The Verge

HTC Vive VR teaser: “go small or go home.” While Meta and TikTok owner ByteDance battle to be the premium social media / metaverse company making virtual or augmented reality hardware, HTC is reminding everyone that it has a place in the game, too. Without providing any extra details, it released this simple teaser tweet on Thursday morning, promising to “go small or go home.”A brief HTC press release sent to The Verge described the tweet as a teaser for “a new headset” and noted that it’s been a year since the Vive Flow — HTC’s early stab at a consumer VR headset that looks (sort of) like sunglasses. It references the Flow as the “first” headset made under Project Proton, a super-small headset initiative HTC discussed in 2020. Coupled with the tagline on the tweet, our best... Continue reading…

There are three colorways in total: black, red, and white. Here’s the white colorway with black upholstery and white detailing. | Image: Herman Miller / Logitech Logitech G and Herman Miller have jointly debuted the Vantum gaming chair. It’s available to order now for $995, which is a significant price difference from the $1,500 Embody, the partnership’s first gaming chair I had the pleasure to sit on for many hours in mid-2020. While the Embody was a gamer-friendly twist on a preexisting design in Herman Miller’s catalog of chairs, the Vantum appears to be a new chair altogether. It’ll come in multiple color options (white, red, and black), each including a 12-year warranty. Here’s a side view of the Vantum, showing off its thoracic support pad. Herman Miller says this is the first gaming chair to offer such a thing. Like the Embody, it’s tough to tell exactly what kind of... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Come check out Google’s latest phone — and its first smartwatch Continue reading…

What does it take to build a cell network? According to Ukama, these devices. | Image: Ukama A new company wants to let you become your own cell carrier, using your internet connection even when you’re away from home — and roaming onto the networks of other people doing the same. The company, helmed by former Facebook engineer Kashif Ali, is called Ukama, and it’s launching a crowdfunding campaign on engineering and maker-focused site Crowd Supply to get its devices out to people willing to try out the tech and start building the network.Ukama’s selling a few different pieces of hardware, set to be delivered next summer, according to Ali. The main piece is the $799 Tower Node, which is made to be mounted outside on a roof or building so it can broadcast out your home internet connection via a signal that can reach over half a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Peloton is cutting another 500 jobs, or 12 percent of its workforce, as it attempts to turn around its struggling connected fitness business, CEO Barry McCarthy announced in a memo to staff on Thursday. McCarthy says the company, which has lost money for six quarters straight, has six months to get back on its feet or else it may not be viable as a standalone company, The Wall Street Journal reports.This is Peloton’s fourth round of layoffs this year after it let go of around 2,800 employees in February, 500 in July, and almost 800 in August. Combined, the cuts mean that the company’s workforce will now sit at around 3,800 employees globally. That’s a big drop from Peloton’s peak of 8,600 employees last year but not far off from the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last May, at Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O 2022, there were hints about the company’s upcoming Pixel 7 and 7 Pro phones. Now, five months later, at Google’s Pixel launch event this coming Thursday, we are finally going to be introduced to them. Of course, there won’t be all that many surprises; there have been quite a few hints floating around about their cameras, displays, size, and price. But it will be interesting to see how many of these rumors are correct.Perhaps more interesting is the new Pixel Watch, which is also expected to be introduced and which may mean that Google is finally offering a smartwatch that could be a real contender. Other announcements may include a new Tensor G2 chip, an improved tablet,... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo It’s been a long time coming, but the time is almost here: we’re going to get a look at Nintendo’s upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie. The animated feature was officially announced way back in 2018 as a collaboration between Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment, the animation studio behind Minions, and today, the companies are releasing the first trailer.Since then, we’ve learned small details, most notably about the cast, which will include Jack Black as Bowser, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, and — most controversial of all — Chris Pratt as Mario. Pratt has described his take on the iconic plumber’s voice as “unlike anything you’ve heard in the Mario world before.”

