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by Andrew Webster on (#6AJ3A)
Image: EA The monster hunting game gets a new cherry blossom fox just in time for spring. Continue reading…
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The Verge
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
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| Updated | 2026-11-13 03:48 |
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by Thomas Ricker on (#6ADZ2)
Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge The holiday we didn’t ask for is back, as brands like Razer and Tesla put on their silly hats for the weekend. Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AJ3D)
Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta’s company-wide job cuts impacted the customer service team it had just started to build, leaving influencers and group admins grappling with scammers and technical difficulties, according to a report from CNBC.CNBC says it spoke with former Meta employees and viewed documents filed with the US Department of Labor that indicate the company’s massive layoffs affected workers across Facebook and Instagram’s customer support, customer experience, and communities teams. Meta laid off 11,000 employees last November and cut an additional 10,000 workers in March.Meta announced its plans to build a customer support team last year, with Brent Harris, Meta’s vice president of governance, stating the company was “spending a bunch of time” on... Continue reading…
by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6AJ3E)
The Mac Mini design may be a bit old now, but it’s still pretty dang adorable for a desktop. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s brilliant M2-powered Mac Mini in its expanded configuration with 512GB of storage is selling for $689.99 at Amazon. That’s a sizable savings of $110 on the little desktop, making it an easy recommendation for anyone who needs a basic computer for their home. The M2 Mac Mini looks like most other Mac Minis, but it sports the same processor as the latest MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Like those laptops, you get two Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C ports, but the Mini also provides you with two USB-A ports, an ethernet port, and an HDMI port — oh, and it’s much, much cheaper. It has the same eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU of the base configuration, but the much roomier 512GB of storage makes life more convenient before you’re forced to... Continue reading…
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6AJ3G)
Frankly, price increases make me a little cranky. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Time is running out on preordering a Playdate with better pricing. Beginning tomorrow, Panic’s little yellow handheld will cost $199. The company announced last month that a price jump was coming on April 7th due to increased manufacturing costs, so now is your last chance to place a preorder for the current $179 price. This is actually the second price increase on the crank-equipped portable, as it initially went up from $149 to $179 before its initial launch.A preordered Playdate must be paid in full, with an estimated shipping date currently listed as late 2023 — though, you can cancel any time before it ships and get a full refund should you change your mind. The Playdate includes a season of 24 games with the purchase, and more... Continue reading…
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by Adi Robertson on (#6AJ3F)
The Apple Lisa, 40 years later. | Illustration: The Verge The Apple Lisa was not, by nearly any definition, a hit product. Released in 1983, the ambitious but flawed machine was instantly overshadowed by Apple’s follow-up, the 1984 Macintosh — which helped cement the computer as a fixture in homes and offices worldwide.But the design language of the Lisa is the design language of modern computers. It was one of the first machines to use the metaphor of a desktop, including things like folders, icons, and application windows that mimicked sheets of paper. Apple drew inspiration from outside sources, particularly the Alto, a groundbreaking machine developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. But it iterated on the formula with obsessive user testing that adapted to first-time users’... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#6AHYE)
Image: Valve Nvidia’s latency-reducing Reflex technology is coming to Counter-Strike 2. Reflex is designed to make games feel more responsive by reducing the amount of time between when you click your mouse and when you see the action on-screen. It’s all-important in competitive shooters, and up until now, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was the most played game on Steam without it.Valve and Nvidia have worked together to add Reflex to Counter-Strike 2, the upcoming replacement for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. GeForce GTX 900 series and above will be able to enable Reflex in Counter-Strike 2, and it will have the biggest impact on older GPUs, according to Nvidia. Reflex can reduce system latency by up to 35 percent in Counter-Strike 2, which... Continue reading…
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by Allison Johnson on (#6AHYD)
