The Verge

Kingston Fossil Plant, a coal-fired power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority | Photo by Paul Harris / Getty Images A damning new report gives American electric utilities failing grades on addressing climate change. Instead of transitioning quickly to clean energy, according to the report, many utilities in the US are propping up aging coal plants and expanding polluting gas infrastructure.“These companies’ supposed climate commitments are mostly greenwashing,” says the report published yesterday by environmental group Sierra Club and University of California, Santa Barbara associate professor Leah Stokes. In other words, utilities are paying lip service to climate change without doing enough to actually tackle the crisis.“These companies’ supposed climate commitments are mostly greenwashing”The assessment of US utilities includes 77 operating... Continue reading…

Samsung reminds us all that it still makes chips in recent announcement. | Image: Samsung Samsung has announced a five-year plan to expand its production capacity for advanced chips by 2027. The timeline could help the company regain ground from semiconductor giant TSMC.In its Tuesday press release, following an announcement at the annual Samsung Foundry Forum event, Samsung committed to expanding its production capacity for advanced nodes “by more than three times” by the year 2027. The company also plans to introduce a two-nanometer process in 2025 and a 1.4nm process by 2027.The company says it’s responding to “significant market growth in high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), 5/6G connectivity and automotive applications,” which has made “innovation in semiconductor process technology critical... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Delaware Court of Chancery says Twitter can proceed with a limited probe to figure out whether whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko contacted billionaire Elon Musk’s lawyers before he backed out of the deal. The decision was released shortly before Musk reportedly asked to close the deal on its original terms.Musk and Twitter contested how much information Twitter could seek about Zatko, who has alleged that Twitter concealed important information about its bot problem before Musk proposed acquiring it. Zatko revealed his claims publicly in August, and he’s denied contacting Musk or any of his representatives before that. But in court, Musk and Twitter have been fighting over an “unusual” email sent to Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro from... Continue reading…

Cue has a COVID-19 test and wants to add on a flu test. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge The past two years have seen relatively quiet flu seasons — a welcome development as hospitals and the public health system focused on managing waves of COVID-19. But experts are expecting flu to make a comeback this winter, and people will need to differentiate between the two illnesses with very similar symptoms.At-home testing companies are asking the Food and Drug Administration to authorize combination tests that can scan for both COVID-19 and influenza in a single sample. Lucira Health asked the agency to sign off on its dual test in May, and Cue Health just submitted its request Tuesday. The FDA authorized a combination test made by Labcorp in May, but that test requires people to swab their nose and mail it to a lab.Having a... Continue reading…

The Apple Watch Ultra introduces a siren for emergencies. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple includes excellent safety features on all its Apple Watch models, but there’s one that's exclusive to the new Apple Watch Ultra: the siren.The siren is designed to draw attention to yourself if you’re ever injured or lost when exploring. To do that, Apple included a second speaker on the Ultra that can emit an 86db sound with a range of up to 600 feet. When activated, the siren switches between two sound patterns that sound similar to distress and well-known SOS signals. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge You’ll be able to see how much battery percentage you have left when you activate the siren. Once you’ve turned the siren on, your watch screen will show a red border and a call button so you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The smart home standard is open for certification at last. We could see Matter devices in our homes as soon as this month. Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Of all the Health app features introduced in iOS 16, the new Medications feature may be the most practical. According to the CDC, 48.6 percent of Americans take at least one prescription medication a day. Unfortunately, an NIH study found that 30 to 50 percent of patients don’t adhere to long-term medications — in other words, they don’t keep to their medication schedules. This is a problem that costs the healthcare system hundreds of millions of dollars per year. In iOS 16, however, you can log and schedule which medications you take and set up reminders on your iPhone or Apple Watch. You can also share your medication list with loved ones or healthcare providers.30 to 50 percent of patients don’t keep to their medication schedulesT... Continue reading…

Image: Google We’re getting even closer to the launch of the Pixel 7 phone and Pixel Watch, with Google’s fall launch event set to take place on Thursday, October 6th, at 10AM ET.While we have an idea of what to expect, Google may still have a few surprises in store. Here’s everything we’re looking forward to at the upcoming Google Pixel event.The Google Pixel 7 and 7 Pro to arrive with incremental upgradesThere wouldn’t be a Pixel launch event without a new generation of Pixel smartphones. We’re going to see what Google has in store for the Google Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, which Google offered a brief glimpse of during I/O back in May.At the event, Google showed off renders of the devices, which each come with an aluminum camera bar and the upgraded... Continue reading…

