The Verge

Its looks are undeniable. | Teenage Engineering You can finally get your hands on Teenage Engineering’s absolutely tiny and absolutely orange Computer-1 PC case again, months after it initially went on sale and sold out. If you were really hoping to buy the $195 build-it-yourself mini-ITX case, you can head over to the company’s website and add it to your cart — though before you do, it’s probably worth refreshing yourself on the Computer-1’s... particularities.When Teenage Engineering announced this case, we had some concerns. It has barely any room for a modern graphics card (even this tiny RTX 3060 is bigger than Teenage Engineering recommends), the airflow situation seemed a little suspicious, and the “think twice, bend once” warning in assembly guide made the building process... Continue reading…

Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images Lionel Messi has signed a $20 million deal with Socios to become the fan token site’s global brand ambassador, according to a report from Reuters. Messi, who plays for the Paris-Saint Germain soccer club and captains Argentina’s national team, will promote the exchange for the next three years.A source close to the situation told Reuters that the transaction will not involve cryptocurrency. When Messi transferred from Barcelona to the Paris-Saint Germain club last August, ESPN says he received a “large number” of fan tokens from Socios as a part of his signing-on fee.

The FTC says TurboTax ads claiming its tax prep software is free are misleading | Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Tuesday that Intuit’s “ubiquitous” advertising claiming its TurboTax tax prep software is free to use is misleading, and has asked a federal court to order Intuit to stop “disseminating the deceptive claim that consumers can file their taxes for free using TurboTax.”According to the commission, the ads “some of which have consisted almost entirely of the word ‘free’ spoken repeatedly” mislead people into believing they can file their taxes for free with TurboTax. “In fact, most tax filers can’t use the company’s ‘free’ service because it is not available to millions of taxpayers, such as those who get a 1099 form for work in the gig economy, or those who earn farm income.,” the agency said in a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple Stores and authorized service providers will no longer repair iPhones that have been reported as missing through the GSMA device registry, according to an internal memo obtained by MacRumors. The company now requires repair technicians to deny users a repair if they’re notified of its missing status in the MobileGenius or GSX systems they use to service customers.The GSMA device registry is a database of device serial numbers with information about each device’s status. For example, if someone reports their phone as stolen to law enforcement, the authorities may flag the device through GSMA, which can help repair providers identify a device as missing if it ever comes into their shop.Apple’s new policy builds on its existing... Continue reading…

There are a few gotchas though. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is adding Markdown support to Google Docs on the web, letting you format your document using text shortcuts rather than keyboard ones. In a blog post announcing the feature, Google says it’s doing this through its autocorrect feature, so it will automatically format the text for you after you type it in Markdown format. For example, if you type “# Google Docs is getting more Markdown support” it’ll automatically get converted to a level one heading.Google says that Docs already supported a few Markdown autocorrections for bulleted and numbered lists, and checkboxes. It’s adding much wider support, though — you can now use Markdown to add headings, bold and italicize text (or do both), strikethrough (though it’s done using a - on... Continue reading…

Closeup of the center speaker orb. | Image: Devialet Devialet today announced the Dione, a $2,400 Dolby Atmos 5.1.2 soundbar with built-in subwoofers and a central “ORB” speaker that can rotate depending on the soundbar’s installed position (via Gizmodo). The French audio company calls it the “ultimate all-in-one soundbar” since it completely forgoes satellite speakers in favor of a virtual surround solution and has built-in subwoofers.Crammed into the three-inch-thick profile of the Dione are 17 drivers: eight of them serving as the subwoofers, another eight for full-range audio, and a center driver inside the rotatable orb. The Dione also houses a gyroscope that will automatically correct the sound orientation whether you mount the soundbar or lay it flat — no need to make that... Continue reading…

Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Apple TV Plus has announced an April 8th start date for Friday Night Baseball alongside a streaming schedule for the first half of the season. The revised 2022 season schedule was announced by Major League Baseball (MLB) earlier in March after players and team owners negotiated an end to a lockout, setting a date for the regular season to begin on April 7th.Streaming will be available for anyone with Apple TV Plus in the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. In the US and Canada, that also includes access to a 24/7 livestream with replays, highlights, and other programming. Even if you don’t pay for Apple TV Plus, it will also be available without a subscription on all hardware... Continue reading…

