The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The European Union aims to begin enforcing the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in spring 2023, Commission executive vice president Margrethe Vestager announced at the International Competition Network (ICN) conference last week, as first reported by TechCrunch. Vestager previously stated that the antitrust legislation, which introduces a new set of rules to curb the power of Big Tech, could be implemented as early as October of this year.“The DMA will enter into force next spring and we are getting ready for enforcement as soon as the first notifications come in,” Vestager said during her speech at the ICN. As noted by TechCrunch, Vestager suggests that the Commission will be prepared to act against any violations made by “gatekeepers” — a... Continue reading…

The 2020 version of the Motorola Razr. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge A pair of leaked images from reliable leaker Evan Blass (via 91Mobiles) gives us a first look at what appears to be a testing model of the third generation Motorola Razr. The device, codenamed Maven, notably houses two upgraded cameras on its back: a 50MP f / 1.8 main sensor and a 13MP sensor for macro and ultra-wide shots.In the image of the device fully closed, you’ll notice that it seems to have lost its “chin,” or the lip that extended outward in previous iterations of the device. It looks like it folds over on itself to form a square shape when it’s closed, deviating from both the modern remakes of the device and its original design. Image: Evan Blass via 91Mobiles Blass also notes that the fingerprint sensor... Continue reading…

Gatwa previously starred in Netflix’s Sex Education. | Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic The BBC has named Ncuti Gatwa as Doctor Who’s Fourteenth Doctor. Gatwa will take over the role in 2023, replacing Jodie Whittaker as the current Doctor.“This role and show means so much to so many around the world, including myself, and each one of my incredibly talented predecessors has handled that unique responsibility and privilege with the utmost care,” Gatwa said in a statement to the BBC. “I will endeavour my upmost to do the same.”

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge An Xbox Live outage prevented some players from launching cloud games, playing digital games, and making purchases from its store. Issues started around 4PM ET Saturday night and weren't resolved until early Sunday morning.“Players should no longer be seeing issues when it comes to purchases, launching games, or joining Cloud Gaming sessions,” Xbox Support said in a tweet. “Thanks for being patient. Happy gaming!”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is suing former engineer Alexander Yatskov for allegedly stealing “confidential and tightly guarded” information related to the company's supercomputer technology, called Project Dojo, as first reported by Bloomberg. In a copy of the complaint, Tesla accuses Yatskov of downloading the information to his personal devices and refusing to give it back.Yatskov, who Tesla claims lied on his resume about his work history and skillset, started working for the electric vehicle maker as a thermal engineer in January and aided in the design of Dojo’s cooling systems. Dojo is Tesla’s neural net training computer that processes large amounts of data used to train the AI software in Tesla’s self-driving cars. According to the complaint,... Continue reading…

Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order aims to “create a transparent and consistent business environment” for businesses in crypto. | Brontë Wittpenn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Wednesday that lays the groundwork for bolstering and regulating the cryptocurrency industry in the state (via CNBC). As outlined in the executive order, Newsom’s goal is “to create a transparent and consistent business environment for companies operating in blockchain,” that balances “the benefits and risks to consumers.”The executive order calls upon the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) to collaborate with the state’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) and Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH). Together, the state agencies are tasked with devising “potential blockchain applications and... Continue reading…

After an indefinite delay and months without an update, Ubisoft has announced that it’s moving the development of its highly anticipated Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake to its studio located in Montréal, Canada. Ubisoft also confirmed to The Verge that it’s no longer targeting a release in the 2023 fiscal year, which runs until March 31st, 2023 in Canada. The game has been in the works at Ubisoft’s India-based Mumbai and Pune studios since 2020.“The development of Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time Remake will now be led by Ubisoft Montréal, the very birth place of the epic Sands of Time trilogy,” Ubisoft’s initial announcement on Twitter reads. “This decision is an important step and the team, building on the work achieved... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and Twitter’s new owner — expects Twitter to earn almost $10 billion in revenue from subscriptions by 2028, a projection that doubles the $5 billion in total revenue the platform made last year, according to a report from The New York Times.In a pitch deck viewed by the Times, Musk gave investors a taste of what to expect under his ownership. This reportedly includes driving up Twitter Blue subscribers to 69 million by 2025 and more than doubling that number to 159 million by 2028. Launched last year, Twitter Blue is the service’s $2.99 / month subscription that gives users access to an “undo tweet” button, app customization, ad-free articles, and other exclusive features. Musk expects a huge growth... Continue reading…

