The Verge

Dwarf Fortress got a new look for its debut on Steam and Itch. | Image: Kitfox Games The subterranean settlement sim has been a cult favorite since it was first released in 2006. Now, a graphically updated version of the game is hitting Steam and Itch, the perfect entry point for the ‘Dwarf Fortress curious.’ Continue reading…

Little remains but stumps and puddles in what was once a bottomland hardwood forest on the banks of the Roanoke River in northeastern North Carolina. The trees were turned into wood pellets for burning in power plants in Europe. | Photo by Joby Warrick / The Washington Post via Getty Images Forests are more valuable alive than dead, at least according to the more than 670 scientists who signed a letter urging world leaders to quit burning trees for energy. The plea comes as delegates gather for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference that begins today in Montreal.The scientists want to stop to the industrial burning of wood for electricity and heat, referred to as forest bioenergy. The practice needs to be replaced by wind and solar energy, they write, to protect forests and creatures that make a home there.“The goal to halt and reverse the global loss of nature could fail due to the growing pressure on forests from this industry,” the letter says. It’s addressed to the heads of government of China, the US, Canada,... Continue reading…

Soundscapes based on the Sea of Thieves and Halo Infinite video games are now available for Calm premium subscribers. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has announced a partnership between Xbox and Calm, a popular sleep, meditation, and relaxation app, that will bring video game-themed soundscapes to the Calm app for the first time. Available from today, Calm Premium users can access two new soundscapes based on Sea of Thieves and Halo Infinite which can be used as background audio for sleeping, or general relaxation.According to a press release for the collaboration, Calm premium users can “enjoy the meditative sounds of whirling waves and chattering birds from the ocean expanse of Sea of Thieves and the ambient alien sounds of Zeta Halo from Halo Infinite.”A Calm Premium subscription typically costs $69.99 per year (or a one-time lifetime membership fee of $399.99), but... Continue reading…

Google’s Threat Analysis Group discovered that an Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability was used to lure victims using Microsoft Office documents referencing the Itaewon Halloween crowd crush tragedy. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A new blog post from Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) reveals that an Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability was actively exploited by North Korea in October 2022. The attack targeted South Korean users by embedding malicious malware into documents that reference the recent Itaewon crowd crush tragedy in Seoul.The Internet Explorer web browser was officially retired back in June earlier this year and has since been replaced by Microsoft Edge. However, as TAG’s technical analysis explains, Office is still using the IE engine to execute the JavaScript that enables the attack, which is why it worked on Windows 7 through 11 and Windows Server 2008 through 2022 machines that haven’t installed new November 2022 security updates.TAG... Continue reading…

Google will show the top searches from your part of the US. | Image: Google Let’s jump straight to the chase: “Wordle” was Google’s most searched term globally in 2022. The stat was revealed as part of Google’s annual Year in Search report, which highlights the top trending search terms in both individual countries as well as globally. This year, Google is offering an even more granular look at searches in the USA with a new hub that lets you type in your city or ZIP code and see what people in your area specifically are searching for.As you might expect, the year’s top searches were dominated by terms relating to 2022’s big news events, with “Ukraine” and “Queen Elizabeth” both featuring in the top five. But there were also a surprising amount of searches for specifically Indian (and presumably cricket)... Continue reading…

An upgraded version of ElliQ — a robot designed to act as a companion for older adults — is now available for anyone to buy. The bot has been under development by Israeli startup Intuition Robotics for years, but a first version (launched in March) was only built in limited capacity. The new ElliQ 2.0 comes with upgraded features including new conversation prompts, virtual experiences, and an app for family members and carers.ElliQ consists of a digital display and a light-up “bobble head” that moves and reacts to users’ conversation. Intuition Robotics describes the bot as a way to combat many nations’ “loneliness epidemic,” or the increasing number of older adults living alone. The company says ElliQ can act as a proactive tool to... Continue reading…

