The Verge

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The first public beta of Android 13 is now available for anyone with a compatible Pixel device to download and try out, the search giant announced today. Its release comes ahead of Google’s annual developer conference next month when the company is expected to fully detail its plans for the update — due for release later this year.For end users, the most interesting features are those that have already appeared in Android 13’s initial two developer previews. There’s support for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, a new photo picker that lets you restrict which of your photos an app is able to access, new app icon theming options, and a new permission that could cut down on notification spam. Image: Google Apps will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is testing a feature that would let users pin posts to their profile grid, according to TechCrunch.The feature, which is currently live only for some as part of the test, allows users to highlight specific posts at the top of their profile grid. Similar to pinned tweets on Twitter or pinned videos on TikTok, highlighting individual Instagram posts at the top of a profile would allow creators to draw attention to content without asking followers to scroll down through past posts to look for it.Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing a new feature that lets users “feature posts on their profile.” It appears the feature has been in the works for a few months, having been spotted in January by reverse engineer Alessandro... Continue reading…

Every color and configuration of Samsung’s S22 is currently on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re looking to upgrade your smartphone, you’re in luck. Both Best Buy and Amazon have discounted the entire Samsung Galaxy S22 lineup, with some models getting up to $200 knocked off their original price. This offer applies to all unlocked models of Samsung’s latest smartphone, regardless of the configuration. This either matches or beats the best prices we’ve seen for the S22 line, and we consider this an excellent deal on what we consider the default Android phones to buy. Read our reviews of the S22 and S22 Plus.Kicking things off with the standard model of the S22, the 128GB model is currently available at Amazon and Best Buy for $699.99, as opposed to its usual retail price of $799.99. The base model of this 6.1-inch phone... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Let’s break it down Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’ve managed to get your hands on a Playdate or have one on the way, you’re guaranteed a full “season” of 24 games delivered to your device over the span of 12 weeks. And there are some great ones included — check out my full Playdate review for a round-up of my favorites. But there’s also more to the device than just those games, thanks to sideloading. Playdate maker Panic has made it very easy to get games onto your device. You can check out the process here, but essentially, you just need to download a file — usually from somewhere like Itch.io — and then either load it onto your device via USB or load them wirelessly by adding them to your account on the Playdate website.It’s a pretty painless process, and there are already... Continue reading…

Drop’s new white-on-black DCX keycaps. | Image: Drop There’s a new keycap style in town: DCX Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is expanding its Super Thanks tipping program, giving more creators another way to monetize their presence on the platform.Super Thanks, which allows fans to send creators tips directly on videos, was previously in beta since being announced last year. Tip amounts vary between $2 and $50, and fans can include a custom comment when they send creators money. The program is now open to all eligible YouTube Partner creators in 68 countries, the company announced in a blog post.YouTube has introduced a variety of ways creators can monetize interactions with fans and viewers. In addition to Super Thanks, a feature called Super Chat allows livestream audience members to pay to have their comment pinned in the accompanying chat. With... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is expanding its Community Funds program, the company announced this week, and it plans to spend $1 million funding various projects across the platform. “We will invite communities to submit ideas for projects, events, contests, giving, almost anything you can think of to bring people together for inspiration and delight,” the company said in its announcement. Projects can ask for between $1,000 and $50,000, and Reddit will start issuing grants in June.In a way, this is Reddit’s version of the creator funds that Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and, well, pretty much everybody has been offering to people using their platforms. And, in that sense, Reddit’s commitment here is pretty small: Facebook pledged to spend... Continue reading…

Google Play’s new safety section. | Image: Google Google is rolling out a new safety section in the Play Store designed to show users more detail about the data apps collect and how it is used, the company has announced. The section will be gradually rolling out for users over the coming weeks, and app developers have until July 20th to add the information to their listings — so the section may not immediately appear for everyone. The initiative was first announced last year.According to Google, the section is an attempt to give users more information and context. It’ll list the data each developer is collecting, if they share it, and their security practices (such as whether they encrypt the data while in transit). There will also be information on whether a developer follows Google... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Panic has just begun shipping the Playdate, its unusual new gaming handheld. Part of the Playdate’s appeal is its quirky hardware: in an era where new handhelds have glorious OLED screens or are powerful enough to play your library of Steam games, the Playdate is a tiny device that has a crank and can only display games in black and white. But the Playdate is also interesting because of its “season” release model for games.Everyone who purchases a Playdate will get access to a full season of 24 games, though you won’t be able to play all of them right away. Instead, you’ll get two games when you first set up the device, and after that, Panic will send you two new games on Mondays in an almost TV show-like release cadence.“I think I... Continue reading…