FromSoftware’s fantasy RPG sold more than 12 million copies worldwide in its first month alone. | Image: Bandai Namco Elden Ring has been the talk of the town since its release in late February. It has taken over the landscape of gaming discourse, and for good reason. If you primarily play games on Sony’s PlayStation consoles, now is the perfect time to jump into FromSoftware’s open-world take on its acclaimed dark fantasy “Souls-like” formula. Amazon has both the PS4 and PS5 physical versions of Elden Ring for $49.94 — a discount of about $10.That may not sound like a huge price cut, but the only sales on this hot title so far have been on the Xbox and PC versions. Plus, when you factor in how many hours you can pour into The Lands Between (many of us at The Verge have crossed the 100-hour mark on just our first playthrough), it makes it an even more... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s new Outlook email client for Windows, the so-called “One Outlook” project the company has been working on for some time, appears to be almost ready for prime time. Some users have been able to download the new app, as first spotted by Windows Central, though it seems to only function for work and educational accounts right now. Those who can get in are finding... well, it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect.We’ve long heard that the future of Microsoft’s mail clients would look a lot like the Outlook web app, and indeed, the new app appears to be just that. It’s much lighter and simpler than previous versions of Outlook for Windows and much more powerful than the built-in Mail app it is also slated to eventually replace.... Continue reading…

The New York Times reports “more than half a dozen” people were fired. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has reportedly fired several senior managers that were part of “operations and leadership” at JFK8, the facility in Staten Island, New York that recently voted to unionize. According to the The New York Times, Amazon told the managers it was going through an “organizational change,” but some of their co-workers see it as a punishment for the union’s win.The Times writes that “more than half a dozen” managers were fired, and that many of them had been tasked with responding to unionization efforts. What that means is frustratingly vague — it could mean that the managers were tasked with keeping the union from winning, and that they were fired for failing to do so. But it could also mean that the managers had helped the union in... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Snap’s new flying camera, the $230 Pixy drone, went on sale last week — but the earliest buyers were told they’d have to wait three months to actually get the gadget. We’re now thinking that the company didn’t make enough, because Snap has extended the Pixy’s shipping time to four whole months, according to the drone’s website.

It says the Lazarus Group funneled around $20 million through the service. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Treasury Department announced on Friday that it’s sanctioning Blender.io, essentially cutting the Bitcoin mixer off from the US financial system (legally speaking, anyway). The department alleges that the service, which lets people obfuscate the record usually kept by the blockchain, was used by North Korea to “support its malicious cyber activities and money-laundering of stolen virtual currency.”According to the Treasury’s press release, Blender.io was used by the Lazarus hacking group to launder $20.5 million worth of the cryptocurrency it allegedly stole from the crypto-based game Axie Infinity. The entire proceeds of the hack, which the Treasury linked to Lazarus and North Korea in April, were estimated to be worth around... Continue reading…

Illustration by Michele Doying / The Verge A district judge in California has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter, saying the former president’s 2021 ban from the platform appears entirely legal. The order, handed down today, gives Trump and a group of other banned users until May 27th to file an amended complaint.But while it leaves the door open for an appeal, the order is highly critical of the lawsuit’s claims — suggesting any amended version will face an uphill battle. In particular, the order dismisses Trump’s claims that Twitter violated the First Amendment and rejects a claim that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is unconstitutional.“Plaintiffs are not starting from a position of strength,” Judge James Donato notes in the first paragraph of... Continue reading…

