The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On March 24th, EU governing bodies announced that they had reached a deal on the most sweeping legislation to target Big Tech in Europe, known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Seen as an ambitious law with far-reaching implications, the most eye-catching measure in the bill would require that every large tech company — defined as having a market capitalization of more than €75 billion or a user base of more than 45 million people in the EU — create products that are interoperable with smaller platforms. For messaging apps, that would mean letting end-to-end encrypted services like WhatsApp mingle with less secure protocols like SMS — which security experts worry will undermine hard-won gains in the field of message encryption.The main... Continue reading…

The iPhone SE might not be meeting Apple’s sales expectations. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge While luxury electronics like the PS5 and graphics cards may still be selling out left and right, the demand may not be as high for easier-to-make budget offerings. According to a report from Nikkei Asia, Apple will be making 20 percent fewer iPhone SEs in the next quarter than it originally planned and 10 million fewer AirPods for all of 2022. Noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo provided specific numbers in his note about the demand for the SE, saying that he expects Apple to ship 15 to 20 million SEs in 2022, as opposed to his previous estimate of 25-30 million (that’s somewhere between a 22 and 66 percent decrease for the year).The reports don’t point to supply chain issues or chip shortages, which have plagued much of the electronics... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple could pay an even larger periodic fine if the Dutch competition regulator doesn’t approve of its latest proposal to address its demands to allow dating apps to use alternate formats of payments. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has fined Apple the maximum of €50 million (~$55 million USD) for failing to satisfy its order, and the fine on Monday marks Apple’s 10th penalty.Apple’s new proposal, submitted on the 27th, is currently under review by the ACM, which says it may force Apple to pay another round of fines “with possible higher penalties.” The Dutch regulator has been levying its fines in weekly €5 million (~$5.5 million USD) increments, but the ACM makes it clear that this amount is subject to... Continue reading…

SpaceX SpaceX says it will no longer build new vehicles of its Crew Dragon capsule, the spacecraft the company uses to take humans to and from the International Space Station, according to a report in Reuters. The plan for now is to cap the Crew Dragon fleet for carrying humans at four, which SpaceX will re-fly again and again to get crews to space.“We are finishing our final [capsule], but we still are manufacturing components, because we’ll be refurbishing,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told Reuters. After each flight of a Crew Dragon, the spacecraft must go through a refurbishment process in Florida, where certain hardware is tweaked or swapped out to make the vehicle flight-ready again. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.“... Continue reading…

You can currently save $300 on the Surface Pro 8 at Best Buy. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Monday doesn’t have to be all bad, especially when we’ve collected some of the best deals on the internet to ease you into your week. Take the latest version of the Microsoft Surface Pro 8, for instance, which you can currently grab in a high-end configuration at Best Buy for $1,299.99 instead of $1,599.99. This powerful tablet comes equipped with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage that can be supplemented with SD cards if you need a little extra space. The 13-inch, 120Hz display on the Pro 8 also features 2880x1920 resolution but can also be paired with an external monitor, thanks to its pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports. It even has a 3.5mm audio jack if you’re still using headphones that plug into something,... Continue reading…

A keyboard with a lot of great ideas, well executed Continue reading…

Bandai Namco One Piece is getting a new video game. During a video presentation celebrating the 25th anniversary of One Piece, Bandai Namco announced that the celebrated manga / anime series will be getting a new RPG with an original story written by series creator Eiichiro Oda.One Piece Odyssey is a new open-world game in which the Straw Hats have treasures to find a mysterious island to explore. The game is being developed by ILCA, a Japanese studio that recently worked on the Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl remakes, as well as Dragon Quest XI and Nier Replicant. Though the announcement trailer didn’t show too much outside of cutscenes and exploration, we do know that there will be turn-based combat and that players will have the crew... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Our iPhones are so much more than just phones. Sure, they’re where we store our photos, books, music, and movies, but they also have the apps we use daily for work, socializing, ordering groceries, transportation, managing finances, and even our health. Used for so many different things, it’s easy to quickly take up all of the phone’s storage — which can become a nightmare.But don’t panic. If you’re on the verge of running out of space, you’re not doomed, and you don’t necessarily need to delete every photo or upgrade your phone. Here we’ll guide you through nine things you can do to create space, many of which are free, quick, and easy.First, figure out what’s eating up your storageCheck what’s taking up the most of the space on... Continue reading…

