The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Yuga Labs, the owner of three of the biggest NFT brands on the market, has raised $450 million in funding at a $4 billion valuation, the company announced today. The team behind Bored Ape Yacht Club plans to use the money to build a media empire around NFTs, starting with games and its own metaverse project.The team describes its metaverse project, called Otherside, as an MMORPG meant to connect the broader NFT universe. They hope to create “an interoperable world” that is “gamified” and “completely decentralized,” says Wylie Aronow, a co-founder of Bored Ape Yacht Club who goes by the pseudonym Gordon Goner. “We think the real Ready Player One experience will be player run.”The announcement comes just weeks after Yuga Labs made a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber plans to temporarily remove the ability to split fares sometime next month, as reported by Mashable. The company is “in the process of reworking how riders split fares,” Uber said in a statement shared with Mashable and also given to The Verge. “We know this is a popular feature, so rest assured that we are planning to roll out a new, improved version in the coming months.”The company also sent an email to some customers informing them of the change, though it seems the email was partially incorrect. “We are sorry to let you know that from March 21st, we are discontinuing the ‘Split fare’ feature, which allows you to share the price of a trip with other riders,” according to a screenshot of the email included in Mashable’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Okta, an authentication company used by thousands of organizations around the world, has now confirmed an attacker had access to one of its employees’ laptops for five days in January 2022 — but claims its service “has not been breached and remains fully operational.”The disclosure comes as hacking group Lapsus$ has posted screenshots to its Telegram channel claiming to be of Okta’s internal systems, including one that appears to show Okta’s Slack channels, and another with a Cloudflare interface.Any hack of Okta could have major ramifications for the companies, universities, and government agencies that depend upon Okta to authenticate user access to internal systems.But in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, Okta now says that an... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is overhauling its safety tools, improving its reporting process, and adding a new appeals portal.Over the next few weeks, Twitch will slowly roll out improved reporting tools, simplifying the process by which streamers and viewers can report content. The new process includes a search function so users can find the specific reason for their report and a suite of menus for the type of content getting flagged. The updated reporting tools will hit web first, with the mobile rollout happening at an unspecified later date.In addition to better reporting features, Twitch is also adding a new appeals portal, offering greater transparency into the appeals process. In the past, to contest a ban or suspension, a streamer would submit an... Continue reading…

Netflix has announced three more mobile games that you’ll soon be able to play on iOS or Android with a subscription to the streaming service, including the first FPS that’s available as part of its lineup.This Is A True Story is an educational role-playing game created to “share a true story of a Sub-Saharan African woman’s daily struggle to get water for her family,” according to Netflix. The game was made by developer Frosty Pop in collaboration with Charity: Water. Shatter Remastered is an updated take of the hit brick-breaking game that first released on PS3 in 2009. And in Into The Dead 2: Unleashed, a hybrid FPS / runner game, you’ll have to survive waves of zombies.This Is A True Story and Shatter Remastered will be available... Continue reading…

A screenshot from a trailer for Rolling Thunder. | Image: Roblox Last July, Roblox announced the Game Fund, a program to give developers funding and support for Roblox experiences. Timed with the Game Developers Conference this week, the company is using those funded games to showcase the range of experiences possible with its tools.There are a few parts to what Roblox is announcing on Tuesday. One is that Roblox is revealing for the first time that it’s investing $25 million as part of the Game Fund. Roblox had previously said it would be giving $500,000 minimum in each Roblox experience it selected for the Game Fund, but now we know how much will be given out in total.Roblox has already announced three games getting support from the fund — Winds of Fortune, Rolling Thunder, and neonKnights — and... Continue reading…

It all started with swimming. When Fortnite ushered in its second chapter with the dramatic implosion of the game’s original island, it also added in a seemingly small feature: players could finally swim. But since then, the shooter has slowly morphed by continually making the game faster and more mobile. It may have come as a shock to some when building — one of the defining traits of Fortnite since its inception — was removed as part of the current season (even though it’s likely a temporary change). But it’s a shift that’s been a long time coming.Ever since players could swim, developer Epic has continuously added new ways for people to get around in the game. There have been vehicles like planes and cars, zip lines and launch pads... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Lucid Motors will use Nvidia’s auto-grade computer chips in its vehicles to enable advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving features, the companies announced Tuesday. The automaker’s current and future lineup will be built on Nvidia’s end-to-end Drive Hyperion platform.Hyperion is the latest iteration of Nvidia’s Drive platform that allows automakers to customize their own driving features. And Orin is the chipmaker’s system-on-a-chip, similar to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving chip or Intel’s Mobileye EyeQ. This new hardware will form the basis for a new suite of driving features, including advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), automated parking, and autonomous driving, the companies said.Hyperion is the latest iteration of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has made a habit of stripping ads from problematic channels as a way to discourage controversial or offensive content without outright banning it. But the creators of those channels can still use their videos to promote other streams of income, like donation links and merch sales. Now, a new study shows that those options have not just allowed problematic channels to continue but may also be encouraging them to create more videos on YouTube.A new peer-reviewed study by researchers at Cornell Tech in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) found that YouTubers, including fringe creators making alt-right and anti-feminist videos, use their channels to promote their other income streams... Continue reading…