The Moto G Power 5G is a little pricier this year, but it promises some meaningful upgrades. | Image: Motorola The 2023 version of Motorola’s all-about-battery-life Moto G Power trades some of that battery life for modern conveniences. In addition to 5G, a nicer screen and more powerful processor are on offer, so Moto’s battery claims aren’t as lofty this year, and the price is higher. While last year’s 128GB model sold for $249, this year’s edition starts at $299. Still, it might make for a budget phone that’s worth buying.Along with a huge 5,000mAh battery, the Motorola Moto G Power 5G (Lord help me; that is actually the full product name) includes a MediaTek Dimensity 930 processor with 4GB of RAM. By the looks of it, that should be a serious upgrade from the 4G-only Helio G37 chip in the 2022 Moto G Power, which, by several accounts, stank.... Continue reading…
by Sarah Jeong on (#6AHYC)
Image: Mengxin Li / The Verge In July 2022, the world watched with bated breath as Twitter sued Elon Musk. No one knew whether the deal was going to happen or whether it had all been an elaborate troll to begin with. (The two weren’t mutually exclusive, either.) Billions of dollars and the fate of a major worldwide social media network hung in the balance. The lawsuit was, in some ways, unprecedented. Legal experts found themselves besieged with all kinds of tricky questions.For example, was this the first time the poop emoji showed up in court? The answer is no. In 2018, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Emerson v. Dart in which a corrections officer, Paula Emerson, sued the county alleging workplace discrimination. While the... Continue reading…
by Terry Nguyen on (#6AHYF)
Image: Mengxin Li / The Verge The logout button has become practically defunct. Continue reading…
by Andrew Webster on (#6AHYG)
Image: Microsoft Minecraft Legends is a strategy spinoff of Minecraft — but it might also be the next competitive multiplayer craze. I had a chance to spend a few hours with the game last month at GDC in San Francisco, and while it seems like it has a solid campaign to dig into, I had a lot more fun with the team-based multiplayer. It’s kind of like Minecraft mashed with League of Legends and StarCraft, and in the one match I played, it involved a lot of yelling (in a good way).Legends is built on the same “bedrock” engine as the main Minecraft game, and the two look pretty much identical. You control a blocky little character running through a similarly blocky world. The difference here is what you’re doing. To get acclimated, I first played around two... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#6AHTD)
Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is planning to add its new Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant to OneNote. The software giant originally announced Copilot for apps like Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint last month, and it’s now ready to demo how note taking will be impacted by an AI-powered assistant.“As your notetaking partner, Copilot uses your prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists, organize information, and more,” explains Greg Mace, a product manager for OneNote. Image: Microsoft How the Copilot integration works in OneNote. Much like Copilot’s integration in Word, the AI assistant can rewrite, format, or summarize existing text in OneNote based on prompts in a sidebar interface. You can also ask the AI assistant to... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#6AHQF)
Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has added Bing Chat AI to its popular SwiftKey keyboard for Android. The integration started appearing on Wednesday and allows SwiftKey Beta users to quickly access Microsoft’s Bing chatbot at the tap of a button in any app.The Bing Chat integration inside SwiftKey includes the usual chat mode that offers access to the chatbot, or a tone mode that will rewrite any text right within the keyboard. If you were only using the Bing mobile app to access the chatbot, this new integration makes that app rather redundant if, instead, you’re willing to install and use SwiftKey everywhere.To access this new Bing Chat integration you’ll need to download the beta version of SwiftKey on the Google Play Store. Pedram Rezaei, Microsoft’s CTO... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AHFX)
Image: Spyra Sypra has made a name for itself by creating powerful, electronic water guns, the first of which launched on Kickstarter in 2018. Now, the company’s adding a third water gun to its lineup, aptly named the SpyraThree, and it includes additional modes for when you want to take your battles super seriously or are just looking for some casual summer fun.Before we get to those, let’s go over what makes the Spyra more than just your standard Super Soaker — and why it can command its eye-popping price tag of $179.00 per gun. Like the SpyraTwo (which you can still buy for around $5 less), the SpyraThree features an electronic firing system that can spray people from around 30 feet away, and can send water almost 50 feet when you charge up a... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AHE2)
Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s Edge is rolling out a limited public preview of its Workspaces feature, which lets you save and share sets of browser tabs using a single link. We got our first look at Workspaces last year, but the new preview gives us a much clearer picture of how it all works.With Workspaces, you can gather a bunch of tabs on a particular topic and save them into neatly labeled groups within Edge. While this sounds a lot like Edge’s Collections feature (which already lets you save and organize webpages), Workspaces adds another layer of functionality by letting you share these saved tabs with your colleagues, who can then add or make changes to the tabs in real time. Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge As you can see in... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AHB9)
Illustration: The Verge Apple is heavily rumored to reveal its long-awaited mixed reality headset in just a couple of months, but that reveal seems to be arriving at a time when demand for high-end VR is actually quite low.According to a new blog post from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, some of the biggest recent bets in VR have largely flopped. Kuo reports that:
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AHBA)
The screen you’ll see if you visit Genesis Market now. | Image: Europol Several law enforcement agencies have teamed up to take down Genesis Market, a website selling access to “over 80 million account access credentials,” which included the standard usernames and passwords, as well as much more dangerous data like session tokens. According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, the site was seized on Tuesday. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (or Europol) says that 119 of the site's users have been arrested.Genesis Marketplace has been around since 2018, according to the Department of Justice, and was “one of the most prolific initial access brokers (IABs) in the cybercrime world.” It let hackers search for certain types of credentials, such as ones for social media... Continue reading…
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by Makena Kelly on (#6AHBB)
Image: Getty At the rally protesting Trump’s arrest, everyone was a content creator. Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#6AH7S)
Image: Sony Santa Monica Studio Starting today, you can embark on a New Game Plus journey in God of War Ragnarök. More than just a restart of the story campaign, the update adds new sets of armor that can be equipped to modify your combat experience to make the game more challenging.New Game Plus starts you off with all your weapons, armors, and enchantments but with a slight catch: you can’t access areas with the Hex or Sonic arrows or the Draupnir spear before reaching the part in the story where those weapons would be unlocked. It’s a bit of a bummer because there was no way in Helheim I could be bothered to go back to any of those areas once I got the necessary equipment. It, therefore, would have been really nice to be able to unlock those areas as I progressed... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AH7T)
It’s a great time to be a Ken. | Image: Capcom The Street Fighter franchise is getting a new movie. Capcom announced on Wednesday that it’s working on the film in partnership with Legendary Entertainment, with “more news to come in the future” about the project.The new film isn’t a total surprise. On April 3rd, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Legendary acquired the film and TV rights to the series. But now we officially know there’s a new movie to look forward to at some point down the line. And while you wait, you might want to catch up on the other Street Fighter movies that have come out: the famous “but for me, it was Tuesday” meme was spoken by Raúl Juliá’s M. Bison in the 1994 Street Fighter film, for example, and there was a Chun-Li-focused movie released in 2009.
by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6AH7V)
Twenty years ago, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Bill Lawrence’s Clone High ended on a cliffhanger that left all of its teenaged clones of famous historical figures flash-frozen by John Stamos on their prom night. Today, HBO Max decided to start thawing those same clones out.Ahead of its debut this spring, HBO Max just dropped the first teaser trailer for the Clone High revival, which seems like it’s going to pick right back up where the original MTV series left off.Though Gandhi won’t be coming back in the new show, all it takes is a little bit of heat from a set of blow-dryers to unfreeze the teenaged versions of Abe Lincoln (Will Forte), Joan of Arc (Nicole Sullivan), JFK (Chris Miller), and Cleopatra (Mitra Jouhari) — all of... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#6AH35)
Image: Blizzard Diablo IV’s dungeons are gonna be a nightmare after players complete the campaign. The developers just released a new video outlining the game’s endgame progression, and it’s filled with all sorts of somewhat bewildering things like paragon systems, world tiers, nightmare dungeons, and more.Players will level up their characters via a bog standard skill tree. The video shows that, once players have hit max level, completed the campaign, and completed the capstone dungeon at the end of the game, they’ll get access to an expanded skill board that reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid. So even though your character is at the highest level achievable, there will still be a system in place to make them more powerful. The board... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AH36)