Verizon’s network has gotten a noticeable speed bump. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon and AT&T’s recent 5G rollout could put them in a better position to compete with T-Mobile, which has had similar tech rolled out for years, according to data from Opensignal. The company’s analysis showed that when Verizon turned on its C-band equipment in January, its average 5G speeds jumped — and where carriers have their new tech rolled out, they’re all achieving similar speeds.When looking at the average 5G download speeds for each carrier, there’s a clear bump in Verizon’s numbers after the carrier took its C-band equipment online in January. The increased speeds that were available to customers in the rollout area brought its average up by around 15 megabits per second, according to Opensignal. Despite also rolling out... Continue reading…

British sports car maker Lotus is jumping on the electric bandwagon with the reveal of the Eletre, a plug-in crossover SUV with design language inspired by the automaker’s Evija hypercar. The Eletre will also be the first of three new EVs that Lotus plans to roll out over the next four years, including a sports car (natch), a coupe-sedan, and another SUV.Previously called Type 132, the Eletre is the Geely-owned automaker’s second electric vehicle and will feature futuristic components like camera-only side-view mirrors and a lidar sensor affixed to the front and rear of the roof.As is befitting its sports car legacy, Lotus is emphasizing the performance capabilities of its new electric SUV. The Eletre will be able to sprint from... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Social media use is more strongly linked to bad mental health for adolescents and teenagers during years around puberty and when they’re probably about to leave home, according to a new study. Teenagers who used social media more frequently in those periods scored lower on measures of life satisfaction one year later.Many researchers say things like Instagram and TikTok probably aren’t entirely bad for all adolescents. They’re not entirely good, either, and can cause documented problems with body image, but the impact varies: for some kids at some points in time, it might help them socialize and build relationships; for others at other times, it might be a hit to their self-esteem.The challenge has been figuring out which teens are... Continue reading…

The new shortcuts give you new tools for your chats. | Image: Meta Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is introducing Slack-like shortcuts to Messenger that let you do things like send a message silently or quickly call up a GIF while you’re chatting with your friends.Two of the shortcuts are available today, March 29th, according to Meta: @everyone and /silent. @everyone will let you notify everyone in a chat, which could be useful if you want to make sure to get everyone’s attention. (On behalf of your friends’ notifications, I beg you to please use this one responsibly.) However, if you want to send a message without pinging the whole group, you’ll be able to use the /silent shortcut, Meta says.In “the coming weeks,” there will be a few more shortcuts. /pay will let you send or request money... Continue reading…

The Series 7 was the first Apple Watch to get fast charging. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge While the Apple Watch Series 7 didn’t come with longer battery life, it did offer faster charging — at least, it did until last week. Some users are now complaining the feature no longer works after updating to watchOS 8.5, according to a 9to5Mac report.Fast charging is exclusive to the Series 7. With it, Apple says the Watch’s battery can go from 0 to 80 percent in roughly 45 minutes. However, Series 7 owners on Reddit, Apple’s support forums, and MacRumors’ forum are saying their Watches are now charging at a snail’s pace. A couple of Reddit users claimed that the Watch would only charge roughly 5 percent in 15–20 minutes. Meanwhile, a user on Apple’s forum claimed the Watch only charged 5 percent in an hour. For context, Apple says... Continue reading…

Sky Mavis Roughly $625 million worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen from Ronin, the blockchain underlying popular crypto game Axie Infinity. Ronin and Axie Infinity operator Sky Mavis revealed the breach on Tuesday and froze transactions on the Ronin bridge, which allows depositing and withdrawing funds from the company’s blockchain.Sky Mavis says it’s working with law enforcement to recover 173,600 Ethereum (currently worth around $600 million) and 25.5 million USDC (a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar) from the culprit, who withdrew it from the network on March 23rd. The attack focused on the bridge to Sky Mavis’ Ronin blockchain, an intermediary between Axie Infinity and other cryptocurrency blockchains like Ethereum. Users could... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge We kept using Valve’s handheld game console — here are answers to your burning questions Continue reading…

Elon Musk | Photo by Asa Mathat The latest court filing in Elon Musk’s battle to wrest back control of his Twitter account from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) includes a citation of the 2002 song Without Me by rapper Eminem. Yes, really (see the filing embedded below).In the song, the rapper complains that “The FCC won’t let me be or let me be me so let me see/ They tried to shut me down.” That’s a reference to a 2002 penalty the Federal Communications Commission handed out to a Colorado radio station for playing Eminem’s 2000 song The Real Slim Shady (after clutching its collective pearls for a bit, the FCC ultimately decided not to fine the radio station).In the Tuesday court filing, Musk’s lawyers just substituted “SEC” for “FCC” to make the... Continue reading…

