T-Mobile employee credentials needed to unlock phones, including phishing, social engineering, and even getting the carrier’s IT department to reset higher-ups’ passwords, giving him access. The DOJ says he accessed over 50 employees’ credentials,... Continue reading…

Kratos, God of Warning. | Image: War Gods Zeus of Child’s Xbox Store listing The big God of War sequel is one of the year’s most anticipated video games, and you can now play it on Xbox. Yes, that’s right, War Gods Zeus of Child, which stars Sony’s video game character Kratos and a horde of identical and generic monster baddies, is currently available for just $4.09 on the Xbox store.Oh, you thought I was talking about a different game? Nope, War Gods Zeus of Child is definitely an approved and legitimate entry in one of Sony’s most valuable franchises being sold on a competing console platform.I promise you’ll want to play it just based on the game’s description:

New owners of the historically troubled car have a decision to make. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Chevy has started offering some Bolt owners rebates of up to $6,000 as a “goodwill reimbursement” for anyone who bought one of the battery-powered EVs shortly before the company made them significantly cheaper. However, as Jalopnik points out, taking the rebate means agreeing to never sue the company for any present or future issues with the car or its battery or join any class action suits related to the Bolt.Given that Bolt had to be recalled twice following several battery fires (and the fact that the recall was expanded to include pretty much every model of the car), it may be an uncomfortable agreement for some. However, most people who were actually affected by the battery problems won’t be the ones having to decide whether to... Continue reading…

Image: Leslie Grace (Twitter) About a week ago, industry observers noticed that Comic-Con 2022 came and went without any mention of Batgirl, the Warner Bros. film shot over the winter and apparently due for release in 2023. Today, the New York Post, The Wrap, and other entertainment outlets report that despite being in the final stages of post-production, Warner Bros. and DC Films have decided not to release the movie on any platform or in theaters.The list of American unreleased films on Wikipedia is not a long one, and the flicks on it usually have a reason for being there — see the 1994 Fantastic Four effort or Netflix’s shelved Bill Cosby 77 project. The Post says this film will join them due to new Warner Bros. Discovery executive David Zaslav and new Warner... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Today, we’re learning how big AMD’s gaming business is for the very first time — and the answer is $5 billion a year. That’s how much the company earned in 2021 from the “semi-custom” chips that go into Sony’s PS5, PS4, and every modern Microsoft Xbox, in addition to its discrete GPUs you’ll find in graphics cards and high-end gaming laptops.It appears to have become quite a profitable business, too — nearly $1 billion in revenue in 2021 — and could exceed that this year: in an earnings call, CEO Lisa Su says the company typically sees its most money from game consoles in the third quarter, and it’s on track for “record semi-custom annual revenue in 2022.”In 2020, AMD actually lost $138 million on gaming... but in just one year,... Continue reading…

Saylor will take on the role of executive chairman. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor is stepping down as the CEO of the software company he co-founded, MicroStrategy, and will instead take on the role of executive chairman. Saylor’s belief in Bitcoin has turned the company into a holding vehicle for the cryptocurrency. The news came as the company reported its second-quarter earnings. It noted a loss of $1.062 billion, mostly due to an impairment charge of $917 million based on the value of its Bitcoin holdings, which have plunged since the price peaked in November last year.Phong Le, MicroStrategy’s current president, will take Saylor’s place as CEO. “I look forward to leading the organization for the long-term health and growth of our enterprise software and bitcoin acquisition... Continue reading…

Think carefully if you want this to be your reality. | Image: Up-Switch One of my biggest complaints about using a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode is that its screen is just too small. And unlike previous Nintendo handhelds like the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, no company has been brave enough to release a straight-up book light and magnifying glass window combo for the Switch.If you asked me how interested I’d be, then, in a Switch that had a massive 11.6-inch display, I’d count the days down until I could own what sounds like a glorious thing. (Not quite what I had in mind for a Switch Pro, but I guess Nintendo knows best.) Well, that future is here — and it has apparently been here for longer than I realized. A company called Up-Switch makes the Orion, a glorified Switch dock-meets-screen that can be... Continue reading…