Claire Danes as Cora Seaborne and Tom Hiddleston as Will Ransome. | Apple Author Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel The Essex Serpent is a story about a fictional village descending into madness as more and more people become convinced that there’s a mythical beast lurking in the nearby waters. But The Essex Serpent also revolved around a complicated romance that Apple seems keen on exploring in its upcoming adaptation of the book — at least judging from the first trailer.The Essex Serpent follows as Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) and her companion Martha (Hayley Squires) journey to the fictional village of Aldwinter in pursuit of Cora’s dream to become a paleontologist following the sudden death of her abusive husband. While local tales of a massive primordial serpent capable of causing earthquakes are cause for alarm... Continue reading…

You can reset your Apple Watch passcode from the wrist or on your phone. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge When you set up a passcode on your Apple Watch, you’ll ideally pick one that you can easily remember. However, mishaps happen to the best of us. Maybe you needed to change up your usual passcode for security reasons and plumb forgot the new one. Perhaps you’re booting it up for the first time in a while and didn’t remember setting one up to begin with. In my case, I wore my Apple Watch to bed and vaguely remember taking it off in the middle of the night. When I tried to unlock it this morning, I was instead greeted by a message saying I had entered in one too many wrong passcodes.Regardless of the reason, getting locked out of your Apple Watch is no fun. Thankfully, this is an easy problem to fix. Photo by Victoria... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Roku has signed a multiyear deal with Lionsgate to exclusively offer the studio’s theatrical releases for free on its ad-supported Roku Channel immediately after their showing on Starz, starting with its 2022 release slate. It includes films like John Wick: Chapter 4, The Expendables 4, Borderlands, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and more, which will be available on the channel in two separate windows. The second window will be nonexclusive, however, so the Roku Channel will be the first place viewers can see the films for free.“This agreement affirms the great demand for first-run studio movies across a broad array of platforms,” said Jim Packer, the president of worldwide television distribution at Lionsgate. “This partnership... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge On the frontier of fighting the NSA Continue reading…

Gaming phones have resorted to babes Continue reading…

Display your photos on your Google Nest Hub. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google’s family of Nest Hub smart displays can do a lot of things: control your smart home devices; show you a feed of your video doorbell; play YouTube videos; double as a digital cookbook; and even track your sleep for you. But they also make excellent digital photo displays.There are many digital picture frames out there, but what sets Google’s apart is the auto-adjustment feature that makes your digital pictures look like a printed image in a frame rather than a digital image on a computer screen. The Nest Hubs are also really easy to use — all you need is a free Google Photos account. And, starting at $100, they’re some of the least expensive options out there.Google also has a feature called Live Albums that will automatically... Continue reading…

Samsung Samsung has announced the T7 Shield USB-C portable SSD, which, by all accounts, has the same internal hardware as the T7 but with a more rugged design that endows it with IP65 water and dust resistance. The grippy rubber coating inherently makes it better at deflecting scuffs and scratches than the metal design of the T7, and it boasts better drop resistance of up to 9.8 feet. And, thanks to that rubber, Samsung says it can maintain high performance, transferring up to 2TB of data without triggering its Dynamic Thermal Guard feature that throttles data transfer speeds to safeguard the hardware.The T7 Shield is available starting today in 1TB and 2TB configurations, priced at $143.99 and $260.99, respectively. It has the same transfer... Continue reading…

Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images Well hi, everyone, I hope we’re all relaxed and ready for a very calm, very normal week. I know I’m certainly ready to stay focused on my own projects and not get wildly distracted by the whims of billionaires with money to burn. Wish me luck.Joe Rogan “gained two million subscribers” from recent controversyFrom the department of any press is good press: Joe Rogan says the recent firestorm around his ongoing vaccine misinformation and past use of a racial slur only added to his fan base. “It’s interesting, my subscriptions went up massively — that’s what’s crazy,” Rogan said on an episode Friday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “During the height of it all, I gained 2 million subscribers.”The Reporter adds that, according to... Continue reading…

