The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is planning to bring its Horizon Worlds social metaverse platform to the web, Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said in a tweet on Thursday. Being available on the web would mark a major expansion for the platform, which is currently only available on its Quest VR headsets.A web version isn’t the only one in the works — this week, Meta VP of Horizon Vivek Sharma told The Verge that it’s working on bringing Horizon to mobile phones later this year and is in “early discussions” about bringing it to game consoles. However, it’s still unclear exactly when Horizon might expand to the web, and Meta spokesperson Iska Saric said there were “no timing details to share at this time” when we asked.Boz’s tweet was included in a thread defending... Continue reading…

The US Treasury Department blames North Korean hacking group Lazarus for stealing $625 million in cryptocurrency from the Ronin network, the blockchain backing the Axie Infinity play-to-earn crypto game, according to a report from Vice. On Thursday, the Department of Treasury updated sanctions to include the wallet address that received the funds and attributed it to the Lazarus group.In an updated post about the incident, the Ronin network, which is owned by developer group Sky Mavis, explains the US Department of Treasury and FBI have pinned the attack on Lazarus. “We are still in the process of adding additional security measures before redeploying the Ronin Bridge to mitigate future risk,” the post reads. “We expect to deliver a... Continue reading…

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees Thursday that the company was still evaluating a $43 billion offer by Elon Musk to buy the company and take it private, setting the stage for a potentially drawn-out feud with the world’s richest person.After clips of the songs “I Say A Little Prayer” and “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys played, Agrawal launched into a 25-minute Q&A session with employees Thursday, according to a person in attendance. He didn’t say when the board would have an answer to Musk’s offer or which way it was leaning, frustrating some who expected a more detailed explanation. The board would follow a “rigorous process” and make a decision “in the best interest of our shareholders,” he said.Agrawal, who took... Continue reading…

Jassy calls 2021 a “crazy and unpredictable year.” | Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Andy Jassy, who became Amazon’s CEO last year, has released his first annual letter to shareholders, which acts as a recap of how the company did in 2021 and outlines its goals for the future. The letter starts by extolling Amazon Web Services’ role in helping businesses during the pandemic — familiar subject matter for Jassy, whose previous role was as CEO of AWS. The letter also discusses familiar subjects like supply chain disruption, labor shortages, and Amazon’s focus on getting out more Prime packages faster.Labor is a hot-button topic for Amazon right now. Beyond the difficulty of getting new employees, Jassy does address reports that the company has significantly higher injury rates than the industry average for warehouse... Continue reading…

Take a good look — it’s the last you’ll see of Snapshot. Google’s Snapshot feature, which was introduced back in 2018 and occasionally (but not often) updated, is finally gone, according to an article at 9to5Google.The Android feature, which could be accessed via a small and easily overlooked inbox icon on the Assistant screen, would show all your current information via a scrollable interface — things such as appointments, weather forecasts, traffic, and reminders. It was a small but useful feature — unfortunately, though, it was also not easy to find unless you knew where to look. As a result, it’s probable that not many Android users actually knew about it.So it was almost inevitable that Google would eventually announce that Snapshot was going to be sunsetted — which it did when it... Continue reading…

Image: Segway Segway has a new speaker accessory attachment for its electric scooters that makes V8 engine noises. The Ninebot Engine Speaker is a Bluetooth wireless speaker that straps onto a number of Segway’s personal transport vehicles. It can not only get rowdy with your favorite beats but also cause a ruckus like there’s a neighborhood drag race (via Gizmodo).The Engine Speaker comes with a mounting system that straps onto Segway / Ninebot electric scooters, GoKarts, electric bikes, and even its self-balancing vehicle offerings. The speaker then slides right on, looking like an add-on battery pack for the scooter. But really, the speaker runs on its own 2,200mAh battery that can play for up to 23 hours and charges via USB-C. The speaker is also... Continue reading…