Find My adds a ton of perks to this item tracker Continue reading…

Eric Schmidt speaks at a technology summit in Washington, DC. | Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s foundation poured money into the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy over the past year, according to a report from Politico. The foundation’s close ties with the office raised ethics concerns with internal watchdogs.Schmidt held a number of roles at Google and parent company Alphabet, including CEO, executive chairman, and technical advisor. He stepped down from that last role in 2020. Now, he sits on the boards and invests in tech companies, including a number focused on artificial intelligence. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directs science funding and helps steer AI policy — one of the reasons Rachel Wallace, then the office’s general counsel, raised concerns... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Gran Turismo 7 developer Polyphony Digital is apologizing for the changes recently introduced to the game’s economy and is promising improvements, along with a million free credits. These changes come after the game had a massive outage last week, which was the result of an update that also made changes to how players could earn credits by actually playing the game rather than through microtransactions.In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Polyphony president Kazunori Yamauchi apologized for “the frustration and confusion caused last week with our patch updates which resulted in, not only a server outage but also adjustments to the in-game economy which were made without a clear explanation to our community.” As a “goodwill gesture,” the... Continue reading…

The white-colored model costs $700, while the others cost $30 more. | Samsung Samsung’s latest smart monitor, the 32-inch 4K M8, is now available to reserve in four colors: white, blue, green, and pink. The white-colored option will cost $699.99, while the other colors cost $30 more. Samsung announced the M8 during CES 2022, though it didn’t share a price or that it would arrive in multiple colorways. The company still hasn’t shared a release date. And for now, you can only reserve — not outright purchase — an M8 monitor. After you reserve by entering your e-mail address, you’ll eventually be able to preorder one, and Samsung says your purchase will include a $100 Samsung credit to use in the future.Its colorful design and thin profile could make the M8 fit in with a group of M1 iMacs. Compared to a more relevant... Continue reading…

Reddit has brought back its April Fools’ Day project. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit said Monday that it’s bringing back its r/Place April Fools’ Day experience for four days beginning April 1st. Alex Le, Reddit executive vice president for strategy and special projects said in a blog post that the move was meant to showcase “the magic of online communities, conversation, and collaboration.”The r/Place board, which launched on April 1st, 2017 featured a large, white pixel grid on which logged-in Reddit users could place colored pixels one at a time every five minutes just by tapping on it. It was wildly popular, attracting some 16 million tiles from more than 1 million users (but of course had its share of weird and crude images as well). And, r/Place was the brainchild of Josh Wardle, whose name you might... Continue reading…

Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge President Joe Biden is requesting a whopping $26 billion for NASA for 2023, roughly $2 billion more than the space agency received for the current fiscal year, according to newly released budget documents from the White House. If enacted as is, a third of that budget would go toward NASA’s Artemis program — the agency’s ambitious initiative to send humans back to the Moon.Roughly $7.5 billion is being set aside for Artemis, which aims to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon as early as 2025. Part of that funding will go toward the development of a new lunar lander capable of taking humans to and from the lunar surface— a recent addition to the Artemis master plan.Roughly $7.5 billion is being set aside for Artemis... Continue reading…

Coda producers Philippe Rousselet (L), Fabrice Gianfermi (R) and Patrick Wachsberger (C) posing with Code’s Best Picture award. | Frederic J. Brown/Getty After years of Hollywood working to re-establish the Oscars as a must-see TV event with tweaks to the ceremony and broadcast, the 94th Academy Awards singlehandedly reminded its viewership that nothing lands quite like genuinely unscripted moments that take everyone by surprise as they’re captured and broadcast in real time.Though Netflix brought more than a few contenders that were favored to win at to this year’s Academy Awards, Apple’s Coda made history last night by becoming the first streaming movie to nab a statue for Best Picture — an achievement made even more impressive by how few Oscars the film was nominated for (three) compared to the competition. While The Power of the Dog didn’t take home the award of the night, director... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A prolific hacking group run by teens Continue reading…

For the next few weeks, we’re showing you how to run various commonly used benchmarks on your PC. Reviewers like myself find these very helpful in comparing laptops we test to each other. But you don’t have to rely on us — you can easily run these benchmarks yourself on your own PC. Geekbench is one of the easiest and fastest ones to run and will show you how your device stacks up against the competition in a few key areas.Within Geekbench 5 (the latest release), there are a few different tests you can run. Geekbench CPU measures your processor’s performance, simulating both single-core and multi-core usage scenarios. When the test is complete, you’ll get both a single-core and a multi-core score. Geekbench Compute, by contrast, e... Continue reading…