Communities inside Microsoft Teams. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching a new communities feature for Microsoft Teams today, designed for consumers to use the best parts of Teams free of charge to create and organize groups. The new community feature will allow groups to use the calendar, meeting, and chat features of Teams.Features like group chat, calling, and file / photo sharing are all supported, and groups will also be able to use a shared calendar (which includes Google Calendar integration) to organize community events.This new community integration is really aimed at groups like sports clubs or even virtual community groups for small businesses and simple groups like a carpool for co-workers to organize transportation. Facebook, Reddit, Discord, WhatsApp, Twitter, and many... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Augmented reality isn’t really a thing yet. But you know what is? Face lenses. Millions of users across Snapchat, Instagram, Zoom, TikTok, and countless other apps are already used to tapping a button and having dog ears suddenly attached to their skull, rainbows fired out of their mouth, or their makeup subtly — or not so subtly — transformed into a new style. Most users don’t think of this as AR or view these features as evidence of some revolutionary new technology. But whether you call it lenses, filters, or something else, it’s all augmented reality.At its Lensfest developer event this week, Snap announced that it now has more than 300,000 developers building AR products for its platform and that together, they’ve built more than 3... Continue reading…

Photo by Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images A new patent from BMW may unlock the energy-generating potential of one of America’s most defining modern features: a woefully inadequate and underfunded road infrastructure.Car enthusiast news site CarBuzz unearthed a document from the German national patent office that reveals a new suspension design, which, if developed and put into production, would allow a car to gather electricity generated from bumps in the road.The patent, which was independently located and verified by The Verge, could represent a new way to charge an electric vehicle’s battery through normal, everyday driving whenever things get bumpy — which, for a lot of us, is basically all of the time. Image: Audi Audi had a similar idea that it... Continue reading…

Image: GM General Motors is working with its dealers to install Level 2 electric vehicle charging stations that have “triple the power” of typical L2 stations, the company said today.Last year, the automaker announced a new program to help fund the installation of Level 2 chargers in collaboration with Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC dealers. The chargers would be built in the communities in which the dealers operate, casting a positive sheen on both GM’s brands and its dealer network that it needs in order to facilitate the transition to electric vehicles. Image: GM Now the company has selected Flo, a Quebec-based EV charging company, as one of its partners in the effort to install 40,000 chargers across the country. Flo will... Continue reading…

Proton Drive is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service that can be used to access files and securely share them with others — even if they’re not a Proton customer. | Image: Proton Proton, a privacy startup best known for its Proton Mail encrypted email service, has just announced that its end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service is available starting today as an Android and iOS app. Proton Drive is available in both free and paid tiers, offering users a way to securely upload, store, and share files directly from their mobile devices.Proton Drive’s end-to-end encryption ensures that only the user and the people they share with can access files — not even Proton itself can access the data without your permission. Users can send folders and files to anyone via sharing links (including non-Proton users) with options for passwords and expiration dates. Access can be revoked at any time, and metadata is encrypted,... Continue reading…

The policy allowed the SFPD to arm bomb disposal robots similar to the one seen here with explosives to incapacitate and even kill suspects. | Photo by Peerapon Boonyakiat/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images San Francisco officials have voted against allowing the police to kill suspects with remote-controlled robots. The city’s board of supervisors reversed the policy it approved last week, following outcry and protests from citizens and civil rights groups. However, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the new ban is not necessarily permanent, and the issue has been sent “back to a committee for further discussion.”The board originally approved the policy to let the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) use remote-controlled robots “as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available.”A spokesperson for the SFPD said that the... Continue reading…

Uber now has robotaxis available for its customers to hail in Las Vegas.The vehicles are operated by Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, and will feature safety drivers behind the steering wheel, though the vehicles will be operated by Motional’s autonomous driving system. Motional says it intends on launching a public fully driverless service without safety drivers in 2023.It’s the first time that autonomous vehicles have been made available to customers on Uber’s app. The company signed a 10-year deal with Motional to deploy AVs on its ride-hailing and delivery platforms earlier this year.It’s the first time that autonomous vehicles have been made available to customers on Uber’s appThe deal isn’t exclusive:... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft says it has reached a 10-year agreement with Nintendo to make Call of Duty available on Nintendo consoles if the Activision Blizzard acquisition closes. The deal is similar in length to what Microsoft has offered Sony, and the Xbox maker has also committed to continue to offer new versions of Call of Duty on Steam at the same time they launch on Xbox.The deal is clearly designed to put pressure on Sony to accept a similar offer, just days after Microsoft president Brad Smith said “Sony has emerged as the loudest objector” to Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition and that “it’s as excited about this deal as Blockbuster was about the rise of Netflix.”