Twitter’s board may have its work cut out for it. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Twitter’s board could be in for a fight with the company’s single largest shareholder. According to a report from The Information, it views Elon Musk’s offer to take over the company as unwelcome. This follows Musk’s offer to purchase the company for $43 billion earlier today. The company hasn’t publicly indicated how it’s planning on responding to Musk’s offer, but it’s reportedly planning to address it at an all-hands meeting at 5PM ET / 2PM PT today.Twitter’s board is also reportedly considering using a “poison pill” strategy to make it more difficult for Elon to acquire a large stake in the company and avoid a hostile takeover. Poison pills can, as one example, flood the market with shares once an investor acquires stock above a... Continue reading…

Blizzard Entertainment An exclusive chat with developers about Overwatch’s first Black female hero Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Wade/Getty Images YouTube and Major League Baseball have renewed their streaming pact for the 2022 season, which will result in 15 regular-season games being shown exclusively on the platform. The first will be streamed on May 15th between the Washington Nationals and Colorado Rockies.The news continues MLB’s effort to reach viewers across many different streaming services. Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening over the current season:

The OnePlus 10 Pro now works on two out of three major US carriers’ 5G networks. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The OnePlus 10 Pro officially went on sale today in the US today, and as expected, the phone has received certification to work on Verizon’s 5G network just in time for new owners. That 5G support includes C-band Ultra Wideband — that good mid-band 5G spectrum that’s coming online over the next few years — but not the super-fast millimeter wave (mmWave). That’s no great loss; mmWave is impressively fast but has a very short range and is likewise hard to find. Realistically, C-band strikes the right balance between speed and signal range, so it’s great to see it supported on the 10 Pro.The OnePlus 10 Pro’s availability in North America and Europe was announced at the end of March. At that time, OnePlus said it was working with Verizon on... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge ASUS has officially launched the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition, and it’s available for $1,999.99 on Newegg and Amazon. The laptop comes with a 12th Gen Intel i9-12900H plus integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics — but its futuristic design is what really makes it stand out. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The company first previewed the Space Edition Zenbook at CES in January, and my colleague Monica Chin got to experience the spacey-ness firsthand. One of the most noticeable things about this laptop is the mini 3.5-inch display on the lid. It’s there to display notifications, animations, and customizable other text, such as the date and time.You’ll also see various engravings across the laptop’s entire... Continue reading…

Elon Musk took the Securities and Exchange Commission to task during a TED appearance Thursday, claiming he had the funding to take Tesla private despite the agency concluding that he had not.“I should say actually... with Tesla back in the day, funding was actually secured,” Musk said. “I want to be clear about that.”Musk has been trading blows with the SEC over the agency’s order that his tweets be reviewed by a lawyer before being publicly posted. The order is based on Musk’s decision to send the now-notorious “funding secured” tweet on August 7th, 2018, in which he claimed to have the finances to take Tesla private at $420 a share. (Tesla has been a publicly traded company since 2010.)“funding was actually secured”The SEC... Continue reading…

Customizing the Workout app on your Apple Watch can help you close your rings more easily. | Vjeran Pavic / The Verge While you can use any compatible fitness app to track activities on the Apple Watch, the native Workout app gives you a ton of options. That said, the default settings may not always be to your liking. This is especially true if you’re following a training plan, have specific targets you’d like to hit, or want to choose which metrics you see on screen during your activity.The good news is that you can totally customize the Workout app to better suit your needs. Here’s how to get started.Setting a workout goal Image: Apple This is what the Time goal looks like for a hiking activity. Starting an activity in the Workout app will default to an “open goal” session, which means you don’t have any particular goal... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge This morning, Elon Musk, the current wealthiest man in the world, offered to buy Twitter outright for $43 billion and take the company private. That is quite a lot of money to spend on a company that allows users to post their thoughts in 280-character increments.The shocking move had many at The Verge wondering: what else could Musk spend $43 billion on? We thought we could provide some options in case Twitter’s board decides they don’t like the offer.Return to the Moon Elon’s biggest dream is to start a settlement on Mars, but first, he is eager to construct a base on the surface of the Moon. “If you want to get the public real fired up, we got to have a base on the Moon,” Musk said in 2017. “That’d be pretty cool.” He’s reiterated... Continue reading…