The Wyze Garage Door Controller uses a Wyze Cam v3 and QR code to watch over your garage door. | Image: Wyze Hot on the heels of its latest smart door lock release, Wyze is launching a garage door controller to manage access for that other way into your home. The Wyze Garage Door Controller launches today and costs $39.99 plus shipping. This gadget lets you control and view your garage door from anywhere using a Wyze Cam v3 and a controller box, so you can see the door while you open or close it remotely using the Wyze app. Instead of using a contact sensor to monitor the state of your door as similar products do, Wyze is deploying some AI tech to its integrated camera to watch your door.A smart garage door controller is a retrofit device that connects to your existing motorized door opener to let you control it remotely over a Wi-Fi... Continue reading…

Image: Fiture When Mirror debuted its fitness mirror in 2018, it was a unique, space-efficient take on at-home fitness. Since then, several competitors including NordicTrack and Echelon have launched their own versions. Today, another challenger has appeared in the form of the Fiture — a $1,495 interactive connected mirror that offers real-time form feedback, gestures, voice control, and the ability to build custom workouts.I got the chance to check out the Fiture in person recently, and the device looks, well, like a mirror. It measures 43 inches long and, at 1.3 inches thick, is relatively slim. Aside from a plug in the back, speakers on the sides, and button controls, it looks like any other full-length mirror you’d buy at a furniture store.L... Continue reading…

Touchpad! | Image: Dell Asus is no longer the only big laptop manufacturer doing funky touchpad things: Dell has thrown its Latitude business line into the mix. The new Latitude 9330 has a new “collaboration touchpad” that I’m having trouble seeing as anything other than the trackpad version of a Stream Deck. Simply put, there appears to be a row of LED buttons across the top of the touchpad that access controls for the microphone, camera, chat, and screen-sharing function.Also of interest is that this laptop is the first 13-inch device of the Latitude 9000 series. The 9000 line, while generally outside of many consumers’ price ranges, is the high-end segment of the Latitude line known for being thin and feature-packed. Business customers looking for flagship... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo During a Nintendo Direct event last fall, the company revealed a release date for the animated Super Mario Bros. movie that it’s making with Minions animation studio Illumination. Now the company has revealed that the movie will not hit theaters on December 21st as planned and instead will be released in the spring of 2023.A tweet credited to Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto says that after consulting with co-producer Chris Meledandri, the new release dates for the Super Mario Bros. film are April 28th in Japan and April 7th in North America. The tweet did not offer an explanation of how Chris Pratt will portray Mario, a title, or answer any of the other questions we’ve had since this project was announced in 2018.

Ford CEO Jim Farley and the F-150 Lightning. | Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images Ford CEO Jim Farley knows there’s lots to improve as Ford turns into an EV company Continue reading…

Photo by MARCO BELLO/AFP via Getty Images You know what, I’m into it. Let’s go full, unkempt beard for this one. The Gen-Xers are online and they are posting Radiohead on main.

Blue Origin Just before Twitter announced it’s accepting Elon Musk’s $44 buyout bid, the world’s richest man tweeted, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”His commitment is getting a mild test thanks to a fellow tech billionaire / rocket enthusiast / media mogul. Jeff Bezos quoted a New York Times reporter’s tweet pointing out that Tesla’s business interests in China could give the government leverage over Twitter via its new owner, saying, “Interesting question. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?.”

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge President Biden’s administration called for Congress’s help in letting more law enforcement agencies access drone tracking systems on Monday. In recent months, government use of counter-drone systems has become more controversial after a Ukrainian government official asked drone-maker DJI to cut off Russia’s access to its AeroScope drone location system.The White House’s outline of what it calls the “Domestic Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems National Action Plan” called for Congress to “reauthorize” the authority to track drones given to organizations like the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, and State. (The plan also notes that the CIA and NASA also have limited authorities.) The statement also asks Congress to give... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images In the moments before Elon Musk bought Twitter, the company’s Slack channels were lit up with nervous anticipation. It had been days since Twitter leadership had shared anything with them, and after a weekend’s worth of reports that a sale was imminent, employees were looking for answers.For the first few hours of the morning, none came. Work all but came to a halt, employees told me. Like a classroom where the teacher is late and students are attempting to self-govern, one said. A “hellhole,” said another. One thread, in which an employee asked good-naturedly whether anyone was excited about the prospect of working for Musk, drew dozens of responses, many of them quite ugly.Then, just before the markets closed, the news arrived: the... Continue reading…