Hopping over to my next meeting as a rabbit. | Image: Zoom Zoom will let you show up to your next meeting as a rabbit, fox, dog, or another type of animal, using its new Avatars feature that replaces you with a virtual character that copies your expressions, Memoji-style. The company says this feature, which is included in the Zoom 5.10 update, will only let you become an animal at launch, but that new avatar options will be added in the future.Zoom sees this feature as useful for a lot of different scenarios — in its press release, it mentions showing up with an avatar filter on could “bring some fun to your team-building meetings” or help pediatricians seem less intimidating to young children. There’s also the idea that it could help alleviate Zoom fatigue. At least one study has indicated... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google Photos is getting a pretty significant layout change that should make it easier to find the photos and albums you’re looking for in the library and sharing tabs.The update transforms the current library tab layout from a mishmash of albums, favorites, and on-device folders to a grid or list view that you can sort through by category. Meanwhile, the Photos sharing tab will now have sections specifically for partner sharing, shared albums, and conversations. Google says the changes to the sharing tab are arriving on Android this week but are “coming soon” to iOS. Image: Google Google is introducing grid and list view layouts for its library tab. Aside from that, Photos is also getting a cool feature... Continue reading…

Google recommends testing out (slightly older) AAA games on the Chromebook, like Portal 2, The Witcher 3, and Civ V. | Image: Google Google says that an alpha version of Steam is finally available for Chrome OS users with specific machines to test, as long as they’re willing to put a beta OS on their computer. This announcement comes after the company prematurely said Valve’s PC game store was available last week before changing its tune to say it would be “coming soon.” While Google’s John Maletis, a Chrome OS VP, calls it “early days” for the software, it’s exciting that we’re finally going to get a peek at what the Steam experience will be like on Chromebooks.Google says that the alpha will only be available on “a small set of recent Chromebooks,” as it’s focused on “devices where more games can run well.” (It’s also limited to certain configurations of those... Continue reading…

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still trying to improve the way it collects and analyzes public health data, Politico reported.A March 16th email reviewed by Politico from Dan Jernigan, the CDC’s deputy director for Public Health Science and Surveillance, mentioned the Data Modernization Initiative — a plan that would include integrating state and federal data systems and giving states funding to hire staffers to work with data.The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the stark limitations of the US public health data systems: information is siloed at individual hospitals and local health departments and often takes a winding path before it gets to the federal level. Labs couldn’t send... Continue reading…

The H100 die. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia has announced a slew of AI-focused enterprise products at its annual GTC conference. They include details of its new silicon architecture, Hopper; the first datacenter GPU built using that architecture, the H100; a new Grace CPU “superchip”; and vague plans to build what the company claims will be the world’s fastest AI supercomputer, named Eos.Nvidia has benefited hugely from the AI boom of the last decade, with its GPUs proving a perfect match for popular, data-intensive deep learning methods. As the AI sector’s demand for data compute grows, says Nvidia, it wants to provide more firepower.In particular, the company stressed the popularity of a type of machine learning system known as a Transformer. This method has been... Continue reading…

Digital Domain/Marvel Studios VFX supervisor Scott Edelstein opens up about Spider-Man: No Way Home Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge One downside to Peloton’s treadmills is that they’ve lacked a pause button. Thankfully, the company announced yesterday that the latest software update brings the feature to both the Tread and Tread Plus.Tread and Tread Plus users can now tap the center of the screen to bring up the pause button. You can then hold the button to confirm. Previously, you’d have to hit the back button to exit the class or hit the manual stop button. Once you hit pause, the Tread will gradually slow down until it comes to a complete stop. At that point, you have the option of locking the Tread, or the machine will automatically lock itself after 45 seconds for safety. Your aggregate metrics, class, and progress can be paused for up to 60 minutes.It might... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple’s new Studio Display is a fascinating piece of technology, largely due to the A13 Bionic chipset that powers it — making it as powerful as an entire iPhone 11. But it turns out the internal hardware of the Studio Display is even odder: not only does the Studio Display have an A13 chipset, but it also comes with a whopping 64GB of internal memory, as spotted by Twitter user Khaos Tian.