Elon Musk demonstrates his enthusiasm at a “Cyber Rodeo” | Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images Epic shitposter representation Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Speaking for the first time since news broke of his attempts to buy all of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his offer had been made for the public good.Musk emphasized that he was motivated by the public interest value of the platform. “Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. So it’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” Musk said.Musk was speaking at TED 2022 conference in Vancouver; the interview was opened up for livestreaming earlier this morning.To protect that venue, Musk went on to say he believes Twitter should “open source the algorithm” in order to build trust and ensure availability. “The code should be on... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red Now that Cyberpunk 2077 is in a somewhat more stable position, developer CD Projekt Red is talking more about the future — including the game’s first expansion. Today, the studio revealed that the previously announced expansion for the game will be launching in 2023. Unfortunately, that’s all we know; there’s no information on what to expect from the first major content update for the game. CD Projekt Red says to expect more details “later this year.”The news was revealed as the studio outlined its upcoming production plan, which includes continued work on Cyberpunk, development of the next Witcher game (which kicks off “a new saga for the franchise” and is built in Unreal Engine 5), and the next-gen update for The Witcher 3, which is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Creators making YouTube Shorts will now be able to use video clips from billions of YouTube videos in new Shorts, the company announced today in a blog post. In YouTube Shorts — the company’s TikTok clone — creators were previously only able to splice short audio clips from other videos on the platform. This most recent update will allow users to clip 1- to 5-second segments from eligible long-form videos and Shorts to use in new short-form content.When a new Short is created with a clip from an existing video, the original video is credited via a link. The library of videos available for remixing is vast, though creators have the option to exclude their content from being remixed, and videos with a copyright claim or... Continue reading…

You can react to messages with a thumbs up, heart, laughing face, shocked face, crying face, and prayer hands. | Image: WhatsApp WhatsApp announced on Thursday that it’s adding emoji reactions to its chat app, letting you express your feelings toward a message without having to send an individual emoji as a message. Although the company announced reactions alongside its new communities feature, Meta spokesperson Joshua Breckman told The Verge that reactions will be available on all chats when they launch, which will be “soon.”The feature will be relatively limited to start, only letting you react with six emoji (though, in my opinion, WhatsApp has picked most of the important ones). However, Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, said that it will support “all emojis and skin-tones” in the future.

SunPower Station in Hongyuan county, Sichuan province, southwest China on 24th June 2015. Sunpower stations at Hongyuan and Zoigê County are the first of Apple major solar projects in China. | Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images Apple suppliers have more than doubled their clean power over the past year, the company announced today. The renewable energy projects they support prevented 13.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution from entering the atmosphere. That has almost the same impact as taking 3 million cars off the road for a year, the company says.It’s part of Apple’s efforts to curb climate change by becoming completely carbon neutral by 2030. The climate pledge the company made in 2020 set it on a path to reduce greenhouse emissions by 75 percent this decade and find ways to draw down its remaining climate pollution.Apple has gone a step farther by pledging to slash emissions from its supply chainsUnlike other companies that have only... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton announced in a press release today (via CNBC) that it plans to raise the cost of its all-access subscription for live and on-demand classes from $39 / month to $44 / month starting on June 1st, 2022. However, new, lower prices for Peloton’s exercise equipment are set to go into effect at 6PM ET today, according to CNBC — the Bike will cost $1,445 (including a $250 shipping fee) instead of $1,745, the Bike Plus will go for $1,995 instead of $2,495, while the Tread will drop to $2,695 (including a $350 shipping fee) from $2,845.The lower equipment cost could help attract customers who may have been intimidated by the company’s steep price tags and gives Peloton the opportunity to gain more revenue from recurring subscriptions.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk just blew up the entire tech news cycle this morning with his offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter at $54.20 in cash, days after quietly becoming one of its largest shareholders and then rejecting a previously accepted seat on the board. And amazingly, he’s also giving a TED Talk this morning, any moment now (it was scheduled for 9:45AM PT), which the TED organizers have graciously decided to make public.This is the link to watch the newly public livestream of Elon Musk.It lets you rewind, too, so you should be able to scrub back if you’re seeing this late. But Elon is often the one who is late, and that appears to be the case today, too.We have no idea what he will say. But now, you can watch for free. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A judge reduced the amount of money that Tesla will have to pay to a Black former employee who successfully sued the company for racial harassment and discrimination.Last October, a jury awarded Owen Diaz, who worked as an elevator operator at Tesla for nine months in 2015–2016, $137 million in damages after he accused the company of ignoring racial abuse and discrimination.On Wednesday, US District Judge William Orrick issued a ruling that said that Tesla was liable to Diaz but that the amount awarded to Diaz by jurors was “excessive.” Orrick slashed it by nearly 90 percent to $15 million while also rejecting Tesla’s motion to reduce the award amount to $300,000.The judge said the amount awarded to Diaz by jurors was “excessive”I... Continue reading…