Photo by Gary John Norman via Getty Images A preventable infection by a porcine virus might have contributed to the death of the first patient to have a heart transplant with a pig organ, MIT Technology Review reported this week.David Bennett Sr, who had severe heart disease, received a genetically modified pig heart in early January of this year — a major milestone in animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation. He died in March. Initially, the hospital where the procedure was performed said that the cause of death was unknown.But last month, Bennett’s transplant surgeon said in a webinar that the heart was infected with porcine cytomegalovirus, a virus that doesn’t infect human cells but can damage the organ. Virus-free hearts transplanted into baboons survived much... Continue reading…

In November 2020, Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer revealed you’d likely be able to stream Xbox games to your TV “in the next 12 months.” And, in June 2021, the company confirmed it would soon offer both a smart TV app and an Xbox streaming stick to make it happen.But it’s been 11 months since “soon” and 17 months since Spencer suggested it’d be 12 months. And, now, both VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb and The Verge’s own Tom Warren are reporting that the wait isn’t over.Grubb now says we can expect the Xbox puck “in the next 12 months,” which I will remind you is the same exact phrase Spencer uttered 17 months ago, alongside the words, “I don’t think anything is going to stop us from doing that.” (I will also remind you that Microsoft... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s AirTags have been sending out “phantom” alerts that are confusing iPhone users, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. The AirTags, which launched last year, feature anti-stalking measures that are designed to alert users when an unknown AirTag has been detected on their person over an extended period of time. The idea is to discourage AirTags from being used to track people without their consent.The WSJ reports that these false alerts generally occur in the middle of the night and have started popping up in recent weeks. When a person receives an unknown AirTag alert, they’re supposed to see an accompanying map that shows where and how long the AirTag was detected on their person. These false alarms, however, are... Continue reading…

As someone who is really into fonts, I know that most people don’t share my passion — but I genuinely think that anyone who cares at all about typography will have some interest in what Google announced on Thursday. If you’ve ever used anything made by Google, you’ve seen Roboto. Now, Google’s introducing something called Roboto Flex. As the name implies, it’s a version of its famous font that you can tweak and customize in a ton of ways.I can sense I might be about to lose a lot of people, so let’s try this: here’s a gif showing all the customizable parameters Roboto Flex has. There’s no trickery going on — I’m not changing a raster image with Photoshop or anything. Everything you see is built into the font itself and can be changed as... Continue reading…

Besides podcasts, things for your car, and annual listening recaps, Spotify has been running another experiment since 2018 with Stations, a “lightweight” app available for free and paid subscribers.After its initial debut overseas with an Android version, Spotify launched an iOS version of the app in 2019 and opened it up to users in the US. However, now the test is over, and 9to5Google reports Spotify has started notifying users that the app will shut down on May 16th.If you used Stations, you can visit the site to move your favorite curated lists over to the main Spotify app, which includes the following message:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A copyright battle has spawned a sweeping order demanding internet service providers block a set of pirate sites — one of the broadest such rulings to date.As TorrentFreak recently reported, a New York district judge ruled in late April on a series of copyright lawsuits against three sites that rebroadcast mostly Hebrew-language television. The rightsholders demanded monetary damages from the site operators — who didn’t show up in court — and an injunction meant to prevent viewers from accessing the services. Judge Katherine Polk Failla approved the request and ordered a voluminous list of ISPs to block Israeli-TV.com, Israel.tv, and Sdarot.com. The companies are required to block not only the current addresses but also any domain known... Continue reading…