EA Motive The developers at EA revealed a new Dead Space remake gameplay trailer just in time to mark the arrival of spooky season. In the trailer, engineer Isaac Clarke arms himself with all sorts of industrial tools to make bloody work of the vicious Necromorphs that have overrun the USG Ishimura.EA is remaking the 2008 survival horror game, splattering it with a fresh coat of dark and grimy paint. Rebuilt in the Frostbite engine, the dark corners of the haunted spaceship seem even darker, and the enhanced wet squelching noises that come when Isaac curbstomps a Necromorph will undoubtedly send the misophonia sufferers running for the hills. (It’s me, I’m misophonia sufferers.) In a press release, EA shared that this new Dead Space also features... Continue reading…

Image: Cook and Becker A new series of high-quality prints from Cook and Becker will ensure your living room isn’t maidenless Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney has announced that a new Disney Plus app is now available globally for Sony’s PlayStation 5. Unlike the previous version, which was just a PS4 app running on the newer console, the new software is designed natively for PS5. The key difference for viewers is that Disney Plus now supports 4K HDR playback; the previous app had been limited to 1080p for all this time.That means you can now watch the service’s catalog and recent originals like Andor, Hocus Pocus 2, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in all their Ultra HD glory. You can download the new PS5 Disney Plus app from the media section of the homescreen. Those in Latin America can download a Star Plus app — also now based on native PS5 code.“A key part of our global expansion... Continue reading…

This is a tech demo for a remarkable display panel Continue reading…

Micron plans to start constructing its new hub in 2024. | Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Semiconductor company Micron is pledging $100 billion to build a chip factory near Syracuse, New York, the company announced in a press release on Tuesday. Micron says it's the “largest semiconductor fabrication facility in the history of the United States.”The move comes as Micron looks to take advantage of the funding from the Biden administration’s $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which was passed in August. As part of the legislation, President Joe Biden is allocating $52 billion in funds to encourage chip companies to build fabrication sites in the US and recently signed an executive order to get the money to companies faster.

Google has redesigned its smart home app. | Image: Google Home The redesigned Google Home app fixes the camera view, adds favorites, and lets you use sensors for automations. But there’s still limited support for older Nest cams. Continue reading…

The Xiaomi 12T Pro in blue. | Image: Xiaomi Xiaomi has officially announced its flagship smartphone lineup for the second half of the year — the Xiaomi 12T and 12T Pro. The latter is notable for being the first Xiaomi phone to make use of Samsung’s 200-megapixel HP1 camera sensor, while the non-Pro version “only” has a 108-megapixel camera.In mainland Europe, both phones will be available on October 13th, with the 12T starting at €599 and the 12T Pro starting at €749. Meanwhile, in the UK, both phones will be available on October 20th. The 12T will start at £499, while the 12T Pro will start at £699. Xiaomi is offering early bird pricing on both handsets between October 20th and the 24th, which reduces the starting price of the 12T to £399 and the 12T Pro to £599. Both are... Continue reading…

One of the most exciting aspects of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is its ability to image and gather information about exoplanets. But while JWST will give us tons of information about these celestial bodies, there’s something that it can’t do: take a high-resolution image of an earth-like exoplanet — specifically, an image where we can clearly see evidence of possible life on another world, such as land masses, clouds, and bodies of water.Slava Turyshev of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on a solution that would give us a clearer picture of an exoplanet. This method would use a phenomenon called gravitational lensing to capture that kind of an image. Gravitational lensing occurs when the gravity of a massive... Continue reading…

The unlocked version of the M6 is visually similar to the AT&T model. | Image: Netgear Netgear is releasing an unlocked version of its Nighthawk M6 mobile hotspot router designed for use at home or on the go. Like the AT&T version of the M6, this new one supports C-band 5G — but now, it also supports faster 2.5Gbps internet service on supported network plans. It also features a new In-Home Performance Mode that allows it to better serve as a primary home router when needed.The new M6 (MR6150) model can cover 2,000 square feet with Wi-Fi, according to Netgear. That Wi-Fi range boost doesn't work in portable mode, though; it only works if you plug it into power and remove its 5,040mAh battery. It’s still good to have that versatility and perhaps increase the useable life of the battery, though it would shut off in the event... Continue reading…

YouTube is placing its 4K videos behind a YouTube Premium subscription as part of an experiment. | Image: u/Ihatesmokealarms YouTube is running a test that places its 4K videos behind a YouTube Premium subscription. In recent weeks, some users have reported seeing playback of 2160p resolution video restricted with text labeling it as a premium feature. YouTube has since confirmed via Twitter that those seeing the new restrictions were part of an experiment to better understand the feature preferences of Premium and non-Premium viewers.It isn’t clear if YouTube will actually restrict all non-Premium users to 1440p video quality, and the company is direct users to leave feedback on the restrictions in order for the Google subsidy to “make improvements.” Google did not provide further clarification when contacted by The Verge for comment.