This photo taken on April 1, 2021 shows a worker adjusting cryptocurrency mining rigs at a cryptocurrency farm in Dujiangyan in China’s southwestern Sichuan province. | Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images Greenpeace and other environmental groups launched a new campaign today to push the Bitcoin network to slash its growing greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of the campaign, dubbed “Change the code, not the climate,” is to switch up the energy-hungry process of verifying transactions and mining new Bitcoins.The cryptocurrency uses more electricity annually than global gold mining operations or the entire country of Norway, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. Burning through so much energy generates some serious greenhouse gas emissions, but campaign organizers argue that it doesn’t have to be that way. Other cryptocurrencies use just a fraction of the energy Bitcoin requires because they use a different system to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge A comprehensive look at the pricing and offerings of the console subscription services Continue reading…

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Yesterday, I wrote about receiving a spam text that bizarrely looked as though it came from my own phone number. But what initially seemed like a random, spoofed spam message is increasingly starting to look like a focused effort targeting Verizon Wireless, one of the largest telecoms in the United States. Today, the carrier confirmed it’s aware of the situation and is investigating the matter with the help of US law enforcement.“Verizon is aware that bad actors are sending spam text messages to some customers which appear to come from the customers’ own number,” Verizon spokesperson Rich Young told The Verge by email. “Our team is actively working to block these messages, and we have engaged with US law enforcement to identify and stop... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you want to verify your Google login and make it harder to access by anyone but yourself (always a good idea), one way is to use your iPhone or Android smartphone as a physical security key. While you can set up a third-party 2FA app such as Authy or even use Google’s own Authenticator, these require that you enter both your password and a code generated by the app. Google’s built-in security allows you to access your account by just hitting “Yes” or pressing your volume button after a pop-up appears on your phone. You can also use your phone as a secondary security key.Use your phone to sign inTo set this up, your computer should be running a current version of Windows 10, iOS, macOS, or Chrome OS. Before you start, make sure that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Food and Drug Administration authorized a second booster dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for people over 50 or who are immunocompromised, the agency announced Tuesday.The decision comes as the United States heads into yet another wave of infections, this time driven by an even more transmissible version of the omicron variant of the virus. The FDA said in a statement that an additional dose could bolster any waning protection from the vaccines in these groups.Once again, the FDA is leaning on data from other countries as the foundation for its decision-making around COVID-19 vaccines — in this case, data from Israel, which found a lower rate of serious illness and death in older adults who had two... Continue reading…

A screenshot of CNN Plus’ interface. | Image: CNN Plus CNN’s premium streaming service launches today. The service, CNN Plus, will debut with about a dozen weekly shows, more than a thousand hours of on-demand content, and a Reddit-like interactive tool for asking reporters and guests questions about the day’s biggest news. It’s a major bet on viewers being willing to pay not just for news but for more news — and that the CNN brand can beat out other often freely available options.CNN Plus isn’t just a digital library for coverage from its cable sibling. Available on Amazon Fire TV, Android phones and tablets, and Apple devices, the app will launch with new shows from Audie Cornish, Anderson Cooper, and Jake Tapper, among others. At its core, it’s a product for people who — god help them —... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Are NFTs the future of the music business? Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge For those who have yet to nab Sony’s PlayStation 5 console, Best Buy just published its listing for its TotalTech subscribers. Right now, you can get a chance to buy the disc-based PS5 for $499.99.To make sure you get the best chance possible, log in double-check your billing and shipping details are current while you queue up. You’ll need to click the “Add to Cart” button on the right to jump into the queue, however, there’s no need to refresh the page as it uses an automated system. You may, however, have to verify your account while in line, so be prepared for that. Try not to open multiple tabs, either, as Best Buy’s recently-updated queue system doesn’t always work well when you do so. It’s also a good idea to keep your phone... Continue reading…

iMessage running on an iPhone. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge At the moment, getting access to iMessage’s features on non-Apple devices is a complete pain. In fact, getting access to any messaging platform’s features outside of its native apps can range from difficult to almost impossible. Whether it’s Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Signal, in every case, the services’ developers want you to stick to their own software to message on their platforms.But new rules announced by the European Union last week could pave the way for the barriers around these walled platforms to be dismantled. The new Digital Markets Act (DMA) includes a clause that says large messaging services could be compelled by other companies to offer interoperability with their platforms. It wouldn’t force Apple to make iMessage... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube TV is testing support for Dolby 5.1 surround sound on Google TV, Android TV, and Roku devices. In a tweet, the platform said 5.1 audio will “launch on those devices next” if “everything runs smoothly” during the test.If you were hoping to get surround sound while watching YouTube TV on your Apple TV, Fire TV, Xbox, or PlayStation, however, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The platform says it’s still working “internally and with partners” to get 5.1 support on these platforms.