Retail photo of the Mini 3 Pro. | Image: DroneDJ On Thursday, DJI tweeted a teaser for a May 10th announcement, saying it’s about to reveal “a twist in the plot.” It seems likely that the company plans on releasing a new drone — especially given that a YouTube video showing a DJI Mini 3 Pro and its controller being unboxed was uploaded on the same day as DJI’s teaser (via DroneDJ).In their video, YouTuber DM Productions says they got footage of the unboxing from someone who received the unannounced DJI Mini 3 Pro drone early. The video gives us a good look at the drone itself, with its bevy of obstacle avoidance sensors as well as its controller.As DM Productions points out, the controller is similar to DJI’s current RC Pro, with a few buttons and ports removed. The Mini 3 Pro’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Lucid Motors is raising the prices of its luxury electric vehicles, as the company continues to struggle with production. The company reported delivering only 360 vehicles to customers in the first quarter of 2022.As of June 1st, Lucid’s newly increased prices will be $154,000 for the Air Grand Touring (previously $139,000), $107,400 for Air Touring (up from $95,000), and $87,400 for Air Pure (up from $80,000). That represents an average increase of around 11 percent. The new Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance model, announced just two weeks ago, will remain priced at $179,000. (All of Lucid’s vehicles are eligible for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit as well as any available state and local incentives.)In a call with investors, Lucid... Continue reading…

New design, more features, and the same signature sound Continue reading…

Fertility and cycle tracking apps are widely used and can be useful tools that help people monitor their health. But reports regularly show that, like other health apps, they fall short when it comes to protecting user privacy. That shortfall is particularly concerning for users in the US after a leaked Supreme Court opinion indicated that the court intends to overturn Roe v. Wade — eliminating the right to an abortion in the United States and allowing states to criminalize the safe and lifesaving medical procedure.Information stored in cycle-tracking apps isn’t covered by the medical privacy law HIPAA, so companies have broad leeway with how they use it — and who they share it with. They often share information with data brokers,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia will pay $5.5 million to settle charges that it unlawfully obscured how many of its graphics cards were sold to cryptocurrency miners. The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced the charges and a settlement with the company today. Its order claims Nvidia misled investors by reporting a huge boost in revenue related to “gaming,” hiding how much its success relied on the far more volatile crypto market. Nvidia isn’t admitting to wrongdoing as part of the settlement, but it agrees to stop any unlawful failures to disclose information.The charges stem from Nvidia’s fiscal year 2018 financial reports. The SEC notes Nvidia saw an explosion in crypto mining-related sales in 2017, when the rewards of mining Ethereum grew... Continue reading…

The Beats Fit Pro are some of the many noise-canceling earbuds currently on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and in honor of that fact, several retailers are now discounting a wide range of tech and accessories. We’re seeing some of the lowest prices we’ve seen on a variety of items, ranging from the latest Kindle Paperwhite to the new Echo Show 15, as well as some of the best fitness trackers, streaming sticks, and noise-canceling wireless earbuds you can buy. That means you can still get a great deal on a present for your mom if you haven’t bought one already — or if you simply want to pick up something nice for yourself. (We’re not judging!)Below, we’ve collected some of the top deals on tech and gadgets so you can save on a great gift ahead of the holiday. Take a look, and be sure to also peruse our 2... Continue reading…

The Versa 2 was the last Fitbit smartwatch to have a physical button. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge To button, or not to button? When it comes to wearables, the answer is you should always opt for physical buttons. And while they’re abundant on smartwatches, fitness trackers tend to favor touchscreens and capacitive buttons. But it looks like there may be some good news for fans of physical buttons. A new leaked photo of the Fitbit Versa 4 indicates that the side button is back, baby.The photo comes from 9to5Google, and for the most part, it looks almost identical to the Versa 3 — except if you zero in on the right-hand side, where you can see a teeny little raised button.It might not seem like it, but this is actually a significant design change. Earlier iterations of the Versa — one of Fitbit’s most popular devices — had a... Continue reading…