“Employees from all functions will be impacted.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robinhood is letting go of nearly a quarter of its staff, CEO Vlad Tenev said in a message posted to the company’s blog.“As part of a broader company reorganization into a General Manager (GM) structure, I just announced that we are reducing our headcount by approximately 23%,” Tenev wrote. “While employees from all functions will be impacted, the changes are particularly concentrated in our operations, marketing, and program management functions.”Robinhood’s chief product officer Aparna Chennapragada is also stepping down from her post as part of the restructuring, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, though she’ll “remain employed in an advisory role to the CEO or his designee through January 2, 2023.”... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robinhood’s transaction-based revenue in the second quarter of 2022 fell to $202 million from $451 million in the second quarter last year, a drop of more than half. The picture of the overall revenue isn’t much better: down 44 percent to $318 million from $565 million a year ago. Yes, about a quarter of the company is getting fired.The numbers are bad, and the vibes are offHilariously, in the text of their earnings press release, they give sequential figures, noting that this quarter was better than last quarter. True, but not the point!Robinhood was the figurehead of the meme stock trading revolution, which reached public consciousness through the GameStop debacle. But as interest rates have risen and pandemic restrictions have... Continue reading…

Apple’s redesigned Home app makes it easier to control your lights, locks, and other smart home devices. | Image: Apple A new Home View and a bit of ‘jiggle mode’ make the HomeKit app more usable, but there’s still a long way to go Continue reading…

There are more customization options in the new Home app, including putting your devices into jiggle mode to rearrange them. There’s a major redesign coming to Apple’s HomeKit Home app with iOS 16 this fall. I recently previewed all the new features arriving on the smart home platform, but I wanted to do a quick tutorial on one of my favorite new features: customization.In the new Home app, the options for customizing how your smart home devices, Rooms, and Favorites appear on the screen have vastly improved. You can rearrange your Home View to put your most-used Rooms right up top or designate that your Favorites or Camera feeds be the first thing you see when you open the app.You need to be running iOS 16 to use the new Home appYou can also rearrange the individual buttons for your devices, such as lights, door locks, and shades — just like arranging... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Netflix’s gamble on Cowboy Bebop has paid off with dividends for fans. A tweet from Wario64 has revealed a limited-edition vinyl collection of the short-lived series’ soundtrack, featuring new music from Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts.

That’s some slam dunk branding. | Image: Microsoft On Tuesday and Wednesday, the New York Liberty Women’s National Basketball Association (or WNBA) team will be playing against the Los Angeles Sparks on a basketball court that’s covered in Xbox logos and console-inspired designs. Microsoft says that it’s the league’s “first gaming-inspired basketball court,” with the area under the net made to look a bit like the ventilation holes in the Xbox Series X.Of course, there’s also a “metaverse” tie-in as well — the court has been recreated in the Dunking Simulator Roblox experience. While the gameplay doesn’t look quite as realistic as something like NBA 2K, it could be fun for those of us who won’t be able to attend one of the actual games. Gif: Xbox Something tells... Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images In campaign ads and stump speeches, Blake Masters is playing Trump’s greatest hits. He complains about “wokeness,” talks openly about American decline, and demands that the government finish building the wall on the southern border. But unlike Trump, Masters’ political ambitions reimagine America in the eyes of Silicon Valley and one of its most powerful — and controversial — investors.On the heels of Trump’s endorsement, Masters is poised to win Tuesday’s primary and become the GOP’s next Senate nominee in Arizona. But his mentor Peter Thiel casts a long shadow over his candidacy and raises the stakes to something much larger than a single Senate seat. Over the last decade, Masters has studied under Thiel at Stanford, led Thiel’s... Continue reading…