The 3D characters can be sent as one of 36 stickers. | Image: Meta Avatars, the customizable characters that are already available across Meta services like Facebook and Instagram, are officially launching on WhatsApp. Meta has announced that they can be used as a profile picture on the messaging service or sent in the form of one of 36 custom stickers. The feature “will be rolling out to users everywhere from today,” according to Meta’s press release.WhatsApp’s avatars feature has been steadily rolling out to beta testers for a couple of months now. They’ve been available to some (but not all) beta users on both Android and iOS since at least October, according to WABetaInfo, but they’re expected to become available for all users on mobile over the coming weeks.Meta’s avatars are one of a number of... Continue reading…

Image: Google Chrome tab jockeys and bookmark hoarders, rejoice: you can now quickly swift through your whole browser mess with a new simple “@” shortcut in the address bar. Available on the latest Chrome version 108 for desktops, the feature will help simplify tasks like getting to that article tab you know you left open somewhere without needing to conduct another web search.If you’re like me, you might have a whole lot of troubleshooting articles saved as bookmarks, but when someone needs help with some specific problem, you just Google it again instead of looking for what you’ve saved. Now, you can type “@bookmarks” or just “@,” then hit the space bar and click “Search Bookmarks,” and start typing some key terms. Screenshot: The... Continue reading…

A new Alexa Shopping List widget could make those trips to the grocery store run more smoothly. | Screenshot by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Adding an item to your shopping list with just your voice is a modern convenience you quickly get used to. But the pain of wrangling the app you added it to on your smartphone while wheeling a shopping cart through a crowded store can have you yearning for simpler days — and paper.A new homescreen widget for Amazon’s Alexa’s shopping list feature makes it easier to keep an eye on your items while making a beeline for the produce aisle. The widget is available on iPhone and Android and shows your list right on your homescreen. Now the convenience of adding items to your shopping list using Alexa smart speakers doesn’t have to end when you leave the house.To install the widget, you need to have the latest Alexa app on your phone, then... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just days ago, Elon Musk took aim at Apple’s App Store policies while dragging it into the political and culture war crosshairs, highlighting how important the storefront is to so many developers and services. Today, Apple announced it’s changing long-standing App Store policies that put tight restrictions on what developers are allowed to charge their customers, following up on a pledge made last year while settling a class-action lawsuit.At the time, developers were restricted to fewer than 100 possible price points in the App Store, which Bloomberg reports previously started at a minimum of 49 cents for subscriptions and 99 cents for apps, with a max price of $999.99. Image: Apple App Store price flexibility... Continue reading…

Photo by Eric Thayer / Getty Images Many barriers are holding up the automotive industry’s wide-scale transition to electric vehicles. Getting battery costs down, getting range up, and convincing car buyers to break up with gasoline for good are just some of the more commonly known ones. But there’s also one very powerful group that hasn’t been much help so far: the car dealers.Increasingly, car companies are giving their dealership partners an ultimatum: get on board or get out. And at least some of Ford’s dealers seem to be taking the message.At the Automotive News Congress this week, an event put on by the eponymous industry publication, Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley said that 1,920 of America’s roughly 3,000 Ford retailers have agreed to sign up for the company’s EV... Continue reading…

“Hey zombie!” | Image: Deep Silver We already knew that Dead Island 2 will let you taunt zombies with your voice with Amazon’s new Alexa Game Control technology, and during Tuesday’s Dead Island 2 showcase on Tuesday, developer Deep Silver gave us a better idea of how the feature might work in practice.In a prerecorded and staged skit (the conceit is that the people in the video are actually on the run from zombies and just so happen to find a working copy of Dead Island 2), the video showed how certain voice commands will activate certain actions in the game. “Hey zombie” gets the attention of a nearby zombie in-game. “Get me my ax” has the player draw an ax that is shooting fire for some reason. “Time to go loco” activates some kind of super mode.Those aren’t the only... Continue reading…