Image: Sennheiser Sennheiser is introducing a new operating system that runs on the company’s premium Ambeo soundbar. Known as Ambeo OS, the big firmware update also adds support for new ways of playing audio on the Ambeo. Sennheiser says it now offers AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect in addition to the Chromecast feature that the Ambeo originally shipped with.The company says Ambeo OS also provides a more responsive user experience, as it now uses Wi-Fi to connect with Sennheiser’s Smart Control mobile app instead of Bluetooth. The Smart Control app itself has been given a makeover on both Android and iOS, with new Sound Check and Sound Zones features. Image: Sennheiser The Smart Control app for Android and iOS is... Continue reading…

The still-unnamed sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been delayed to spring 2023, producer Eiji Aonuma announced today in a video update. The game had previously been set for a 2022 release window.“We have decided to extend our development a bit and change the release to Spring 2023,” Aonuma said. “In order to make this game’s experience something special, the entire development team is working diligently on this game, so please wait a while longer.”Nintendo first revealed that it was working on a sequel to Breath of the Wild in 2019, followed by a brief look at the upcoming title’s new gameplay at E3 2021 last year. According to Aonuma will see gameplay extend up into the skies of the vast, open-world iteration of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart on how the Digital Markets Act could upend encryption, privacy, and product design Continue reading…

As part of its latest season, Fortnite removed building, one of the game’s most iconic features. And now, developer Epic appears to be making the change a more permanent part of the experience with the introduction of Zero Build mode. As the name implies, the mode is a combat-focused option where players can’t gather resources to build defensive structures; Fortnite recently introduced a new shield and more mobility options to make up for it, making for a faster-paced experience.Zero Build is available to play across solo, duos, trios, and squad modes, and it joins an ever-growing list of ways to play Fortnite, including Creative, Impostors, and the violence-free Party Royale. However, at the time of this writing, the standard battle... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Good morning, dear readers! The temperature went from 55 to 25 overnight, and my sinuses are in so much pain that I’ve been hanging upside down in the dark for relief. Like a bat.Why podcasts pop up to cover UkraineNew this morning, I reported a piece for The Verge about why so much coverage of Ukraine has taken the form of pop-up podcasts. The labor required to report out and produce a show isn’t easily condensed to match the breakneck speed of the news cycle, yet NPR, The Telegraph, independent teams, and more have rallied resources toward the medium.A lot of these teams have reason to believe that this commitment is worth it — and many of them have a lot of the same reasons for thinking so. Many, after all, have quickly started... Continue reading…

You can buy a pair of Amazon’s second-gen Echo Buds with a wired charging case for just $49.99 at Amazon. | Image: Chris Welch In the market for a quality pair of noise-canceling earbuds that don’t cost a fortune? If so, you’ll definitely want to check out today’s deal on Amazon’s second-generation Echo Buds. Right now, Amazon is taking a whopping 59 percent off, selling its popular wireless earbuds with a wired charging case for just $49.99 instead of $119.99. The ones that include a wireless charging case cost $139.99. (If you really want the wireless charging case, buying it separately costs $69.99.)That’s a new all-time low on a pair of Bluetooth earbuds that offer very good sound quality for the price, along with an excellent passthrough mode that allows you to hear your surroundings. Their noise cancellation tech may not be as good as the more expensive... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is finally making it easier to change your default browser in Windows 11. A new update (KB5011563) has started rolling out this week that allows Windows 11 users to change a default browser with a single click. After testing the changes in December, this new one-click method is rolling out to all Windows 11 users.Originally, Windows 11 shipped without a simple button to switch default browsers that was always available in Windows 10. Instead, Microsoft forced Windows 11 users to change individual file extensions or protocol handlers for HTTP, HTTPS, .HTML, and .HTM, or you had to tick a checkbox that only appeared when you clicked a link from outside a browser. Microsoft defended its decision to make switching defaults harder,... Continue reading…