Art for Jetpack Joyride 2 | Image: Apple Jetpack Joyride, one of my favorite iOS games of all time, is getting a sequel that will be available exclusively on Apple Arcade. You’ll be able to play Jetpack Joyride 2 on Apple’s $4.99-per-month games subscription service beginning August 19th.Jetpack Joyride 2 looks like it will carry over a lot of what you might know from the first; it’s a side-scrolling shooter where the goal is to dodge obstacles, survive as long as you can, and get a lot of coins. But Jetpack Joyride 2 will also be a “story-driven experience” with new mechanics, according to an Apple press email — which is honestly enough for me to want to play it immediately.If you want to get an idea of what you can expect, Apple has a trailer and some screenshots on the J... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and California declares a monkeypox state of emergency, TwitchCon San Diego released its health measures policy, indicating that there will be no testing, vaccination, or mask requirements.“In accordance with current local guidelines, there will be no COVID-19 vaccination or testing requirements at TwitchCon San Diego. Although masks are encouraged, they are not currently required to attend TwitchCon,” read the statement on the TwitchCon website.For TwitchCon Amsterdam, which took place last month, there was a similar policy in place. Twitch partner Nazih Fares told The Verge he left after four hours, concerned for his health despite being fully vaccinated.“It was as if the whole pandemic never... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Selena Gomez is reportedly developing a Working Girl reboot, and I don’t know how to feel about it. As the daughter of a Staten Island girl who worked on Wall Street in the ’80s, the original is just too close to my heart.Anyway, let the river run — Audacy and Snap try to be more like TikTok, TikTok tries to be more like Spotify, and Spotify tries to make you pay extra for a play button.Audacy’s new podcast discovery app takes a page out of TikTok’s playbookRadio giant Audacy has acquired podcast discovery app Moonbeam, according to the app’s founder, Paul English. Discovery has been a massive challenge for the industry, and Moonbeam addresses it by operating less like a traditional podcast player and more like a social platform.“We... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge We’re still waiting for Twitter to begin publicly testing its not-an-April-Fools’-joke edit feature, but thanks to some sleuthing from app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, we now have an idea of how edited tweets will look when they’re embedded on a website.Wong discovered how things could look in two different scenarios. If you’re embedding the most recently edited version of a tweet, you’ll see a “Last edited” message under the text of the tweet. But if the tweet has been edited since it was embedded, you’ll instead see a message indicating that there’s a new version of the tweet that you can see on Twitter proper.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A California judge says video service Rumble can proceed with the early stages of an antitrust suit against Google. Rumble sued Google in 2021, alleging that it favored its own YouTube video platform in search results and the Android operating system. Google urged the court to split the suit’s arguments and dismiss substantial parts of the reasoning as well as strike parts of the suit related to Android app preinstallation. Judge Haywood Gilliam declined to do so late last week, putting the case on track to proceed — although it could still be dismissed before it reaches trial.Rumble’s suit overlaps with several ongoing Big Tech controversies. The company takes aim at Google’s deals with Android phone makers, who typically agree to p... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robinhood’s cryptocurrency division has been fined $30 million by the New York Department of Financial Services over alleged anti-money laundering and cybersecurity violations (via The Wall Street Journal). This marks the state’s first enforcement action related to cryptocurrency.The settlement resolves the investigation opened by the NYDFS last March, which Robinhood disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission before the company went public. While Robinhood initially estimated that the NYDFS would fine the company up to $15 million, it later amended its filing to reflect an estimated $30 million fee.According to the NYDFS, Robinhood Crypto’s cybersecurity program had “critical failures” that “did not fully... Continue reading…

Nintendo’s upgraded Switch model sports a larger OLED display and slight redesign. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge While much attention has been given to Valve’s Steam Deck in recent months, the Nintendo Switch remains the de facto handheld console for most people. Today, the premium version of Nintendo’s popular console with an OLED screen is discounted as part of a one-day deal from Woot. The Switch OLED version in white is down to $324.99 at Woot ($25 off). Be sure to snatch this one up quickly if you want some of the premium upgrades this Switch offers (that the standard version does not) — notably, a larger seven-inch OLED panel with much-improved color and contrast. It also has slightly improved build quality with a more useful kickstand. Note, however, that it isn’t more powerful than the other Switch models. Read our review.If you’re... Continue reading…