The 16-inch Omen gaming laptop is getting a deep discount at HP. We’re heading into the weekend with a bunch of awesome laptop deals. Kicking things off, we have an excellent configuration of the HP Omen 16 gaming laptop. Regularly $1,549.99, you can currently grab this configuration at HP for just $1,259.99 when you use the code 10GAMER2022 at checkout.The HP Omen 16 has a 16-inch 1080p display with a 144Hz refresh rate, and this configuration is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU backed up by an RTX 3070 graphics card. Some additional specs include 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space, which may not last terribly long given how large game install sizes have gotten but should be enough for a handful of your favorite AAA titles.The Omen 16 also supports a surprising number of connectivity... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When news broke of layoffs at the Netflix-owned fan site Tudum last week, responses tended to come in two parts: First, of course, was that it sucked for the workers affected. But also, what even is Tudum?Launched less than six months ago, Tudum was envisioned as a home for bonus content related to popular Netflix titles, like interviews with stars, news about renewals and trailers, and also bigger, meatier stories that could contextualize shows and films. A former writer who lost their job last week compared Tudum to DVD special features and investments that other companies have made into supplementary material — “a Criterion Collection for normal people,” as they put it.“It kind of builds on an already existing culture of fandom... Continue reading…

Ford is developing a new technology that would allow vehicle owners to rev their engines remotely, perhaps by using a key fob, according to a patent application spotted by 7th Mustang and other Ford enthusiast sites.The patent was filed on November 3rd, 2020, and published on May 5th, 2022, according to Ford Authority. According to the application, the technology would allow vehicle owners to rev their engines using an “input device operated by the user” and without having to push down on the accelerator. The vehicle’s engine could be engaged “at various distances from the vehicle” — in other words, remotely.Ford Remote Control Revving Patent US20220137616 by ahawkins8223 on ScribdThis seems like an idea generated almost... Continue reading…

EVE Online. | Image: CCP Games EVE Online, the long-running sci-fi MMO best-known for its sprawling, expensive space battles will soon get... integration with Microsoft Excel. EVE developer CCP Games announced the collaboration with Microsoft today at its annual fanfest event, saying that the Javascript tool would allow players to “seamlessly” transfer data from the game to a spreadsheet in order to “help players access and calculate everything from profit margins to battle strategy.” CCP says more detail on the collaboration will be available later in the year.Of course, Excel isn’t the only thing the studio announced, though it may be the most surprising. (Though the game did already have a UI-only mode that made it look a lot like a spreadsheet.) Elsewhere, CCP is... Continue reading…

Tim Cook showcases the billionth iPhone at Apple’s campus on Wednesday. | Image: Apple Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and editor-at-large David Pierce discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.On today’s episode, Nilay and David spend a while chatting with Tripp Mickle, a New York Times reporter and the author of a new book, titled After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul. They talk about the rise of Jony Ive and Tim Cook, the power struggle between the two, and how Apple is grappling with everything from building a car to managing its relationship with the Chinese government.After that, Verge managing editor Alex Cranz joins the show to talk about Starlink’s new... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Around 4:30AM ET on Friday, the official Discord channel for OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, joined the growing list of NFT communities that have exposed participants to phishing attacks.In this case, a bot made a fake announcement about OpenSea partnering with YouTube, enticing users to click on a “YouTube Genesis Mint Pass” link to snag one of 100 free NFTs with “insane utility” before they’d be gone forever, as well as a few follow-up messages. Blockchain security tracking company PeckShield tagged the URL the attackers linked, “youtubenft[.]art” as a phishing site, which is now unavailable.While the messages and phishing site are already gone, one person who said they lost NFTs in the incident pointed to this... Continue reading…