A mysterious and dangerous location on Monkey Island. | Image: Terrible Toybox Read on for an interview and the first screenshots from Return to Monkey Island Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Starting this week, the concept of group messaging on WhatsApp is significantly expanding.WhatsApp has primarily been about messaging with people you know since before Facebook bought it in 2014. The experience is intentionally intimate: you need someone’s phone number to add them, and group chats are capped at 256 participants.Now, a new tab, first rolling out to a small, select number of groups, will let thousands participate in a Community that hosts multiple sub-group chats. The idea is that various organizations, from a school to a business whose employees communicate on WhatsApp, can more easily organize discussions and have their admins message everyone across different groups.If you ask WhatsApp, Communities is a response to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re a newcomer to the Nintendo Switch, or perhaps you’re buying for someone who needs a boost to their game library, it’s always wise to snag the console’s best games when they go on sale, as they rarely do. Best Buy is listing several games that I consider to be must-play experiences for $20 off — both in physical and digital formats. Other retailers, like Amazon and Walmart, are honoring the price cuts, too. Better yet, there’s a range of games included in this sale, suiting people who want a shooter, a turn-based strategy game, or a good ol’ 3D Mario platformer.Super Mario Odyssey is an inviting and delightful take on the traditional 3D Mario game, giving Mario a throwable cap to vastly extend his move set and to possess... Continue reading…

Though director David Cronenberg is capable of inhabiting a number of artistic modes as a storyteller, his deft command of body horrors like Neon’s upcoming Crimes of the Future is what he’ll always be known for, and with good reason. Hard as it’s been to believe some of the early buzz about Crimes of the Future being a controversial feature that’s going to polarize audiences, the movie’s first teaser trailer and some new details suggest that the hype might be warranted.Crimes of the Future tells the story of Caprice (Léa Seydoux) and her partner Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), a performance artist who’s made a name for himself with his avant-garde projects like his latest: a showcase of his organs going through a metamorphosis. While... Continue reading…

David Pierce The Verge and the Vox Media Podcast Network today announced that David Pierce is returning to The Verge as editor-at-large to join the cast of the site’s namesake podcast The Vergecast. Pierce begins his role on April 18th, appearing on The Vergecast for the first time since he left The Verge in 2015 on the show’s April 22nd episode.Pierce will co-host The Vergecast, which each week unpacks the tech news of the week. This marks a homecoming for Pierce, who was previously deputy editor at The Verge, and a frequent guest on The Vergecast during his original stint at the site. In addition to his hosting duties, Pierce will also write and report for The Verge, focusing on major tech companies and consumer technology.“David was one of our... Continue reading…

Fortnite is adding Coachella to its long, long (long) list of in-game collaborations. The annual music festival announced today that it’s partnering with developer Epic Games to release Coachella-themed skins and in-game features for its first foray into gaming.These days, Coachella is equally known for its performances as it is for the outfits attendees wear — so it’s fitting that both are coming to Fortnite. Coachella will release two series of skins to coincide with weekends one and two of the music festival, beginning April 14th and April 22nd. The outfits, inspired by the Coachella style, react to music playing in the game. The first group of items goes on sale in the Fortnite shop at 8PM ET tonight.In addition to the skins,... Continue reading…