Oscar Isaac stars as the man of many masks Continue reading…

Nvidia’s Founders Edition RTX 3090 Ti. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia is launching its $1,999 GeForce RTX 3090 Ti today. After a mysterious delay following a January announcement, the “fastest GPU on the planet” will be available from Asus, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galax, Gigabyte, INNO3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac in stores today. Nvidia has also created a limited edition Founders Edition board that will be available from Best Buy online.The RTX 3090 Ti is the familiar-looking triple-slot design we’ve seen on the RTX 3090, and both cards look identical at first glance. Nvidia is really maximizing what its existing 8nm GA102 chip is capable of inside the RTX 3090 Ti, coupling it with 24GB of GDDR6X running at 21GB/s. That’s the same amount of VRAM as the RTX 3090 but with a nearly 7.7 percent... Continue reading…

The Keychron Q3 in grey. | Image: Keychron If you liked the look of Keychron’s excellent Q1 and Q2 mechanical keyboards but aren’t a fan of their compact layouts, then the Q3 might be for you. It has a larger and more traditional tenkeyless (TKL) design, which means it should feel more familiar to most people.Despite its larger layout, the Q3 uses a similar aluminum construction and gasket mount design to the Q1 and Q2, which made for a great typing feel on both keyboards. The Keychron Q3’s layout is configurable thanks to its support for QMK firmware, which means you can swap the positions of its keys on a hardware level, or program various macros. Image: Keychron In blue. Image: Keychron Yes, the keyboard is available with... Continue reading…

Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dominated headlines for the last month, with updates being prioritized across newspapers, TV outlets, and social media. But coverage has also popped up in a space that’s less known for handling breaking news: podcasts. Ukraine-focused podcasts or seasons have launched from places like NPR, the BBC, and CNN, with at least 11 designated series popping up in total. Most incorporate firsthand reporting, many publish daily, and some even update multiple times per day.A podcast isn’t usually the preferred format for such a quickly moving story since audio shows can be difficult to turn around — or build an audience for — on short notice. But the creators of these series tell The Verge that the process is worth... Continue reading…

Dials and buttons, oh my! Continue reading…

Sony is announcing new versions of its PlayStation Plus subscriptions today, its long-rumored answer to Xbox Game Pass. PlayStation Plus is now a combination of Sony’s two current subscription services, PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now. Two new PlayStation Plus subscription options will include access to multiplayer gaming alongside a catalog of select PlayStation games to install or stream.These new tiers will start to becoming available in June in Asia, followed by North America, Europe, and the rest of the world. As part of the launch, PlayStation Now will no longer be available as a standalone service.PlayStation Plus Essential is priced at $9.99 monthly and will include the same PlayStation Plus benefits that exist today with... Continue reading…

An artistic rendering of the Intuitive Machines lander on the Moon Later this year, American artist Jeff Koons will be displaying some of his latest sculptures in their most exotic location yet: the surface of the Moon. Thanks to a new collaboration, Koons will create some new sculptures that will travel to the lunar surface on a robotic lunar lander made by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines.Intuitive Machines’ lander is called Nova-C, which the company has been developing in partnership with NASA. For the last few years, NASA has been actively working toward sending humans back to the Moon through its Artemis program. And as part of that effort, NASA has been working with commercial companies to develop a whole fleet of vehicles — from smaller robotic landers and rovers to landers capable of... Continue reading…

Otter.ai made its name as a slick, AI-powered transcription service. But as this type of automated transcription becomes more commonplace, the company is expanding its remit — adding a host of features, including AI-generated meeting summaries, with the aim of turning users’ Otter accounts into collaborative hubs for work.The goal is to make Otter bigger than transcriptions and cater to the company’s growing number of enterprise customers. “A year ago, most of [our customers] were individuals, but more and more professionals are using it,” Otter.ai CEO Sam Liang told The Verge in an interview. “The new Otter makes it a one-stop for all your meeting contents and collaboration needs.”When accessing accounts on the web, Otter users will... Continue reading…

Yandex, a multi-billion dollar tech company based in Russia, had been operating autonomous vehicles in Michigan before the invasion of Ukraine. | Yandex Yandex, the multi-billion dollar Russian tech company that’s been operating a small fleet of autonomous vehicles in Ann Arbor, Michigan, laid off over two dozen US-based workers earlier this month, claiming that its vehicle licenses were suspended by Michigan’s state regulators, The Verge has learned. But Michigan says this just isn’t true.In the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Yandex paused its AV testing in Ann Arbor, as well as its tests with six-wheeled delivery robots at several college campuses in Ohio and Arizona. But the pause was only supposed to be temporary — the company said it hoped to resume those operations at a later date.Yandex claims it was informed on March 9th that its vehicle licenses were suspended... Continue reading…