Illustration: The Verge Google is introducing a new Play Store rule that will require apps to have a “readily discoverable option” for deleting your account, both in the app itself and on the web. In a blog post on Wednesday, the company says the change is meant to give users “greater clarity and control over their in-app data.”The rule will apply to apps that let you create an account, and Google is trying to make sure that users won’t have to redownload an app because they deleted it before requesting that their account also be deleted. The company plans to add a field to the Google Play Store that will link users to the web address for account deletion. GIF: Google A mock-up of what the data deletion section of the Play Store may... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AH37)
Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Phil Harrison, who headed up Google’s now-shuttered cloud gaming service Stadia, is no longer at Google, according to Business Insider. Stadia was officially shut down in January, and Harrison apparently left at around that same time.Harrison’s quiet departure marks a muted end to his time at the search giant. He joined the company in January 2018, and while he didn’t specify what he was working on at the time, it was easy to guess that he was probably doing something with gaming: Harrison worked at Sony Computer Entertainment (now Sony Interactive Entertainment) for 15 years, was on the advisory board for the cloud gaming service Gaikai, and led Microsoft’s Xbox and Interactive Entertainment business in Europe from 2012 to 2015. And lo... Continue reading…
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6AH38)
Image: Jeep Jeep’s wildly popular plug-in hybrid Wrangler SUV is getting an upgrade. The automaker is rolling out two new trim levels for the 2024 model year, as well as a host of new tech features that it says are designed to chart a path to a completely electrified lineup by 2025.This represents the first major update to the hybrid Wrangler since the first 4xe (pronounced “four by E”) version rolled out in 2021. Jeep is hoping to capitalize on the Wrangler 4xe’s popularity with its adventure-minded customers. According to Stellantis, roughly 1 in 4 Jeep Wranglers sold last year was a plug-in hybrid. That amounted to more than 43,000 Wrangler 4xe models sold in 2022, which was up 46 percent compared to 2021.Jeep’s hoping to keep the momentum... Continue reading…
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by Allison Johnson on (#6AGY2)
Move over, NoseFrida. This random Amazon snot sucker is my new go-to. | Image: Allison Johnson / The Verge I have a growing list of recommendations for new parents that exists mainly in my own head. Highlights include “just get the velcro swaddles” and “infant Tylenol is exactly the same as children’s Tylenol, it just costs more and there’s less of it.” But as of this weekend, there’s one thing right at the top of the list: get an electric snot sucker. Forget the NoseFrida, definitely forget the weird little bulb syringe they send you home from the hospital with. This stupid little gadget has possibly saved the last shred of my sanity.To be a new parent is to quickly become acquainted with an entire new world of gadgets and gear. Sure, there are some people who can take a relaxed approach to baby gear — “Our parents didn’t need all that... Continue reading…
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by Diego Nicolás Argüello on (#6AGY4)
Image: Capcom The game takes strides toward a more authentic Spanish experience but is let down by subtitles that don’t translate everything. Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AGY3)
Here’s what Substack’s Notes feed will look like. | Image: Substack Substack is getting a new tweet-like feature called “Notes,” the company announced on Wednesday. The feature will let users publish small posts about things like “posts, quotes, comments, images, and links,” according to a blog post from Substack co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi.Notes appear in their own dedicated tab, and the feed looks pretty similar to what you might see on Twitter or other social media platforms. On individual posts, for example, you can see familiar icons for likes, replies, and reshares (which Substack will be calling “restacks”). We asked if there is a character limit for Notes, but Substack spokesperson Helen Tobin declined to share details about that.The Notes tab also has two feeds... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AGY6)
Photo by Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images Former Frank CEO Charlie Javice has been charged with defrauding JPMorgan Chase after the bank acquired her financial aid startup for $175 million in 2021. In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the Department of Justice accuses the fintech founder of “falsely and dramatically inflating” the number of clients her startup served to “fraudulently induce” JPMorgan Chase into acquiring the company.The 31-year-old Javice, who was included in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in 2019, created Frank in 2016 with the stated goal of simplifying the financial aid process for students and maximizing the amount of aid they received.A list of 4.25 million users allegedly contains fewer than 300,000 real accountsJavice later became a managing director at JPMorgan... Continue reading…