You’re still going to want to start saving your pennies. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple’s long-rumored car could cost less than $100,000 when it’s finally available to buy, according to Bloomberg. But the car may have less ambitious self-driving capabilities than first planned and arrive a year later than originally expected.While the car had been reported to be a fully autonomous car like prototypes from EV startup Canoo, the current design for the car will have more conventional car features like a steering wheel and pedals, Bloomberg reports. This new version won’t be fully autonomous; instead, users will apparently only be able to activate the self-driving features on highways, closer to driver-assist options like GM’s Super Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise. (Perhaps Apple is wary of running into the issues Tesla has... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Also, we got some new trailers for Gen V, The Witcher: Blood Origin, and the upcoming The Last of Us series. Continue reading…

Recently installed solar panels at the Defence School of Transport on September 29th, 2021, in Leconfield, England. | Photo by Christopher Furlong / Getty Images Right now, there’s “unprecedented momentum behind renewables,” the International Energy Agency says. Renewable power growth has been “turbocharged” by countries scrambling to tackle a global energy crisis spurred on by war in Ukraine, according to new analysis from the agency. Over just the next five years, as much renewable power is expected to come online globally as was added over the past two decades.Renewables will make up a whopping 90 percent of electricity capacity expansion in that five-year span, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). By 2025, renewable energy is expected to topple coal to become the world’s biggest electricity source.Solar and wind power make up the vast majority of that... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge The Federal Trade Commission is investigating multiple crypto companies over allegations of deceptive conduct, as first reported by Bloomberg on Monday.“While we can’t comment on current events in the crypto markets or the details of any ongoing investigations, we are investigating several firms for possible misconduct concerning digital assets,” an FTC spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge Tuesday. “We cannot comment on the nature of the investigations.”On top of several civil suits, the FTC is just the latest US agency to probe the crypto industry following the sudden implosion of popular trading exchange FTX last month. The Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Future Trading Commission, and... Continue reading…

The second-gen Nest Hub makes a handy bedside display. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge We’re getting well beyond Black Friday, but the deals are still coming up strong. First off, the latest Google Nest Hub has fallen to a new all-time low price of just $39 at Walmart. And in addition to being a $70 discount, this deal comes with a WiZ smart bulb for free.The second-gen Nest Hub is the most recent seven-inch smart display from Google. This little portal to the Google Assistant gives you the weather, news updates, and access to music streaming, and it makes a great digital picture frame if Google Photos is your preferred cloud photo platform. It’s also a handy smart home controller since you can use your voice to set timers, pull up videos on a Chromecast-connected TV, or turn smart lights on or off. If you snag this deal... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Good news for those who hate switching apps on their TVs: HBO is making a return to Amazon’s Prime Video Channels in the US. Customers who subscribe to Prime Video can add HBO Max for $14.99 per month and get access to all the Warner Bros. Discovery content like House of the Dragon in the same place they watch The Boys.Both Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery were reportedly in talks this summer to get their relationship rolling again. In 2020, WarnerMedia, the former AT&T-owned iteration of HBO’s parent company, launched the standalone HBO Max service that eventually replaced the previous HBO Go and Now streaming-only services. When Max went live, HBO began its attempt to transition to its new sovereign platform by removing its service... Continue reading…

Image: Crunchyroll Suzume, the next feature from the director behind Weathering With You and Your Name, is releasing internationally next April. Crunchyroll announced the news today, revealing that Makoto Shinkai’s next feature will be in theaters outside of Asia starting on April 12th (it debuted in Japan last month).Here’s the full schedule:

Image: CD Projekt Red In a video outlining Gwent’s 2023 roadmap, the developers at CD Projekt Red shared an important if sad update: no more new cards will be released post 2023 and active support for the game will be ending.The game’s final batch of 72 cards will be released in three groups in April, July, and September 2023. In the video, the developers said they’ll take time after the final batch of cards is released to monitor cards and ensure the meta is balanced before handing over balance decisions to the players themselves.“We want to give you, the Gwent community, the right tools and opportunities to drive the balance changes of the game going forward,” said one of the developers in the roadmap video. They also said that they’re working on an... Continue reading…

Perfect for the holidays. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple on Tuesday announced Apple Music Sing, a karaoke experience that will be built right into the Apple Music app. With Apple Music Sing, you’ll be able to follow along with Apple Music’s real-time lyrics and adjust the volume of the vocals so that you can better hear your singing voice. (I’ll personally be keeping the vocals up as loud as possible to hide my imperfections.)There are a few features designed to make it easier to sing with others, too. Background vocals can appear independently of main vocals, according to Apple, and there will be a duet view as well if you want to sing along with a friend. Apple will have more than 50 “dedicated companion playlists” featuring karaoke-ready songs that you can pick from. ... Continue reading…