This still is not from last night’s episode, which is one reason you can see what is happening. | Image: HBO Things got dark on House of the Dragon last night as characters stole dragons and other characters made super incestuous life choices. And all of it was done under the cover of darkness, leading many viewers wondering if their TVs were busted.But your TV is not busted. Your TV is a victim of the episode’s director, Miguel Sapochnik. The man can presumably see in the dark because this is the second time he’s directed an episode in the Game of Thrones franchise cast in such darkness people questioned their own eyes.Back in 2019, Sapochnik directed “The Long Night,” a harrowing hour of TV where the many characters of Game of Thrones gathered to finally end the Night King’s invasion of Westeros. Zombies were decapitated. Beloved... Continue reading…

The original Horizon Zero Dawn released on the PS4 just five years ago. | Image: Sony Next up on the list of remasters that nobody really asked for, Sony Interactive Entertainment might be working on a remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn for the PlayStation 5. An unnamed source within Sony cited by MP1ST and VideoGamesChronicle pointed to a remastered version of the open-world PlayStation 4 title.Details on the remaster are scarce at the moment but reportedly include new character models, lighting, and animations. It’s also likely that it will incorporate new accessibility features, quality of life improvements, and compatibility with the DualSense controller, mirroring some of the improvements we saw with the remastered version of The Last of Us, which came out in early September.Here are some graphical... Continue reading…

Blizzard As the servers for Overwatch prime sunset sometime around 12PM ET today, heroes old and new are now looking forward to when we can officially welcome Overwatch 2. Image: Blizzard Depending on where you are in the world, your Overwatch 2 launch time may vary from the 12PM PT / 3PM ET start time. London and Paris will get their game late on October 4th, while Seoul and Sydney will get access early on October 5th. If you’re an Overwatch prime player or purchased an Overwatch 2 Watchpoint Pack, you have the ability to preload Overwatch 2 on your PC right now. Unfortunately, console players will have to wait until 9AM PT on October 4th for that privilege.Developers, Overwatch League pros, and Overwatch prime diehards... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hulu’s raising its prices on October 10th. First announced in August, the price increase means you’ll have to pay $7.99 / month instead of $6.99 / month (or $79.99 / year) for the ad-supported version of Hulu and $14.99 / month instead of $12.99 / month for the ad-free plan.The prices for Hulu’s bundled plans with ESPN Plus and Disney Plus aren’t changing just yet, but Hulu has a price hike planned for later this year. Once Disney Plus rolls out its ad-supported tier on December 8th, the bundle with ad-free Disney Plus, Hulu with ads, and ESPN Plus will cost $14.99 / month instead of $13.99 / month, while the price for ad-free Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus will stay at $19.99 / month. Disney, Hulu’s parent company, is also rolling... Continue reading…

The Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL have reached the end of their three years of guaranteed software support. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google has released this month’s Pixel security patch, and as Android Police points out, it’s the last one that the Pixel 4 and 4 XL are scheduled to receive. By no coincidence, the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro are set to be announced later this week. (When one device’s software support window closes, another one opens.)While the more recent Pixel 6, 6 Pro, and 6A all come with a promised five years of security updates, the Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL launched in 2019 with three years of guaranteed security updates. This isn’t necessarily the very end of the road for the Pixel 4 since Google tends to issue one final security patch for end-of-life devices a bit after the official support window has closed. More than anything, it’s kind of symbolic:... Continue reading…

Photo by Thierry Chesnot / Getty Images At the Loewe fashion show at Paris Fashion Week this weekend, models stalked around an enormous model of an anthurium plant emerging from beneath bleach-white floors. As a whole, the show was largely what one would expect at one of fashion’s most high-profile events attended by industry people, celebrities, and influencers. But tucked between the diaphanous blouses and textured shoes were a few looks that made viewers do a double take: hoodies, T-shirts, and pants with jagged edges and smudgy shadows, like the clothes had just glitched mid-walk.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Federal Communications Commission is threatening to block calls from voice service providers that have yet to take meaningful action against illegal robocalls.On Monday, the FCC announced that it was beginning the process to remove providers from the agency’s Robocall Mitigation Database for failing to fully implement STIR/SHAKEN anti-robocall protocols into their networks. If the companies fail to meet these requirements over the next two weeks, compliant providers will be forced to block their calls.“Fines alone aren’t enough”“This is a new era. If a provider doesn’t meet its obligations under the law, it now faces expulsion from America’s phone networks. Fines alone aren’t enough,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a... Continue reading…

Get ready to start seeing edited tweets in the wild. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is rolling out the ability to edit tweets to Twitter Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. According to a tweet from the company, it’ll be coming to subscribers in the US “soon.”Last week, we got to see an example of what edited tweets would look like when the company made one of its own. The tweet will appear as normal, but there will be a pencil icon next to the date, along with text that lets readers know the last time the tweet was edited. Clicking on the icon shows you a page with the edited tweet, as well as a history of the edits. The person who tweeted will have up to 30 minutes to make changes and will only be able to make five edits, according to a Twitter support document.