Excellent battery life and a large display make the 14 Plus upgrade-worthy Continue reading…

Blizzard Two days into the launch of Blizzard’s revamped and now free-to-play Overwatch 2 experience, a Wednesday night post on its support forum addressed problems players have had with connections, SMS Protect, and missing account items or account merge troubles.In terms of the connection issues and long queues for entry that are keeping many of us stuck at the loading screen (Login queues, server crashes, and stability problems), a critical login server has been patched to help it hold up under the load. Blizzard says it’s also slowly scaling up the nodes in its player databases to help them handle the onrush of players diving in.Blizzard said: “In all cases, no player data has been wiped or lost.”Beyond the ability to connect to the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Former Uber chief security officer Joe Sullivan has been found guilty of charges that he covered up a 2016 cyberattack where a hacker downloaded the personal information of more than 57 million people. The information stolen from Uber included names, email addresses, and phone numbers for more than 50 million Uber riders and 7 million drivers, as well as driver’s license numbers for another 600,000 drivers.As reported by the New York Times and Washington Post, the jury convicted Sullivan on two counts: one for obstructing justice by not revealing the breach to the FTC and another for misprision, which is concealing a felony from the authorities.This is believed to be the first time a company executive faced criminal prosecution over a... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Back in February, Microsoft announced that an HDR Calibration app to help Windows 11 users optimize color accuracy and consistency for gaming on their HDR displays was on its way. The app, spotted by Thurrott, has now arrived and is available for download.The app includes three test patterns, which you can use to test for the darkest and brightest visible details you can see on your display as well as its maximum brightness. You can customize how vividly colors will appear for both HDR and SDR content. In order to use the app, you’ll need a PC running Windows 11 and an HDR-capable display with HDR turned on. In terms of GPU, you’ll need an AMD RX 400 series or later, an AMD Ryzen processor with Radeon Graphics, an Intel... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro might be Google’s “fastest-selling Pixels to date,” but they haven’t been what I’d consider a slam dunk in the hardware department. I’m not talking about aesthetics here: I’m a fan of the camera bar look, personally, though I detest curved displays. To each their own. Looking at the big picture, I think the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are among the best phones that Google has made — the camera is superb (for stills), and the Tensor chip’s voice typing and dictation capabilities are genuinely next level — but they’re not without some faults. Google has successfully tackled many of the early software bugs, but some lingering hardware concerns remain.A year in, based on my own time using both devices for extended periods and... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard Overwatch 2’s launch has been beset by all of the typical problems that come with the arrival of a hotly anticipated title. Server queues are tens of thousands of players long, and once you do get to the end of your long wait, you’re either booted right then to unceremoniously rejoin the queue — or, as I was, lose your connection at a far more inconvenient time, like in the middle of a match.According to multiple Blizzard developers, the team is hard at work fixing server stability, including fending off at least two DDOS attacks, but the game’s launch problems extend beyond server uptime, namely to account merging and SMS Protect. Image: Blizzard Overwatch 2’s arrival brings with it cross-progression. If you had... Continue reading…

Tweets with multiple pieces of content will show up side-by-side or in a grid. | Image: Twitter Twitter’s rolling out a new feature on both Android and iOS that lets you combine text, photos, videos, and GIFs in a single tweet. The feature was first spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi back in April, with Twitter later confirming it was working on multimedia posts in July. Previously, you could only share one piece of media per tweet.Now that the feature is here, all you need to do is tap the photo icon in the tweet composer and add the media of your choice. The content you add will show up side by side or in a grid-like format, depending on how many images, videos, or GIFs you add. You can see how this might look in these tweets shared by Twitter.