The controller bar appears with a press of the Xbox button. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is testing a new feature for Windows 11 that lets you use a controller to launch recently-played games, avoiding the need to use a mouse and keyboard. The feature is called the “controller bar,” and is accessible by pressing the central Xbox button on a controller when you’re not currently in a game. It’s designed to show up to three recently-played games, alongside a selection of game launchers like Steam.As someone whose gaming PC is permanently plugged into his TV, I can see the feature being very useful for people like me. Currently, even if I’m playing a controller-based game, I first need to use a wireless keyboard and trackpad to launch it from Windows. But in the future I might be able to skip this step, and boot up... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When Facebook briefly blocked all news from being posted on its platform in Australia last year, it used an overly broad definition of news publisher that it knew would cause collateral damage, company whistleblowers are alleging. Complaints filed with Australia’s Competition & Consumer Commission and the US Department of Justice allege that the company engaged in “a criminal conspiracy to obtain a thing of value, namely favorable regulatory treatment,” The Wall Street Journal reports.The news ban was put into place by Facebook last February in protest over a proposed Australian law that would effectively force platform-holders like it and Google to pay news publishers when sharing their content. But the ban was chaotically implemented,... Continue reading…

The Dragon capsule carrying Crew-3 is lifted out of the ocean and onto the Shannon, a recovery vessel. | NASA/SpaceX Four astronauts successfully returned home to Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft today, bringing an end to their six-month-long stay on the International Space Station (ISS). After undocking from the ISS early Thursday morning, the crew dove through Earth’s atmosphere before splashing down underneath parachutes off the coast of Florida at 12:43 AM ET.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Blizzard last July, saying it “created a culture of ‘constant sexual harassment’ and gender-based discrimination.” The revelations that followed through the rest of the year only served to confirm those assertions, and even as accusations of retaliation continue to roll in, a new set of leaders say they are committed to making changes.In January, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra wrote about “the work we are doing to rebuild your trust in Blizzard,” and included descriptions of several full-time leadership roles dedicated to changing the culture. It appears that two of the spots have been filled, as Activision Blizzard appointed Kristen Hines as its new chief diversity, equity,... Continue reading…

There are limits on which emoji you can use. | Image: WhatsApp WhatsApp is now rolling out the ability to react to a message with emoji, as well as share files that are up to 2GB in size, a massive jump from the previous 100MB limit. Meta, the company behind WhatsApp, said last month that these features would be coming “soon,” and it seems like today’s the day. The company also announced on Thursday that it’ll be doubling the maximum size of group chats.When reactions were first announced, Meta said that you’d only be able to use a select few to start out with but that support for “all emojis and skin-tones” would be added in the future. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressing many emotions here. The reactions are a useful feature, which is why other apps like Slack and Telegram... Continue reading…

The new Kindle Paperwhite starts at $99.99 instead of $139.99 at Best Buy and will arrive in time for Mother’s Day if you order today. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge We’re now just days away from Mother’s Day on May 8th, but don’t panic: if you’ve left your gift shopping until the last minute, there are still plenty of great gadgets you can buy that should arrive in time. Even better, many of them are on sale, with a few products like Amazon’s 2021 Kindle Paperwhite and the second-gen Echo Show 8 selling at all-time lows. On top of that, you can even get free shipping, to boot.Below, we’ve curated a list of gifts for all budgets that should arrive in time for the holiday. And for those who leave shopping until the very last minute (no shame!), we’ve also included a couple of digital gifts that you can buy as late as Mother’s Day.And if you need more help (or you’d prefer to explore other options... Continue reading…

Amazon is throwing its hat into the ring of companies trying to solve one of streaming TV’s biggest issues: endless amounts of content can make it really difficult to pick something to watch. Its approach uses an IMDb-branded app that’s exclusively available to Fire TV owners, which will let you play a series of games designed to help you pick a movie.Amazon’s press release mentions three games in the new app: one will “shuffle through movie and series options” and give you three options to choose from. In theory, the limited choice could help cut down on analysis paralysis since you could end up with something like three times fewer options than you would if you opened up Netflix. However, Amazon does note that there's a “deal cards”... Continue reading…

The number of annual reviews is being cut in half. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is hoping to make its performance reviews less of a burden to employees by making it so they only happen once a year instead of twice a year, requiring less paperwork, and changing the way employees are rated. According to a report from The Information, 47 percent of Google employees didn’t think that their time was well spent with the previous performance review system.It’s often hard to point to how internal changes can affect end users, but Google, as a company, has a reputation for either pulling the plug on products or letting them wither without getting proper attention. At some point, though, actual humans had to work on those projects — it’s always possible that if employees can focus on their actual jobs instead of... Continue reading…