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by Sara M. Watson on (#6AGY7)
Image: Mengxin Li / The Verge I ripped off the headset, afraid I was going to throw up. I shouted for help. My partner found me in the fetal position in a cold sweat on the bathroom floor.I had spent just an hour in the metaverse dressing my avatar, making faces in the virtual mirror, and learning to raise my virtual wristwatch to adjust system settings. Now, I couldn’t open my eyes without seeing the virtual grid echoed in the tile floor, demarcating the boundary where I had crossed into unsafe territory.I had been aware that nausea was a potential risk of VR. I had read accounts of cybersickness, motion sickness, “VR hangovers.” I’d even known that women are more likely to experience disorientation in VR because of subtle physiological differences from men.... Continue reading…
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by Kristen Radtke on (#6AGS5)
You use these apps all the time, but can you identify the shades of their logos? Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AGRY)
Image: Lego This is the third time we’ve seen the T-65 X-Wing Starfighter in brick form, and it’s Lego’s most detailed yet. The 1,949-piece X-Wing costs $239.99 and joins the other sets in the Lego Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, which include the behemoths that are the 7,541-piece UCS Millennium Falcon and the 6,785-piece UCS AT-AT.Equipped with 4L4 fusil thrust engines and the KX9 laser cannons, the design of Lego’s latest UCS X-Wing kit doesn’t deviate much from its previous iterations. However, it does feature several hundred more pieces when compared to the 1,304-piece X-Wing set released in 2000 and the 1,559-piece one from 2013. The new X-Wing measures 10.5 inches in height and 21.5 inches in length once complete. I... Continue reading…
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6AGRZ)
The M512a-H6 doesn’t offer a ton of features, but it comes with a subwoofer and a pair of low-profile rear speakers. | Image: Vizio Want to level up your TV experience without paying a couple thousand for a premium surround sound system? Well then, a competent soundbar like Vizio’s M-Series 5.1.2 is probably your best bet. Vizio’s Atmos-ready model can likely deliver better sound than your TV’s built-in speakers for less than $500 — which is why it remains one of our favorite models. What’s more, it’s currently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $399.99 ($100 off), which is one of its better prices to date.Along with the soundbar itself, that price includes a six-inch wireless subwoofer, the kind you’d normally have to buy separately. That’s in addition to two upfiring rear speakers that support Dolby Atmos, allowing for a more immersive experience when watching... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#6AGS1)
Image: Nintendo There was a period of time when my Game Boy Advance was used almost exclusively for turn-based strategy games. Many, many hours were lost to Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics, but the game that sucked me in the most was Advance Wars and its sequel. There was something about its cartoonish take on warfare that made it feel like you were playing a tabletop game, moving little pieces around a board, and its small scale was a perfect fit for playing on the go. Advance Wars is also one of those Nintendo franchises that’s been largely dormant for a long time — and it turns out, I really missed it.I realized this while playing through the opening missions of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, an awkwardly titled remake that bundles together... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AGS2)
Vogue Singapore’s Metaverse Fashion Week booth. That portal took you to another metaverse on an entirely different platform. | Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week featured virtual clothes and exhibits from some major names in fashion, but it was lonely, difficult to navigate, and pretty boring. Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#6AGS3)
Sony’s last gaming handheld, the PlayStation Vita. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A new report from Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming claims Sony is developing a new PlayStation gaming handheld. But if you’re hoping for a successor to the PlayStation Vita then you might be disappointed.Henderson reports that rather than developing a portable console that lets you play games natively, Sony’s “Q Lite” handheld is designed primarily to work with the Remote Play feature on the PlayStation 5 and stream games from the console over the internet. While Remote Play can be used outside of the home, Insider Gaming specifically notes the handheld is not meant for cloud streaming, so it sounds like it could be pitched primarily as a peripheral for PS4 and PS5 owners.In terms of hardware, the Q Lite will reportedly come equipped... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#6AGS4)