Microsoft has started testing ray tracing support for Minecraft on Xbox Series X / S consoles. A new Minecraft Preview build is available to Xbox Insiders, and it includes limited ray tracing support. The latest test build is also marked as optimized for Xbox Series X / S, suggesting that a next-gen patch is coming soon.I’ve been testing out the latest Minecraft Preview, and have been able to successfully enable some ray tracing support. It’s not a simple switch, though. Minecraft’s ray tracing is enabled through additional resource packs, and there’s no easy way of downloading and installing these in the Xbox version of the game right now. There’s a workaround, though. You can host a Minecraft session on a Windows PC with the packs... Continue reading…

The NTH-100 offers a great option for audio mixing Continue reading…

MIT will once again require standardized test scores for admission | Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said Monday it’s reinstating requirements that students provide scores from the SAT or ACT standardized tests for future admissions. At the start of the pandemic, many schools waived standardized test requirements for incoming students or, like MIT, made reporting them optional.The temporary change was meant to relieve some of the unprecedented stresses and obstacles students graduating from US high schools in 2020, 2021, and 2022 were facing. In 2020, the College Board, which administers the SAT, said millions of students had been unable to take the test as scheduled in the spring of 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. It asked colleges and universities to be flexible in their admissions... Continue reading…

Graphics by Michele Doying / The Verge 2A US lawmaker has proposed a large-scale trial of government-backed digital cash. The Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware (ECASH) Act, introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), would direct the Secretary of the Treasury to publicly test an “electronic version” of the US dollar. While the bill’s odds of passing likely remain low, it demonstrates governments’ increasing interest in launching alternatives to cryptocurrency.The ECASH Act would require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a program called the Electronic Currency Innovation Program (ECIP). ECIP would oversee a series of pilot programs for what the bill dubs “e-cash”: Treasury Department-issued legal tender that can be used without private intermediaries like banks... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok appears to be testing a new Watch History feature that should save you from the mental anguish of trying to locate that video you could’ve sworn you saved, as reported by TechCrunch. It looks like TikTok may finally give us a straightforward way to browse through a running list of the videos we’ve seen on the app.

That could mean hundreds of dollars in savings — if everything goes smoothly. | Image: Asus Asus says it’ll be lowering the price of its RTX 30-series cards (it lists the 3050, 3060, 3070, 3080, and 3090) by up to 25 percent. To list some examples based on Best Buy’s pricing, a 25 percent price reduction would take a Tuf 3060 12GB from $550 to $412.50, a Strix 3070 8GB from $825 to $618.75, and a Tuf 3080 12GB from a whopping $1,500 to $1,125 (though do note that Asus is saying the reductions will be up to 25 percent, and it hasn’t released details for any specific cards).The company says that consumers will see the lower prices “starting on April 1st, 2022” and coming to “different models throughout the springtime.”The explanation is likely tariffs, not tricksYes, I also narrowed my eyes and furrowed my brow when I heard... Continue reading…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting an unexpected community: cross-stitchers who buy patterns on Etsy. Slate published a piece describing how American cross-stitchers have been “devastated” by Etsy’s recent suspension of Russian storefronts, including cross-stitch patterns shops that are — to the surprise of some crafters — heavily concentrated in Russia.Cross-stitch is a type of hand embroidery where crafters stitch designs on to fabric with X’s, often using a pattern as a reference. Designs range from fairly simple or incredibly intricate, and they start as low as $3 but can go for “much more” for complex pieces. Etsy is a popular place for cross-stitchers to find digital patterns, and a few weeks ago, cross-stitchers on Reddit b... Continue reading…

Image: ApeCoin DAO Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT holders can buy new merchandise items from Yuga Labs — but they can only use the newly-launched ApeCoin to do it, according to an announcement in the BAYC Discord server. Yuga Labs, which has a large stake in the organization backing ApeCoin, will get more ApeCoin (and more control over the organization) as NFT holders pay for their merch.That is, assuming they can. Continuing cryptocurrency’s trend of “money but worse,” users complained they were having trouble checking out.