Coda’s stars after winning big at the awards. | Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images CODA has become the first film from a streaming service to win Best Picture at the Oscars, in a sign of the growing dominance of streamers like Apple, Netflix, and Amazon at Hollywood’s most prestigious awards ceremony. The Apple TV Plus film follows the struggles of Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member in a deaf family, as she tries to explore a life away from her family. Apple acquired the rights to CODA for $25 million in a bidding war after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year.As well as winning Best Picture, CODA’s Troy Kotsur won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film, and its writer-director Siân Heder also took away the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Kotsur is the first Deaf actor to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon workers claim they weren’t all properly alerted as what they thought was smoke filled the third floor at a Bessemer, Alabama warehouse on Friday, according to a report from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) (via Input). While workers on the third floor were told to clock out, go on unpaid voluntary time off (VTO), and evacuate, employees on the other floors were allegedly left to continue working as an unidentified vapor spread throughout the facility. The “smoke” was later found to be vaporized oil from a malfunctioning compressor.According to the RWDSU’s timeline of events, workers on the third floor evacuated around 1:30PM. Hours later, workers on the first floor started seeing the smoke-like substance... Continue reading…

Users could previously watch delayed simulcasts for free on Crunchyroll. | Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Crunchyroll will no longer offer free ad-supported streaming for newly-released episodes, the anime streaming service announced in an update on its site (via Gizmodo). Viewers who want to watch episodes of new or continuing series will have to upgrade to one of Crunchyroll’s premium plans, which start at $7.99 / month.Users didn’t need a subscription to watch simulcast titles before the change, but there was a tradeoff — Crunchyroll would delay the release of new episodes by one week for free users, while subscribers could watch them one hour after their premiere in Japan. This was something I (and a lot of other people using Crunchyroll for free) happily dealt with as long as I actually got to watch the new episodes.The new policy... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is reportedly planning to release an iPad Pro with the rumored M2 chip sometime between September and November of this year, according to Apple tracker Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter. Gurman expects Apple to issue a major update for the upcoming generation of iPad Pros, which will supposedly include support for MagSafe charging.As Gurman points out, Apple last gave the iPad Pro a significant update in 2018, when Apple introduced a design with harder corners, an edge-to-edge display, and a USB-C connector. This update came about a year and a half after the release of the iPad Pro 10.5 in 2017.The new iPad Pro is also rumored to have a glass backingApple is on track to repeat the same pattern this year, as it launched the most... Continue reading…

Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images The Academy Awards return this weekend to celebrate a standout year of film releases. With vaccinations now widely available, theaters saw record-breaking ticket sales as moviegoers seemed more willing to return to auditoriums to watch highly anticipated releases. But theaters haven’t completely edged out streamers — Netflix swept up a dozen nominations for its critically acclaimed drama The Power of the Dog and several more for its doomsday comedy Don’t Look Up.Folks with traditional cable bundles or an antenna are already teed up to watch the event live on ABC when it airs this evening. But if you’re short the hardware or a cable box, several services will carry the coverage as well.Who is hosting the Oscars?Wanda Sykes, Regina... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple Pay will no longer support Russian card payment system Mir, closing a loophole that let Russians continue to use the service amid economic sanctions put on the country, according to a report from Reuters.“Apple has informed NSPK [Russia’s National Payment Card System] that it is suspending support of ‘Mir’ cards in the payment service Apple Pay,” a translated announcement on Mir’s site reads. “Since March 24, uploading new ‘Mir’ cards to the service has been unavailable.” The company also notes any Mir cards previously added to Apple Pay will stop working over “the next few days.” Apple Pay first added support for Mir cards last year.Many Russian users have already been cut off from Apple Pay and Google PayAccording to The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber has secured a 30-month — or two-and-a-half-year — license to keep its ridesharing services up and running in London, according to a report from the BBC. This marks the close of a lengthy battle with the city’s transportation agency, Transport for London (TfL), over Uber’s safety protocols.