Image: The Verge Microsoft Edge is getting a block feature for autoplay videos. Microsoft has started testing the new block addition with Edge testers in the Canary channel, providing a this new option alongside existing allow and limit options for auto playing web videos.The Microsoft Edge team says it has “heard your requests for strict blocking of media autoplay” after previously only offering a “limit” option that lets media autoplay depending on whether you’ve visited the page in the past and how you’ve interacted with it. The more restrictive block option is currently being rolled out. “We have started making the feature available to some of our Canary users and will continue to make it available to more customers over the coming weeks,” says... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AGD7)
Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Kobo is bringing its Kobo Plus service, which lets you read unlimited ebooks and audiobooks for a flat monthly fee, to the US. There are three different plans available; for $7.99 a month, you can get access to ebooks or audiobooks with the “Read” and “Listen” plans, or you can get both for $9.99 a month.You can access the books through Kobo’s e-readers (though do note that not all of them support audiobooks) or the company’s iOS, Android, and desktop apps. You also don’t have to be constantly connected to Wi-Fi to read them — a Kobo FAQ says that “you can read a maximum of 15 Kobo Plus books while offline over a 30-day period.”Kobo Plus has been around for a while in a few countries, including Canada, New Zealand, and Portugal, but... Continue reading…
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6AGD6)
Image: Kobo Kobo’s launching a new 10.3-inch E Ink e-reader and writing device, the Kobo Elipsa 2E, on April 19th. The new Kindle Scribe and Onyx Boox Nova Air C rival will retail for $399.99 and comes with an upgraded stylus that you can use to write directly on the pages of ebooks and documents.Those eager to get their hands on Kobo’s latest e-reader can preorder it from Kobo starting today. As an added incentive, the Rakuten-owned Kobo’s throwing in a $25 Kobo e-gift card for customers preordering the device in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.On paper, the Kobo Elipsa 2E appears to be a minor upgrade from its predecessor, the Kobo Elipsa. They both sell for $399 bundled with a stylus, though only the original Elipsa throws in an included... Continue reading…
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by Ariel Shapiro on (#6AG46)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.Lots of news to start off the week. Let’s get right into it: Spotify Live gets the ax, the Obamas land another podcast deal, and iHeart signs a top wellness podcast.Spotify Live is shutting down, and what remains of live audio is sparseIn the latest sign that live audio is well and truly on its way out, Music Ally reports that Spotify is shutting down its Spotify Live app. On the app, which still has a handful of chat rooms going, users get a notification saying that the service will go away at the end of the month.“After a period of experimentation and learnings around how Spotify users interact with live audio, we’ve made the... Continue reading…
by Tom Warren on (#6AFK9)
Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s Weather app on iPhone was down for many users on Tuesday. The issues started at around midnight ET and persisted throughout the morning in many locations. iPhone owners have reported opening the Weather app and finding no data or old cached weather information.9to5Mac noted that while the main Weather app was broken for many, the Apple Watch version kept working fine for.For most of this morning, Apple’s support note said that “next-hour precipitation may be unavailable for Alaska due to a data provider outage,” despite an issue that was clearly more widespread. It has since been updated to note an unspecified generally ongoing issue with some users affected starting at 11PM last night.Eventually, the app started to refresh... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AG47)
Screenshot: Tom Warren / The Verge Naughty Dog and Nvidia have released more hotfixes for The Last of Us Part I’s PC port in an attempt to fix various crashes and other bugs that have plagued the game since it launched a week ago. Nvidia says its hotfix driver Version 531.58 is meant to make the game more stable when running on RTX 30-series graphics cards, and in the patch notes for v1.0.1.7 of the game, Naughty Dog says it and co-developer Iron Galaxy are “closely watching player reports to support future improvements and patches.”The changelog also mentions improvements beyond just fixing various crashes. Resetting the graphics options to default should now work, an issue where the game wouldn’t read Xbox controller stick inputs properly has been fixed, and there are... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AG48)
Asus’ ROG Ally video made the device look pretty real. Turns out, it was! | Image: Asus Asus’ ROG Ally, a Steam Deck-like handheld gaming PC, is actually real. But because of the messy and ill-informed communications about the device that, of course, involved April Fools’ Day, you’d be forgiven for not knowing that. Companies, take note: please don’t follow Asus’ lead next year.The confusion started with an announcement at midnight on April 1st “revealing” the handheld. The video felt somewhat tongue-in-cheek, especially during one moment when someone is locked out of their house and happily remembers they have the Ally in their jacket pocket. The tagline felt April Fools’-y — “you’ll never have to stop gaming again” — and the video concluded with somebody using the Ally on a roller coaster and a go-kart.