It’s time to prepare for a summer outdoors. Sumer is icumen in — or, in other words (and if you’re not Chaucer), “Get ready, summer’s around the corner!” Especially if you’ve been cooped up all winter watching the COVID stats and waiting for a chance to get outdoors, now’s the time to get ready to see the sky.We asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about their favorite gear to help them enjoy the outdoors, whether it was on a bike, on a scooter, hiking, camping, or just hanging out and watching the world go by. Here’s what they reported.Petzl Actik Core headlampWeighing in at 2.65 ounces, the Petzl Actik Core is not an ultra-light headlamp, but it makes up for that fact by being really bright — using two LEDs, it can pump out up to 450 lumens, which can really help if... Continue reading…

When you’re in Austin and you hear there’s going to be a party Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Reddit is updating its search feature to index comments. For the first time, users will have an option to pull results from replies to posts, making it less of a hassle to find something specific outside of general Reddit posts, communities, and people. The rollout is Reddit’s latest change to help users encounter content from outside their usual subreddits following the addition of a discovery tab on its mobile app in January.Reddit says that in a user survey last year, the ability to search comments was one of the top results. During “limited initial testing,” Reddit claimed 26,000 users went on to use the feature against five billion comments. Right now, the new ability is available globally for users searching on Reddit’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making his “best and final” offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter in an updated 13D filed Thursday with the SEC. He’s offering $54.20 per share in cash.Naturally, Musk had to sneak a “420” into the offer.Musk’s wealth hovers around $260 billion, according to Bloomberg. Twitter’s market valuation is about $37 billion. Musk’s offer values Twitter at about $43 billion, according to CNBC.Musk is offering to “acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share.” The proposal was delivered in a letter to Twitter on April 13th. Musk says Twitter must go private to undergo changes that need to be made.“Twitter... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Independent contractors are pushed to handle customer service without compensation Continue reading…

Increased fees to sellers will likely be passed on to buyers. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is looking to offset costs to third-party sellers in the US resulting from soaring inflation and fuel prices. The new 5 percent “fuel and inflation surcharge” for sellers that use Amazon’s fulfillment services will go into effect starting April 28. Since most items purchased off Amazon are from third-party sellers, you can expect these new costs to be passed along to shoppers.89 percent of Amazon’s over two million third-party sellers use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to leverage the retail giant’s supply chain, warehouses, and shipping operations, reports Jungle Scout research.“We will be employing a fuel and inflation surcharge for the first time”“In 2022, we expected a return to normalcy as Covid-19 restrictions around the... Continue reading…

The Fiido X e-bike is supposed to fold, not break in two. | Photo: Javier (cib) Update April 14th, 4:10AM ET: Fiido has notified owners of recall plans, offering free collection and replacement with an improved Fiido X or an alternative, but comparable, e-bike that the company sells. The stronger 2.0 frame comes with a three-year warranty. Detailed instructions are available here: Fiido recall arrangementFiido, maker of cheap direct-to-consumer electric bikes, has suspended sales of its Fiido X and is preparing a recall after discovering a fault that could cause the folding e-bike to break in two. Fiido spokesperson Jennifer Sun confirmed the issue to The Verge and says the company will release more details by April 12th. The recall was first reported by Electrek.When The Verge reviewed the $999 Fiido D11 e-bike... Continue reading…

The app’s big redesign has come to iOS (at least for those brave enough to beta test). | Image: 1Password 1Password released an early access version of 1Password 8 for iOS on Wednesday, which brings a redesigned interface and new backend to iPhone and iPad users. The new version of the app, which 1Password says will eventually make its way to all its supported platforms, has been available in early access mode for Mac since August and was released for Windows in November.As a longtime user of 1Password 7, the redesign was immediately obvious when I opened the beta version of the app. As far as I can tell, almost every icon has been changed to be a little more fun and colorful, and the interface feels more modern now.1Password 7 opened to a favorites screen with a few recently used passwords. Other than marking or unmarking logins as... Continue reading…