When not in use, Samsung’s Frame TV can be used to display more than 1,400 works of art. | Image: Samsung Now that Samsung’s new Frame TVs are available for preorder, the 2021 model is selling at a new all-time low in multiple configurations until April 5th (or while supplies last). Typically $1,499.99, Woot is selling the HDR-compatible, 55-inch QLED TV for $899.99, which is $100 cheaper than the previous low we saw during Black Friday and in the run-up to the Super Bowl. The 65-inch model is also on sale for $1,399.99 instead of $1,999, and both TVs come with a one-year warranty from Samsung.While the 2021 model lacks the matte, anti-reflective display found on this year’s model, they’re both designed to display artwork when not in use, allowing them to blend in more easily with your home’s decor. When turned on, they function as... Continue reading…

US government agencies are already barred from using Kaspersky products. | Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images The US Federal Communications Commission has added Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab to its list of entities that pose an “unacceptable risk to US national security,” according to a report from Bloomberg. This is the first time a Russian company has been added to the list, which is otherwise made up of Chinese companies, like Huawei and ZTE.Businesses in the US are barred from using federal subsidies provided through the FCC’s Universal Service Fund to purchase any products or services from the companies on the list. In addition to Kaspersky, the FCC also added China Telecom and China Mobile International USA to its list on Friday.Kaspersky says the decision was “made on political grounds”“I am pleased that our national... Continue reading…

Mike Frazzini has led Amazon’s gaming arm since 2009. | Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images Amazon Games studio head Mike Frazzini is stepping down from his role to focus on family, according to a report from Bloomberg. Frazzini has helped lead Amazon’s game division since 2009 and played a role in building the company’s game studio.“Mike was there at the beginning of Amazon Games, and his leadership and perseverance helped build the games business from the ground up,” Amazon spokesperson Ryan Jones said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our recent successes with New World and Lost Ark are the result of the long-term, customer-focused vision for games he helped establish. We are very grateful for all his contributions, and wish Mike the very best.”Amazon didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment.Amazon Games... Continue reading…

Collecting satellite data for research is a group effort thanks to this app developed for Android users. Camaliot is a campaign funded by the European Space Agency, and its first project focuses on making smartphone owners around the world part of a project that can help improve weather forecasts by using your phone’s GPS receiver.The Camaliot app works on devices running Android version 7.0 or later that support satellite navigation. The way satellite navigation works, phones or other receivers look for signals from a network of satellites that maintain a fixed orbit. The satellites send messages with the time and their location, and once it’s received, the phones note how long each message took to arrive, then use that data to figure... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Converting a laptop into a ‘slabtop’ is surprisingly freeing Continue reading…

Tesla has been sued by civil rights watchdogs for racial segregation at its Fremont, California factory. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Los Angeles Times has a great piece that interviews three former Tesla employees about their experiences with racism, discrimination, and retaliation at the company, which is well worth a read. The story acts as a way to contextualize a lawsuit that the automaker is currently facing, where the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleges that the company has a “racially segregated workplace.”While the experiences described in the lawsuit and in the Times’ story are similar (and equally disturbing), being able to read actual interviews helps connect names, faces, and individual experiences to the situation at Tesla’s facility in California.“They were waiting for me to make a mistake”The workers have unique... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve’s next Steam Next Fest, an event where players will be able to try out demos of upcoming PC games right from Steam, will take place from June 13th through June 20th, the company has announced.Valve is promising there will be “hundreds of demos” this year, and while it hasn’t shared what might be playable for the upcoming event, there were some notable games featured last June, including Sable and Toem. It seems likely that Valve will promote games that are great for the Steam Deck, and hopefully by that time, many more people will have gotten their highly-anticipated reservations. (Sadly, my projected Q3 order availability means I’ll very likely miss out, at least when it comes to trying games out for the handheld.)The mid-June... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge This may sound familiar, but there’s something wrong with the latest software update for Google’s Pixel 6 phones. As Google tweaks the version of Android it distributes to phones running its custom Tensor chip, there have been some odd issues, but instead of problems with Wi-Fi or a slow thumbprint scanner, this time, it’s affecting another key feature: notifications. They still pop up on the phone just as regularly, but for some reason, the strength of the vibration is now significantly weaker than it was before.Adjusting the vibration settings has no effectI’ve had my phone’s sounds set to silent for years, so any difference in the notification buzz is immediately an issue. It’s also noticeably softer for incoming calls, and some... Continue reading…

No kidding. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge 2022 is going to be a big year for Wear OS. Google’s rumored to be making its own Pixel Watch (again). Older Wear OS 2 watches are expected to finally make the transition to Wear OS 3. Samsung’s promised that Google Assistant will be coming to its Galaxy Watch 4 in the “coming months.” But there’s something notably missing from this Wear OS lineup: Fitbit.Since Google and Samsung first announced their partnership at last year’s Google I/O, Fitbit CEO James Park hasn’t been coy. He’s said multiple times that a premium Fitbit smartwatch running Wear OS was in the works. This year will be the one where Wear OS 3 debuts on a wider scale. It would’ve been stellar timing to unveil a Wear OS Fitbit. However, a 9to5Google report notes that... Continue reading…