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6AG0D)
Mario is his cat form. | Image: Universal From its cheesy nostalgia plays to its breathtaking and imaginative visuals, Universal’s new Mario movie is everything a video game adaptation should be. Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#6AG0E)
Image: Activision Activision is cracking down on third-party hardware cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. Devices like XIM, Cronus Zen, and ReaSnow S1 have been widely used in Call of Duty to allow mouse and keyboard users to get the benefits of aim assist and reduced recoil from controller mixed with the benefits of movement from mouse and keyboard. Activision has now updated its Ricochet anti-cheat system to detect and eventually suspend or ban players using this third-party hardware.“These devices act as a passthrough for controllers on PC and console and, when used improperly or maliciously, can provide a player with the ability to gain an unfair gameplay advantage, such as reducing or eliminating recoil,” explains... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AG0F)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Online alcohol recovery services Monument and Tempest admitted to sharing private patient information with advertisers for years, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. In a disclosure filed with the California Attorney General, Monument (which acquired Temple in 2022) says the tracking tools used on both services “may have shared” names, birthdates, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, insurance information, and more to advertisers.Monument and Tempest, which both provide resources for patients struggling with alcohol addiction, say the leak might have also included patients’ responses to self-evaluations about their drinking habits, something Monument clearly says are “protected” and used only by its care teams. The companies... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#6AG0G)
Blizzard Overwatch 2 has been releasing new heroes at a pretty good clip, and with the pending arrival of season 4 comes the latest hero: Lifeweaver. Lifeweaver’s addition to the game had been teased by the Overwatch developers in the last few weeks, with them calling the new hero “cute,” leading some in the Overwatch community to speculate that we’d be getting another animal-based hero like the much-desired “jetpack cat.”But thanks to an unfortunate leak and the slow drip of information ahead of his official launch, we now know the developers should have used “sexy” instead of “cute” because Lifeweaver is a stone-cold fox.
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by Andrew Webster on (#6AG0H)
Owen Wilson in Paint. | Image: IFC Films Bob Ross has become one of those inescapable facets of the internet. The longtime The Joy of Painting host is firmly entrenched in the realm of online kitsch, featured everywhere from Twitch streams and Marvel ads to Magic: The Gathering sets. His distinct and goofy persona makes him a logical subject for a similarly silly biopic — which is exactly what director Brit McAdams tries to do in Paint. Unfortunately, the film never finds enough of a hook to justify being a feature-length movie; you can get the entire joke mostly from watching the trailer. The result is a 90-minute feature that would’ve been better served as a Saturday Night Live sketch.Now, to be clear, Paint isn’t exactly about Bob Ross. Instead, it centers on a PBS host... Continue reading…
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by Brandon Widder on (#6AFWP)
Apple’s entry-level wearable now starts at just $219 ($30 off). | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge As far as entry-level smartwatches go, few can match the experience offered by the latest Apple Watch SE, which is currently matching its all-time low of $219 ($30 off) at Amazon and Best Buy in the 40mm configuration with GPS.Apple’s second-gen wearable supports most watchOS 9 features — including medication reminders and Apple’s handy low-power mode — as well as newer Apple Watch features like Crash Detection, Apple Pay, and heart-rate monitoring. What you don’t get are an always-on display and some of the more advanced sensors that can be found on the Apple Watch Series 8, though if you can live without a SpO2 sensor and things like cycle tracking, you can pick up the 2022 Apple Watch SE for more than $100 less than the starting... Continue reading…
by Andrew Webster on (#6AFWQ)
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures Once you’re done choosing which Barbie character you are, it’s time to watch the film’s latest trailer.Following a brief teaser that aped 2001: A Space Odyssey and gave very little away, we now have a second clip that seems to show what Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie is actually about. According to the YouTube description, Barbie herself may be going through a “full-on existential crisis,” which may or may not convince her to head out into the real world. Whatever the actual premise is, the movie looks extremely fun, and in less than two minutes, the new teaser manages to pack in quite a bit of innuendo. I’ll never look at a beach the same way again.It also has a stacked cast. Alongside Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie... Continue reading…