Google has quietly released a free app for iOS to help you easily carry over data from an iPhone to an Android device, as reported by 9to5Google. The Switch To Android app works wirelessly, meaning you won’t have to worry about connecting the two phones with a cable.“The Switch to Android app from Google helps you quickly and securely move your most important data types — photos, videos, contacts, and calendar events — to a brand new Android device without fussy cables,” according to the app’s description on the App Store. That list does not include messages, so it appears the app won’t be able to transfer those, though it will walk you through how to turn off iMessage so “you don’t miss text messages from friends and family.”9... Continue reading…

2023 Kia Niro EV Kia is bringing its refreshed electrified Niro compact SUV lineup to North America for 2023 with new exterior styling and more interior space. The company is debuting three new Niro models at the New York International Auto Show this week: the hybrid Niro HEV, the plug-in hybrid Niro PHEV, and the fully electric Niro EV. Kia plans to release them nationwide, including the fully electric Niro EV that previously could only be purchased in select states.The Niros all share dark-colored door cladding and an “aero blade” profile panel that combined give the car a swoosh-like appearance. New daytime running lights and a “tiger-nose” grille adorn the front, while the rear taillights are now boomerang-shaped and no longer intersect with the... Continue reading…

Mercedes-Benz announced that its electric concept car, the Vision EQXX, successfully completed a long-range test of over 1,000 km on a single battery charge. It was among the longest distances covered by an electric vehicle on a single charge.The trip took place across several European cities, starting in Germany, then on to Switzerland and Italy, and finally to its destination, the port town of Cassis near Marseille in the South of France. Temperatures ranged from 3 to 18 degrees Celsius (37 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit), and the vehicle traveled at an average speed of 54 mph.The distance covered was “over” 1,000 km, or about 621 miles. That is more than twice the typical range that most EVs on the road today can travel. According to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok is testing a feature that allows users to dislike individual comments on videos, the company confirmed today. In a blog post on safety and community guidelines enforcement, TikTok says individuals can flag comments they find “irrelevant or inappropriate” without the dislike being visible to others. Some users spotted different versions of the option earlier this year.“This community feedback will add to the range of factors we already use to help keep the comment section consistently relevant and a place for genuine engagement,” TikTok says.TikTok users already can dislike videos to signal to the app that they aren’t interested in the content. The comment dislike button appears to be available in addition to the option to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A new free app called Staybl uses existing technologies in the iPad to make it easier to use for those dealing with involuntary hand tremors because of conditions like Parkinson’s disease.Global advertising company Havas Creative’s offices in New York and Germany created the app after two years of work with experts from the German Parkinson’s Association and Parkinson’s patients in Germany and the US.Their goal is to improve access to technology for those dealing with Parkinson’s disease and other health issues that cause tremors. While the app is currently only available for use on Apple’s iPad, its creators aim to bring it to other digital devices and platforms in the future.“We always talk about how technology should improve our... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sony and Nintendo are making changes to their gaming subscriptions in the UK after working with a regulator in the country (via Engadget). The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has raised concerns about how people may be charged for subscriptions indefinitely until they proactively end them, which could mean they’re paying for services they don’t use.For PlayStation Plus, “Sony has agreed to put in place measures to protect customers who haven’t used their memberships for a long time but are still paying,” the CMA said. “Sony will contact these customers to remind them how to stop payments and, if they continue not to use their memberships, Sony will ultimately stop taking further payments.” We’ve reached out to Sony to ask... Continue reading…