A photo of a NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft with the AVIRIS instrument installed. | Image: NASA NASA and the US Geological Survey plan to deploy aircraft to spot critical minerals buried across the southwest US. They’ll take to the skies to map the minerals, which are crucial to the Biden administration’s plans to build up American clean energy industries.GEMx is the name of the joint research effort, which will launch with $16 million in funding made possible through the bipartisan infrastructure law, which passed last year. Over the next five years, NASA’s ER-2 and Gulfstream V aircraft will fly over parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico to collect data that could point to where critical mineral resources are most abundant.Both aircraft will carry a powerful instrument, NASA’s Airborne Visible / Infrared Imaging... Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro have more powerful noise cancellation and better sound quality than the original pair, but the company has also made significant improvements to the charging case. Aside from the new lanyard loop, the case itself now contains a speaker that can emit sounds when you’re trying to track it down using Apple’s Find My app.By default, the case also plays sound effects when you plug it in for charging. Inevitably, some people won’t be a fan of that feature, but thankfully it’s fairly easy to turn off the extra sounds and use the speaker purely for location tracking purposes.How to disable charging sounds

Sony is likely not pleased. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge While it’s thankfully getting much easier to buy a PlayStation 5, the nearly two-year-old console has had enough time with modders to slowly (very slowly) get picked apart. Now, hackers have demonstrated how a recent IPV6 kernel exploit utilizing a Webkit vulnerability can allow users access to a Debug Settings Menu in the PS5’s dashboard. This menu allows a user to poke and prod around settings usually reserved for developers, including a package installer that can install PKG files for PS4 and PS5 games.While this may sound like the trappings of a bustling homebrew scene and fertile ground for pirates, the use cases are still fairly limited at this time. In addition to the usual risks of getting your PSN account banned, voiding your... Continue reading…

Gaggle monitors students’ work on school-owned accounts for potentially “harmful” keywords. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides crisis support to LGBTQ-plus youth, will cut ties with student-focused monitoring software company Gaggle after the partnership sparked backlash from activists.The organization began listing Gaggle as a “corporate partner” on its website in May, according to a report from The 74, and took what it’s since confirmed to be a $25,000 donation. Gaggle still has The Trevor Project listed as a resource for LGBTQ students in multiple areas of its website.Gaggle makes and markets software products purporting to review students’ online behavior in school-issued accounts and, using machine learning technology, flag “concerning content” for their districts. Items that its products can monitor, per... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s Status feature seemed a bit strange at first. When it first came out that the company was testing a way to attach Status badges to your tweets, Twitter explained it as a way “to provide more context for your followers.”Context is all well and good, but Twitter’s uneditable list of choices didn’t make much sense. Adding a “Traveling” status might have made sense in the original what-you-had-for-lunch conception of Twitter, but no longer. And is there anything more cringe than tweeting your grumpiness with a “Case of the Mondays” badge?Now, it appears Twitter’s statuses are becoming much more... Twitter-y. Jane Manchun Wong, an engineer and a notable internet sleuth, recently found a bunch of new Status options that make a lot... Continue reading…

Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket has successfully reached orbit, achieving its objectives and deploying three satellite payloads on board. | Image: Everyday Astronaut Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket successfully reached orbit following its launch from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday. The launch was announced as a “100% Mission success” while deploying three satellite payloads on board, which according to Firefly, makes it “the first company to launch and reach orbit from US soil in only its second attempt.”Firefly Aerospace is a private spaceflight company that develops launch systems for commercial customers. The first unsuccessful Alpha test flight containing its own payload of teeny satellites exploded midflight back in September 2021. The string of bad luck for Firefly then persisted, with three previous launch attempts for Alpha 2 being aborted in September due to technical... Continue reading…

Jaeden Martell and Donald Sutherland in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone. | Image: Netflix Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is a thriller with an iPhone as the villain and the rare King adaptation that truly captures the entirety of the source material Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In California, DNA collected from sexual assault victims during an investigation can no longer be used for other purposes, including investigating other crimes. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law Friday.The bill was introduced in California after the district attorney’s office discovered that the San Francisco Police Department had used DNA collected from a victim during a sexual assault investigation to tie that victim to a property crime. In a sexual assault case, a victim’s DNA is collected in order to exclude their genes from an investigation, but the district said the police department was adding that information to its general genetic database.The victim whose arrest kicked off the revelations sued the... Continue reading…