US-based users on Instagram can now tag products in their posts. | Image: Instagram Instagram is opening its product tagging feature to all users in the US, which means you no longer need a business or creator account to tag products in your posts. Starting today, the feature will start rolling out to everyone “over the next few months.” Instagram has transformed into an app where just about everything can be shoppable, and now you can purchase the same look that your friend is wearing in their posts.The platform first rolled out product tagging in 2016 as part of its initial push into e-commerce, later supporting product tags in video posts and stories (and, eventually, Reels). As Instagram’s shopping experience continued to evolve, the platform added a native checkout feature that lets you buy products directly from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More adolescents failed to quit smoking in 2020 than in any of the previous 13 years, according to new data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 2020 was the first year the research team had data on attempts to quit e-cigarettes, and it showed that around 4 percent of adolescents unsuccessfully attempted to quit e-cigarettes.E-cigarettes have been pushed to adult smokers as an alternative to traditional, combustible cigarettes — some evidence shows they might be less dangerous, and there’s mixed evidence that they could push adults to quit smoking altogether. But the picture might be different for teens, who started vaping in droves in 2018 and are far less likely to be cigarette smokers first. The new analysis... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge I told you I was gonna sob over that new MUNA song. I didn’t lie.Now, more non-lies! Aka news!But first, here’s Jake with something to flag for you all:What happened at StitcherHi everyone, I’m excited to share with you one more story from Ashley Carman — a piece she spent months reporting out and wrapped up right before she left.The story is a deep dive into SiriusXM’s acquisition of Stitcher — how it went, where it went awry, and how it speaks to the broader podcasting landscape’s move toward consolidation and scale.Former employees at Stitcher say SiriusXM lacked a podcast strategy when they were brought onboard, felt like the company didn’t empower them to act on their expertise, and clashed over basic things like... Continue reading…

SiriusXM leapt into podcasts with a $325 million deal — insiders say it’s off to a messy start Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge If you want some of the best true wireless earbuds that Samsung has crafted yet, the Galaxy Buds Pro are selling for their lowest price yet at Walmart. You can pick them up in black, silver, or violet for $119.99, which is about $20 less than the previous low price. These offer the most amount of functionality on Samsung devices, including automatic device switching and 3D audio. But they’re still great on other Android phones and tablets.Normally $199.99, this price drop is significant because it makes them affordable enough to consider over the newer Galaxy Buds 2, which are typically on sale for about $105. Compared head to head, the Galaxy Buds Pro boast superior water and sweat resistance, better sound quality, and a more effective... Continue reading…

Dragalia Lost, one of Nintendo’s increasingly dwindling stable of mobile games for iOS and Android, is shutting down. The company announced today that the game’s main campaign will be ending in July and that it’ll cease adding new characters or content updates (outside of the main campaign) at the end of March when its final set of characters is introduced.Nintendo hasn’t said when exactly Dragalia Lost will be fully shutting down. The company only says that “after the main campaign has concluded, service for the game itself will come to a close at a later date. Further details on the end-of-service schedule will be provided in a future notification.” The announcement does note that players will still be able to summon new characters... Continue reading…

Italian luxury automaker Maserati unveiled the Grecale, a brand-new compact SUV that will come in a range of powertrains, including an all-electric version in 2023. It will be the tip of the spear in Maserati’s plan to become an EV-only brand by 2030.Last week, Maserati announced plans to launch a range of EVs bearing the brand name Folgore, which is Italian for “lightning.” One of the first vehicles to feature that nameplate will be the Grecale, a crossover SUV slotting underneath the mid-size Levante.Maserati is keeping most of the EV-relevant specs under wraps, including range, battery size, and charging time. The electric Grecale will come with a 400-volt architecture, which is similar to the one used by most EVs on the road... Continue reading…

The One RS is still a modular system, with some minor upgrades. | Becca Farsace / The Verge Insta360 has announced the One RS, a successor to the modular One R action / 360 cam it released last year. The RS is mostly a minor upgrade, with the brain module (or “core,” as Insta360 calls it) and mounting system getting a few tweaks that should make the experience of shooting with the 360 lens slightly better.The One RS upgrades are mostly minor, but welcome, quality of life improvements. The core has an extra microphone, faster Wi-Fi for transferring your photos and videos, a quick menu to change shooting modes, and an “Instant Zoom” that lets you punch in up to 2.7 times while recording.Insta360 also says the camera’s built-in “FlowState” stabilization is improved. The mounting bracket used to attach the RS to other... Continue reading…