Use your phone’s screen saver feature to show off your favorite images saved to your Google Photos. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge If you have more images in your Google Photos app than you know what to do with, why not put your phone to work displaying them? With a few simple steps, you can use your Android phone’s screen saver feature to turn your phone screen into a digital picture frame while it charges.This works especially well for phones with wireless charging (so you can see your photos with the phone propped up on a charger), but it will work with any kind of charging mode or if you connect your phone to a dock. It’s built right into the operating system, and it’s a neat, easy way to show off some of your favorite photos.I used a Motorola Moto G Stylus (2022) for the steps below, but the process is very similar on a Samsung or Pixel phone. You’ll need to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge An attack on Ukraine’s power grid was foiled by cybersecurity analysts and officials, as reported by Reuters. After investigating the methods and software used by the attackers, cybersecurity firm ESET says that it was likely carried out by a hacking group called Sandworm, which The Record reports allegedly has ties to the Russian government.The group planned to shut down computers that controlled substations and infrastructure belonging to a particular power company, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (or CERT-UA). The hackers meant to cut off power on April 8th while also wiping the computers that would be used to try and get the grid back online.The attack involved malware that hasn’t been seen in the wild... Continue reading…

Photo by Camilo Freedman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The mask mandate for air travel and public transportation has been extended once again, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The mandate, which was set to expire on April 18th, will be extended another two weeks as officials continue to monitor the number of COVID-19 cases across the country. The mandate was previously extended last month.All airline passengers and public transportation riders will be required to wear a face covering at least through May 3rd after the Transportation Security Administration told the CDC they would be extending the mandate, NBC reports.Airplanes and public transportation are some of the last places where Americans are still required to wear masks. Most states have lifted their... Continue reading…

Image: ETA Prime The $400-plus Steam Deck gaming handheld does not support external graphics cards. Valve has been clear on this point for months — you can’t magically plug in a dock and run Cyberpunk or Elden Ring at 4K. But ever since the company revealed that the Steam Deck’s storage plugs into a (relatively) easily accessible M.2 PCI-Express x4 socket, the PC gaming community has speculated that an eGPU module could totally fit there instead.Now, YouTuber ETA Prime has actually done it, adding an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, one of the highest-end graphics cards on the market.It works, it runs, it plays games at 4K with maxed-out settings at framerates a vanilla Steam Deck could only dream of. But no, you probably shouldn’t do this at home! Not only... Continue reading…

It seems we’ll be waiting a little while longer for the next-gen update. | Image: CD Projekt Red CD Projekt Red (CDPR) has once again delayed the release of its next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CDPR originally targeted a late-2021 release date for the free next-gen upgrade for the game, but the developer later pushed that to Q2 2022, and now, it’s unclear exactly when we might be able to play it.“We have decided to have our in-house development team conduct the remaining work on the next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt,” CDPR said via the official The Witcher Twitter account. “We are currently evaluating the scope of work to be done and thus have to postpone Q2 release until further notice.” The change was made “based on recommendations from persons in charge of development,” according to a note for investors.... Continue reading…

Freevee After launching as “IMDb Freedive” back in 2019, IMDb TV quickly faded into the background of the ongoing streaming wars that parent company Amazon had already established a respectable foothold in. While that initial rebrand never quite managed to put the fledgling platform and its content on the map, Amazon’s just announced its plan to reintroduce the streamer yet again under new branding ahead of a massive content push.Going forward, IMDb TV will be known as “Amazon Freevee,” a name meant to emphasize that the ad-supported platform is free to viewers. In a press release detailing its vision for Freevee’s future, director Ashraf Alkarmi framed the service as a supplemental platform meant to appeal to consumers interested in watching... Continue reading…

Brontë Wittpenn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images The state of California’s case against Activision Blizzard just took another blow. A report in Bloomberg alleges that the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom sought to “interfere” in the lawsuit between the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing and Activision Blizzard for sexual harassment and discrimination. When the suit’s head counsel Janette Wipper tried to maintain the department’s autonomy, she was allegedly fired by Newsom, which prompted assistant chief counsel for the DFEH Melanie Proctor to resign in protest.According to the Bloomberg report, Proctor sent an email to staff saying, “The Office of the Governor repeatedly demanded advance notice of litigation strategy and of next steps in the litigation. As we... Continue reading…