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Bolt Mobility electric scooters aren’t bolting around anymore. The dockless rental company co-founded by famed sprinter Usain Bolt has reportedly abruptly shuttered in cities across the US, even outright ghosting some city officials (via TechCrunch).According to the report, Bolt halted operations in US cities including Portland, Oregon, Burlington, Vermont, South Burlington, Vermont, Winooski, Vermont, Richmond, California, and Richmond, Virginia, with confirmation from city officials. The Verge reached out to Bolt through the company’s online contact form, but we have not received any response. The Bolt app shows no scooters in Portland. You’re not going to find any Bolts here either. The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After a few quiet months, it’s happened again: another blockchain bridge hack with losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.Nomad, a cryptocurrency bridge that lets users swap tokens between blockchains, is the latest to be hit after a frenzied attack on Monday, which left almost $200 million of its funds drained.The hack was acknowledged by the Nomad project’s official Twitter account on Monday, August 1st, initially as an “incident” that was being investigated. In a further statement released early Tuesday morning, Nomad said that the team was “working around the clock to address the situation” and had also notified law enforcement.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook’s parent company Meta and major US hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that sends health information to Facebook, two proposed class-action lawsuits allege.The lawsuits, filed in the Northern District of California in June and July, focus on the Meta Pixel tracking tool. The tool can be installed on websites to provide analytics on Facebook and Instagram ads. It also collects information about how people click around and input information into those websites.An investigation by The Markup in early June found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the United States use the Meta Pixel on their websites. At seven hospitals, it was installed on password-protected patient portals. The investigation found... Continue reading…

Outlook Lite for Android. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is releasing a new smaller and faster Outlook Lite app for Android this week. The lightweight version of Outlook is designed to have a smaller app size, faster performance, and lower battery usage, all while including the core features of the regular Microsoft Outlook mobile app.Outlook Lite is around 5MB in download size, and Microsoft says it “uses extremely low storage on your phone.” It has been optimized to run quickly on all Android devices and even ones with just 1GB of RAM. As it’s a little more lightweight, it uses fewer phone resources and should save on battery usage. Most importantly, it’s designed to work well across all mobile networks, including 2G and 3G ones that are still in use in many countries worldwide.M... Continue reading…

The iPhone SE’s 4.7-inch screen is just too small. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge There’s a great phone under $500 that I’d recommend to just about anyone looking for the best midrange phone on the market. It uses the same chipset as the company’s much more expensive flagships, and it includes an IP67 rating, a very good 12-megapixel camera, and a long lifespan ahead of it with software support for many years to come. It’s not the iPhone SE, which I wish I could recommend as freely as the current category winner: the Pixel 6A. It’s a better phone, and it’s what the SE should have been. Here’s what Google got right — and what Apple should have done differently.The Pixel 6A’s 6.1-inch screen isn’t perfect. It’s not great outdoors, and it’s a 60Hz screen in a world where faster refresh rates are becoming the norm. But... Continue reading…

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Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images Uber reported $382 million in free cash flow for the first time ever, an indication that the rideshare company’s “hardcore” effort to rein in costs is starting to pay off, even in the midst of a cooling economy.Uber is still burning a lot of money but mostly in the realm of its investments in other startups. The company reported a record revenue of $8.1 billion in the second quarter of 2022, a 105 percent spike compared to the same quarter last year. And it said it lost $2.6 billion, which was mostly attributable to its equity stake in Aurora, Grab, and Zomato. Additionally, it lost $470 million in stock-based compensation. (Uber is considering selling its stake in India’s delivery startup Zomato, Reuters reports, in another move to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has acknowledged an issue where Outlook on Windows will stop responding or crash when you view Uber receipt emails. The issue started recently in what Microsoft calls the Current Channel Version of Outlook that’s available for Microsoft 365 subscribers. Microsoft is developing a fix, but it won’t be available until Patch Tuesday on August 9th.In a support note, spotted by BleepingComputer, Microsoft explains that opening, replying to, or forwarding an Uber receipt email will cause this issue. Uber uses “complex tables” in its emails, and it appears that Microsoft Word, which Outlook uses to view emails, is struggling to render these tables. Image: Microsoft Outlook crashing on Windows when reviewing an... Continue reading…