Image: Roku Roku device owners will soon have a whole host of new personalization features, including all-new ​​Photo Streams, with the Roku OS 11.Firstly, when Roku OS 11 rolls out to users in the weeks ahead, they’ll be able to change their screensaver to display their own photography or images with Photo Streams. Not only will Photo Streams allow users to display photos from their desktop or mobile device on Roku, but users will also be able to share Streams with other Roku device owners as well. Once a Stream is shared, other Roku owners will be able to add to it, allowing everyone to collaborate on a shared album.Roku OS 11 will also introduce a new “what to watch on Roku” menu, a personally curated hub added to the home screen menu that will... Continue reading…

Aparna Chennapragada | Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Robinhood is launching a new cash card today Continue reading…

Robinhood’s new Cash Card. | Image: Robinhood Robinhood has announced a new debit card, branded as the Robinhood Cash Card. The card will be linked to a spending account separate to users’ brokerage accounts, and work for in-person and online payments as well as ATM withdrawals. The new card will replace Robinhood’s current Cash Management debit card, originally announced in 2019.The card’s big new feature is the option for users to automatically invest in assets like stocks and crypto when spending money. Robinhood will round up transactions made using the card to the nearest dollar, and use that extra money to buy assets chosen by the user. So, you might spend $10.55 on a burrito bowl with your Cash Card, and Robinhood will round the payment up to $11 and use the extra $0.45 to... Continue reading…

Microsoft always wanted to upgrade the Surface Hub 2 camera Continue reading…

The feature offers a choice of six emoji. | Image: WABetaInfo WhatsApp, the Meta-owned encrypted messaging service that boasts over two billion users worldwide, is adding emoji reactions in beta on Android. WABetaInfo, a reliable source of upcoming WhatsApp features, reports that emoji reactions have started appearing in beta version 2.22.8.3 of the service’s Android app, giving users a quick and easy way to respond to incoming messages.With a long-press of a received message, the feature lets users react with one of six emoji: thumbs up, heart, crying, laugher, shocked face, or folded hands (usually taken to mean “thank you”). WhatsApp appears to be rolling out the feature on Android in phases, and we were unable to get it to appear ourselves. Image: WABetaInfo The emoji... Continue reading…

Tesla cars in front of its new factory in Germany. | Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images Tesla’s fourth Gigafactory, and its first in Europe, is officially being opened today by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, Reuters reports. The milestone was reached around two and a half years after Tesla initially announced its plans to build a factory on the site, which is located just outside the German capital of Berlin, and is officially called Giga Berlin-Brandenburg.As part of the opening ceremony, Tesla is handing over the first production cars made at the factory to customers: 30 Model Y compact SUVs. Reuters reports that these are the performance configuration of the vehicle, which have a range of 320 miles and sell for €63,990.

Nintendo has added a new folder-style feature to the Switch’s UI, more than five years after the console was first released. It’s included as part of system firmware version 14.0, which is available to download now.This being Nintendo, the system doesn’t work exactly like you might expect. It’s called “groups” and doesn’t allow you to place anything on the home screen — instead, you have to scroll all the way to the right to get to the vertical list of all your software and press L. That lets you access or create groups of various games. Nintendo has posted a guide to using the feature here.It won’t do all that much to help you organize your home screen or full list of games, then. I already have a big enough Switch library that it... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has settled with six engineers over claims the company squashed employees’ efforts to organize, as first reported by Motherboard. The specifics of the settlement remain under a non-disclosure agreement, but four of the workers who were allegedly fired out of retaliation for their labor activism in 2019 will not be reinstated, while one still remains employed by the tech giant.Four employees, Rebecca Rivers, Laurence Berland, Paul Duke, and Sophie Waldman, filed labor charges against Google in 2019 after the company said they were fired because they violated its data security policies. Prior to their termination, they rallied against some of Google’s ethically questionable choices, including its work with the Customs and Border... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple’s new Mac Studio was revealed to have an interesting secret over the weekend: it has removable SSD storage. But a subsequent video from YouTuber Luke Miani reveals that the Mac Studio still can’t be upgraded: not because of hardware limitations, but because Apple appears to be blocking replacement SSDs on a software level, via AppleTrack.Unlike all of Apple’s other M1-powered computers, the Mac Studio’s storage isn’t soldered onto the mainboard, as Max Tech’s teardown over the weekend discovered. Getting to the SSD is a tricky business, involving removing the rubber ring on the bottom of the device, unscrewing the panel, and pulling out the unshielded power supply. But as it turns out, those expandable SSD hardware slots are for... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are finally getting this month’s sizeable feature drop, as Google spokesperson Matt Flegal confirmed to The Verge that the rollout will begin today. Google previously rolled out the update to the Pixel 3A and 5A on March 7th but decided to push back the update for Pixel 6 devices to address bug fixes, according to Android Police.Several Pixel 6 owners here at The Verge are now able to download the update simply by checking for it on their phones. The 490MB patch on the Pixel 6 updates its version number to SP2A.220305.013.A3.March’s feature drop brings improved night photography in Snapchat, custom stickers, support for YouTube watch parties in Google Duo, as well as a new Live Caption feature you can use to... Continue reading…