Roberta and Ken Williams, founders of Sierra and influential game designers | Photo by John Storey/Getty Images Ken and Roberta Williams, two of the most influential figures in video game history, are bringing the original 1976 text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure to virtual reality, as well as Mac and Windows PC.It sounds pretty straightforward when I put it like that, right? And then I remind you that the game in question looked like this: Photo by Autopilot (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) Colossal Cave Adventure running on a PDP-11/34 with a monitor. And then I remind you that Roberta and Ken have been retired for the past 25 years.And then I remind you that — while Roberta and Ken made King’s Quest and Phantasmagoria AND are credited with the first graphical adventure game ever in Mystery Quest AND founded... Continue reading…

Google contract workers voted on whether to join a union | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of workers for a Google Fiber subcontractor in Missouri has voted to unionize, the first of its kind at Google’s parent company Alphabet. The votes were counted Friday in a Zoom hearing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).The workers are employees of Google contractor BDS Connected Solutions, a staffing agency in Kansas City. Ten of the 11 workers signed union cards in January to organize under the purview of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), which is part of the larger Communication Workers of America union. On Friday, the official count found there were nine votes in favor of joining the union, with one vote against.The AWU will be a members-only union, representing those workers who join voluntarily, rather than... Continue reading…

Lilith Walther Bloodborne’s seventh anniversary was earlier this week, and even though FromSoftware lets fans languish without a PC port, Lilith Walther — creator of the popular Bloodborne PSX demake — continues to keep the community fed, watered, and loved with her new fan project: Bloodborne Kart.

The Bose QuietComfort earbuds are discounted to just $219.99 at Amazon and Best Buy right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you have yet to pick up a decent pair of true wireless earbuds, you can still buy the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds at Adorama and Amazon for $219.99 instead of $279.99, one of the lowest prices we’ve seen on these earbuds since Black Friday. There’s no shortage of noise-canceling earbuds available right now; however, we think these are worth your attention thanks to their excellent sound quality, impressive fit, and wireless — albeit, bulky — charging case. Even with newer options available like the Sony WF-1000XM4 and Samsung Galaxy Buds 2, we still count these among some of the best wireless earbuds you can buy, especially if superb noise cancellation is what you’re after. Read our review.If you’re looking for a solid discount on... Continue reading…

UConnn’s Paige Bueckers faces off against UCF players Tay Sanders and Alisha Lewisin in the second round of the tournament. | Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Sweet Sixteen games in this year’s March Madness tip off tonight and tomorrow — all exciting games (like reigning national champions Stanford vs. Maryland) and one that is going to be deeply stressful for me personally (Connecticut vs. Indiana — go Huskies).You’d be forgiven for thinking that the games started yesterday, though. As of this writing, searching “sweet sixteen march madness” pulls up a schedule box for the men’s tournament, which did have that round start yesterday. The women’s games are relegated to a ribbon at the bottom.This is the first year that the women’s college basketball tournament is able to use the high-profile March Madness branding. The change came after an uproar over the embarrassingly inequitable... Continue reading…

Google has announced a pilot to allow for alternative payment systems in Android apps. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google announced on Wednesday that it would test letting Android developers use their own billing systems in their apps, the first step in what could lead to a dramatic reshaping of the app economy. However, Epic Games, which has been a strong proponent for opening app marketplaces and sued Google after the search giant removed Fortnite from Google Play for including direct payments, still isn’t happy. It plans to continue advocating for an app ecosystem that offers more choices, according to a statement the company shared with The Verge.“Apple and Google continue to abuse their market power with policies that stifle innovation, inflate prices and reduce consumer choice,” Corie Wright, Epic’s VP of public policy, said in the statement.... Continue reading…

Rockstar Games Rockstar Games has announced it’s offering a new subscription service to GTA Online players. Dubbed GTA Plus, the subscription service grants players exclusive perks for $5.99 a month. According to the announcement:

Spotify is the latest company to suspend its services there. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify is suspending its services in Russia as the country’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its second month. In a statement, the company appears to reference Russia’s new law that punishes spreading fake news about the military with up to 15 years in prison as the primary reason for why it’s shutting down in the country.“Spotify has continued to believe that it’s critically important to try and keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information in the region,” according to a Spotify spokesperson, who asked not to be named because of “the situation in Russia.” “Unfortunately, recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and... Continue reading…