Here’s what a Steam Deck lock screen looks like. | Image: Valve Valve’s newest Steam Deck update adds a lock screen to the handheld gaming PC, the company announced Monday. The change means you can now set a PIN when you wake the device from sleep, which could prevent people from accessing your device who shouldn’t be. After you’ve installed the update, you can turn on the lock screen and set a PIN in the Steam Deck’s settings menu from a new Security tab.The update also adds a handful of other welcome changes. The achievements page has gotten a “refresh,” and Valve says it’s now “faster to load and easier to navigate.” There are localized keyboards for 21 languages and layouts, and you can enable multiple keyboards at the same time, though Valve notes that it’s “currently working” on keyboards for... Continue reading…

An illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft just before it hits Dimorphos | NASA China’s space agency plans to send a spacecraft to slam into an asteroid, knocking it into a new — and hopefully safer — orbit. The prospective new mission will launch within the next four years, and was announced on Sunday by Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, according to Global Times, a state-run news outlet.The country hasn’t yet determined which asteroid to target. The mission was announced as one part of a larger new planetary defense effort, which will seek to catalog and monitor near-Earth asteroids, especially those that might pose a threat to our planet. The effort would include a new warning system as well. Eventually, the plan is to identify an asteroid that might threaten Earth, and send... Continue reading…

2022 is a big year for Google’s wearable efforts | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge After a massive Pixel Watch leak this past weekend, you’d think that maybe Google would relax on the wearables front. Nope. With Google I/O just weeks away, a video teasing Google Assistant on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 has popped up on YouTube, and Google-owned Fitbit has officially started rolling out passive atrial fibrillation alerts on its suite of devices.We’ve known that Google Assistant was coming to the Galaxy Watch 4 (and therefore Wear OS 3) for months. The only thing we haven’t really known is when, but it seems like the wait is coming to an end. There was a false alarm last week when Verizon jumped the gun with an update log that suggested Google Assistant support had been included in the latest round of Galaxy Watch 4... Continue reading…

Image: Pony.ai Pony.ai has received a license to operate its autonomous taxi service in China, making it the first company to win the country’s approval (via Reuters). Starting in May, the Toyota-backed robotaxi service will operate 100 autonomous vehicles in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, and will later expand to serve other portions of the city.Pony.ai says riders can hail and pay for rides from the company’s app between 8:30AM to 10:30PM, and that its fares will align with the “standard taxi pricing” in Guangzhou. The autonomous vehicles will also have a driver present in the car for safety purposes, but plans to remove them over a “short to intermediate time frame.”In November, the Chinese startup gained approval — but not a license — to... Continue reading…

Image: Sennheiser Ever since the original pair’s debut back in 2018, Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless earbuds have received heaps of praise for their sound quality. After releasing a sequel in 2020, Sennheiser is announcing the third product in the series today — and this time, they’ve been given a substantial redesign. They’ll be available starting May 10th in black, graphite, and white for $249.95.The Momentum True Wireless 3 buds look closer to the CX and CX Plus True Wireless than they do their direct predecessors. Clearly, Sennheiser has settled on a universal design language of sorts for its earbud lineup, and that’s reflected here. The Momentums do give off a sleeker and more premium impression than the company’s cheaper buds. ... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal didn’t have many concrete answers for staff about what will happen once Elon Musk takes over the company later this year. During a virtual all-hands call Monday, hours after the company announced it had agreed to be bought by Musk for $44 billion, Agrawal fielded questions on the future of his job, the company’s board, and possible layoffs.Layoffs aren’t planned “at this time,” Agrawal said, according to a person who heard the remarks and who asked to remain anonymous. Agrawal also said that he’d remain as CEO until the deal’s close, but he didn’t comment about what would happen after that. The company’s board will dissolve once the deal closes, said Brett Taylor, the board’s independent chair.“We don’t have... Continue reading…