What will happen to Tesla if Elon Musk owns Twitter? Probably near-term stock volatility and long-term foreign influence campaigns. | Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge Tesla shareholders may be experiencing déjà vu this week watching the company’s stock fall on the news that Elon Musk said he’d buy Twitter at the original offer price after all. He had previously tried to back out of buying the company, but Twitter sued him to go through with the purchase.The drop was not as precipitous as it was earlier this year — a 1.5 percent decrease this week versus a 12-point slide last April, wiping $125 billion off the electric automaker’s market valuation. It wasn’t clear if this week’s price drop was because of the Twitter news or residual mockery from the reveal of Tesla’s humanoid robot last week.Tesla is a loose collection of vibes and feelings around Musk’s pole position as a prognosticatorBut Tesla... Continue reading…

The Pixel 6A is one of many Pixels with a virtual horizon since software updates brought it to models as old as the Pixel 3A. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Ever since the Pixel 5 came out in 2020, Google implemented a handy level feature in its camera app that I truly love using. It’s so good, I’m convinced that just about every other smartphone and camera manufacturer should just blatantly rip it off for our collective betterment.The Pixel camera app automatically calls up some nifty virtual horizon lines by default when you hold the phone steady to line up a shot. You guide the two tilting white lines toward a static yellow one, and when your picture is perfectly level from side to side (roll) and front to back (pitch), they all align and turn yellow. You even get a nice haptic buzz once your horizon reaches an even zero degrees. The UI for this assistive tool changes when you point the... Continue reading…

Lille Allen / The Verge The Twitter trial is still on, says Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick in a new legal filing this morning. The judge — who is supervising the bench trial where Twitter is attempting to force Elon Musk to buy the company for $44 billion, as he agreed to do in April — says she has not received any filings for a stay, and so the lawyers should press full-steam ahead.Musk’s deposition is scheduled for tomorrow. One of the contentious issues in the case is whether Musk has turned over all records in his possession. In particular, Musk’s advocacy for privacy-focused messaging service Signal has led Twitter’s lawyers to suggest there are messages he should have turned over and didn’t.In McCormick’s letter today, she says she believes Musk did... Continue reading…

You’ll need at least the Google Pixel Watch app and the Fitbit app to get the most use out of the forthcoming Pixel Watch. | Image: Google It’s an unfortunate truth that getting a smartwatch usually means needing multiple apps to control one device. And it looks like the Pixel Watch won’t be an exception. As spotted by Android Police, you can already find the Pixel Watch as an available device in the Fitbit app’s menus. Selecting the Pixel Watch then prompts users to download the Google Pixel Watch app from the Play Store.So as far as we currently know, you’ll need to download at least two apps to even use the Pixel Watch as intended — regardless of what your preference may be.Based on other smartwatches, the Google Pixel Watch app will probably be where you futz with settings, select watchfaces, and manage watch apps. Being able to add the Pixel Watch to the Fitbit app... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Now seems like the worst time to announce that more ads are coming to Instagram considering the backlash the platform has experienced over its increased focus on video content (via TechCrunch). But Instagram’s doing it anyway, which means we’re going to start seeing ads on the Explore tab and in profiles.We already get ads when scrolling through feeds on the Explore page, but now, Instagram says businesses can put ads on the Explore homepage as well, which is the grid of photos and videos you land on when first opening the tab. If you’re curious as to what this might look like, Instagram provided an example that shows a large ad taking up a pretty big portion of the Explore grid. Image: Instagram Ads could show... Continue reading…

Google will pay an $85 million settlement to the state of Arizona over claims that the company illegally tracked the location of Android device users. | Illustration: The Verge Google will pay an $85 million settlement to the state of Arizona in order to resolve claims that the company illegally tracked the location of Android device users.Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued Google in May 2020, claiming that “dark patterns” (design tactics that can manipulate user behavior) were built into its software on Android phones and apps. The suit argued that Google kept location tracking running in the background to collect advertising data, even after users had turned off location sharing, and made privacy settings to keep location information private needlessly difficult to find. This follows a 2018 report from The Associated Press that found Google tracks users through services like Google maps, weather... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A former Amazon employee based in Seattle has been sentenced for her role in a huge data breach that saw Capital One bank pay out more than $250 million to affected customers.Paige Thompson, known online by her handle “erratic,” was convicted in June for the 2019 hack in which more than 100 million people in the US and Canada had their personal information stolen. On Tuesday, a US District Court in Seattle found Thompson guilty of seven counts of computer and wire fraud — punishable by up to 20 years in prison — but the software engineer received a sentence of time served plus five years of probation, to include computer monitoring.According to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ), US District Judge Robert S. Lasnik... Continue reading…