You can use your spirit ash summons to help you in battle against other players. | Image: Bandai Namco As if there weren’t enough stuff to do already in Elden Ring, Bandai Namco announced that the open-world fantasy game is getting a multiplayer update that adds a new colosseum environment made expressly for player versus player (PvP) bloodbaths. This update will arrive on December 7th for every platform the game is on (PC, PlayStation, Xbox).While you can already engage in PvP battles across many memorable Lands Between locales, there’s nothing like a flat, circular arena to do your bidding. And in the colosseum, you’ll be able to use your spirit ash summons in battle, as you can against the game’s many bosses.The trailer above doesn’t share many details about this new colosseum, like where it is or how you’ll get there and assemble... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Polestar is offering an over-the-air (OTA) software update that boosts the electric Polestar 2’s performance by 68 horsepower. And rather than lock it behind an annual paywall as other automakers have done, the Chinese-Swedish company says it will only charge a one-time fee of $1,195.The upgrade adds 68 horsepower and 15 pound-feet of torque to the existing 408hp and 487 lb-ft of torque currently offered by the Polestar 2’s dual-motor powertrain, for a total output of 476hp and 502 lb-ft. Because the upgrade is software-based, the performance boost can be downloaded directly to the vehicle without needing to take it to a service center. The performance upgrade is only available to owners of the long-range dual-motor version of the... Continue reading…

Matt Huynh / The Verge How to Replace the Sky, a comic by Matt Hyunh.At the end of 2020, the painting software I’d used my entire professional life updated itself with a new button.Illustration of a Photoshop window, with the Sky Replacement tool selected in a menu.I made my living as a commercial illustrator, making pictures for advertising agencies, book publishers, and magazines.Illustration of a small propped-up tablet and keyboard.I usually painted with ink and brushes, but I also used drawing tablets and apps for jobs that needed flexibility for changes and a quick turnaround.Matt appears in front of the tablet.I was up-to-date with the latest tools, but I couldn’t imagine why I would need to replace the sky.The walls of an office appear around... Continue reading…

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures You’ll have to wait a bit to see Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s next project. The sci-fi film, called Mickey 17, will hit theaters on March 29th, 2024. The news was revealed via the briefest of teaser trailers, which shows star Robert Pattinson hanging around shirtless in some kind of tube.The film is based on the novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton, which is about a “disposable employee” out on a quest to colonize an icy new world for human habitation (no word yet on where all the extra Mickeys came from). In addition to Pattinson, the film stars Steven Yeun (Nope, Okja), Naomi Ackie (The Rise of Skywalker), Toni Collette (Knives Out), and Mark Ruffalo (everything with the incredible Hulk in it). Outside of the cast, Joon-ho is also... Continue reading…

Image: Kodiak Robotics Kodiak Robotics, the autonomous truck startup, will receive $49.9 million to help the US Army develop self-driving vehicles for reconnaissance, surveillance, and other “high-risk” missions.The Mountain View, California-based company, which primarily builds self-driving systems for freight trucks, will develop the vehicles for the US Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program. The collaboration is set to last 24 months under the agreement with the US Department of Defense, Kodiak says.The details about the types of vehicles that Kodiak says it will develop for the army are still vagueThe details about the types of vehicles that Kodiak says it will develop for the army are still vague. According to the company, “Kodiak will develop... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is starting to roll out its own custom emotes. The Twitch-like emotes, dubbed YouTube Emotes, can be used across YouTube in comment sections and during live chats, though the platform previously allowed individual streamers to offer their own reactions and emotes. YouTube’s own initial emotes are focused on gaming, but there will be more over time.You’ll now see a list of YouTube emotes when you open YouTube’s emoji picker, and they’ll appear below a channel’s own existing custom emotes. Much like Twitch’s default system-wide emotes, YouTube’s ones also have specific names for autocomplete so you quickly type “:cat-orange-whistling:” for example, and it will automatically fill a comment with an orange cat whistling. ... Continue reading…