E Ink / The Verge E Ink has a new version of color electronic paper, and while it isn’t as pretty as an OLED or possessing the new tech sheen of stuff like mini- and microLED, E Ink Gallery 3 sure is easy on the eyes. Gallery 3 isn’t quite as fast as the E Ink found in your Kindle, but it has some absolutely stellar upgrades compared to previous versions of the Gallery technology and brings us a whole lot closer to a color E Ink screen that big companies like Amazon might actually risk putting in a tablet.Currently, a handful of companies are making color E Ink tablets based on E Ink’s other color technology, Kaleido. Those include the PocketBook Color (really neat!) and the Boox Nova3 Color (cooler in theory than in practice). Kaleido was E Ink’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re an Apple user, then you might have seen some problems in the App Store or with Apple Music. On Monday Apple’s system status page listed issues affecting “all users” for both services noticed since 11:41AM ET without going into detail about what the problems are. In our tests, the App Store and Apple Music are both generally operational, but users noticed problems for several hours before they were resolved.9to5Mac reported earlier that Apple’s Privacy Labels weren’t appearing on many App Store listings and cited a source confirming it was a bug that would be fixed soon.Posters on Reddit have seen problems with Apple Music missing lyric information, Dolby Atmos, and lossless audio from songs where it should have those... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated” is how Elon Musk explained why he spent $44 billion to acquire Twitter.

Image: Microsoft You’ll soon be able to download Microsoft Teams from the Microsoft Store that comes built into Windows, according to a roadmap update from the company, as spotted by Neowin. Yes, you read that right. Microsoft’s work communications app hasn’t been available on its own store up to this point; it either had to be downloaded from the web or installed alongside the rest of Office 365. (Though, as ZDNet notes, it was available at one point on the store exclusively for people using Windows 10 in S mode, which restricted where you could install software from.)According to the roadmap, Teams will be available on the store sometime next month for both Windows 10 and 11. The version for Windows 10 will be usable with personal, work, and school... Continue reading…

Image: Mattel J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot is partnering up with Warner Bros. for a live-action Hot Wheels movie, yet another sign that Mattel is getting quite serious about the filmmaking business.Today, Warner Bros. and Mattel Films announced that Bad Robot has signed on to produce a live-action Hot Wheels feature film described in a press release as a showcase of “some of the world’s hottest and sleekest cars, monster trucks and motorcycles.” Speaking about the collaboration, Mattel Films’ executive producer Robbie Brenner did not provide any plot details but did allude to the new project being aimed at a broad swath of the Hot Wheels fanbase.“As the global leader in car culture, Hot Wheels has been igniting the challenger spirit in auto enthusiasts... Continue reading…

Netgear and AT&T are introducing the most impressive mobile hotspot I’ve ever seen: a four-inch puck that promises to turn the newest, fastest flavors of 5G and Wi-Fi into speedy internet for your laptops, tablets, and even wired PCs.It’s called the Netgear Nighthawk M6 Pro, and at $459.99, it ain’t cheap. But it’s a leap over its predecessors in practically every way. Not only is it one of the first hotspots with both actually useful C-band 5G frequencies and speedy-but-spotty mmWave but also AT&T says it’s the first with Wi-Fi 6E for 3.6Gbps wireless transfer speeds. It’s also got a 2.5Gbps ethernet jack for wired gadgets where its predecessor maxed out at gigabit wired speeds.Oh, and it’s got a USB 3.2 Type-C port for charging and... Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images Even if Elon Musk could reinstate former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, Trump will not be returning to the platform — at least that’s what he told Fox News on Monday.Rather than tweeting from his formerly favored platform, Trump assured Fox that he would officially start posting “truths” to his new social media app, Truth Social, over the next few days.“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told Fox News on Monday. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.”Trump’s announcement comes moments after Musk won a bid to take Twitter private at $54.20 a share. For nearly two weeks, Musk has been maneuvering to purchase the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sony’s storefront will have the PlayStation 5 console available for purchase starting at 4:30PM ET today, so time is running out before the waiting room flips into a queue for the hotly in-demand console. We expect that the store will stock both the $499.99 version of the PlayStation 5 that features a disc drive, as well as the $399.99 digital version that lacks one. We also expect that this restock will sell out just as quickly as the others.PS5 restocks, while popping up here and there, have been a rarity compared to purchase opportunities for other tech products that were hard to find as little as a few months ago. Things like Nvidia and AMD GPUs have slowly become easier to find in-stock, as have Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and the N... Continue reading…