Apple introduced Cycle Tracking on the Series 5. | Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge Although modern smartwatches and fitness trackers have been around for almost a decade, period tracking didn’t arrive until 2018. These integrations shared familiar features with your standard period-tracking app — but a big difference was that instead of having to pull out your phone, you could view or input data from your wrist. And, because these features were part of a wearable platform, users could see how their health trends correlated to their menstrual cycles in one place.Tracking your menstrual cycles digitally can be more convenient than having to pull out a physical calendar or inputting dates into a spreadsheet. But before you get started, there are a few things to take into account.First and foremost, you must acknowledge... Continue reading…

Even before a leaked Supreme Court opinion threw the future of abortion in the United States into turmoil, major corporations were adding a new benefit for their employees: coverage for abortion and other medical travel.The latest company to add the benefit was Amazon, which announced earlier this week that it will cover travel costs for employees who have to travel out of state for abortions or other medical procedures. This could make it possible for workers living in states that make abortion illegal to still get the care they need. It’s a potential lifeline for employees — especially if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the right to an abortion in the United States and allowing states to criminalize the... Continue reading…

Good news for smart homes divided: as of this week, the newest Google Nest cameras can now stream to your Amazon Alexa smart displays, including Echo Show devices, Fire TVs, and Fire tablets. Following Amazon’s announcement last week that third-party cameras can take advantage of its new person and package announcement features on Echo smart speakers, Google Nest has updated its languishing Alexa skill to include its latest cameras.The Google Nest Alexa skill adds the ability to view a live feed and get motion announcements on Echo speakers from the Google Nest Cam (outdoor/indoor, battery), Google Nest Cam (wired, indoor), and Nest Cam with floodlight. It also adds doorbell press notifications and two-way talk to Google’s support for... Continue reading…

Friends, the moment has arrived: the most influential first-person shooter in gaming history* has transcended the limitations of a single screen. Yes, GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 can now be played without screen cheating because a British museum rigged up $10,000 worth of hardware to give each player their very own screen. It’s all in honor of the game’s 25th anniversary.

All recent iPhones — dating back to iPhone 8 — can take advantage of the Back Tap feature. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Back Tap is one of the easiest ways to put an iPhone function you use all the time literally at your fingertips. It is exactly what it sounds like: a way to access different phone features by tapping the back of your phone — kind of like an extra, user-customizable button. It was introduced with iOS 14, and the feature works on devices as old as the iPhone 8, which was launched five years ago — so it’s highly likely that you’ve got a compatible phone.Here’s how to set up Back Tap. For reference, I followed these steps on an iPhone 13 Pro Max running iOS 15.4.1.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is working on a handful of new features, including the ability to attach photos and videos to the same tweet, according to a report from 9to5Google. The roundup of features in the works includes news things like mixed-media tweets and also updates on previously reported features like Statuses.Developer Dylan Roussel spotted the mixed-media capability for Twitter Android — currently, you can attach up to four pictures or one video in the same tweet, but not both a still image and video. Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images The danger for many people isn’t medical — it’s legal Continue reading…

Image: Summer Game Fest Summer Game Fest will kick off this year on June 9th at 2PM ET / 11AM PT, with a live show hosted by, as my college Ash Parrish described him, “consummate video game hype-man Geoff Keighley.” According to a press release, the show will be streamed on basically every platform, including YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook.After the big premiere show will be Day of the Devs, where indie game developers can show off what they’re working on. As GameSpot notes, developers submit their games for consideration to be included in the show. Like last year, that show is being presented by Iam8bit and Double Fine, the studio behind games like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, and Broken Age. The SGF website says to “stay tuned” for its announcement of... Continue reading…