Daybridge is trying to be a smarter, more thoughtful take on time management. | Image: Daybridge Hypothetical question: would you send your date a calendar invite? You’ve been out, let’s say, twice, and you’re going to meet for dinner on Friday at 7:30PM. You’d text them that info — you might even tell them over the phone — but would you send them a calendar invite? Or, I’ll do you one better: if you haven’t picked a time yet, would you send them your Calendly link to find a time to meet? Kieran McHugh, the CEO of a new calendar app company called Daybridge, thinks it’s a “no” across the board. But he’d like to change that.Daybridge is launching officially today after almost two years of development. What McHugh and his team have built so far is… well, it’s a calendar app. It connects to Google Calendar (no Outlook yet, but that’s... Continue reading…

Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski. | Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images FIFA 23 isn’t even out yet, but Electronic Arts is already preparing for its post-FIFA future. Today, the publisher announced a new deal with Spain’s LaLiga — which is home to iconic clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona — for a “one of a kind, multi-year partnership” that kicks off with the 2023–2024 season and will make EA the title sponsor for the league. That also happens to be the season in which EA will be ditching its longtime partner FIFA for a new soccer franchise called EA Sports FC, making FIFA 23 the last EA game with FIFA branding.According to EA, the new deal will include:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Indonesia has lifted its ban on Steam and Yahoo now that both companies complied with the country’s restrictive laws that regulate online activity (via @ZhugeEX). The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information (Kominfo) announced the news in a translated update on Twitter, noting that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 are back online as well.Last week, Indonesia blocked access to Steam, PayPal, Yahoo, Epic Games, and Origin after the companies failed to meet a deadline to register with the country’s database. This requirement is bundled with a broader law, called MR5, that Indonesia first introduced in 2020. The law gives the Indonesian government the authority to order platforms to take down content considered... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge US consumer spending on video game products has fallen by $1.78 billion in Q2, according to market research firm NPD. Overall, spending in video gaming in the US totaled $12.35 billion in the recent quarter, down 13 percent year over year. The findings follow both Microsoft and Sony reporting revenue declines in gaming as the pandemic growth slows.Sony warned of a weaker PlayStation business earlier this week as it saw game software sales plummet 26 percent year over year. Sony blamed the slump on a lack of big PlayStation titles this year compared to 2021 and less time spent playing games in general. Microsoft’s Xbox hardware revenue dipped 11 percent year over year in its recent quarter alongside a 6 percent drop in Xbox content and... Continue reading…

A good option for people with slightly older phones. | Image: Samsung Samsung and Fixit have launched their repair program that lets Galaxy S20, S21, and Tab S7 Plus owners buy replacement parts for their devices and access guides on how to do DIY fixes. The program still has most of the caveats that my colleague Umar Shakir pointed out when it was announced in March — it’s not launching with parts for Samsung’s latest flagship devices and there’s a limited number of repairs you can do — but it’s good to see that at least some Galaxy owners will now be able to do their own repairs at home. Samsung also says it’s planning to expand the devices and types of repairs that are covered in the future.You’ll be able to buy the parts and tools for screen, back glass, and charging port replacements through iFixit... Continue reading…

Don’t look now, but the USB-C connector is evolving under your nose — soon, it’ll carry 240W of electricity, more than double its previous limit and enough to power all but the beefiest laptops. The PD 3.1 specification is finished, the cables are here, and now we’re just waiting for the first computers and chargers that’ll actually reach for that 240W peak. But there’s another brand-new 240W gadget you could nab in anticipation of that historic day: the Plugable USBC-VAMETER3.It’s the third generation of Plugable’s handy power meter, and it does pretty much exactly what you’d think. Stick it between your USB-C gadget and its source of USB-C power, and you can see how much power (volts, amps, and watts) is being transferred between... Continue reading…