Apple is working with anti-union lawyers at Littler Mendelson in an escalating fight with retail workers in Atlanta who have filed for a union election. Though the company has not publicly stated its stance on Apple Stores unionizing, the move sends a strong signal that it plans to oppose workers organizing for better pay and working conditions.Littler is currently representing Starbucks in its efforts to fight off worker organizing. It previously helped McDonald’s avoid responsibility in a 2014 case that alleged the company, as a joint employer, violated labor laws by retaliating against workers who participated in the Fight for $15 campaign.“From the start I’ve thought unionization was a good thing,” said one current retail... Continue reading…

The Brooklyn Public Library just announced its “Books Unbanned” initiative. | Photo by Sergi Reboredo / VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is counteracting a ban on certain books by letting anyone in the US aged 13 to 21 apply for a digital library card. This gives teens and young adults, regardless of their location in the United States, access to the library’s entire ebook collection.The initiative, called Books Unbanned, is fighting what the BPL describes as an “increasingly coordinated and effective effort to remove books tackling a wide range of topics from library shelves.” According to the American Library Association (ALA), a total of 729 books were challenged in 2021, meaning a person or group attempted to ban these titles from public libraries.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony will begin rolling out support for the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) feature for the PS5 via an update released this week, the company announced Monday.“On HDMI 2.1 VRR-compatible TVs and PC monitors, VRR dynamically syncs the refresh rate of the display to the PS5 console’s graphical output,” Sony’s Hideaki Nishino said in a blog post. “This enhances visual performance for PS5 games by minimizing or eliminating visual artifacts, such as frame pacing issues and screen tearing.” The feature will be available globally.A handful of games will get VRR support “in the coming weeks,” according to Nishino’s blog:

For years, designer Zach Gage has been enamored with the works of famed Japanese game publisher Nikoli. The company is best known for popularizing sudoku, and is renowned for its minimalist takes on puzzles like nonograms (which Nintendo fans might recognize as Picross). For Gage, creating that kind of clean, straightforward, and accessible puzzle was a long sought-after goal. He describes it as a “kind of obsession,” one that “feels like a really great design challenge because it’s so hard to do.” He tried plenty of ideas but eventually landed on a solution: the humble crossword.This week Gage and partner Jack Schlesinger are releasing Knotwords on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC. It’s a game built on the premise that the most interesting... Continue reading…

Image: Venmo If you use the Venmo app, you probably recently received an email explaining that the company is making changes to its user agreement — including a fairly onerous arbitration clause that, among other things, has you agree that you will not become part of any kind of class action suit. You can opt out of it, but it’s not easy.We’ll tell you how you can opt out — but first, a little info about arbitration clauses.Arbitration clauses have become extremely popular in agreements between companies and consumers. (For example, here’s a 2019 article explaining how to opt out of the arbitration clause that emerged when Apple added a credit card.) It’s not surprising. When you agree to arbitration, you are basically putting most of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Twitter has accepted Elon Musk’s offer to purchase the company for $44 billion, the company announced in a press release today. Musk purchased the company at $54.20 a share, the same price named in his initial offer on April 14th.“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Musk in a statement included with the release. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal also applauded the deal in... Continue reading…

Ram teased its upcoming electric 1500 pickup truck, which is scheduled to go into production in fall 2022. The new electric truck is expected to be one of the first major long-range EVs to come out of Stellantis, the multinational conglomeration that formed last year when Fiat Chrysler merged with the French PSA Group.The decision to tease the electric Ram 1500 is clearly a shot at Ford, which is set to begin customer deliveries of its hotly anticipated F-150 Lightning truck this week. “Time to steal some thunder,” the tweet from Ram reads — a clear allusion to Ford and its lightning-branded EV.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, workers at Amazon’s LDJ5 warehouse facility will vote on whether to organize with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the same union that pulled off a historic win at another Staten Island, New York, facility earlier this month. With ballots scheduled to be counted on May 2nd, the election will last just one week. After months of slow buildup, workers are just a week away from learning whether their site will unionize — assuming there aren’t any tiebreaker court fights of the kind that held up Bessemer’s second vote.The ALU is riding high after the election at the JFK8 facility, and it’s fair to say momentum is on the side of the organizers. But the loss in the first Bessemer election is still fresh, and the stakes are high. The... Continue reading…