Apple says this stand is “not interchangeable,” but reports say it plans on offering a replacement service. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Workers at Apple Stores or Authorized Service Providers will be able to change which stand is attached to the Studio Display, according to a report from MacRumors, which cites internal Apple documents. This is despite a warning on Apple’s “Buy Apple Studio Display” page, which says that you have to choose a stand at the time of purchase, as they’re “built-in” and “not interchangeable.”Apple provides three different stand options for the Studio Display. You can get either the standard stand with tilt adjustments or the VESA adapter for attaching the monitor to third-party arms without paying anything extra. If you want a height-adjustable stand from Apple, it’s a $400 upgrade. Apple says you have to decide at the time you’re buying the... Continue reading…

Google Stadia streams games on mobile and desktop Chrome browsers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google Stadia never quite set the video game world ablaze with a paradigm shift towards cloud game streaming, but it has quietly soldiered on as a convenient service for those who value playing the latest games on less-than-capable hardware. Its future remains a little bit unclear, with Google reportedly putting less priority on it internally. Though the service’s future may still carve out its niche among gamers seeking free demos and trials that are easy to test out, what if you already subscribed but feel it’s time to step off this beta-like ride?The good news is that canceling a $9.99-per-month Google Stadia Pro subscription is fairly easy.However, you may already be thinking to yourself: “What’s going to happen to my games?” Here... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many Apple services were experiencing outages for a good chunk of early Monday afternoon.Services with confirmed issues, according to Apple’s system status page, included iMessage, some Apple Maps services, iCloud Mail, iCloud Keychain, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Podcasts. But after 3:45PM ET or so, every service again has a green light and says the problems have been resolved. Apple has not responded to a request for comment about what might have been going on.Reports of issues hit Downdetector shortly after 12PM ET, though reports look to have fallen in the hours since the outages were first reported. The Verge staff experienced scattered problems with iMessage and other key services, although the problems haven’t... Continue reading…

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine is suing Grubhub for deceptive business practices, saying its food delivery app covertly inflates prices for diners who order through it. The suit demands an end to a laundry list of allegedly illegal practices as well as financial restitution and civil penalties.The newly filed lawsuit argues that Grubhub’s promises of “free” online orders — and “unlimited free delivery” for Grubhub Plus — are misleading. While customers can make pickup orders for free, the company charges delivery and service fees for standard orders and service fees for Grubhub Plus orders, displaying the service fee until recently as part of a single line with sales taxes. “Grubhub misled District residents and took... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge As the Russian invasion of Ukraine draws on, consequences are being felt by many parts of the technology sector, including open-source software development.In a recent announcement, the Russian bank Sber advised its customers to temporarily stop installing software updates to any applications out of concern that they could contain malicious code specifically targeted at Russian users, labeled by some as “protestware.”As quoted in Russian-language news sites, Sber’s announcement reads:

You can buy the Xbox Series X for $499.99 today at Walmart. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Walmart is once again selling the $499.99 Xbox Series X, so if you’ve not yet managed to land the next-gen console, now is your chance. Unlike previous restocks, this one isn’t just exclusive to members of the retailer’s premium subscription service, Walmart Plus, so everybody gets a shot.To maximize your chances of nabbing an Xbox Series X today, make sure to first log into your Walmart account and double-check your shipping and billing details are correct. Know that Walmart often releases stock in 10-minute intervals, so don’t give up trying to add the console to your cart if you can’t at first. To increase the odds even more in your favor, try adding the Xbox Series X to your cart using the mobile app on your phone or through... Continue reading…