The Pro BFG is quite a sight to behold. It’s not as easy on the eyes as Sony’s DualSense, but it offers far more features that serious gamers will likely enjoy tinkering with. | Image: PDP A company beat Sony’s DualSense Edge controller to the quarter-circle punch. PDP’s Victrix sub-brand announced the Pro BFG, a wireless PS5, PS4, and PC (X-Input) controller aimed at fighting game enthusiasts and officially licensed by Sony. The Pro BFG delivers more than just swappable analog sticks and directional pads. The highlight feature is its modular plates that let you remix the layout of the controller. It costs $179.99 to preorder, and it’s launching in December.The default layout of the Pro BFG is similar to the default PS5 controller, with analog sticks near each other underneath the touchpad. You can keep it that way, or you can use the included hex screwdriver to flip it around so that it’s more like an Xbox-style... Continue reading…

The four members of the SpaceX Crew-5 mission. From left are, Mission Specialist Anna Kikina from Roscosmos; Pilot Josh Cassada and Commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, both from NASA; and Mission Specialist Koichi Wakata from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). | SpaceX Update 12:20ET: The Crew-5 mission successfully lifted off at noon, and the first stage booster landed safely on an autonomous drone ship. The crew is now on the way to the ISS. Original article continues below.The history-making Crew-5 mission is about to take off today from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX’s Dragon Endurance spacecraft is set to launch with four astronauts on board, two of whom will usher in firsts for space flight.The crew includes NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada. Mann will make history as the first indigenous woman from NASA to launch into space. She also will be the first female commander of the Dragon crew capsule. Roscosmos’ Anna Kikina will be the first Russian cosmonaut on the... Continue reading…

Image by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge Every Wednesday and Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors make sense of the week’s most important technology news. On Wednesdays, editor-at-large David Pierce leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives — and which ones you should bring into your home.Today’s episode is a true variety show: from a chat with Dave Limp, SVP of devices and services at Amazon, to an investigation into why printers make you feel bad and a field test of the latest wireless earbuds.David kicks off the show with managing editor Alex Cranz to chat about the new Kindle Scribe, an E Ink tablet with a stylus that you can write with. This is a first... Continue reading…

Image: WB Montreal The streets have not had a proper Batman: Arkham game since 2015, and Gotham Knights aims to remedy that. I got to try my hand at being a caped crusader in an extensive, hands-on preview event, and if you were aching for another Batman game, clear your schedule because this one seems like a doozy.In Gotham Knights, instead of playing as the taciturn Batman, you’re given the choice to fight crime as one of his four protégés: Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood, or Robin. Each of them comes with their own unique abilities, fighting style, and gadgets, offering a refreshing bit of variety to gameplay or the ability to find what suits you and stick with it. I tried them all, and each character felt suitably different. WB Montreal... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Peacock now has a total of 15 million paid subscribers, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said during an interview with CNBC (via Variety). This means the service added 2 million paid subscribers in the third quarter of 2022 alone, as Peacock’s paid subscriber count stayed flat at 13 million during the first half of the year.Shell says the growth was “driven by content,” citing the end of NBC’s content-sharing deal with Hulu in September, which brought next-day streaming of shows like Saturday Night Live, Law & Order, and One Chicago exclusively to Peacock. Shell also highlights the prevalence of sports on the platform, stating the platform “has the best sports offering of any streaming service” with programs like Sunday Night Football,... Continue reading…

Corsair has just released its thinnest gaming keyboard yet: the K100 Air Wireless mechanical gaming keyboard. First announced a month ago without any pricing information in sight, the keyboard finally went on sale this week with a $279.99 price tag, making it the single most expensive keyboard currently listed as part of Corsair’s range. At its thinnest point, it’s just 11mm thick, rising to 17mm at its thickest.That premium price could have something to do with the keyboard’s mechanical switches, which are Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile tactile switches. Forget the merely low-profile switches that Cherry debuted in 2018 that were 11.9mm thick (compared to 18.5mm for a standard MX switch); these ultra low-profile switches are just 3.5mm... Continue reading…