A cute look can’t hide the slow processor Continue reading…

It seems likely to be a combination of PlayStation Plus and Now. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony will reportedly announce its answer to Xbox Game Pass, a service that’s currently known as Spartacus, “as early as” next week, according to Bloomberg. Previous reports say that Spartacus could be a combination of Sony’s two current subscription services, PlayStation Plus, and PlayStation Now. Bloomberg says that the service will launch featuring popular, recent games, but that it may not include the upcoming tentpole game God of War: Ragnarok.The service is expected to have three different tiers, which will offer different games at different price points. One tier is expected to be very similar to the current PlayStation Plus subscription, while subsequent tiers would add PS4 and PS5 games (though the latter are expected to come... Continue reading…

Florida, smartphone extreme threat alert warning. | Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The United Nations wants to make sure every person on Earth can receive early warnings ahead of disastrous weather events. It set a goal of hitting that target within five years in an announcement this week. Early warning systems are needed urgently to save lives as climate change makes extreme weather even worse, UN officials said.Such systems include technology to forecast dangerous weather systems and the ability to share those forecasts with the public so that they can take precautions ahead of storms, floods, heatwaves, and droughts. One in three people in the world still aren’t protected by early warning systems, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).One in three people in the world still aren’t protected“... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple would be forced to allow users to install apps from outside the App Store under legislation recently unveiled by the EU. This stipulation was included in the initial proposal for the bloc’s sweeping Digital Markets Act, or DMA, which came one step closer to being signed into law this week, and an EU spokesperson confirmed that the provision is still included.“We believe that the owner of a smartphone should have the freedom to choose how to use it,” said European Commission spokesperson Johannes Bahrke in an emailed statement. “This freedom includes being able to opt for alternative sources of apps on your smartphone. With the DMA, a smartphone owner would still be able to enjoy safe and secure services of the default app store on... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge American government officials told The Washington Post that the Russian military was responsible for a cyberattack on a European satellite internet service that affected Ukrainian military communications in late February.The hack affected the KA-SAT satellite broadband network, owned by Viasat, an American satellite communications company. On February 24th, the day the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the KA-SAT network was hit by outages that affected Ukraine and surrounding regions in Europe. A few days afterward, Viasat blamed outages on a “cyber event,” but did not release further details.Though Ukrainian officials have not fully disclosed the impact, the outage is believed to have caused significant communications disruptions... Continue reading…

The first NFT from Ukraine’s “Meta History: Museum of War” collection. | Ivan Ponomarchuk / Ukraine Ministry of Digital Transformation Ukraine’s government is raising funds by selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on a timeline of Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country. Ukraine Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov announced the collection’s launch on Twitter, boasting that “while Russia uses tanks to destroy Ukraine, we rely on revolutionary blockchain tech.” All sales funds will go to the Ministry of Digital Transformation to support the “army and civilians” of Ukraine.The collection, titled “Meta History: Museum of War,” associates blockchain tokens with a news item about “every substantial event of the war” and an illustration from an artist. A total of 54 NFTs are currently listed, covering the first three days of the war in late February, with... Continue reading…

The new design changes up the home screen, icons, and more. (And lets you customize the UI’s colors.) Overcast, a popular podcast player for Apple devices, is getting an update that brings a major design overhaul to its main screen, as well as a new theming system that lets you pick the colors used throughout the app. For Overcast users like me, the update is a fresh coat of paint to a well-made app, and power users will likely find plenty of new tweaks and settings they can use to make the app work even better for their use case.In a blog post, the app’s developer Marco Arment says that the 2022.2 update, available to download Friday, is “the largest redesign” the app’s ever gotten, and promises some exciting future updates.The changes are obvious from the moment you open the app — there’s a new Recent carousel, which lets you... Continue reading…

From 2D to 3D with the help of AI. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia’s latest AI demo is pretty impressive: a tool that quickly turns a “few dozen” 2D snapshots into a 3D-rendered scene. In the video below you can see the method in action, with a model dressed like Andy Warhol holding an old-fashioned Polaroid camera. (Don’t overthink the Warhol connection: it’s just a bit of PR scene dressing.)The tool is called Instant NeRF, referring to “neural radiance fields” — a technique developed by researchers from UC Berkeley, Google Research, and UC San Diego in 2020. If you want a detailed explainer of neural radiance fields, you can read one here, but in short, the method maps the color and light intensity of different 2D shots, then generates data to connect these images from different vantage... Continue reading…