Gary Gensler, Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, testifies before a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on the SEC on September 14, 2021 in Washington, DC. | Photo by Evelyn Hockstein-Pool/Getty Images The US Securities and Exchange Commission proposed new rules today that could require companies to update investors annually on how much planet-heating pollution they’re pumping out and how that pollution could ultimately affect their earnings.A slew of companies from Apple to Amazon have pledged to become carbon neutral in coming decades. Consistent updates on how much pollution they generate help ensure that climate pledges aren’t just greenwashing or making false promises. The proposed rules are also supposed to protect investors as companies cope with disasters linked to climate change, like more extreme weather.“We are concerned that the existing disclosures of climate-related risks do not provide investors with the detailed and... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Ford Mustang Mach-E owners will seemingly soon have another option for planning out a route: Apple Maps’ long-awaited EV routing (via 9to5Mac). It’s understandable if that feature doesn’t ring a bell — Apple announced it at WWDC 2020, saying that it’d be coming to BMW and Ford cars with iOS 14, but it’s mostly been silent about it since. According to the Apple Maps site, the feature assesses “your charge level, elevation, and compatible charging stops along your route.”A page posted to Ford’s website says that Mach-E owners with either a 2022 model year vehicle or certain versions of the ’21 model will be able to access the route planning while using CarPlay (though it does mention it hopes to get it to all Mach-E drivers by the end... Continue reading…

The interface for Citizen’s Protect subscription service. | Citizen Crime reporting app Citizen has reportedly planned a partnership with private security outfit Securitas in Chicago. A report from Motherboard, citing multiple anonymous sources, suggests Citizen remains interested in offering security services despite ongoing concerns about its app.According to Motherboard, the Chicago Securitas partnership would “function as a check-in service” for users. Securitas could follow up after someone reported a break-in to make sure they’re all right, for instance, or a user could schedule a Securitas visit through Citizen. Citizen already offers a subscription emergency response service called Protect, but it consists of voice or video calls with an agent who can contact traditional emergency services, not... Continue reading…

Paris Promenade, one of the eight new courses for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. | Image: Nintendo They’re riding on the coattails of an amazing kart racer Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The official range estimates for the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck are in, and they’re looking pretty good. The base model, which starts at $39,974, will get around 230 miles of range, while the extended range versions start in the mid-$50,000s and can go about 320 miles — or about 20 additional miles than originally expected.These numbers come courtesy of the US Environmental Protection Agency, which tested the seven variations of the F-150 Lightning and F-150 Lightning Pro. The tests revealed that the extended range versions of the truck — the Pro ER, XLT ER, Lariat ER, and Platinum editions — were able to get around 20 more miles than Ford’s original estimates.“We are laser focused on continually improving our energy... Continue reading…

CD Projekt Red has announced that it’s working on a brand-new Witcher game, which will “kick off a new saga for the franchise,” and the first new mainstream title in the series since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released all the way back in 2015.The biggest news, however, is that the upcoming Witcher game will see CD Projekt Red switch over from its existing in-house REDengine engine — which the company has used for over a decade — to Unreal Engine 5, as part of a “multi-year strategic partnership” between CDPR and Epic Games.Despite that partnership, the next Witcher game won’t be exclusive to the Epic Games Stores, and CDPR will continue to use REDengine for some current projects, like the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, too.T... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Just as Samsung did last week, LG is today sharing its official pricing for the company’s 2022 lineup of TVs. First up is the OLED family, which is comprised of several different series lines, including the G2 Gallery Edition, C2, B2, and A2 series. The G2 is the flagship and includes the brightest OLED TV panel that LG has produced yet, though the C2’s display is also getting a brightness boost over last year’s model. Both are being achieved with the help of increased processing power and “Brightness Booster” features.LG says 2022’s 4K OLED lineup includes its widest range of screen sizes ever. At the smallest end is a new 42-inch C2, which has been priced at $1,399. LG envisions this being a popular choice for desktop gaming in... Continue reading…

Russian government’s office building. | Photo credit should read KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images Russian scientists will not participate in international conferences this year, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation said via its Telegram channel. The decision comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has strained the relationships between Russian scientists and the international research community.Minister Valery Falkov also said during a meeting with universities that scientific schools should no longer emphasize when publications are indexed through the two major international scientific databases, according to a recap sent through the Ministry’s Telegram channel.Scientists aren’t banned from publishing research in international journals indexed in the two databases, Web of Science and Scopus, but... Continue reading…