Stadia fans are refusing to let its controller die with the streaming service. | Image: Google Following the recent news that Google is shutting down Stadia in January, fans of the service are finding ways to save its controller from an e-waste fate by connecting it wirelessly to other systems. While the Stadia controller can already be used with PC, Mac, and smartphones via a wired connection, a wireless connection via Bluetooth is currently restricted to the soon-to-be-defunct Stadia platform. That hasn’t stopped fans developing workarounds.One method involves using an Android device as a transmitter. Last year, YouTube creator LateStageTech demonstrated how his app, Wiredless Pro, lets users connect wired controllers to an Android device, which then sends the signal wirelessly to a PC. Then, this October, YouTuber Benjaninja... Continue reading…

The changes will initially affect the Model Y (pictured) and the Model 3 | Mark Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images Tesla has announced it’s phasing out its cars’ use of ultrasonic sensors (USS) to sense objects in the world around them. It’s part of the company’s shift towards its camera-only Tesla Vision driver-assist tech, which stands in contrast to the rest of the industry’s reliance on a mix of LIDAR, radar, and cameras. Electrek reports that the ultrasonic sensors in Tesla’s cars are mainly used for short-range detection to help with parking and collision warnings.The sensors will initially disappear this month from new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles sold in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Taiwan, before expanding globally, Tesla’s notice reads. It plans to stop including the sensors in Model S and Model X cars next year.Tesla... Continue reading…

What is that, like 10mm? | Image: Roland Quandt (Twitter) There have been rumors its bezel would be thick, and this leaked image of Google’s new Pixel Watch has given us our clearest look yet. It looks like it takes up almost 10mm of the case’s rumored 41mm diameter. For the most part, Wear OS 3 does a good job at obscuring the black ring, making it seem like part of the display. But this particular menu makes it very obvious. The image is part of a larger leak fueled by Japanese retailer Joshin and shared by WinFuture’s Roland Quandt on Twitter.Following its announcement at I/O in May, specs, images, features, and details of the Pixel Watch’s swappable bands have steadily leaked ahead of the wearable’s full reveal at Thursday’s Pixel event. All that’s left for Google to do now is officially... Continue reading…

The company may have to attend a hearing in December if it doesn’t settle with workers. | Nick Barclay / The Verge The National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint against Apple, alleging that the company “discriminated against employees” at its World Trade Center store, according to Kayla Blado, a spokesperson for the regulator. The NLRB’s investigation was spurred by charges filed in May by the Communications Workers of America, the union working with organizers at Apple retail stores in New York, Atlanta, and Oklahoma. The later store is preparing to hold a vote later this month on whether to become the second US location to unionize.According to Blado, the NLRB’s complaint alleges that Apple wouldn’t let workers put union fliers on a breakroom table, even though it allowed other solicitations and notices there. She also told The Verge... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Elon Musk is back, and now he wants to own Twitter again! Delightful.Today let’s talk about the backdrop against which he made this decision, whether it’s somehow an incredibly elaborate effort to get out of the deal, and what Twitter’s beleaguered employees are saying about it internally.I.Did the news come as a surprise? Sure, I suppose. The billionaire Tesla CEO has for months now remained uncharacteristically on message, holding fast to his assertion that the amount of bots and spam on the platform ought to be reason enough for him to abandon his deal. His legal team seemed buoyed by the late-breaking appearance of a whistleblower willing to assert that present-day Twitter poses a threat to national security, and amended its... Continue reading…

It’s no longer available on Amazon’s website. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon is discontinuing the Amazon Glow, its video calling / interactive gaming device designed to let families interact remotely with each other, as reported by Bloomberg. The device is already unavailable on Amazon’s website.“At Amazon we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas to delight customers,” Amazon spokesperson Tim Gillman said in a statement to The Verge. “We also continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments. We will be sharing updates and guidance with Glow customers soon.” Gillman declined to share further details.The actual Amazon Glow hardware consisted of a teleconferencing device with a built-in tabletop... Continue reading…